Good morning!
The most vacuous “thank you” in sports is uttered by athletes who enter the transfer portal. Take for example hoops prodigy Tafara Gapare, who was hailed as the second coming of Dr. J by the Marty Maroons of the world. The story goes that UMass coach Frank Martin was on the golf course last summer when he got a call from Gapare’s dad. “I want you to coach my son,” he said, likely because other bigger programs like Syracuse and Marquette thought he needed another year of prep school.

Gapare lasted eight months in Amherst and was a non-starter in every sense. He was on the bench for every tip-off, had a poor shooting percentage in every category and averaged 12 minutes and three points a game. Oh, and he was allergic to playing defense.

After the season ended, Gapare said he was leaving for, ahem, greener pastures. Here’s the short version: “Dear UMass and fans thank you for welcoming me to this prestigious university. It’s with a heavy heart I’ll be entering my name into the transfer portal.”

Social media allows the likes of Gapare to use words like “heavy heart” without looking anyone in the eye. You have a heavy heart, Tafara? Really? Yeah right, just walk away and don’t bother looking in the rearview.

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The Boston College baseball team overcame a 10-2 deficit to beat UMass, 13-12, at Earl Lorden Field on Tuesday. The 3½-hour game was witnessed by 85 fans who peered through the ugly chain link fence that extends from foul line to foul line.

At this writing the Minutemen are 4-16. Opponents have out-scored them 164-84 and out-hit them .316 to .245. UMass has stolen six bases; opponents have 30.

Don’t blame coach Matt Reynolds, he does the best he can with his allotted one-and-a-half scholarships. Meanwhile athletic director Ryan Bamford fully funds a football program that has one win in each of the last two seasons.

The Minutemen host Davidson at 1 p.m. Saturday and they play again Sunday at noon. The key game on the schedule is May 9 at UMass-Lowell. It will be the last opportunity for the flagship campus to challenge for the rights to the Kennedy Cup.

The competition’s tight. In September, the UMass field hockey team beat the River Hawks, 3-2, in overtime, and a month later the soccer team tied UMass-Lowell, 3-3. More recently however, the basketball, hockey and softball teams have all been beaten.

The Kennedy Cup — sponsored by John Kennedy — offers $10,000 to both schools for competing against each other. Originally only the cup-winner got the money, but that changed in a culture where everyone gets a trophy.

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College coaches are having to re-work their pitches in this age of name-image-likeness money and easy come, easy go transfer rules. On a recent College Hockey News podcast with Adam Wodon, AIC coach Eric Lang said, “I was talking with an NHL coach about the portal and he said, ‘Man, it’s just like pro hockey.’ I said ‘Actually it’s not, because in pro hockey you have a salary cap and you can’t become a free agent every year.’”

“This is the wild, wild west,” said Lang. “We’ve lost the innocence.”

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Every winter, Turners Falls’ George Bush goes to Florida and accompanies his nephew throughout the Sunshine State to watch Grapefruit League games. The 96-year-old Bush saw 12 games this spring. At one of them, a foul ball rolled under his wheelchair and an usher retrieved it and gave it to him.

Later he was interviewed by a TV reporter and his face flashed on the Jumbotron while he was honored as a Navy veteran. “Of course, people came over and thanked me for my service,” said the pride of Fourth Street.

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The Powertown’s Mike Cadran writes that Pope Francis Prep was the first western Mass. team to win a D-1 hockey title since the “1952 West Side rink rats.” The PF flyers beat Xaverian, 3-2, at TD Garden on March 19.

On the distaff side, Cadran quoted Wahconah coach Liz Kay regarding her team’s 75-53 loss to Cathedral High School of Boston. “We played an AAU team that was recruited, pretty much a college team,” she said.

“My favorite underdog winner was North High School of Worcester. It was their first-ever D-1 championship. Congrats to the Polar Bears.”

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Every time East Longmeadow’s Nick Ahmed came to bat for the D-backs against the Padres on Monday, he was booed by the San Diego faithful. Ahmed was puzzled until he realized the scoreboard operator was posting his college stats. Ahmed played baseball at UConn, which of course was in the process of beating San Diego State for the NCAA men’s basketball title.

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SQUIBBERS: The UMass hockey team will open the season with back-to-back home games against Michigan. At this writing the Wolverines (26-11-3) had yet to play Quinnipiac (32-4-3) in the Frozen Four semifinal at Amalie Arena in Tampa. … WFAN’s Boomer Esiason on UConn hoops coach Danny Hurley: “That guy is a piece of work. I was told officials hate doing his games because he complains the entire time and is completely out of control. The LSU women’s coach (Kim Mulkey) was the same way. I don’t know what it is, everybody screams at the officials. They have an impossible job.” … Nick Yorke was tabbed to be the next Dustin Pedroia when the Red Sox took him 17th overall in the 2020 draft. He’ll start the season in Portland after an injury-plagued 2022 season in Greenville (S.C.) where he batted .232 in 80 games. … At this writing 95 MLB players had hit at least one home run. It appears we have re-entered the age of the rabbit ball. … As of Wednesday, JD Martinez was batting .217 with 10 strikeouts in 23 at-bats for the Dodgers, while Xander Bogaerts was batting .409 with four Ks in 22 ABs for the Padres. … The Mets will be out from under Robinson Cano’s contract at the end of the season. The eight-time All Star was released by the Mets last May, played briefly for the Padres and Braves and was out of the game in August. According to baseball-reference, the combined payout he’s owed for last year and this year is $47.4 million. … The UMass basketball team finished 185th in the Sagarin ratings, down there with the Lipscomb’s and Wright State’s of the world. … A Yogi-ism, as uttered by the Yanks’ John Sterling: “You can observe a lot by just watching.” … “The Week” did a write-up on Lewis Pugh whose feats have included swimming at the North Pole and in a glacial lake near the top of Mt. Everest: “When you’ve been really cold, you never quite warm up.”

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com

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