The Boston Globe - 13.09.2019

Sports

THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/SPORTS

C

TV HIGHLIGHTS

Golf:SolheimCup,8a.m.,Golf
Baseball:Twins-Indians,7p.m.,MLB
College football:Kansas-BC,7:30p.m.,ACCNetwork
Listings,C8

Boston’s own

Clarke one of top prospects

in high school basketball.A1

Sick start

Jets quarterback Darnold

sidelined with mono.C5

ALSO TODAY

By Jim McBride

GLOBE STAFF

FOXBOROUGH — With “Non-

stop” from Drake thumping through

the speakers, Antonio Brown leaped

up for a Tom Brady end zone lob as

Troy Brown, wearing oversized arm

pads, tried to provide a distraction.

Antonio Brown kept his concen-

tration, however, and secured the

pass while tumbling to the turf

Thursday afternoon during his sec-

ond practice as a member of the Pa-

triots.

Wearing No. 17 — his second

number in as many days after sport-

ing No. 1 Wednesday — Brown went

through stretching and jogging and

the first period of drills during the

window of practice the media was al-

lowed to watch.

If his participation is any indica-

tion, it appears likely Brown is on

target to play in Sunday’s matinee

against the Dolphins in his home-

town of Miami.

The Patriots had full attendance

at the shorts-and-shells session,

though Brown stuck out a tad be-

cause he wore game pants for the

practice.

Brown later worked on a ball-se-

curity drill, jogging with a ball under

each arm as Julian Edelman and a

staffer tried to rip them out.

The receiver got a good taste of

what it’s like to play in New England

PATRIOTS, Page C4

TORONTO — Jhoulys Cha-

cin met the Red Sox at Angel

Stadium on Aug. 30 so he could

throw in the bullpen with man-

ager Alex Cora, pitching coach

Dana LeVangie and a few oth-

ers watching.

With Chris Sale and David

Price unavailable because of in-

juries, the Red Sox needed a

starting pitcher and Chacin

was available after being re-

leased by the Milwaukee Brew-

ers a week earlier.

“I had no guarantees. They

wanted to see me pitch and

said maybe they would give me

an opportunity,” he said. “I had

30 pitches to show them what I

could do.”

Now there’s pressure. But

two days later, Chacin had a

uniform and what amounted to

a lottery ticket.

All he cost the Red Sox was

the prorated minimum salary

for a month. The Brewers were

on the hook for the rest of his

salary.

Chacin, 31, was Milwaukee’s

Opening Day starter and beat

St. Louis. But he won only two

more games and saw his

earned run average soar to 5.79

ON BASEBALL, Page C2

JIM DAVIS/GLOBE STAFF

Brad Marchand said youth mixed with a veteran

presence will be needed to succeed in the playoffs.

By Kevin Paul Dupont
GLOBE STAFF
It begins anew.
The 2019-20 Bruins, minus
key young defensemen Charlie
McAvoy and Brandon Carlo,
will flood the ice Friday morn-
ing at Warrior/Brighton for the
first time since sweeping up the
splinters of their shattered
souls from Causeway St. in
June following their Game 7
loss to the Blues in the Stanley
Cup Final.
Are they over it?
“I don’t think you’ll ever be
over it,” offered veteran defen-
seman Torey Krug. “It’s some-
thing that will sting forever...
the what-ifs, the questions. It’s
a tough pill to swallow. I don’t

know if you can ever get over it.

But you to have find a way to

move on. It can serve as motiva-

tion. It can still sting, still hurt,

whatever, but we have games to

play in the near future and you

have to prepare for it.”

Closing in on their 100-year

anniversary (good seats still

available for the 2024-25 sea-

son), the Bruins enter the new

season still nursing the Game 7

hangover. It is but one story

line, one possibly that will lin-

ger, perhaps depending on how

they come out of the gate in Oc-

tober.

One way to shed a persis-

tent, nagging memory is to pile

up some W’s, bank some points

BRUINS, Page C6

By Ben Volin

GLOBE STAFF

D

AVIE, Fla. — When Gary Doherty was

the varsity football coach at Framing-

ham High School, he used to hold a

coach’s clinic in the summer with the

local Pop Warner coaches. In 2010, the youth

coaches told Doherty about a kid who had been

playing for the Framingham Flyers and would be

a freshman at the high school that fall.

“Different coaches would come up to me,

‘Wait till you see this kid,’ ” Doherty said.

The kid’s name was Christian Wilkins. As an

incoming freshman, he was already 6 feet 2 inch-

es and 230 pounds. Doherty took one look at

Wilkins and did something he had never done in

20-plus years of coaching football: He skipped

Wilkins right over the freshman and JV teams,

and put him on the varsity.

Wilkins started right away, too, at defensive

end and tight end.

WILKINS, Page C6

Receiver Antonio Brown needed to elevate his game against the defense of Troy Brown

(above), and he had to hang on tight with Julian Edelman (right) going for the strip.

The NFL, in a
press release
Wednesday,
boasted that
“over 109 mil-
lion viewers
had tuned in to
Week 1 NFL
action.”
Count me among them. I love
football. I would watch the NFL re-
gardless of whether this newspaper
paid me to do so.
But the more I watch, the more I
find myself asking a difficult ques-
tion.
Does the NFL love me back?
And by “me,’’ I mean a female fan.
This is no knee-jerk reaction to
the news about Antonio Brown, be-
cause that seems to be merely an ad-
dition to the ever-growing evidence
that an undeniable, uncomfortable,
and unnecessary undercurrent of
misogyny remains just beneath the
game’s glossy surface. That the con-
troversial wide receiver is the latest
man in the NFL to find himself on
the wrong end of a sexual assault al-
legation only deepens an open
wound. That he is here in New Eng-
land, where the owner has repeated-
ly vowed to respect women, even
more so after being involved in his
own embarrassing incident last Feb-
ruary?
Well, that just stings even more.
I can’t help but reread Robert
Kraft’s statement from back in
March, his first public words on the
Florida charges for solicitation of
prostitution that put him in the
crosshairs of law enforcement. As
we know now, it’s unlikely those
charges will result in any criminal
conviction, not when a judge ruled
the video evidence was inadmissible
and admonished local police for the
unlawful surveillance. But Kraft
knows what the incident cost him in
the court of public opinion.
“I am truly sorry,” he wrote. “I
SULLIVAN, Page C4

PATRIOTS AT DOLPHINS

Sunday, 1 p.m., CBS

BARRY CHIN/GLOBE STAFF

WILFREDO LEE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Christian Wilkins was overjoyed to be a

first-round draft pick (left) and he pitched

in before a Marlins game (above) in July.

Catching up

STEVE HELBER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A BIG STORY

Dolphins’ Wilkins got start at Framingham — as freshman

Tara Sullivan

Confidence

in the NFL

is difficult

Patriots

work with

WR Brown

Chacin makes

good impression

Peter Abraham

ON BASEBALL

Bruins must shift

from past to present

º Red Sox snap five-game

skid, top Blue Jays, 7-4. C2