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Chris Sale practically perfect in first game back from injury

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Chris Sale practically perfect in first game back from injury


Chris Sale had an innings restriction for his first start in over two months, but he made the most of it.

Taking the mound for Friday night’s series opener, the 34-year-old left-hander didn’t give the Detroit Tigers an inch early on, setting the stage for a commanding 5-2 Red Sox victory.

Sale was perfect through four perfect innings, striking out six, and inducing eight swings & misses. Of the six balls put in play by the visiting lineup, only two left the bat with an exit velocity above 80.3 mph.

Despite the reported 4-inning limit, he came back out for the fifth. He got two quick outs before Kerry Carpenter broke up his perfecto bid with a 434-foot solo home run. When the Red Sox starter followed that up by hitting Javier Báez with a pitch, Alex Cora went to his bullpen.

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Sale walked off to a standing ovation from the Fenway Faithful. No other Red Sox pitcher has started a game by retiring as many as 12 consecutive batters this year; he retired 14 of 14 before the Carpenter homer. His 4 2/3 innings were nearly perfect, and for the second time this season (April 30), he didn’t issued a single walk.

Kyle Barraclough and Chris Murphy handled the remaining 4 1/3 innings. By game’s end, the Tigers had only collected two hits and three walks, a collective pitching performance Alex Cora described as “outstanding.”

Though Sale faced off against Tigers starter Tarik Skubal, he also defeated former teammate, Eduardo Rodriguez. As Rodriguez watched from the visiting dugout, Sale struck out Spencer Torkelson to end the top of the first, and overtook Rodriguez for 12th on the Red Sox all-time strikeouts list.

Sale wasn’t aware of the achievement until hours later.

“Did I?” He asked. Smacking his hand down on the table in delight, he jokingly exclaimed, “Beat it, Eddie!”

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Sale was effusive and upbeat throughout the lengthy postgame availability. Echoing what the gratitude he expressed at Winter Weekend, the start and end of spring training, and early in the season, each a milestone of good health that eluded him over the last several years, he looked and sounded deeply moved by how the night played out.

“The first start back always means a little something more, just because a lot of work goes into it,” he explained. “You just kind of appreciate it a little bit more, because you get something taken away that you really like, it’s never fun.”

Sale only made two rehab starts before the Red Sox activated him from the 60-day injured list on Friday. Instead of building him up further in the minor leagues, they’re opting to do so in the majors.

Being able to manage the strike zone after not pitching in a Major League game since June 1 was immensely “satisfying,” he said.

“Just very pleased, very satisfied, very appreciative,” Sale reiterated. “I can’t say enough about these guys that have worked with me and helped me to get back out there. Without them, I’m not sitting here talking to you guys right now, that’s for sure.”

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“He wanted to contribute as soon as possible,” Cora said. “He wants to win so bad… I know it’s been tough the last few years… but everything that has happened to him physically, it’s not lack of effort, you know?”

Having Sale with the team is bigger than just having him back on the mound.

“Being around means a lot,” his manager said. “He’s in the dugout, talking to hitters, talking to pitchers.”

Sale missed over two months of this season, nearly all of last year, more than half of 2021, and all of 2020. With so many injuries and surgeries, one might expect him to be holding his breath, always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, and therefore, not enjoying these moments.

“No,” he said firmly. “All the in-between stuff sucks… it is not fun rehabbing… There are moments that you can enjoy during the process, but as a whole, it flat-out sucks.

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“But on the flip-side of that, any time I ever step on that mound and stare down that barrel, and have competition, batters facing me, I don’t care if I’m in the (rookie level) Complex League, I don’t care if I’m in (Triple-A) Worcester. I said it to Trevor (Story) after my first Worcester start, I said, ‘There is nothing like that feeling I get out there.’ That feeling will never get old, and if it does, it’s time to pack it up.”

Skubal wasn’t as lucky. The Boston bats attacked early and often, though their bad habits of stranding runners and hitting into double plays persisted, costing them several opportunities to really put the hurt on. By game’s end, they’d plated five runs on nine hits, but also gone 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base.

Leadoff man Rob Refsnyder got the Red Sox on the board almost immediately, reaching on a throwing error and scoring moments later, when Masataka Yoshida ground into a force out.

As has been the case nearly every game since the All-Star break, the biggest hit of the night belonged to Triston Casas. With two on and one out, the Red Sox rookie sent a Skubal slider deep to right-center for his 19th home run of the season.

Skubal didn’t make his season debut until July 4, but over six starts (27 innings) entering Friday, he hadn’t given up a home run all season. Of the 54 career home runs allowed by the 26-year-old southpaw since his 2020 debut, Casas’ was only the third by a left-handed hitter.

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Casas has been on fire since the All-Star break, with 10 home runs in 25 games. After getting off to a slow start this season, he’s putting up numbers the likes of which have only been by some of the greatest players in franchise history. According to Stathead, Casas is the seventh Red Sox hitter aged 23 or younger to collect at least ten home runs in a 25-game span, and only the 11th to hit 19 or more home runs as a rookie before turning 24.

Trevor Story is finding his swing again, too. After going 0-for-8 over his first two games of the season, the shortstop collected his first hit on Thursday night. With that initial knock out of the way, Story put together his first multi-hit game and stole his first base of the year on Friday night.

And for the fourth time in the last five games, Pablo Reyes contributed a multi-hit performance with a pair of singles and a run. Over that span, he’s 10-for-19 with five runs, two doubles, a walk-off grand slam, four RBI, and a stolen base.

The Red Sox are 61-55, and have won four of their last five games. Trevor Story is hitting, Chris Sale is pitching. This season is far from over.



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Boston, MA

Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe

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Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe


Constantine Manos, “Los Angeles, California,” 2001. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Among Mr. Manos’s books were “A Greek Portfolio” (1972; updated 1999), “Bostonians” (1975), “American Color” 1995) and ”American Color 2″ (2010). Mr. Manos’s work with color was notably expressive and influential.

“Color was a four-letter word in art photography,” the photographer Lou Jones, who worked with Mr. Manos on “Where’s Boston?,” said in a telephone interview. “But he was making wonderful, complex photographs with color, and that meant so much.”

Yet for all his formal skill, Mr. Manos always emphasized the human element in his work. “I am a people photographer and have always been interested in people,” he once said.

That interest extended beyond the photographs he took. He was a celebrated teacher. Among the students he taught in his photo workshops was Stella Johnson.

“He’d go through a hundred of my photographs,” she said in a telephone interview, “and maybe he’d like two. ‘No, no, no, no, yes, no.’ Costa really taught me how to see. I remember him looking at one picture and saying, “You were standing in the wrong spot.’ Something like that was invaluable to me as a young photographer.

“He was a very, very kind man, very generous. But he was very strict. ‘How could you do that?’ He was adored by his students and by his friends, absolutely. We were all lucky to have been in his orbit.”

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Cellist Samuel Mayes and conductor Charles Munch during a Boston Symphony Orchestra rehearsal at Tanglewood, July 25, 1959. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos, who moved to Provincetown in 2008, lived in the South End for four decades. The South Carolina native’s association with the Boston area began when the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired him as a photographer at Tanglewood. He was 19. This led to Mr. Manos’s first book, “Portrait of a Symphony” (1961; updated 2000).

Constantine Manos was born in Columbia, S.C., on Oct. 12, 1934. His parents, Dimitri and Aphrodite (Vaporiotou) Manos, were Greek immigrants. They ran a café in the city’s Black section. That experience gave Mr. Manos a sympathy for marginalized people that would stay with him throughout his life. As a student at the University of South Carolina, he wrote editorials in the school paper opposing segregation. Later, he would do extensive work chronicling the LGBTQ+ community with his camera.

Mr. Manos became interested in photography at 13, joining the school camera club and building a darkroom in his parents’ basement. After graduating from college, Mr. Manos did two years of Army service in Germany, working as a photographer for Stars and Stripes. He joined Magnum in 1963. This had special meaning for him. Mr. Manos’s chief inspiration as a young photographer had been Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of Magnum’s founders. He was such an admirer he made a point of using the same equipment that Cartier-Bresson did.

That same year, Mr. Manos entered a seafood restaurant in Rome that was around the corner from the Pantheon. Prodanou, his future husband, was dining with friends. Noticing Mr. Manos, he gestured to him. “Would you join us for coffee?” The couple spent the next 61 years together, marrying in 2011.

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“Lining Up for the Shriner’s Parade, South End, Boston,” 1974. (Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos)Courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, Constantine Manos/Magnum Photos

Mr. Manos lived in Greece for three years, which led to “A Greek Portfolio.” He undertook a very different project in the Athens of America. Part of the city’s Bicentennial tribute, “Where’s Boston?” was a slice-of-many-lives view of contemporary Boston.

Located in a red-white-and-blue striped pavilion at the Prudential Center, it became a local sensation. The installation involved 42 computerized projectors and 3,097 color slides (most of them taken by Mr. Manos), shown on eight 10 feet by 10 feet screens. Outside the pavilion was a set of murals, consisting of 152 black-and-white photographs of Boston scenes, all shot by Mr. Manos.

“The most important thing I had to do was to keep my picture ideas simple,” he said in a 1975 Globe interview. “Viewers are treated to a veritable avalanche of color slides in exactly one hour’s time.”

In that same interview, he made an observation about his work generally. “I prefer to stay in close to my subjects. I let them see me and my camera and when they become bored they forget about me and then I get my best pictures.”

Among institutions that own Mr. Manos’s photographs are the Museum of Fine Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Library of Congress; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

In addition to his husband, Mr. Manos leaves a sister, Irene Constantinides, of Atlanta, and a brother, Theofanis Manos, of Greenville, S.C.

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A memorial service will be held later this year.


Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.





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Boston, MA

Below freezing temperatures again today

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Below freezing temperatures again today


The winds are still going Wednesday, but the air temperatures remain at respectable levels. Highs will manage to weasel up to 30 in most spots. It’s too bad we’re not going to feel them at face value. Instead, we’re dressing for temps in the teens all day today.

Thursday and Friday are the picks of the week.

There will be a lot less wind, reasonable winter temperatures in the 30s and a decent amount of sun. We’ll be quiet into the weekend, as our next weather system approaches.

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With mild air expected to come north on southerly winds, highs will bounce back to the low and mid-40s both days of the weekend.

Showers will be delayed until late day/evening on Saturday and into the night. There may be a few early on Sunday too, but the focus on that day will be to bring in the cold.

Highs will briefly sneak into the 40s, then fall late day.

We’ll also watch a batch of snow late Sunday night as it moves up the Eastern Seaboard.

Right now, there is a potential for some accumulation as it moves overhead Sunday night and early Monday morning.

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It appears to be a weak, speedy system, so we’re not expecting it to pull any punches.

Enjoy the quieter spell of weather!



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Boston City Councilor will introduce

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Boston City Councilor will introduce


BOSTON – It could cost you more to get a soda soon. The Boston City Council is proposing a tax on sugary drinks, saying the money on unhealthy beverages can be put to good use.

A benefit for public health?

“I’ve heard from a lot of residents in my district who are supportive of a tax on sugary beverages, but they want to make sure that these funds are used for public health,” said City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who is introducing the “Sugar Tax,” modeled on Philadelphia and Seattle. She said it’s a great way to introduce and fund health initiatives and slowly improve public health.

A study from Boston University found that cities that implemented a tax on sugary drinks saw a 33% decrease in sales.

“What it does is it creates an environment where we are discouraging the use of something that we know, over time, causes cancer, causes diet-related diseases, causes obesity and other diet-related illnesses,” she said.

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Soda drinkers say no to “Sugar Tax”

Soda drinkers don’t see the benefit.

Delaney Doidge stopped by the store to get a mid-day pick-me-up on Tuesday.

“I wasn’t planning on getting anything, but we needed toilet paper, and I wanted a Diet Coke, so I got a Diet Coke,” she said, adding that a tax on sugary drinks is an overreach, forcing her to ask: What’s next?

“Then we’d have to tax everything else that brings people enjoyment,” Doidge said. “If somebody wants a sweet treat, they deserve it, no tax.”

Store owners said they’re worried about how an additional tax would impact their businesses.

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Durkan plans to bring the tax idea before the City Council on Wednesday to start the conversation about what rates would look like.

Massachusetts considered a similar tax in 2017.

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