Spooky Five

1. The Lost Year of Kevin Youkilis

Look at this guy. This is what Kevin Youkilis, long one of the most popular players on Boston’s roster, looked like when he wasn’t even trying to out-beard his Red Sox teammates. If there is one player who perfectly embodied the 2013 Red Sox, a scruffy team of overachieving, grinding, burly white dudes who look more suited for a beer-league softball game than the World Series, it’s Youk. Beloved in Boston, too.

Youk broke in as a rookie with the Sox in 2004, which just happened to coincide with their first World Series championship in 86 years. He helped them to two World Series titles.

But last season Bobby Valentine, who in his one season as manager of the Sox achieved the type of popularity in the Hub that only Alex Rodriguez can appreciated, thought Will Middlebrooks the superior third baseman and got Youk shipped out of town to the other Sox (in Youk’s final at-bat in Fenway Park with the Red Sox, he hit a triple and was given a standing O as he was lifted for a pinch runner). Valentine and Youk also clashed very early on in Bobby V’s brief tenure.

Comes the 2012 off-season and Youk, now a free agent, signs a one-year, $12 million deal with the loathesome Yankees. Must shave his beard. Plays all of 28 games and bats .219 before shutting it down for the season in June with back problems.

Youk, 34, is now a free agent again. His agent says that he is unlikely to return to the Yankees. Middlebrooks, after batting 4 for 24 in the ALDS and ALCS, had just two at-bats in the World Series and no hits. He himself was replaced by rookie Xander Bogaerts, who hit .238 in the Fall Classic.

Maybe Youkilis would have still suffered the herniated disc and missed most of the season as a Red Sox. Still, it was so odd to see all those Red Sox players sporting unruly red beards celebrating a World Series title at Fenway –for the first time in 95 seasons — and to not see the dude who inspired that look. To not even hear FOX mention him once (if they did, I missed it).

We were thinking of you here, Youk.

2. The Phoenix Sons?

Second-year power forward Miles Plumlee –that’s right, the bad Plumlee — busted the box score last night with an 18-point, 15-rebound performance in his debut for the Phoenix Sunx, a 104-91 victory against the Portland Trail Blazers. What is it about the Suns, who seem to gravitate –that’s right, a Sun gravitating; think about it — toward putting at least one if not both NBA-level brothers on their roster.

From twins Dick and Tom Van Arsdale (1976-77 season; Dick Van Arsdale had been with the franchise since its inaugural season in 1968-69 and is known as “The Original Sun”, as opposed to ball hog Paul Westphal, the “Black Hole Sun”) to twins Markieff and Marcus Morris, who are currently on the roster.

Miles Plumlee is the older brother of Mason Plumlee, a rookie with the Brooklynettes. Last night’s opponent, Portland, started Robin Lopez at center. Lopez is a former Sun whose own twin, Brook, starts at center for the Nets (yes, Brook is in Brooklyn).

Other NBA brother tandems in which at least one brother –almost always the less talented one– has donned a Suns uniform: the Zellers (Luke), the Collins (Jarron; another set of twin big men out of Stanford, like the Lopezes), and the Griffins (Taylor, not Blake).

Worth noting: Both Van Arsdales played college ball at Indiana, both Morrises at Kanasas, both Plumlees at Duke.

Even the Suns’ new general manager, Ryan McDonough, has a brother you know: CBS sports caster Sean McDonough.

I’m waiting for the Suns to acquire Pau or Marc Gasol (both too talented) but think that, as they aspire to win the Alan Wiggins lottery, that they’ll sign recently released guard Seth Curry, younger brother of Stephen.

(Update: Loyal MH reader @okerland informs me that Kelly Miller, whose twin sister Co Co is also a WNBA player, used to suit up for the Phoenix Mercury. Reggie Miller never played for the Suns but his sister, Cheryl, did coach the Mercury for four seasons).

3. Who is SI’s Sportsman of the Year?

The end of baseball season means two things at Sports Illustrated: the swimsuit models are already out on location, shooting their pics for the annual February cash-grab (and occasionally sending a writer along to ogle report on the action), and that the choice for Sportsman of the Year is ready for vetting. Your most likely candidates:

1) Boston Red Sox: A push for pathos, bookending the Boston Marathon tragedy with the first World Series title clinched at Fenway Park since Babe Ruth was in uniform (and before the Green Monster existed at Fenway Park). Or you could give it to Big Papi alone, but then you lose out on all the beards on the cover (reminder to SI photo editor Brad Smith: you’ll want to shoot this cover before they all shave). The managing editor and a top editor whose specialty is baseball were both raised in New England and both attended college in Boston, so don’t be surprised.

2) Peyton Manning: For the “Football On Your Phone” video alone, he deserves it. The elder Manning bro inspires obsequious overtures from broadcasters whenever he plays, but granted he is on pace to set an NFL record for touchdown passes in a season. And it wasn’t HIS fault the Broncos lost in the playoffs last January…to the eventual Super Bowl champions. Besides, an NFL quarterback has not earned this honor since 2010 (Drew Brees), and I’m sure the gang at MMQB is reminding the top editors of that fact.

3) Rafael Nadal AND Serena Williams: The two birds-one stone route, and you shut up assistant ME and tennis aficionado L. Jon Wertheim for the next decade. Both players won two Grand Slams in 2013 and both finished No. 1. Nadal, at 27, should surpass one-time rival Roger Federer’s mark of 17 Grand Slam singles titles. The speedy Spaniard currently has 13. Williams, at 32, has 17 Grand Slam titles, which trails Margaret Court’s pre-Open era record of 24. She probably won’t catch the aptly named Court, but she could tie modern-era record holder Steffi Graf, who has 22, if she remains as disciplined as she has been the past 16 months.

4. How Many Beards In This Photo?

That’s model Elliott Sailors above. When she’s not shearing off her blonde locks and dressing like an eighth grade boy, she looks like this:

But there are a lot of pretty blondes out there –just ask any SEC quarterback — which makes it difficult to stand out. So why not cut your locks, do the whole androgynous thing, land yourself a Today Show appearance (easier than running through a horde or USC defenders without your helmet on), and let people know that you also do male modeling? In Sailors’ defense, she is six-foot-two.

It worked, though. Here I am doing an item on her.

And as long as I’m on the whole modeling thing, my local newsstand has the current issues of Esquire and French Vogue displayed side by side, which is sort of funny. The former cover features actress Scarlett Johansson with the hed “Sexiest Woman Alive”…

…while the latter publication features Lithuanian model Edita Vilkeviciute giving that honorific a serious challenge.

Then again Edita never sang a karaoke version of “Brass in Pocket”, so until she does…

5. “Aaron McKie…Aaron McKie…Aaron McKie…”

Not surprisingly, Allen Iverson’s retirement press conference yesterday (you’re reading that correctly; The Answer, 38, last played in the NBA in 2010 but chose yesterday to make it official) was a compelling watch. The refrain “practice” was replaced by “Aaron McKie”, a nod to his former 76er teammate who apparently helped AI through a lot of stuff that we’ll never know about. Until the biography comes out.

Listening to the PTI guys discuss Iverson’s retirement, I couldn’t help but agree that there’s a certain melancholy and worry around Iverson’s retirement. Basketball is all he know, it’s all he do. How will he handle the next phase of his life and is he even fiscally solvent (that’s where the biography or ghost-written autobiography enters play)?

One thing to take away: a lot of boys grow up wanting to emulate Allen Iverson. They should grow up also wanting to emulate Aaron McKie.

Reserves

That’s Carmen Electra, Willie Geist and Matt Lauer sporting Halloween costumes on The Today Show. Over at “Ghoul Morning, America”, Sam Champion dressed in drag (I’ll hold my tongue here). I can’t imagine former Today hosts Tom Brokaw or Bryant Gumbel ever playing along with such shenanigans.

If you had “Bo” in the “Which Pelini brother is having the worse week?” sweepstakes, you were WRONG! Who knew?

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Our man Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated scores one of the season’s bigger, if not biggest, gets, an exclusive interview with former (and soon-to-be future) Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson. Andy tries his best, but he never succeeds in getting the elusive Golson to use the term “cheat.”

A 2014 primer for college football scribes: The quarterback’s name is spelled “G-0-l-s-o-n” and the running back’s name is spelled “F-o-l-s-t-o-n.”

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Kevin-Up(date)

Kevin Durant has the high scoring game of the NBA season’s first two nights, a 42-point effort in a victory versus the Utah Jazz. Kevin Love posts a 31-point, 17-rebound double-double. He also hit a game-tying three to send the game into OT versus Orlando in a game that the T-Wolves eventually won. Good to see some things don’t change.

Remote Patrol

Arizona State at Washington State

ESPN 10:30 p.m.

Sparky. Spooky. Will Mike Leach roam the sidelines brandishing a cutlass and an eye-patch? Will Arizona State athletic director Steve Patterson, who yesterday spurned any overtures from Texas to become their next AD, sport this suit in public on the Palouse? Has Cougar quarterback Connor Halliday’s arm recovered from the 89 pass attempts he tried at Oregon 11 days earlier? Tune in and see.