Game 7: Twins at Red Sox

Time: 1:10 Central

Weather: Sunny, slight breeze, start temp 63°

Opponent’s SB site: Over The Monster

TV: BS North. Radio: Featuring ads both between and during innings!

Today’s opposing starter for the BoSox, Nick Pivetta, is NOT in any way related to retired NBA referee Dick Bevetta.

NBA fans of a certain age will, if their brains work anything like mine, note a similarity between the names. This is purely coincidental. It’s just how sometimes syllables sound alike.

Dick Bevetta refereed the most games in NBA history, and was well-known as Supreme Commander of the Grumpy Grouch Brigade. He is originally from Brooklyn, where tempers occasionally flare high.

Nick Pivetta is a journeyman pitcher with a 94-ish fastball, and from British Columbia, where tempers are sometimes cooler. (Although, ask Nick Punto & Torii Hunter if BC-born Justin Morneau ever lost his cool.) MLB career digits:

Most memorably, Bevetta was head referee on the 2002 Kings/Lakers playoff series, featuring so many egregiously wrong calls in LA’s favor that it spurred an FBI investigation. (They found nothing wrong, but I will point out that as MLB endorses more gambling... umps are lower-paid than players, and know they’ll be eventually replaced by robots, for strike/ball calls at least. If I’m a gambling fixer, it’d be a lot cheaper to buy an aging umpire than a 26-year-old superstar with agents saying “the world’s gonna be your oyster, baby!”)

Here is Rick Pivetta’s picture, from MLB.com, who has never minded SB sites promoting their product:

He has very nice teeth. Reminds me a little of the charming Jack McBrayer, who’s been on such shows as “Parks & Recreation,” “Last Week Tonight,” many more.

Whereas, here is Dick Bevetta, from Wiki, which is available under terms of “fair use”:

Who looks like a perfect casting choice for Jacob Marley. “I wear the chains I forged in life! Aaaaaaah!”

See, not much resemblance.

Anyhoo, Rick Pivetta is neither the son, nephew, or third cousin twice-removed of Dick Bevetta — I thought I should make that clear.

Twins starter Joe Ryan is, however, distantly related to 19th-century bear wrestler Jo Rhienn, who oddly enough died from being mauled by a squirrel.

(The squirrel’s name is lost to history.)