Krause: What’s in a name? For Manning Field and Manning Bowl, everything

Burrowing through the crevices of my brain as I prepare to return from two weeks of down time:With high school football season coming up on the horizon, can I make a suggestion (make that a plea) to the powers-that-be in Lynn?Can we discontinue this “Manning Field” nonsense and call it what it is: Manning Bowl?OK. So it’s not a bowl. It is a field. But still ?It wasn’t erected in another part of the city. It occupies the same space – more or less – that the old stadium, with all its history, occupied.And that’s just the point. Its legacy, along with the tremendous athletic talent that patrolled it, demands that the original name of the stadium be restored. Harry Agganis and Tony Thurman, two Lynn all-Americans, played in Manning Bowl. When Dick Jauron visited Lynn, he didn’t play at Manning Field.When Lynn held a citywide track meet so that those who never saw Tech star Franklyn Sanchez run could watch him, it used the track at Manning Bowl.Why change the name that everyone knows? Anyone who’s ever been there still refers to it as “the Bowl,” so why confuse people?Manning Bowl, please. As soon as possible.The Red Sox proved, once again, in being swept by the Yankees, that there’s a disturbing lack of urgency among their players. They could have put the hammer down on the Bronx Bombers and gone a long way toward eliminating them from being post-season pests.Instead, they turned in three lackluster games against a team that was really reeling after losing three out of four to the Detroit Tigers. And they let the Yankees back into the post-season picture.On the other hand, the Yankees – unlike the Chicago White Sox – did not mail it in. Perhaps out of embarrassment by the way they played in Detroit, the Yankees dug in and beat Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling.This is why the Yankees are the Yankees. They don’t take games off. They compete. They may not win all the time, but they compete.The Red Sox will not win anything until they develop a sense of urgency. Right now, that’s not even close to being in evidence.They let the Yankees off the mat. They may rue the day they ever allowed that to happen.To top it all off, a rookie one year out of the University of Nebraska – Joba Chamberlain – threw two 98-mph fastballs in the general vicinity of Kevin Youkilis’ head ? not once, but twice.A rookie! That’s just not right.It’s very possible he may have done the Red Sox the biggest favor possible. He may have awakened them from their slumber and jolted them to the reality that we’re playing for keeps here.Let’s just hope the Red Sox don’t lose sight of this next month when the Yankees come back to Fenway for the last time.But don’t count on it. Terry Francona will probably lead everyone in a chorus of “Kumbaya” instead.Before going on to other subjects ? are the White Sox not the biggest disgrace in baseball this year? Has any team ever quit as thoroughly as they did last weekend?National Football League preseason games are a ripoff even when the regulars play. But the whole lot of NFL owners, who charge fans money to see the fourth game on the exhibition schedule, should be arrested and prosecuted for grand theft, because for the most part, players designated for the practice squad get all the playing time.Midway through the fourth quarter of Thursday’s game against the New York Giants, there were more people fighting to get out of the Gillette Stadium parking lot than there were fans inside.By the time the game ended, we’re talking intimate gathering.It’s a good thing the Giants’ Josh Huston made all his kicks Thursday. Otherwise, we’d all be saying, “Huston, we have a problem.”And more on the subject of name-play: The Giants have a second-year tackle named Guy Whimper. He got hurt in the fourth quarter and had to leave the field. Whimpering all the way to the locker room, undoubtedly.Nobody does “befuddled” better than Tom Coughlin. Every time the camera pans on him, he looks as if he has no idea how, or why, his team