Last week, millions of households witnessed the Winchester, MA native and Olympian gymnast, Alicia Sacramone, and her struggles in Beijing.

After a horrific fall on the balance beam (which might have cost the U.S. a gold medal), she was inevitably robbed of a medal by the Olympic judges during the vault competition. Sacramone completed two clean attempts while China’s Cheng Fei made a costly(?) error by landing on her knees while attempting her second vault jump.

Apparently a gymnast can now earn a bronze medal even with a fall, as Cheng Fei captured the bronze medal due to the “difficulty of her vaults.”

Alicia, you were robbed, and that sucks.

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So why am I writing about Sacramone and women’s gymnastics? Well, for one, I was one who was caught up in the drama that is the Olympic judging. Also, Alicia is not your ordinary gymnast. What makes her different?

• She’s a Bostonian — got to love that.
• She can knock you out — check out this video.
• She’s not your typical China-doll, 4′5″, 80lb gymnast.
• She’s an Ivy-league college student (lots of gymnasts are barely 18).
• Let’s face it: she’s easy on the eyes.

Sacramone earned a silver medal with her U.S. teammates and was robbed of a bronze. Not too shabby at all.

So how do I tie this in with the Red Sox?

I’m not sure if Jed Lowrie is single, but he’s just a few years older and also attended a sort of prestige school (Stanford), so the two of them have something in common.

Jed, you might want to take a look into that.

My friends and I like to play a game we call the before & afters. We match sports players/managers/personnel last names up with another sports figure with the same first name. It can be fun and quite creative. After brainstorming through the Major League, On Deck Sports proudly presents the top 10 before & after names of baseball. The winner(s) is probably the best before & after I’ve heard, period, unless our viewers can take the cake and come up with a better number one.

And so we begin…

10. Sean Casey Fossum

The mayor and the skinniest pitcher in the world combine to give us before & after number 10, such an interesting tandem. The duo couldn’t quite push through the cracks and wound up with a respectable 10th placing.

9. Jay Bruce Bochy

The phenom Jay Bruce comes in 9th with counterpart Bruce Boche, manager of the San Francisco Giants. I could of added Bruce Hearst but we’re looking for active players/managers/personnel of baseball.

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