The story went that a few weeks into Henderson’s stint with the Mariners, he walked up to [John] Olerud at the batting cage and asked him why he wore a batting helmet in the field. Olerud explained that he had an aneurysm at nine years old and he wore the helmet for protection. Legend goes that Henderson said, “Yeah, I used to play with a guy that had the same thing.” Legend also goes that Olerud said, “That was me, Rickey.”

Henderson played with Olerud on the Blue Jays and the Mets.

And another…

To this day and dating back 25 years, before every game he plays, Henderson stands completely naked in front of a full length locker room mirror and says, “Ricky’s the best,” for several minutes.

via American McCarver

Earlier, I was over at Flip Flop Fly In, the awesome site by Craig Robinson that has all sorts of baseball infographics.  I was intrigued by one that compared the all time records of the White Sox and the Red Sox (a vernable battle of the, er, Soxes), and it got me thinking about how the Red Sox have done against other teams.  So as Craig does, I headed over to Baseball Reference to check out the details and channel my inner Cliff Clavin.

Since 1901, the Red Sox have won a total of 8,877 games, while losing 8,270 (across AL and NL teams, although the vast majority of the games have obviously come against AL teams), giving them an all time winning percentage of .518. For comparison, that ranks the Sox 4th all time behind the Yankees (.568), the NY/SF Giants (.538), and the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers (.524) and basically tied with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Red Sox have had the most success against the Baltimore Orioles, winning 1,148 games against 930 losses, for a .552 winning percentage. Sadly, the Sox have had the least success against the Yankees, with 950 wins against 1,127 losses, or 177 games below .500.

What’s worse, the Yankees are one of only two AL teams who have scored more runs than the Sox in head to head competition.  The Yanks are averaging 8% (0.39 more runs per game) more runs per game when playing the Sox.

On a relative basis, the Red Sox have had the most success against the Tampa Bay Rays, winning 60% of the game against them (139-92).

Surprisingly, the other AL team that has given the Red Sox trouble is the Cleveland Indians.  The Indians are averaging 3% (0.14 RPG) more runs per game vs the Red Sox, and have beaten the Sox 1,019 times (vs. 956 wins by Boston).  The only other AL team that the Red Sox have a losing record against is, of all teams, the Kansas City Royals.  The Royals hold a 2 game advantage over the Red Sox as of today, however the Red Sox have outscored them by about 5% on a per game basis.

The Red Sox have the most absolute wins against the Orioles, the Oakland A’s (1,053), and the Detroit Tigers (1,018).  They are the only three teams who the Sox have won over 1,000 game against.  The next closest team to the 1,000 win plateau is the aforementioned Indians.

So there you go, a quick synopsis of what the Red Sox have done against the American League since 1901.  You can see the full grid of stats against all MLB teams here.  I didn’t include NL teams as there are just not enough games played against that league, leaving the data a bit unstable since there were so few games to draw from.  One item that was interesting within the set of NL teams was that the Sox have only played the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds 6 times each during the regular season.

Bud Selig’s golf buddy Fred Wilpon got taken to the financial cleaners by Bernie Madoff, is now getting sued by the trustee of Madoff’s victims, the Wilpon’s are begging for loans and trying to sell up to 49% of the Mets (so they can still be in control…if only by the skin of their teeth) and the Mets are in an epic state of disarray. But a discussion about MLB taking over the Mets is not on the table.

The LA Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has been dragged through the tabloids because of an ugly divorce, he has run this storied franchise into financial disarray through his real estate dealings (and the hangover from the housing crisis that just won’t go away), and he’s scoring rouge loans from Fox TV (MLB’s broadcast partner) to meet payroll.

So how is it that MLB made a shotgun decision to take over operations of the Dodgers yesterday yet are letting the NY Madoffs Mets continue to beg for funding?  I admit not to knowing the gory details, but you can’t tell me that the Mets are in any better a financial or operational situation than the Dodgers.   The Madoff – Wilpon situation underscored a question I always had about the Wilpon’s financial “fortune” – how exactly did they do it? Smoke and mirrors come to mind.  The McCourt situation is just as big an epic #fail.  To me, Selig’s taking over of the Dodgers, and not doing the same with the Mets, reeks of cronyism – a “Buddy” system.

But hey, lets go ahead and keep a painfully long 162 game schedule AND expand the playoffs so we can sit in 28 degree weather off of Lake Erie (or in Fenway or in Yankee Stadium) for the first ever 5 hour long prime time baseball game in December.

There are baseball legends, and then there are baseball legends. And while I never had the pleasure of seeing Bob Feller play a game, in my mind there was always this mythical aura about career, his fastball, and his legendary and intimidating pitching skills. He was one of those larger than life personalities that you thought would live forever, but alas that didn’t happen as he died last night after a battle with leukemia and pneumonia .

Ted Williams called Mr. Feller “the fastest and best pitcher I ever saw during my career. . . . He had the best fastball and curve I’ve ever seen.’’ Stan Musial called him “probably the greatest pitcher of our era.’’.

When you have Ted Williams and Stan MusiaI saying that, you know he was good. I don’t have any stories of when I saw him pitch, or when I happened to meet him. But as a baseball fan and a “student” of the game, it is players like Feller who remind me of the beauty of the game of baseball when it was not corrupted by money, steroids, and judicial hearings that are rapidly eroding this wonderful sport

Right Field Full Stadium – AT&T Park


Left Field Upper Deck


Center Field


Exterior of AT&T Park

Nationals Park – Home of the Washington Nationals

Camden Yards – Home of the Baltimore Orioles

Fenway Park – Home of the Boston Red Sox

Spongebob going over the ground rules with the Umpires at a Somerset Patriots game. :-P

With these visits to these two MLB stadiums, I took a few pictures, including stitching together a series of photos of each of the stadiums to create panoramics of each one. So here they are. Click on the images to view larger versions.

Nationals Park – Home of the Washington Nationals

Camden Yards – Home of the Baltimore Orioles

On August 16, 1920, Ray Chapman, a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, was crowding the plate in the top of the fifth inning when he was struck in the head by an underhand curve ball from New York Yankees pitcher Carl Mays. Days later, Chapman became the first and only player killed by a pitch in Major League history.
“From that point forward the umpires were looking for a way to get a better grip for the pitcher on a new baseball,” Bintliff says. “They tried tobacco juice, shoe polish, dirt from the infield and all of those things scarred or damaged the leather.”
Lena Blackburne, a manager for the Philadelphia Athletics, had an idea. He cured and aged mud from a fishing hole near his home and took it back to the Athletics clubhouse.

Some new footage was of Babe Ruth was recently discovered in a home movie collection from a family in New Hampshire.

The latest Babe Ruth film, unseen publicly until now, is part of a 90-second clip shot from the first-base stands at Yankee Stadium. There is no sound. But there are sweeping views of the park. And there is Ruth, obvious by his shape and waddle.

Here’s hoping this discovery will place a curse on the Yankees this post seeason. :)

As I wake up from last weekend’s drubbing at the hands of the Yankees, and stare at the train wreck that the 2009 Red Sox season has become, I continue to be amazed at the comedy of errors that the Red Sox’ front office has made at the critical position of shortstop. Call it the “Curse of Orlando” or maybe the “Curse of Nomaaaah”. It is true that since that fateful trade deadline deal in 2004 that sent Nomar Garciaparra packing, the Red Sox have won two World Series (two more than I anticipated in my lifetime), and they have consistently been in the playoff hunt. You can’t argue with that success. However, when you “peel back the Onion” a bit, you see a concerning trend of decisions and moves, none more head scratching than the revolving door of underwhelming shortstops.

Most recently, they traded away their latest mistake, Julio Lugo, and have brought back 2006 re-tread Alex Gonzalez, a great fielder who can’t hit is way out of a paper bag. Since their magical run to the 2004 World Series, this is the list of shortstops they have run in and out of (and back in to) town:

2004 – Orlando Cabrera, Pokey Reese
2005 – Edgar Renteria, Alex Cora, Hanley Ramirez
2006 – Alex Gonzalez
2007 – Royce Clayton, Julio Lugo
2008 – Julio Lugo, Jed Lowrie
2009 – Julio Lugo, Nick Green, Jed Lowrie, Alex Gonzalez

What’s most baffling to me is that all of this could have been avoided if they just signed Cabrera after the 2004 World Series for, if I recall, $25-30Mil over 3 or 4 years. I could not believe they did not do it then, and I still curse the decision. This inept judgment was made exponentially worse when they turned around and signed Edgar Renteria for 4 years/$40Mil, and he turned out to be a bust of epic proportions. A few years later, they did essentially the same thing (!!) by signing Julio Lugo to a 4 year/$36Mil contract, and he too was an epic bust. Renteria and Lugo combined have cost the Sox more than double what Cabrera would have cost. Through all of this, “OC” had, and continues to have, solid performance on the field and at the plate for Anaheim and Oakland. Instead of traipsing out 10+ different shortstops during that 3-4 year period, they could have had the steady “OC” there. Now we all know that Hanley Ramirez could have been that stud shortstop for the Sox, but he was traded away while Theo was walking out of Fenway in a gorilla costume, a deal that has been beneficial for both organizations but still always prompts the “what if” questions.

So as we slog through the dog days of August, and the Sox try to claw back into the Wild Card race, lets hope that the three headed shortstop monster of Alex Gonzalez, Jed Lowrie, and Nick Green can pull something out of their collective hat and help turn this thing around. I’m not holding my breath.

There is a great visual of the price variance of MLB tickets (with the Yankees leading the way), the types of MLB stadiums, and my personal favorite, the monetary value of MLB’s stolen bases if they were actually stolen.

The story of Moonlight Graham was depicted semi-accurately in the movie:

On June 29, the Giants were the visiting team against the Brooklyn Superbas. For the bottom of the eighth inning, Graham was sent in to play right field, replacing George Browne. In the top of the ninth inning, Graham was on deck (scheduled to be the next batter) when his teammate Claude Elliott flied out resulting in the third and final out. Graham played the bottom of the ninth in right field but never came to bat, and that game turned out to be his only appearance in the major leagues.

After his short visit to the majors, Moonlight completed his medical degree and moved to Chisholm, MN where he served that town as “Doc” Graham for close to 50 years. In the movie Field of Dreams, Burt Lancaster brilliantly plays “Doc” Graham in one of the great sequences in movie history. One of my favorite lines from “Doc” Graham:

Well, you know I… I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn’t. That’s what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases – stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That’s my wish, Ray Kinsella. That’s my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?

The way Lancaster delivers this line is amazing. You can see the twinkle in his eye and you get the feeling that he is just dying to jump into the batters box. So on this June 29th, pay an ode to “Moonlight” Graham, and to the idea that you can achieve what you want, even if it is for only half an inning in the field.

The puddles did it. As soon as Jeff Ziegler, the director of team travel for the Tampa Bay Rays, saw water covering the infield at Citizens Bank Park on Monday night, he realized Game 5 of the World Series might be suspended. Instantaneously, Ziegler also realized he needed to locate hotel rooms for 170 waterlogged people.

Ziegler called hotels near downtown Philadelphia, but he had as much success as someone selling $600 doorknobs. Not only did he discover that finding the 87 rooms the Rays needed was impossible, but hotel manager after hotel manager also said there was barely a spare cot. The puddles were growing bigger.

In the end, the Red Sox missed Manny more than they thought. But it was more than that. The Rays “dropkicked murphyed” the Red Sox all over Fenway Park, then once they were done kicking, they shipped them off to the off-season.

In the three games at Fenway Park (stats below through 6th inning of Game 5 [editor's note]), the Rays outscored the Redsox 29-5 and outhit the Sox 34-20. Collectively, David Ortiz, Jason Varitek and Jacoby Ellsbury went a combined 3 for 43, or an .070 batting average for those of you keeping score at home. And I won’t even go near the pitching stats. That is not a formula for winning games. But more than anything, the Rays made the Red Sox look like a very slow, plodding and old team.

The stats above were through the 6th inning of Game 5. Since the series went 7 games, the numbers changed a bit by the end of the series, but the story is still the same. Papi, the Captain, and Jacoby did not show. The off season should be interesting. And with that, I will keep my Red Sox posts to a minimum until next summer.

TBS’s tagline is “TBS: Very Funny” Dripping with irony.

Someone is getting fired tonight.

Wow, what a comeback win. Seven runs down in the 7th inning. No expectations here. We still have to win two games down in the Trop. Not going to be easy, even with Beckett and Lester.

Update: Great article by Bill Simmons on last night’s game and the emotional roller coaster that it was. The following exchange was exactly how I was feeling:

We [Simmons and his Dad] were having the funeral for the 2008 Red Sox. Heck, I even gave one of the eulogies. Called my dad during the seventh inning for the requisite, “Yup, we just didn’t have it this year,” conversation and everything. I remember uttering the words, “I wanted us to win tonight if only because it would have been another two days where I didn’t have to think about Matt Cassel.” I remember Dad admitting, “I turned it off 20 minutes ago; I’m watching ‘ER.’” I couldn’t even blame him. We hung up.And yet …I didn’t turn off Game 5. I did the old “half-watching it, going through e-mails and not getting totally invested even though I totally was” thing.

I had a blog post ready to go, extolling the season and the fact that the “Ghost of Manny Ramirez” was haunting them. But somehow, they lived to see another day. Yes, the upcoming sports weekend did get a hell of a lot better last night.

With the bases loaded in the ninth, a four-run lead and Mr. Home Run Derby himself, Josh Hamilton, heading for home plate, Maddon knew exactly what had to be done — even if no American League manager had done it in over a century.

He intentionally walked Hamilton — with the bases loaded. And lived to tell about it. The next hitter, Marlon Byrd, whiffed for the final out. And we’d just witnessed another great moment in managerial genius.

“No, not really,” Maddon told Year in Review. “Just managerial imagination.”

The Tigers whiffed Angels rookie Sean Rodriguez on Sept. 4 — on a 4-and-2 pitch — when everybody lost track of the count, including the umpires and Rodriguez. “That’s a new trick of ours,” manager Jim Leyland said.

One of the Craziest Games of the Year: Don’t Walk This Way — Sept. 5: A’s 11, Orioles 2. Last year, on the day the Orioles announced they were bringing back interim manager Dave Trembley, they lost a 30-3 game. This year, the day they announced they were extending Trembley’s contract, they allowed an eight-run inning — on one hit. How’d that happen? How ’bout six walks, including four with the bases loaded, plus a hit batter and a grand slam — by a guy (Rajai Davis) who had entered the game as a pinch runner. So the Orioles became the first team since the 1959 A’s to give up eight runs in an inning on one lousy hit, and the first since the 2004 Dodgers to issue four bases-loaded walks in an inning. And loyal reader Eric Orns reports that Davis was the first guy to hit a slam in an inning he started as a pinch runner since Gene Stephens did it for the Red Sox on July 13, 1959 (after running for Ted Williams). “I’ve never seen an inning like that,” Trembley told the Baltimore Sun’s Dan Connolly. “Ever.”

Here’s to a great October and November playoff season!!

I’ve never been too fond of the Yankees, but I’ve been to the old Stadium in the Bronx enough to appreciate the history and importance of the building. From a baseball history perspective, I’m sorry to see it go. From a competitive perspective, I can’t wait for them to tear the place down. Too many bad memories (but one spectacular one – Game 7, 2004 ALCS) I just don’t look forward to the extra cash that the Yanks will rake in with the new stadium and how they will use it for their team.

The NYTimes posted a pretty cool panoramic of Yankee Stadium from last night. If you have a wide computer screen, be sure to enlarge the photo to full screen.

So tonight is the Yankees night. Enjoy the off season, watching the Red Sox in the playoffs.

In my opinion however, I have been a little dissapointed in Major League Baseball (not that its too difficult to be disappointed with the leadership of MLB these days) for doing away with the tradition of having the Cincinnati Reds, the oldest MLB team, kick off the season with their home opener (traditionally on a Tuesday I believe) in favor of a Sunday evening game on ESPN.

Having the Reds play the very first game to open up the MLB season was just a neat tradition and an acknowledgment of the importance of that franchise to the great history of the game. At worst, could they not shift the Reds game to the Sunday Night Game on ESPN to kick off the season? Could they not, for one day, think of the tradition, history, and greater good of the game to keep a nice tradition intact? And give the city of Cincinnati the baseball spotlight to kick off the season?

Citi Field – NY Mets
New Yankee Stadium – NY Yankees

Sanchez’s no-hitter got me thinking because he, along with several other highly talented and productive players (including the Marlins’ starting shortstop Hanley Ramirez) have been traded by the Red Sox over the past few years. In fact, the amount of talent and production that has been traded by the Sox is actually quite alarming, especially when you consider the state of the Red Sox current pitching staff and their place in the standings. As a fan, you have to really start to question the “cybermetric” decision making being done on Yawkey Way these days. To quote from the article:

Care to consider some other moves the Red Sox made?

After letting Johnny Damon go to the Yankees as a free agent, they needed a center fielder and acquired Coco Crisp for Andy Marte, the young third baseman they obtained from Atlanta for shortstop Édgar Rentería. Crisp, a .300 hitter for Cleveland last season, has turned into Rice Krispies for the Red Sox, hitting .266.

The night before Sánchez pitched his no-hitter, Bronson Arroyo, the pitcher the Red Sox traded to Cincinnati because they thought they had enough pitching, pitched a three-hit shutout against San Francisco for his 12th victory to go with his 3.33 E.R.A., the fifth lowest in the N.L.

The same night that Sánchez pitched the no-hitter, Cla Meredith was the winning pitcher in San Diego’s 2-0 victory against Colorado in 11 innings. Meredith, a 23-year-old reliever, went to the Padres on May 1 when the Red Sox were desperate to reacquire Doug Mirabelli to catch the knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.

In three relief appearances with the Red Sox last season, he gave up seven runs in two and a third innings. With the Padres this season, he has allowed 3 runs in 36 innings over 33 games for a 0.75 E.R.A.. He has given up no runs in his past 29 innings over 25 games.

Through Wednesday, the Red Sox bullpen ranked 10th in the American League with a 4.30 E.R.A.

Because it was Sánchez who pitched the no-hitter, we are reminded of Freddy Sanchez, whom the Red Sox, desperate for pitching then, too, traded to Pittsburgh at the trading deadline in 2003 for Jeff Suppan. For good measure, the Red Sox included Mike Gonzalez in the deal.

Gonzalez has become the Pirates’ closer (24 saves in 24 opportunities this season), and Sanchez, hitting .344, is on his way to becoming the N.L. batting champion.

I acknowledge that the National League is a bit weaker than the AL these days, and many of the players noted above are playing in the NL which may make their numbers seem a bit inflated but that arguement only goes so far.

It is highly unlikely that the Sox will come back and make anything of this season. And the Sox brass keeps on saying that they are building for the future. But if they are building for the future, then they need to commit to that and not try to compete with the big boys at the same time. That’s an equation that will not work. Have they been so focused on protecting their young players that they have unknowingly mortgaged a great deal of their future already?

Great article in the Friday 8/18/2006 NY Times, where writer John Branch tried to define the physical border across Connecticut, NY State, and Massacusetts between Red Sox Nation and Yankee Country (I won’t go into how “Red Sox Nation” sounds so much cooler than “Yankee Country”…). And be sure to watch the accompanying video as that is also very entertaining.

When I worked in the Advertising industry, I was regularly taken out to lunch or dinner or whatever by magazines and TV networks. Once, the now defunked Sport Magazine took me and a female colleage out to lunch. The Sport Mag rep brought along to this lunch their “honorary” publisher (or whatever his fluff title was) at the time, Steve Garvey. Obviously, Garvey had no flipping idea how to run a magazine and his purpose was nothing more than for publicity and promotions as Sport was trying (and failing) to compete for advertising business against Sports Illustrated.

Now, the female colleage that was also at this lunch was, shall we say, very easy on the eyes. And wouldn’t you know that Garvey could not keep his toungue in his mouth throughout the lunch. When the lunch ended, he gave us each an autographed baseball (a little cheezy, I must say) and I distinctly recall him saying something to the effect of “you sweet young thing” to my colleage.

So when I see all the troubles Garvey has had since leaving baseball, I recall is this incident and say: Why doesn’t this surprise me?

Some background: One of the Red Sox pitchers is Tim Wakefield, and he exclusively throws a knuckleball, which is one of the hardest pitches to catch because the ball does not spin and just floats all over the place. Mirabelli had been the back up catcher for the Sox for the past 4 years and was Wakefield’s personal catcher because he was so adept at catching the knuckleball. That was until he was traded last off season for second baseman Mark Loretta. The intent was for the Sox to have newly acquired catcher Josh Bard be Wakefield’s new catcher. That unfortunately did not work out and in a last minute deal, the Sox re-acquired Mirabelli on Monday so he could catch Wakefield’s start against the Yankees. He was literally flown across country and given a police escort in order to get to the game with about 10 minutes to spare before the first pitch.

Its only 5 games into the season with 157 to go, but you have got to love the way the standings look these days. How’s Johnny doing?

And as irony would have it, the Red Sox lost last night to the White Sox in typical Red Sox fashion, when an error by Tony Graffanino led to a 5 run inning for Chicago. As the NY Times put it, “Just because the Red Sox won the World Series last season does not mean that baseball cannont torture them on occasion.”

Photo of World Series Champions banner from Opening Day at Fenway Park. The Red Sox went on to beat the Yankees 8-1.

Well, here we are on the eve of another opening day of the baseball season. The off season has been quite active, with all the free agent signings, the capital of our country finally getting a baseball team (Go Nationals! For the record, I very much preferred naming the team the Senators than the Nationals. The Senators have much more historical significance in my mind. At least they are using the old Senators cap designs), and the ugly steriod scandal. But above all that, there is a collective glow of happiness coming from the greater New England region and Red Sox Nation that has still not worn off from the Red Sox run to the 2004 World Series Championship. So while there are definitely some serious issues (steriods) and inequalities (no revenue sharing) still present on the baseball landscape, you can’t help but get excited about Opening Day. It means summer is almost here.

Play ball!!

Incredibly, the New England Patriots won Super Bowl XXXIX for their third championship in four years. Let me repeat that…their third Super Bowl championship in four years. The Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys of the mid 1990′s are the only two teams to accomplish that feat in NFL history.

Now for those of us fans who followed this franchise in the era of Steve Grogan, Sam Cunningham, Tony Eason, et al, to witness this run of excellence is completely unfathomable. I remember not too long ago when they were 1-15 and were just a complete joke of a NFL franchise. So I guess that’s what makes this string of victories so sweet. And to have two Patriots Super Bowl championships sandwich a Red Sox World Series victory…too much fun and happiness for this New England sports fan to comprehend. Lets do it again next year!!

Enjoy this now, kids. You may never see this happen again. Congrats to the Patriots for another amazing year.

This week, Major League Baseball unveiled the Washington Nationals, who are essentially the new look Montral Expos. I am very happy and excited that baseball is returning to Washington DC. I have always had an issue with the fact that our Nation’s capital did not have a baseball team. From what I have seen, the new look of the Nationals’ logo is pretty good looking. I must admit though, I was dissapointed that they did not name the team the Senators. From a baseball purist perspective, the name Senators has that old baseball aura to it, going back to the day of Walter Johnson, one of the greatest pitchers in basball history. While there is dissapointment in them not adopting the Senators as the nickname, I am happy they are using the same cap design as the old Senators.

I never thought I would see the day.

The last time the Red Sox were in the World Series was when I was a Freshman in college. I only hope that it will not be another 18 years until their next visit. I am going to savor this time, I am going to root like I never have for my Red Sox. Its going to be a great series. I have a lot of respect for the St. Louis Cardinals franchise, team and the city. But the Sox are going to win…they have to win, they must win.

Here is just a fantastic article from Bill Simmons (aka The Sports Guy) of ESPN that again sums up the state of being a Red Sox fan during this state of sheer extacy. A far cry from his article last year when the Sox did not fair as well against the Yanks.

Incredibly, the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 games lead by the Yankees and won the AL Championship Series by winning 4 straignt games against the Yankees. A week ago, I never thought they could do it. After Game 3, I was pretty reseved to the fact that we were again going to lose to the Yankees in the playoffs. Maybe they would win one or two games, but never did I expect 4 in a row. I am still having a difficult time believing they did it and I’m having a hard time expressing into words just how happy and proud I am of the Red Sox. Apparently I’m not the only one struggling for words…even Bob Ryan from the Boston Globe, one who is never at a loss for something to say about Boston sports, was having a form of overjoyed writer’s block, And to achieve such a feat against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium. Its just too good!! It does not get any better!! They will always be the first team in MLB history to blow a 3-0 lead. And the Red Sox will always be the first team to have come back from such a deficit.

I hope they do not get too caught up in the greatness and emotion of this series and lose sight of the real goal – winning the World Series, because there is more baseball to be played against either the Astros or Cardinals. Not winning it all will definitely take something away from their incredible victory. However, winning it all, and going through the NY Yankees and Yankee Stadium to do it, would elevate this team on a plane reached by few teams in the annals of Sports.

As Bob Ryan from the Boston Globe wrote today, “I need a beer.”

I don’t know what team the Yankees were playing during the first two games of this series, but it wasn’t the Red Sox I watched most of this season. During the first game, I was so disgusted I turned the TV off after the 6th Inning. I could not bear the thought of suffering through another Red Sox comeback that got agonizingly close but fell short again, and again. For the second game, I managed to sit through the whole fiasco only because 3 runs against Jon Leiber did not seem like such an insurmountable lead. But I guess it was. I had thought that at worst we would leave the Bronx tied 1-1, but I guess I didn’t dig deep enough into the chasm of dispair. And Game Three…forget it! Being 3 games down is a huge hole to dig out of. This thing is over.

New owners, new pretty boy GM, new injured ace pitcher…same result. Another cold winter wondering what went wrong. Its football season.

Tonight begins another chapter in the Yankees versus Red Sox series. While there is great anamosity between the franchises and the players, I refrain from calling it a rivalry because as we all know, the results have been pretty lopsided since the Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees back in 1918. Over the past few years, its been a dead heat, but on the long term, the Yanks and their 26 Championships is pretty daunting.

I am approaching this with an open mind. I am a Red Sox fan, so I know not to do too much yapping until its over. I think the Sox have as good a chance as any to win this series, and right now, that is as far ahead as I am looking.

This can’t be happening. Last week, Sports Illustrated put Tom Brady and my New England Patriots on the cover of their NFL Preview issue (and then have the gaul to not even put an article about the team in the issue!). Then this week, SI puts Curt Schilling and my Boston Red Sox on the cover. Consipiracy theorists will note that Sports Illustrated is edited in New York City and that the Managing Editor, knowing full well about the “SI Jinx”, must be a Yankee fan.

Sure, its nice that two of my favorite teams are part what is proabably a unique situation (two different teams from two of the major sports, from the same marketplace, gracing back-to-back covers of Sports Illustrated…I’d love to know if this has happened before). However, I think I speak for everyone in Red Sox Nation, and Patriots Nation in asking the editors of Sports Illustrated to please find another set of teams to put on the cover at this time. The Red Sox are playing brilliantly these days and they don’t need any supernatural forces cooling them down. And they have famously had more than enough trouble winning championships in the past 82 years, while repeating as Super Bowl champions is not exactly the easiest task, even if the Patriots have vastly improved themselves this year vs. their 2003 championship team.

As most sports fans know, there has been a strange but un-scientific curse on some of those who have appeared on the SI cover during critical points in their season or career. The curse has resulted in critical losses by teams appearing on the cover, and season ending injuries for star players, and just strange happenings to the person or team that has appeared on the cover.

With the Red Sox, a measure of restraint is always in order. There’s always the seed of doubt that the Sox are merely setting the region up for another mind-bending, soul-crushing disappointment. A Sox ticket to a September game should come stamped with a surgeon general’s warning. Maybe flashing Cleveland’s 16-0 lead over the Yankees on the center-field board in the Angel eighth was a little over the top.

I think this is the perspective I need to take. This is the Red Sox, you know. I will try not to look too far ahead. But man, last night was a good night in baseball.

This is just a cool picture of Curt Shilling. Found it on Yahoo! Sports. Its as if you know he is just about to throw a pea past that chump Angels hitter in the batters box. The Sox are entering a very critical point in the season as they are playing the next nine games against the Angels, Rangers and A’s, the best teams of the AL West and the main competitors in the Wild Card. The Red Sox have had a scorching August, reducing the lead of the Yankees from 10.5 games to just 4.5. If they can come out of the next nine games 6-3 and at the same time have the Yankees win just 4 or 5, I, and probably most in Red Sox Nation, would be very happy.

Overall, I thought Pittsburgh was a really interesting city. There were many aspect of the town that I liked including the new stadiums they have for the Pirates and the Steelers. The houses in certain areas of the city were amazing. I could also tell that it was a city that had seen its better days and is now having a sort of resurgance. I hope it continues and I look forward to visiting the area again soon.

And speaking of Baseball, I also checked out the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s traveling “Baseball as America” exhibit, currently at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History (Why this exhibit is at the Natural History museum is beyond me).

Baseball has once again shot itself in the foot. I love the game, I follow it passionately. But they have to get these idiots out of the front office and get some people to run the show that can effectively balance and build on the storied history of the game while at the same time market the sport to fans young and old. That is not an easy task, but I am confident someone is out there that could do it. Bob Costas for Commissioner!

Once again, the Red Sox have been trumped by the Yankees as the “Evil Empire” agreed with the Texas Rangers to pick up Alex Rodriguez, not 8 weeks after the Sox could not get it done. Its just typical. I am bitter. Different Red Sox ownership, same result. Yanks get the best of the Sox. The Sox made some great moves this off season picking up Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke, and they did pull out all the stops to land A-Rod, which I must commend them for. And lets not forget that this is the reigning MVP of the American League. But at the end of the day, this season, and all the remaining 7 seasons that A-Rod is a member of the NY Yankees, will be evaluated in part relative to the Sox’ failure to get the A-Rod for Manny deal done this winter. Nothing less than the Red Sox winning it all sometime soon will do. Otherwise, ownership and management will always be questioned – What if they did get A-Rod?

What this deal really does is illustrate a system in baseball that is woefully out of whack. The Red Sox have a new system in place where they value production and some level of fiscal sanity, which I definitely respect, but that was the deal breaker in the A-Rod negotiations (Larry “Evil Empire” Luccinno did not help any, but that’s another story) and from this fan’s perspective, the reality is that the Sox did not get it done and the Yankees did. Don’t get me wrong, the Red Sox are big spenders too, but they are still being out-spent by $70 Million!! The Yankees will now have almost a $200 Million dollar payroll for its team. That is 300% more than the Florida Marlins and 400% more than the Milwaukee Brewers. They have 6 of the top 15 salaries, and in turn, players, in Major League Baseball. That is just wrong. Baseball needs to fix the system now. It needs to take the blueprint from the NFL and replicate it, word for word, line for line, dollar for dollar.

I think the most frustrating thing is that I am residing in the NYC area watching all this go down, and all I hear and read is about A-Rod and the snickering of the Yankee fans towards the Red Sox. That is the most frustrating. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself since the game needs to be played on the field, and I am confident that the Red Sox have a solid team that is actually better than last year’s team. But all the good work that was done by the Red Sox this off season was blown away by the Yankees in one week and now we have to watch A-Rod play for the Yankees for the next 7 years and wonder “What if…”. This is a tough pill to swallow.

The Red Sox just did not get it done. And you could just feel it as the game progressed. They had the lead and they let it slip away. In this case, it was completely inept game management by Grady Little, the Red Sox manager. He should be fired by next month. He should have brought in Alan Embree from the bullpen in the 8th to take over for Pedro. The bullpen was pitching great – Timlin was fantastic, Embree was solid as was Williamson. It was so obvious. Is he really that dumb? Doesn’t he realize that any player is going to say “I’m fine” no matter how they really feel? And putting in Wakefield was not exactly the best move either. Yes, the Sox would not have been there without him after his two amazing performances eariler in the series, but he was just not the right pitcher for that situation.

But the Sox were playing with fire throughout the playoffs and it finally came back to haunt them. The only reason they were in the ALCS was because of the ineptitude of the Oakland A’s and their failure to close out the series. And between Millar, Ortiz, Mueller and especially Nomar, I think they were barely at the “Mendoza Line” (batting average of .200) with maybe 15 RBIs collectively . And Manny Ramirez could not drive in runners in scoring position to save his life. As always, good pitching trumps good hitting and that was especially evident for the Red Sox in these playoffs – not just against the Yankees but against the Athletics as well.

Sadly, the dreams of a Cubs vs. Red Sox series went up in smoke in the most painful of ways for both cities and both franchises. And the worst part is that now I have to deal with those blasted Yankee fans.

Go Florida!!!!