Silent Sigh

No comment...

Let's roll

Good news: Schilling's ready.

"I got through Spring Training," he said. "I'm healthy; my arm feels good. It starts on Monday."

Which won't come a moment too soon for Schilling.

The same goes for me. I am eagerly awaiting Opening Day (8:05pm CET, Monday - thank you, Texas Rangers), but you will notice from the right-hand side of the page that I've also launched the official countdown to my Fenway pilgrimage.

I can't wait. Bring it on.

Déjà vu

So somebody in the Red Sox organisation is reading my blog. Guys, that whole thing about regular brawls? I was just kidding...

A lot is made of the Red Sox / Yankees rivalry, but if it's fights and brawls you're looking for, Red Sox / Devil Rays games are the place to go. There's been a lot of bad blood between the two clubs over the past three seasons, and it looks like it's going to continue. After the game everybody seemed to murmur the right platitudes about this not carrying over into the regular season, but I'm not sure that Julian Tavarez is going to take kindly to this particular remark, as amusing as it is:

"Yeah, it just kind of glazed," Gathright said. "He hits like a woman."

Something tells me it's going to be an interesting season in Red Sox Nation.

The wisdom of Tito

I would like to propose that, during the 2006 season, the Red Sox get into a brawl at least once a week, so that we get to hear the wit and wisdom of Tito on a regular basis. Every time the Red Sox get into a fight or a slanging match with their opponents, Francona has the right words to defuse any potential controversy:

With Beckett still chirping, Howard walked toward the dugout, finally throwing his glove down to prepare for a fight. Beckett attempted to ascend the stairs to meet him, only to be intercepted by teammates as a scrum formed in foul territory and bullpens emptied. Rudy Seanez, who participates in ultimate fighting during the offseason, led the relievers' charge.

"I told him he was a little slow," Francona said of Seanez' arrival.

Smile, deal with it and move on. This man was made to manage the Boston Red Sox.

Catching up

I've been meaning to link to this post by Jere all week, but hadn't got round to it. He does a great job of expressing the struggles that fans of teams face when a favourite player is traded.

I can see the logic behind the Bronson / Wily Mo trade, but it's hard to see straight when one half of the deal was a guy who took less money than he was worth to stay with a team he loved, only to find that he'd under-priced himself out of town.

When trades go down, one of the most often-quoted ideas is that we as fans will get over X,Y or Z being traded to / away from the team because we root for the laundry. We repeat the phrase as a kind of protective mantra that we know will help us get through the season without losing our minds: "We'll be OK because we love the Sox".

So, we say that we root for the laundry, but it's not an abstract concept - we're talking about real Red Sox jerseys worn by real Red Sox players. And this then raises the interesting and age-old question of how much we want our team to win. What are we prepared to sacrifice in order to see them bring home a championship? If the Red Sox trade away a favourite (or, conversely, trade for an asshole) can we really root wholeheartedly for the laundry? I don't know what the majority of fans would say, but my fandom has its limits. Do I want my team to win? Of course - only an idiot would say the opposite. Do I want my team to win at the expense of me actually liking the nine guys on the field? I'm not so sure (and neither are others in other major sports).

I don't want to lose sight of the topic here, so before I go any further I want to say that none of this is a reflection on Wily Mo Pena. What I'm getting at - and what Jere expresses perfectly - is that there are limits to people's fandom and their willingness to root for the laundry. If you take rooting for the laundry to its logical conclusion, then you will end up believing that everything is good if it helps the team win - the end justifies the means. From there it is but one short step to "baseball is a business", the ultimate bottom line being to win a championship.

Jere counters that particular argument:

I'd like to propose the following notion: Baseball is not a business. There, I proverbially said it. "Major League Baseball" is a business. The game played within that league is, obviously, baseball. But that doesn't make "baseball," as a whole, a business. If it was, we wouldn't go to the games, sit in the stands, cheer, boo, or write pages and pages about it. We wouldn't cry either of the two tear groups over it.
[...]
I want to like players and be able to grow attached without thinking that they're just going to be tossed out as soon as they have a bad month. I love seeing my team win because they had more heart than the team that was meticulously put together with computers. And I don't just blindly love every guy. Read my thoughts on Edgar Renteria. I just think there should be a lot of factors that go into building and maintaining a ballclub. It shouldn't all be based on stats, and projections that mean nothing.

I think it's an interesting point of view. I want my team to win, but I don't want that to completely exclude the human aspect:

The difference between the Red Sox and Microsoft is that the stock we put into the Sox is emotional. Stockholders of a company get paid in actual currency when their favorite does well. We get something, good or bad, that can't be measured in loonies and twonies.

There's nothing to say that Wily Mo won't be a huge megastar in Boston, a key cog in a championship-winning team, but all we have now are a bunch of promises we paid for with a guy who actually loved playing in Boston, who was undoubtedly grateful for the second chance that the Red Sox gave him and who really wanted to stay. It's not the end of the world, but it makes us stop and think about how our ballclub - and it is our ballclub, no matter what John Henry might think - is run and what we want from it, which is never a bad thing.

Licence To Thrill

I remember a conversation I had many moons ago, whilst in the process of purchasing my first real audio system from a local hi-fi specialist, where one of the guys who worked in the shop shared his theory about the role of good quality audio equipment. He said that people obviously buy good hi-fi to listen to their favourite music under the best possible conditions, but he also pointed out that one of the other roles of the equipment was to provide you with the means of discovering music you might not otherwise have listened to.

The shop encouraged multiple visits and many hours of listening before any major purchase, and prospective buyers were asked to bring in favourtite CDs to listen to. However, the shop had a whole stack of other stuff that it played for people for the following reason - if you're a Springsteen fan, then Born To Run is going to sound great whether you listen to it on a £1000 CD player or on a crappy car radio; what the £1000 CD player allows you to do is discover that Van Morrison and Stravinsky are worth listening to as well.

What is true for quality hi-fi also holds true for quality writing. Certain writers - in this case, certain bloggers - have a gift which allows them to transpose their enthusiasm for a particular subject into great writing, even if the subject in question is somewhat off the reader's beaten track. If you'll allow me to run with the analogy for a second, baseball is my Born To Run - I'll happily read about it all day, whatever the source. However, if you can get me to not only read but be fascinated by posts on character actor Charles Lane and Nine Inch Nails, then I think that you're doing something right somewhere.

I know I've plugged both Sheila and Beth before, but I make no apologies for doing it again. If you read their blogs already, then you'll know what I'm talking about - that golden combination of enthusiasm, humour, insight and just damn good writing; if you don't read their stuff on a regular basis, then I can only raise my eyes to the heavens and pray that you see the error of your ways before it's too late.

In case you still need convincing, I'll leave Sheila - in a personal, Baseball Desert "on this day in history" excerpt - to have the last word. From The Ferry:

The World Trade Center, the Atrium, the Concourse, the floating dock ... all of that stuff, on my Monday nights, felt like that for me. I never got used to it. I never was "over" it. I never strolled through there, not noticing where I was. This may sound like retrospective romanticizing, but I assure you it is not. I have the diary entries for my Monday evenings for over 2 years to prove it. It was almost as though the class I was taking was incidental, and not really important. The REAL thing to learn was from the concrete, and the space, and the quiet down there at that time of night.

It's like being able to reach out and hold a slice of the past. Wonderful stuff...

All In The Game

Isn't it always the way? Just one day after my nine-year-old daughter finally noticed another player on the Red Sox besides David Ortiz ("ça, c'est Big Papi, numéro trente-quatre"), Bronson - the object of her attention - is on his way out of town.

Reb puts it perfectly:

In his eagerness to stay and play for the Nation, Bronson made a miscalculation. He was too generous with his hometown discount. He signed so far below market value that his contract became coveted throughout the league, and it was only a matter of time before an offer was made that could not be refused.

Still, it's not all doom and gloom - we traded a guy who had 100 strikeouts last year and in return got a guy who had 116, so we're already ahead of the game, right?

STFD & STFU

Yeah, you heard me right - I'm talking to you and you.

Seriously, Gary, you can stand up in front of baseball fans with $26m of salary for the past two years in your pocket and tell us with a straight face that you're "not comfortable"? It's not in my nature to wish serious injury on players, but I'm starting to think I should make an exception for you.

Oh, and David? I just need you to explain how it's OK for you to go on record basically calling Bud Selig an asshole - true as it might be - but it's not OK for Tito to share with the world your little hissy fit about you - with your offseason surgery and your three-inning spring training - not being the Red Sox' #2 starter in April. I like having you on the team, David, I really do, but I'm losing patience very quickly. If you want to manage, then retire from the game and manage - if not, then shut the fuck up and let Tito do his job.

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If either of the 'gentlemen' above need a lesson on how to go about business, then they should take a look at this. Lazo basically won the game for the Cubans with his relief effort, and in doing so ruled himself out of pitching in the final against Japan on Monday. Did he whine after the game? No he did not:

"I am a starting pitcher when I play for my hometown in Cuba," he said. "Last season, for example, I won 20 games as a starter for my Province team. The pitchers here all have been starters at some point in their careers and right now the manager needed a relief pitcher that could come in and pitch three or four innings.

"We needed a strong stopper, a strong closer, and that's what happened."

Here endeth today's lesson.

Stargazer

No special reasons for posting this except:
1) it's a good photograph (*tip of the cap to Reuters*);
2) I like Japan's matt-finish batting helmets;
3) I can't wait for the two WBC semi-finals tonight.

OK - diversion over. Please continue what you were doing.

WBC = We'll Be Counting

And what we'll be counting are the years until the next one. Tom Verducci makes a very good point:

In the press box during that U.S.-South Africa game, I was talking with Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau when he made a sharp observation: "Next year we'll all be missing the World Baseball Classic.'' He's right. In the non-Classic years we'll miss the tension, the competition, the nationalism, the intrigue and the excitement of discovery -- new players, new styles, new trippy bats from the Japanese. It's apparent from the start: We have an instant classic.

Jonny: be good

The Joy of Sox points us in the direction of a piece in the Globe on Jonathan Papelbon.

Papelbon may or may not be the second coming of Roger Clemens, but he seems, for the moment at least, to have his head screwed on right and an attitude that will take him far. The kid had the potential to be huge, but he knows that his true value can only be measured as part of a cohesive unit:

"Yeah, I want to start," Papelbon says. "That's what I think I'm best at. But we've got guys who can do that.And if we've got guys who can do that, and we're winning ballgames, then I don't want to start."

Add a #58 t-shirt to my merchandising wish list.

The Final Countdown

There were four in the bed
and the little one said
"Roll over, roll over",
So they all rolled over and one fell out...

The U.S. team just couldn't get it done at the plate - one run on three hits was all they could muster against Mexico. Even with the help of their old friend Bob Davidson - who ruled a clear home run off the foul pole to be a double - they still came up short, and so the semi-finals of the WBC will be a USA-free event: Cuba vs. the Dominican Republic tomorrow at 3pm ET, followed by Korea vs. Japan at 10pm ET.

The blown call ended up not factoring in the final result, but it could easily have done so. Only some timely hitting by the Mexicans immediately after the incident prevented Davidson's error from eliminating Team Japan, which would have been both extremely unfair to the Japanese and extremely embarrassing for Major League Baseball. It's clear that certain aspects of the tournament need to be tweaked if it is to become a permanent and successful fixture on the baseball calendar, and the umpiring is one of them. It's tough enough to get fans and players on board as it is, without giving them another reason to dismiss the WBC out of hand, so this really needs to be sorted out for next time around. The ESPN announcers said last night that the reason the regular Major League umpires weren't working the WBC was that they hadn't been offered enough money. If that's true, then it's a no-brainer for Bud Selig - pay them what they're asking for and help reduce the margin for error in the tournament.

A word on the Mexican team, who should be applauded for the spirit in which they played the game. Admittedly, the chances of them qualifying were extremely slim, but they were nonetheless there. However, they didn't try to be cute and play for a 0-0 game going into the 13th inning - they played for the win. The most surreal moment of the game came just after the home-run-turned-double, when Mexico manager Paquin Estrada came out to argue the call, effectively making him a campaigner for his team's elimination from the tournament. In the end, though, there was more national pride to be drawn from beating the U.S. team than there was in trying to manufacture a bizarre qualification for themselves. Japan was the immediate beneficiary, but the whole image of the WBC was the better for it.

Who will now be crowned WBC champion on Monday night? To be honest, I haven't the faintest idea - any one of these teams could win the tournament. I'm still rooting for the Dominican Republic, but above and beyond that, I'm rooting for three great games of baseball which will provide a fitting conclusion to the World Baseball Classic. It's been a blast so far, and I'm hoping that the finale will carry us on a wave of euphoria through to the start of the regular season.

So, go DR. But more than that, go baseball!

The Fever

Work stuff* has kept me away from the WBC over the last couple of days, but I'm slowly catching up, thanks to all the other baseball fans out there who have tuned in to the tournament just to have a look and have come away hooked. Sam sums it up pretty well:

I don't care what George Steinbrenner or David Wells think. Bud Selig got something right with this thing. If you don't love this, you don't love baseball.

The last semi-final spot will be decided tonight, when the U.S. faces Mexico. As with the final games of Round 1, there are a range of possible scenarios and outcomes. The simplest outcome is a U.S. win, which would take them to the Final Four, but there are some other wonderfully convoluted routes they could take to get there, just as there are slim-but-nonetheless-possible shots for Japan and even Mexico. From MLB.com:

U.S. advances if:

It defeats Mexico

It loses to Mexico, allowing 1 run in a regulation game (8 innings in the field)

It loses to Mexico, but does not allow a 2nd run until after it has played 8 2/3 innings in the field

It loses to Mexico, but does not allow a 3rd run until after it has played 12 1/3 innings in the field

It ties with Mexico, allowing 3 runs in 14 innings

Japan advances if:

The U.S. loses to Mexico, and allows 2 runs or more before it has played 8 2/3 innings in the field

The U.S. loses to Mexico, and allows 3 runs or more before it has played 12 1/3 innings in the field

Mexico advances if:

It defeats the U.S., 3-0, in 13 innings

Does anyone know the Spanish for "minute window of opportunity"?

Still, should the unthinkable actually happen and the U.S. be eliminated from the WBC, all would not be lost, according to ESPN's Eric Neel:

And let's close with this: A USA-less final weekend could mean more coverage [...] of Big Papi. Because really, who can ever get enough of Big Papi?

Eric, we salute you.

*The dwindling enthusiasm I have for travelling for work reached an all-time low yesterday, when I managed to spend the day in Amsterdam without getting a whiff of fresh air, let alone anything else. The day went like this: apartment - parking garage - car - airport parking garage - airport lounge - plane - airport conference centre - airport lounge - plane - airport parking garage - car - parking garage - apartment. Oh, how I sometimes long for the days when I never went anywhere.

Pimp Slapp'd

David Ortiz is hitting a paltry .214 in the WBC, with only 4 hits to his name. However, of those four hits, three have been home runs, and we're not talking long fly balls that just dropped over the fence. Last night Ortiz seemed to take exception to the Cuban pitchers pitching high and tight against his Dominican teammates, and having blasted one out of Hiram Bithorn Stadium, he engaged a little Dominican grandstanding:

He watched it go, flipped the bat and had a brief word to say to the Cuban catcher (I'm guessing: "Hey, Pestano - you see that? That ball is getting out of here in a hurry. Should have pitched me high and tight too, amigo...") before heading off on his home run trot.

I'm not much of a fan of grandstanding, but sometimes it just fits the moment, and yesterday's game was a perfect example. Check it out.

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In other news:

Ouch...

Mercy Street?

So, Round 1 of the WBC is over. And what have we learned? Dodger Thoughts' Jon Weisman, writing on Thursday in Sports Illustrated, suggests that the first thing we've learned so far is how things should not be done.

I don't agree with Weisman. Despite the artificial way the teams have been constructed, the national angle can't be neglected. Even if the games are stopped only by the mercy rule it's important to let countries measure themselves against each other. Mixing up the teams as Weisman suggests wouldn't generate the same motivation and certainly wouldn't generate the same emotions as having national teams play. The current format of the WBC is already flexible (witness the 'requirements' for playing for certain countries), but the basic country vs. country idea shouldn't be changed.

The other thing that bothers me about Weisman's article is that it smacks slightly of chauvinism - "what a privilege and an honour it is for Italian / South African / Dutch players to play alongside Pujols, Chipper, Ichiro & co." It is, of course, but there's as much to be learned by playing against them as there is with them, even if you end up on the wrong end of a 17-0 scoreline.

If this sounds like feeding the Christians to the lions, you need look no further than soccer as a prime example of how this can actually work. Soccer was never a big deal in the U.S. - at grass roots level - until the U.S. team started to made good showings in the World Cup. But nobody at FIFA said: "How about taking the players from the U.S., Ecuador and Tunisia and letting them play alongside the Brazilians, the Germans and the Dutch?" Each country sinks or swims on its own merits, but that is the essential beauty of the tournament. Countries come and play, learn from their experience and hopefully come back stronger and better next time. Should the WBC become a regular thing, I am willing to bet that South Africa won't get beaten up again like they did yesterday.

Mixing up the teams would dilute the intesity level of the tournament, because then it really would be nothing more than a glorified exhibition, a two-week All Star break. Anyone who watched Clemens pitch or Griffey hit yesterday can vouch for the fact that they weren't phoning it in - the Canada game had clearly been a wake-up call for the U.S. squad, who were playing with their backs to the wall, and it showed. You can argue that the crowd only got 5 innings for their money, but they got five innings of real baseball, not five innings of All Star baseball.

I say keep the format. Having a tournament organised by country - even if there is an imbalance in the level of play - is a lot more fun than creating 12 or 16 teams of more-or-less equal ability. Natural selection means that, more often than not, the big boys will make it through to the final stages, but it's important to keep the David vs. Goliath matchups that give the outsider that elusive shot at the dream.

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If you're looking for proof that the WBC is a success, at least in this little corner of the Baseball Desert, then just consider that, having spent four months obsessing over the slightest hint of news from New England, right now I have very little idea of what is going on in Red Sox Nation. But fear not - I plan on putting that right this evening: Schilling on the hill against the Pirates. Go Sox!

It's Never Too Late...

...to link to an interesting post on the WBC. I somehow missed Brian's post first time around, but the points he makes are still valid.

All this event needs is history behind it. Rivalries need to be formed. Games need to be won in miraculous fashion and painful, perhaps, controversial losses need to occur. What the WBC needs most is passion. Right now, fans in the States just don't have an emotional investment. That kind of intensity, one which fuels debate over team selection and drives up television ratings, can only be built over time. This first WBC is just the platform on which that emotion will be built.

Those rivalries are slowly being formed or, in some cases, are being rekindled. The intensity is already there. Games have been won and lost in painful fashion and today sees a must-win game for the U.S.

The one complaint I've heard repeatedly is that a lot of the games so far have been at times when most people in the U.S. are at work. Well that is about to change with the start of Round 2 on Sunday - the majority of the games will begin at 7pm or 8pm ET. Of course, that means that we Europeans are now screwed if we want to watch the games, but we'll deal with it - it pretty much comes with the territory if you are a baseball fan on the other side of the Atlantic. And what's a late night when there's a Cuba / Puerto Rico matchup on the menu?

All things considered, the WBC is definitely warming up. The tournament is still flawed, but people are beginning to take a genuine interest in what is going on, and not just in Pool B. Time will tell if this momentum will be enough to take the Classic through to a second edition, but it's off to a good start.

Vive le baseball!

North Country Boy

If you thought that Canada was going to be a pushover for the U.S. team, then it's time to think again. Fuelled by a stellar afternoon from Adam Stern (3-for-4, including a triple and an inside-the-park homer, 4 RBIs and two great catches in center field) and some tough pitching from a bunch of minor-league players, Team Canada held off a sixth-inning six-run surge by the U.S. (including a grand slam by Jason Varitek) to score a surprise victory.

Canada now has the upper hand in Pool B, with a 2-0 record, but all is still left to play for. If Mexico beats Canada tonight and the U.S. beats South Africa tomorrow, then three teams will finish with a 2-1 record. According to WBC rules, ties are broken in the following order of priority:

1. The winner of head-to-head games between the tied teams;
2. The team allowing the fewest runs per nine innings (RA/9) in head-to-head games between the tied teams;
3. The team allowing the fewest earned runs per nine innings (ERA) in head-to-head games between the tied teams;
4. The team with the highest highest batting average (AVG) in head-to-head games between the tied teams;
5. Drawing of lots, conducted by WBCI.

If the pool plays out as outlined above, tiebreaker no. 1 wouldn't be much help, because each of the three teams would have one head-to-head win, so it may all go down to the number of runs / earned runs allowed.

Of course, since all of these theories are on paper and the games are in fact being played on grass, none of the above may happen. Which is, when you think about it, baseball's raison d'être and the reason we're all watching in the first place.

New Light Through Old Windows

I agree with Jayson Stark - if you didn't watch the Venezuela / Dominican Republic game because this whole World Baseball Classic thing is a pointless waste of time, it's your loss. The cynics amongst you will no doubt point out that Stark works - surprise, surprise - for the company which has the broadcasting rights to the tournament, but I don't work for them, and I'm telling you it was a hell of a game.

I think that a lot of the reticence fans have shown towards the WBC stems from a blinkered vision of the game of baseball. In the minds of many people the idea of baseball seems intrinsically linked to baseball in the major leagues. After all, this is what most of us are familiar with, year in and year out - 30 professional teams representing 30 American cities, each playing 162 games a year.

The WBC is another vision of the same thing, but key is to remember is that although players are same, the underlying theme is very different. Fans feel cheated and threatened: Why are our players playing in the WBC instead of playing in Spring Training? And what about the risks of injury? It's all very "me, me, me". But what about the players themselves? They're giving up a hell of a lot to take part in the WBC - time that could be spent getting to know new teammates and working on their game - and, as far as I know, they're not getting paid anything extra for their trouble. And yet there are a huge number of major leaguers playing in the WBC. Why? Because they're getting paid in a currency that sometimes gets forgotten: national pride.

Yesterday's game was unlike anything I've ever seen at a baseball game. Not just the noise, nor the festivities, nor the fact that the only crowd sounds you could hear on ESPN were people yelling in Spanish, but the intensity of the players. That's not to say that these guys are not intense when they play for their clubs, but this was a different kind of intensity, fuelled by the desire to represent their country.

There was an All-Star feel to the game. The top two-thirds of the Dominican lineup read: Soriano, Tejada, Pujols, Ortiz, Alou and Beltre (which I'm sure had been giving Venezuela manager Luis Sojo nightmares for weeks); the starting pitchers were Bartolo Colon and Johan Santana, relived by Miguel Batista and Carlos Zambrana respectively. However, there's also an All-Star feeling at the All-Star Game, but that doesn't make it an exciting evening of baseball. Yesterday's game, though, had a strange mix of Caribbean enthusiasm and World Series intensity. Players were quick to show disagreement or frustration with umpires' calls - not overtly, but clearly enough - but when they were up at the plate or staring down from the mound, you could almost reach out a grab a fistful of tension.

That tension is what makes the WBC worth staging and worth watching. There has been a lot of debate as to the right date for such an event, but at the end of the day, there'll never be an ideal time: spring is too early and players risk injury; two weeks in midsummer would upset pennant races that are heating up; after the World Series, players are just too tired and beaten up after a long season to make it worthwhile. So spring it is, at least for now. One of the advantages of a spring tournament is a simple point that I've been stressing since the start - what the WBC gives us is truly competitive and fascinating baseball in early March, at a time when we're used to seeing marquee players play three or four innings and then head for the showers. The only player to come out of the Dominican lineup last night was Soriano, and it was clear that none of the players out there wanted to leave the game with Venezuela slowly clawing its way back. Tell me the last time you saw that in Spring Training.

Outside of the quality and intensity of the baseball being played, there are other less obvious benefits to be had from playing in the WBC. David Ortiz hit a home run off Johan Santana in the second inning yesterday. This is something that could have happened in any one of a number of Spring Training games, and people would have said: "Fugeddaboutit - don't mean nothin' in Spring Training." Probably both players involved would have said the same thing too. But given what was at stake yesterday, I'm betting that at some point between June 13 and June 15, Ortiz and Santana are going to be thinking about that home run. A small advantage, maybe, but pennants have been known to turn on a single home run.

As far as the benefits for major league teams are concerned, this is clutching at straws, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, because the real validation of the WBC comes from the players themselves, no matter what flag they're playing under:

"I've never had a better feeling in my life," [US pitcher Jake] Peavy said. "It was the coolest thing I have ever done when Team USA took the field today."

The feeling was probably best expressed by Miguel Tejada, who, after a winter of discontent, suddenly found exactly the right words to say:

"We've dreamed about this for a long time," said Tejada, who played shortstop for this Dominican Dream team. "And I think every player has been doing the same thing -- not just the Dominican players but the players for each country. ... When we won, we all said in the clubhouse, 'What we did [in this game], we just did for our country.' Our country is so excited to have all our major league players playing.

"So this was their gift -- what happened today."

This particular fan would like to express his sincerest thanks.

Goodbye

Kirby Puckett, RIP.

For me his name will always be associated with my gradual discovery of the game of baseball. My love at first sight in 1986 was followed by the discovery of a 1987 Twins team which had more grit than glamour, but whose names I can still remember today: Gaetti, Gagne, Lombardozzi, Gladden, Hrbek, Viola, Blyleven and Puckett.

One of baseball's good guys will be missed.

Take It Easy

So this is how it went last night:

• Finish up work quickly
• Catch early train
• Rush home from station, carting heavy laptop and a ton of paperwork, in time for 1pm ET game
  
• Log on to MLB.com
• Curse MLB.com, Bud Selig and anyone else you can think of for not broadcasting Venezuela / Dominican Republic game
• Resign self to a couple of hours' quality reading time before next shot at live WBC game
• Log back on to MLB.com for Mexico / USA game
• Repeat whole "A pox on you all!" thing when it turns out that game is not being broadcast either
• In desperation, glance at date to check that yesterday was indeed... erm... March... erm... 7th?
• Slap self hard around head

Whaddya mean, "It's time the season got under way"?

Back In The Saddle Again

When baseball pretty much takes over your life for seven months of the year, the offseason can seem interminable. This is one of the reasons that I've been enthusiastic about the WBC - if nothing else, it's competitive baseball in the month of March (and if you think that the participants are taking it easy, check out the delight of the South Korean team after their upset of Japan):


I've watched some of the WBC games so far and have thoroughly enjoyed them - not that that's any kind of reference, because as long as there are nine guys chasing a little white ball around a field, I'll watch. And I'll certainly be in front of my PC tonight to check out the Dominican Republic vs. Venezuela and Mexico vs. the US. However, it was only on Saturday evening that I saw one of the true indicators that the baseball season is really approaching: a spring training game on NESN, and the return of Remy and Orsillo.

From what I read and hear across Red Sox Nation Rem Dawg and Orsillo are almost universally loved. During the regular season, they are a great team to have covering a game, with a perfect balance of knowledge, insight and humour, but during spring training, they seem to turn it up one notch. They are the broadcasting team that goes up to 11 - they're still broadcasting the game, but the pauses in between the baseball action are filled with everything from musings on Olympic figure skating to lobbying for better conditions in their booth at Fenway.

I presume it's tough for them to let rip during the regular season, except in blowouts where there's nothing much left to say, but spring training is, literally, an entirely different ballgame. By the fifth inning, nobody outside of scouts and players' close relatives is really watching the game, but Don and Jerry give you a reason to stay with the broadcast. All of a sudden, you're not sat watching the game all alone in your living-room - you're in your favourite bar, listening to two guys for whom the game is an excuse to talk about life, the universe and everything.

If you think that baseball is boring to watch, think again and try tuning in to NESN.

Well Did You Evah

I don't care about how the situation got to this point or the whole "Please trade me..." / working out on his own business - the bottom line is that the Sox are hanging on to a lefty who won fifteen games last season.

There are of course worries about Wells' age and health, but it is nonetheless a comfort to know that he wants to stay in Boston and that he is hungry for another ring to add to his collection.

"I'm just looking to go out, pitch, enjoy myself, have fun," he said. "Try to give the fans some excitement, give the team closure and saying, 'Hey, this guy, he is legit. He can still do it at his age.' I'm looking forward to it. Like I said, I love Boston. This team is great. Everything about it, it's unbelievable."

We'll take that, thank you very much, Mr Wells.

The Number Of The Beast

A comment today on this post reminded me that I hadn't checked for a while whether Coco Crisp had been assigned a number. Since the Sox played their first Spring Training game yesterday, I should have guessed that he had, but my head has been too full of work crap and other diversions for me to notice.

So, I'm pleased to report that Coco is no longer the man with no name number - he will be wearing #12 (his - if you will - cereal number).

All we have to do now is wait for the merchandising machine to spring into action. Watch this space for more details.

You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

I know that linking to video clips across the World Wide Web is probably a poor substitute for a real post, but if you haven't seen the Red Sox' Cookie-Off yet, then you need to go watch it. Now. (Thanks to Beth for the link and for her stunning in-depth analysis of the clip. She can sleep easier now knowing that she wasn't quite "the last person in Western civilization to see this.")

Beth has pretty much covered the bases. I will simply add that reports of the demise of the team's chemistry appear to have been a little premature.