Outskirts of Red Sox Nation

Monday, July 31, 2006

The Pilgrimage

I know it was sort of a rough weekend. Dropping two of three to the Angels, getting the pitching knocked around, and seeing the Yankees close to 0.5 games for the East lead. For me, however, this weekend was tremendous. My parents visited from Wisconsin, and my father and I took in Saturday's game at Fenway- my first ever.

Before I talk about the game, let me first say this: 19-6 was enough. I didn't need much other than that this weekend. The Yankees gave up 19 runs for the second time this season. The interesting thing was their trade-deadline reaction to that. They got Bobby Abreu. Um...can he pitch? Because from where I'm sitting, 19 runs (twice!) is not a failure of the outfield (except that Johnny Damon play). Abreu can hit, yadda yadda, but he's not much of an upgrade on either Matsui or Sheffield. This puts the Yanks outfield almost where it was, but it can't stop the scoring. I like this move.

Now the game. Driving up Storrow Drive I kept looking for signs of Fenway Park. I knew it was in the area, but get a little disoriented in the Boston streets. When we hit Boylston Street, all became clear. I still didn't see Fenway, but I did see the people. Our fellow pilgrims. A steady flow of people in Red Sox gear flowing from many directions, all toward Fenway. That's a neat side-effect of having the urban stadium with dispersed parking. In most other places, you have a central lot with a sea of parking. There's tailgating, but there not the same sense of destination.

We parked in a lot nearly a mile away and just followed the crowds. Lansdowne Street had the feel of a street festival. We entered at Gate C, just to the center field side of the monster seats, figuring we could just cut over and grab our seats up in Section 33. Wrong. We had the honor of getting to walk around the entirety of the interior of Fenway to get up to our seats. This was quite an experience. The day was hot- nearly 90 degrees and humid. The bodies of our fellow fans were dealing with that fact in the only way they could. We were all sweaty. And more than a little stinky, to be frank. My father and I moved, slowly through the enormous crowd, and up-stream as it appeared, to our seats. As we walked past the ramps to each section, I caught glimpses of the field and the stadium. I saw the coke bottles on the light tower, the scoreboard with the big John Hancock sign, the Pesky Pole. I just had to smile. I felt a little giddy- though perhaps that was the body odor getting to me.

We got to our seats, way over near the Gulf sign on down the third base foul line. We could see the whole field- except of course second base, which was obstructed by a pillar. What really ever happens at second base, though? Perfect seats. Aside from the utter narrowness of the seats and the rows (not to be crass, but how do really tall people or really fat people sit at Fenway?), I was enthralled with just looking around the stadium from my new vantage point. After so many hundreds of games on television, I thought I had seen the game from every angle. I hadn't seen this one. The look of the ball skipping up the middle for a base hit, or flying out to ricochet off the wall is very different from up there. There's no substitute for being there, but I have to say, with all the angles and cameras NESN has at the park, baseball is really wonderful on TV.

The part of being in the park that I enjoyed most was the unanimity of the crowd. This was a fan population that understands the game, and unabashedly loves their team. The ovations that Varitek gets when he walks to the plate is deafening. This is for a guy having probably the worst offensive season by a catcher in the A.L., but he's our captain, and he plays the game the right way (except for that part when you're supposed to not strike out so much with the bases loaded). I agreed, and cheered him on as well. Manny and Papi's at-bats just shook the house, as you'd expect. I was surprised, though, at the continued appreciation of Orlando Cabrera, who is now two years separated from his World Series glory. And the crowd reaction when Jonathan Papelbon ran in from the bullpen was probably the coolest of the reactions (well, that and the Yoooooooouk!). Papelbon uses "Wild Thing" for his music, which is both blatantly derivative of "Major League" and just perfect for him, the moment, and the crowd. The joy at that moment is real, and it's something you don't get to see on TV.

The game itself had everything you could want in a Red Sox game. You had the back and forth scoring, the battle of young pitchers (both Beckett and Jered Weaver pitched decently, but neither up to their potential or their hype), the close plays, a late-inning rally by the Sox to tie it up, a homer by Papi to dead center to start that rally, a home run by a deaf guy (we do still love you, Curtis. But that's all you get, ok?), two stellar innings by Papelbon, a near walk-off hit by Youkilis (that ball hit just maybe four feet down on the monster. That was really close to us), and the completely expected, completely scripted, and completely wonderful game winning hit by Papi to beat the shift and bring it home in the 11th.

I, like 35,000 of my fellow pilgrims, was jumping up and down and screaming. My dad was grinning, I think mostly out of relief that we had actually made it through a game at Fenway. I know that it was the only game the Sox won this weekend. I know that the Angels made the Sox look pretty bad for most of that series. I could not care less.

Friday, July 28, 2006

The Fenway

I'm going to tell my Fenway story today. Before I do, let me say that I do not now and have not intended this blog to be about me and my life and my stories. I have come to view blogging like that as a bit self-indulgent and can't really admit to enjoying reading about what people do with their days. I do enjoy reading about peoples' ideas and opinions on certain topics, but free-form blogging has lost much of its appeal.

Then why am I, a self-loathing blogger, writing this for the Norwich Bulletin? It's simple, really. Instead of paying us to do this, the Bulletin has arranged for all of its bloggers to live together, "Real World"-style, in a big loft in downtown Norwich. Let me tell you, it's pretty sweet. A couple of insights into my fellow bloggers? Hackett eats nothing but yogurt, and snores, big time. Ryan the fitness guy will only listen to Queen's "Fat Bottom Girl" when he exercises. And I can't confirm this, but I think Brian the Gameaholic is a closet policy wonk. He's been playing SimAnt nonstop with his on-line pals "Scooter" and "Condi" for the last three days.

So despite my interest in centering the blog on the Red Sox, let me give you some insight into what Fenway means to me. I grew up in Milwaukee, a diehard Brewers fan. The Brewers of the late 1970's and early 1980's were actually worth cheering for. Ben Oglivie is still a favorite of mine. The infield of Ted Simmons, Cecil Cooper, Jimmy "Gumby" Gantner, Robin Yount, and Paul Molitor is still, for my money, one of the greatest modern infields. Simmons in particular is underappreciated- probably the best catcher not in the Hall of Fame, where of course he could join the already-enshrined Yount and Molitor.

Even as a Brewer-centric kid, though, I could appreciate the appeal of the Red Sox. I had a Jim Rice shirt that I wore all the time- so much so that one of the neighbors down the block took to calling me "Jim." This sorta makes sense, because, as you can tell from my picture on the Bulletin site, Jim Rice and I do look remarkably alike. I was also able to respect the great Sox outfields of that era, with Rice, Lynn, Armas, and Dewey striking fear into Brewers pitching whenever they visited town.

So it was with great excitement when my father announced that one stop on our East Coast vacation would be visiting my dad's cousin Jim in Boston, where we would take in a game at Fenway. My sisters and I all looked forward to that- well, those of us whose fontanelles had hardened up enough to be capable of abstract thought, anyway. The vacation started, we got to Jim's place, and had a nice visit. My dad's cousin Jim, by the way, used to be a male model, and in fact was featured on the original "Twister" game box. We always called him "Mr. Twister." We were clever kids.

The evening of the Sox game came, and we got set to head out to Fenway. Jim, however, could not find the tickets. After looking everywhere for nearly an hour, he found them, and off we went. It was game time as we cruised toward the stadium. Even in the early 80's, parking in Boston was no picnic. We drove around for 45 minutes looking for a spot. I don't know if the lots were full or someone refused to pay for parking, but there you have it. We kept driving. We finally found a spot about a mile away and we jogged the distance to Fenway. By this time, it was about the third inning, and most of the entrance gates were closed. We circled the stadium frantically until we found our way inside.

Fenway at last! I don't remember much about the inside of the stadium, but I do remember the green. The grass, the Monster- it was really vivid. We made our way up to our seats, and found some people sitting in them. After a short and somewhat curt discussion, we both agreed to pull out our tickets and see who was mistaken. Our tickets, as it turned out, were from the previous evening's game.

Since that moment, every complete and unmitigated disaster in planning for my family has become known as a "Fenway." For me, as a reformed Red Sox fan, that trip to Fenway has always been the one that got away. Tomorrow, however, my parents will be visiting from Milwaukee, and my father and I will attempt to reverse our own curse. Wish us luck.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Kenny Rogers Holds The Key To The Season

Why does Kenny Rogers hold the key to the remainder of the Red Sox season? If he has a strong second half with the Tigers, will they be an unstoppable force in the playoffs? No. I'm not even talking about that Kenny Rogers. I'm talking about the recently-facelifted roasted-chicken-eating, Dolly-Parton-dueting, shmaltzy-light-country-singin' Kenny Rogers. He's the key. Can he get lefties out? Who the hell knows. He did, however, sing "The Gambler," which has been going through my head constantly as we approach the non-waiver trade deadline at the end of this month.

Kenny sang about knowing when to hold 'em and knowing when to fold 'em. This is what is on every general manager's mind as we get to the trade deadline. Is my team in potential contention? What pieces could put me over the top? How delusional am I about our chances? What am I willing to give up? It's this last question that I think is most pertinent to our man Theo.

Trade deadlines of the past decade or two in Boston have been much different than they have been in the last two years. The World Series changed everything. No longer is there as much of the "win now at all costs" approach that characterized the behavior of Dan Duquette and his predecessors. We can breathe a little easier and have some perspective on this.

Something that Theo said very early on in his tenure as GM still seems to be a guiding principle. He talked about the Sox becoming a $100 million drafting and development machine. Working through the draft, developing players, making smart decisions, having patience- I think that's the Sox approach now, and I think it's going to work. This year, we've got Kevin Youkilis, Jon Papelbon, Jon Lester, Manny Delcarmen, and Craig Hansen all playing major roles in our first-place position this year. Can you imagine what this team would be like without Youkilis getting on base the way he does, or with Timlin closing games instead of Papelbon? No offense to Timlin, but the reason the Sox have had so much success in tight games is Papelbon. If you just look at their run differential- the Sox have outperformed their runs scored/runs allowed expectation. This is either blind luck, or some measure of success in 1- and 2-run games. I think you know what my explanation is.

The reason that these kids have been able to contribute so much is that Theo has held on to them. He has not been willing to mortgage the future to win now. That's the "what would you give up" part of the gambler's decision. The Sox picked most of these kids for the purpose of helping the team on the field. You'll not see Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie, Dustin Pedroia, or any of those guys changing uniforms this July. Not for the likes of Jon Leiber, anyway.

That's the other part of the trade deadline problem. This is a terrible, terrible seller's market, even at the best of times. Every other team knows your weaknesses. They know what you need, and if they've fallen out of contention and are willing to sell, they're not going to sell cheap. Under limited circumstances are teams able to find what they want for a reasonable price. Either that or they're accepting less than they really need. Look at Lieber for instance. He's probably the most-named pitcher as a potential acquisition. There are just two problems: 1) he sucks; and 2) his contract is a millstone.

Red Sox nation probably still remembers him as the control master who gave the Sox agita with the Yankees a couple of years ago. Look at him now, his K/BB ratio has fallen off a cliff, he's got an ERA in the mid 5's (even away from offense-friendly Philly), and he's under contract next year for another seven million. We don't need that sort of suckiness. We've already got Matt Clement.

The Sox have been down that path, and recently. They picked up Scott Sauerbeck and Jeff Suppan back in 2003 thinking they were just the ticket. In the process, they gave up, among other things, Freddy Sanchez. Check the batting average leaderboard in the National League. Who is that at the top, hitting over .350? I think I recognize that little birthmark- it's Freddy. I know batting average is overrated, but I'd like to see that in a Sox uniform instead of my bad bad memories of Jeff Suppan and Scott Sauerbeck peeing themselves throughout the pennant race.

While we're on the subject of Freddy Sanchez for a second, I should point out I thought it very interesting that no fewer than four former Sox shortstops are having very good seasons after getting the boot. Freddy, Nomar, and Edgar Renteria are all hitting well over .300. Hanley Ramirez has dropped off a bit, but is stealing bases and helping the Marlins have hope for the future. It's almost as if I'm back in Milwaukee and get to watch all of the players have success only after leaving (I'm looking at you Gary Sheffield. I haven't forgotten).

Back to the trading deadline. If we're going to stand pat, for the most part, is that enough? Well, it has been so far. We're still in first place, albeit by only 1.5 games after yesterday's 5-1 loss to the A's. We're coming home, though, and play a huge percentage of our final games at home. Our young players are improving and the bullpen is less and less of a nightmare. Our offense is more than adequate on most nights, if we could just get Coco to make a bit more solid contact with the ball. This is a good team. It's a playoff team.

Oddly, the single biggest acquisition (no pun intended) for the Sox this summer could be David Wells. The other gambler, he of the PokerStars.com baseball hat. David's put away a couple of buckets of chicken in his day as well. If he's healthy (we know his arm is fresh) and anything like David Wells has always been, he's a major addition. I'd still like to see him make another rehab start, particularly because he's always so awful in his first start after the DL, but if he can pitch, we can win this thing.

The thing that Kenny Rogers was wrong about in his song was in the line- "...and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep." We can hope for much more than that.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

A Prayer Before Sleeping

Let us begin today with a prayer. Let us bow our heads and ask Brother Emo Phillips to lead us in an ecumenical entreaty to the almighty:

"Oh, God, please change the laws of the universe for my convenience."

Thank you, Brother Emo. Whether you're christian, jewish, moslem- that prayer speaks to all of our hearts. I was thinking the same thing late last night as I struggled to say awake for another solid Red Sox victory. This time they won 13-5 over the A's in a game that was much closer than that score would indicate. I must admit that I went to bed- I finally succumbed to the need to actually be capable of work this morning- at around midnight when the score was 6-1 and things seemed pretty well in hand.

I managed to get up before six a.m. today to catch the highlights on NESN's Sportsdesk. This is more a function of a persistent St. Bernard with a full bladder than my own innate work ethic, but regardless, I was awake. A quick aside about Sportsdesk- I've got no major problems with Hazel Mae, although the way that her face is plastered all over NESN, you've got to think she's seen someone naked and has an awfully good memory. What I'm wondering is why they gave Jayme Parker the hook? There were few nicer things early in a groggy morning than having good ol' Jayme telling you about some Bruins injury that you couldn't care less about. Hazel just doesn't do the job for me, I guess. Bring back Jayme!

So last night's game could have gone the other way for a little while, apparently. Manny Delcarmen almost coughed up the lead before bearing down and getting a couple of key strikeouts. You can't tell that much on one or two appearances, but I think that recent pitching does tell us something about these rookie bullpen guys. They've got great stuff- I'm thinking of sending a small bouquet of roses to Manny Delcarmen's curveball. The thing that I like about Delcarmen and Hanson is that they are increasingly "bend but not break" pitchers. They're both struggling with control and learning how to pitch in the majors, and they'll give up runs, but they've both got the fortitude and talent to make it happen when it's crucial. It makes me very happy to think that, assuming they stay healthy and not over-used, we may never again have to see Rudy Seanez in a situation where the game may be decided in the course of an inning.

Ok, but now to the point of my prayer. You can go ahead and accuse me of being an East Coast elitist. That's fair. I am an East Coast elitist. I only say that because I, along with my fellow New England illuminati, just happen to be better and more deserving of favored treatment than anyone else in the nation. But in this case, there may be some logic behind my idea. If you accept the idea that for most Red Sox road games (and probably Yankee road games as well), the stadium attendance is a pretty inelastic thing. Even during the week, you'll probably draw close to as many fans for an afternoon game in Oakland or Anaheim as you would for an evening game. I think that's the nature of fan support for both the west-coast teams and for the Sox out there. Second, I think that we could probably demonstrate that the Red Sox (again, and Yankees) TV viewership on NESN (and YES) is much higher than TV viewership of virtually any west coast team. Third, and this is the key one, the TV numbers for the Red Sox for a 10:00 p.m. start in Oakland have got to be much, much lower than those for a 7:00 start, or even an 8:00 start (when they're in Texas or Chicago, for example).

You see where I'm going, of course. Change the laws of nature for my convenience. All Sox games on the west coast shall now start no later than 5:00 p.m. local time. Those lazy left-coasters can hit the game after work and have their sushi in the stands of Safeco Field. We hard working Sox fans can actually watch the entire game before going to bed at a reasonable hour so we can get up with the dawn and work 14 hours in a textile mill. TV revenues will be up, local attendance will not suffer, everyone is happy. Except of course, for the A's, who get their butt handed to them, 13-5.

Someone is free to do the research on this and send it to the Red Sox, with a CC to Bud Selig. I don't need credit. I just need sleep.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The Guszkowski/Pedroia Era

It's a great day for me as a Red Sox fan. It's a great day for you, too, because you get to read a brand-new blog on your favorite team. If you are a Red Sox fan like I'm a Red Sox fan, these blogs, articles and similar sorts of thing are really interesting and take a long long time to get old, and you love reading or hearing some fresh insights and opinions on the greatest game in the world.

For me, the go-ahead on starting this blog came at a cosmic-tumblers-clicking-into-place sort of time. This very day, I received, via Fed-Ex, a pair of tickets for my first official Red Sox game at Fenway- for this coming Saturday's game against the Angels. I attended roughly a half-inning of a game at Fenway back in approximately 1985, but that's a really long story and I won't get too autobiographical on you just yet. That can wait until tomorrow. Pile all of this together with a very solid 7-3 win over the A's at the Al Davis Memorial Base-Foot Reconfigurable Abomination Park last night, and things are going all right.

There were three Sox homers last night (and only one given up by Josh Beckett, which is a very good thing). They were hit by the big three: Manny, Papi, and...Alex Gonzalez. Although I must admit I've been really slow on jumping on this bandwagon, I'm becoming an Alex Gonzalez fan. Last night was his eighth home run. He's slugging .416, which isn't fantastic, but it's pretty solid for a middle infielder- and don't look now, but he's actually out-slugging Varitek. He's no longer the easy out, the sucking hole at the bottom of the lineup that he was the first two months of the season. That's really all you can ask from a shortstop, offensively. Sure, we were spoiled for a while with Nomar in his prime, and seeing Jeter, Tejada, and A-Rod knocking the snot out of the ball. What I think the Sox are realizing, and what I'm realizing (several months after the Sox realized it, of course) is that nearly impeccable defense and adequate offense from your SS is really quite good.

The point of my change of heart about Alex Gonzalez is that it has other major implications for me as a Sox fan. For more than a year now, I've been banging a tiny drum in my heart for Dustin Pedroia. He's the shortstop of the diminutive physique and the Kevin Youkilis pechant for the base on balls. He's currently in Pawtucket. Last year, when we signed Renteria to the 4-year deal, Pedroia was shuffled over to second base, on the assumption that Renteria was our shortstop of the future. That didn't quite work out to plan, did it? So the Sox returned Pedroia to short and basically rented a year of Alex Gonzalez until Dustin hit the starting lineup in 2007. But now, Gonzalez is becoming a revelation at short. Is it time to shuffle Big Dustin back across the second base bag? I'd say yes. For one thing, it'll save us from all of the tiresome references to David Eckstein when Dustin plays short. For another, he's built more like a second baseman. For a third, he's got the potential to be both an upgrade on Loretta (who's only signed for this year) and also a major stabilizing presence at second. If you haven't noticed, second base for the Red Sox has been a bit like being Murphy Brown's secretary. We've seen, in recent years, Loretta, Bellhorn, Walker, Reese, Lansing, Offerman, Frye, Remy (am I going too far back?). Maybe not since Marty Barrett have the Sox had a solid player at second for more than a year or two- and Barrett wasn't exactly Ryne Sandberg. Every other position has had both more stability and bigger stars. I'll go out on my first limb of this blog and proclaim that Dustin Pedroia could be the greatest Red Sox second baseman since Bobby Doerr. Let's give the kid that chance. The Pedroia Era is ready to begin!

(incidentally, I heard on the telecast last night Don and Jerry refer to part of the outfield bleachers- the part where they have Eck's number retired- as "Mt. Davis." I can't even come up with a response for that. unreal.)

Monday, July 24, 2006

Take a displaced Midwestern guy, fill him full of baseball statistics, plant the seeds of Red Sox mania in him, add water, and watch it grow. We're not talking Sea Monkeys here. We're talking about living and dying with every game here on the outskirts of Red Sox Nation. Growing up in Milwaukee, we were Brewers fans, which lately is a bit like eating crackers. Sure, it'll keep you going, but there's not much joy. Out here in New England, it's passion. It's all-encompassing and probably dangerous to the psyche, but it's passion. What we'll try to do here is immerse ourselves in that passion, but also try to take a look around with a critical eye. We'll answer the question--are you a baseball purist or a stat head- with another question. Would you rather have beer or fried chicken? We'll have both, of course.