One win for the Sox.
One come-from-behind win for the Sox.
One lame performance by Dice-K.
One game where J.D. Drew’s absence was felt (in a good way).
One game where Manny came through twice.
One game where Ellsbury made an awesome catch.
One crucial bunt by Pedroia.
One playing of “Shipping Up to Boston” to greet Pap.
One down, many more games to go. Woo hoo!!! Baseball’s back!
There’s something really odd about waking up early (early for me, anyway. I wasn’t going to wake up at 6am) to watch baseball being played live in Japan. But at the same time, I woke up just in time to see the Sox come back in sixth inning, and that was pretty cool. It was fun seeing Pedroia and Manny get big hits. Funny to see that Dice-K must have sucked if the team was losing when I turned on the TV (jeeeez, some things don’t ever change — even in his home country). And just good to see the team on the field, playing a close game (too close), that actually counts. All is right with the world again: baseball is back. And hey, it sure does beat watching V.B. and Kim Carrigan.
The good news is that, despite reports to the contrary, Nomar Garciaparra is, in fact, signing autographs down in Florida at Dodgertown, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spring training home. I know this because I saw it first-hand on Friday when me and my dad took a day trip up to Vero Beach for some baseball action. This was our second annual father-son bonding/spring training trip, and the first of what will be three games this weekend. (Last year we saw the Sox in Fort Myers; this year we couldn’t get tickets. What a surprise.)
Dodgertown is a pretty cool place to spend the day. It’s a complex, and the practice fields and the stadium (more like a field with seats for the fans) are all in one place. And that allows for more up-close-and-personal interaction than you would get, say, in Fort Myers at this point in spring training. I got some great great photos (stay tuned for more of those later) and we talked with Tommy Lasorda and were inches from the players — especially during the game, when we sat about a foot behind the St. Louis Cardinals bullpen. Joe Torre was there, as were Don Mattingly, Todd’s favorite out-maker Juan Pierre, Derek Lowe, etc. etc. And Albert Pujols and Nomar both hit homers. Oh, and they serve Dodger Dogs at Dodgertown, too. Yum.
So what could be bad? Well, while we were enjoying ourselves, I roasted. And now I’m all red around my neck and on my face and arms. Appropriately, it’s the same color as the Cardinals’ uniforms. But it was worth it. We had a great time.
Today we went to Fort Lauderdale Stadium to see the Orioles and the Mets play. That’s really all we could do. It’s not a terribly big place and aside from the game, there’s not much to see. The Mets sent their B-squad, so the big deal for me was seeing Kevin Millar, who didn’t disappoint. He’s a fan fave, still quick with a joke, and he went 1-3. Same ole Millar.
Even though these weren’t the best ballgames I’ve seen, it’s still really cool to hear the crack of the bat again, and more importantly, to see the players doing what they (and I) enjoy so much. Spring is here, my friends. And in just a few weeks, summer will follow right behind. Bring it on.
After the rain stopped, Monday was a really nice day.
Teflon-coated pots are excellent. One of the best inventions ever.
I wish I had given Gossip Girl more of a chance and hadn’t given up on it after the first episode.
We’re negotiating, and I should have a decision on the apartment on Tuesday. I’m now feeling more 65-35 as far as excitement and nervousness go.
Ben & Jerry’s Crème Brûlée ice cream is so so so good.
I’m rooting for a There Will Be Blood Best Picture upset on Sunday.
There’s something about seeing baseball players practicing down in Florida, smiling, happy, with the sun shining, that makes everything all right.
Are you on Facebook? Why not? Sign on and let’s be friends.
Days off would be more enjoyable if there was something good on TV in the morning. At least on Saturdays there’s three hours of repeats of 90210 and two of The O.C.
Which is the more annoying instrument to listen to: violin or the flute?
I don’t think there’s any movie in theaters right now that I haven’t seen that I want to see.
My early American Idol favorites are Amanda Overmyer, a.k.a.: the rocker nurse, and Michael Johns. Kristy Lee Cook is cute, but she won’t get past the top 8. And David Archuleta is overrated. And anyone who sings “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” will never win, much less make it to the top 12.
Sometimes when scrolling through the names and numbers in my cell phone I’ll come across Bubby and I’ll be tempted to call. I wish I could.
Next week, March 1 to be exact, marks the 11th anniversary of the day I moved to Boston. Still the best decision I’ve ever made.
I own way way way too many books, CDs, and DVDs.
Can’t believe I still haven’t finished The Year of Living Biblically.
Kupels went and raised their prices, and in so doing went from being a great deal to a total rip-off.
When I move, I think I’m going to hire a cleaning person to come regularly.
Some movies I can watch over and over and never get tired of them. The Shawshank Redemption is one of them.
Long weekends are great … until you have to go back to work the next morning.
Kevin Youkilis has always been a good role model.
But now, with his totally-worth-it new contract — he got a one-year deal for $3 million, up from $424,500 — I just have one question: How do I get myself a raise like that??
I’m clearly in the wrong line of work.
In an alternate universe — the same one where the Cleveland Indians are the 2007 American League Champions, perhaps — the New England Patriots are the 2008 Super Bowl Champions.
Where is this bizarro world, you ask?
It’s in Nicaragua, Romania, and several other countries around the world. Continue reading
First I couldn’t get tickets to see the games live. Now I learn that Red Sox broadcasts on NESN will be missing a certain somethin’ somethin’ because Tina Cervasio is leaving the station at the end of March to spend more time with her family. Rumor has it, that means she’ll be joining the team at Fox 5 in New York. What a bummer. Well, best of luck to you, Tina. I’ll miss you.
Today is one of my least favorite days of the year. It’s the day when I get my hopes up that maybe this will be the year I actually get through and am able to buy some Red Sox tickets — but instead I’m let down and ticketless. And every year it’s the same old story: I wake up early, log onto redsox.com at exactly the right time, pick a game I really want to see (this year it was May 17 vs the Milwaukee Brewers), and then wait. And wait. And wait. And watch the Virtual Waiting Room refresh every 30 seconds. Refresh again. And again. And simultaneously, I’m calling on my cell and my home phone, and hearing a busy signal or that nice recording telling me that “All signals are busy right now. Please try again.” And I know that all over the Boston area people are having the same experience as me. And finally, when I’ve had enough I just shut down the computer and walk away, a defeated man. Again. When I try some time later, of course tickets for the game I wanted to see are all gone. Really and seriously, I just want to know: how does someone like myself get tickets the day they go on sale? Why must I get shut out every year? When will the Sox figure out a way to put tickets on sale so that brokers are the ones that get screwed, not nice guys like me? I just want two tickets to one game. Is that asking so much?
And to add to the frustration, tickets for Gavin Degraw’s March 1 show at the Paradise also went on sale today, and I was otherwise occupied the minute they went on sale, so when I called and logged on three hours later they were all gone. (No surprise there, though, given the small venue and the fact that I tried too late.) SO, I’m completely ticketless today for the events I wanted to see. That sucks.
I’m really missing baseball these days. I miss coming home from work and knowing there’s a game on (especially with there being not much else good on TV anymore). I miss reading about the Sox in the Globe every day. I miss making fun of Dice-K. I miss Papi and Mike Lowell and all the boys, whether it’s news about them or just their smiling, happy faces in the newspaper every morning. I miss the whole thing. It’s not like there’s a void in the Boston sports world or anything, and football’s exciting, but those games only happen on Sundays (or Saturday nights), and basketball and hockey do nothing for me. Baseball’s something you can count on, for at least eight months of the year. From March to October there’s a baseball game on most every night of the week. This gap between the seasons is just too long, especially with there being no significant trade or contract talks going on lately (even a possible Santana deal isn’t all that buzzworthy right now). Jeez, pitchers and catchers report to Fort Myers in about a month, and I’m already antsy. Bring it on!
It’s hard to believe it’s been only one month since the Red Sox won the World Series. In some ways it feels like much longer, and in others it’s like only yesterday. So of course, in an effort to hold on to those good ole days, I made sure to go right out and pick up my copy of the World Series Highlights DVD on Tuesday (on sale for just $11.88 at Newbury Comics), and I watched it soon after I got home.
The film starts out with a great montage of Sox clips, showing the boys having fun — all while the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” plays, of course. It’s an opening that makes you smile and sets the scene for what should be an equally great film. If only the rest was as good. While the 2004 Highlights DVD was a fantastic recap of the year — from Spring Training on — told entirely from the Sox perspective, this one is exactly as marketed: a recap of the World Series, and it’s told from both sides. It takes just 10 minutes to get through the entire Red Sox season, from Opening Day to the end of the ALCS, and in moving so quickly, there’s very little flavor and very little of what was so memorable about the season. There’s no mention at all of Clay Buchholz or his no-hitter, nothing about Schilling’s one-hitter, no recap of the hype that greeted Dice-K, very little about the back-to-back-to-back-to-back homer game against the Yankees, nothing about the Mother’s Day Miracle, no Ellsbury, no Wakefield … nothing. And then there’s an equally quick summary of the Rockies’ road to the Series. And then we’re at Game One, after only 24 minutes. (In the 2004 film, it took a half hour just to recap the Sox season, with almost nothing on St. Louis.)
Major League Baseball would have you believe that this was a closer series than it was, because it’s presented as such. Never mind that the Sox swept the Rockies and won comfortably in two of the four games. It’s all very businesslike and by-the-book. While there are talking head interviews and soundbites from Pap and Mikey Lowell and Jacoby Ellsbury and Curt Schilling and Theo and others, they’re all pretty staid and without character, simply recapping the games and not sharing much emotion or personality. Sure, this season didn’t have the same drama that 2004 did, but it was definitely more exciting than this. Even Matt Damon, who narrates the film, seems bored by the whole thing. Clearly, MLB Productions, in an effort to make the film appealing to Rockies fans, neutered a lot of the pro-Sox slant and tried to make this as fair a film as possible. Rockies players and personnel are as plentiful as Sox folks. And in making it all so balanced, they’ve produced an ultimately disappointing one-hour-and-10-minute highlights reel that, for a Sox fan, doesn’t really recapture the glory of being World Series Champions. What a bummer.
Perhaps the best parts of the DVD are the extra features, including my favorite one, a recap of the night the Sox won the AL East. You get the last two outs at Fenway courtesy of NESN, then the last out in Baltimore (plus Millar’s strikeout) from the actual broadcast in Baltimore, and a bit of Papelbon et al dancing on the field. I wish there was more of that kind of stuff, the dancing and all, on the actual film. After all, this DVD should be a celebration of and a tribute to the World Series Champs, right? But it’s good to have at least some of the coverage in the bonus section. And I’ll always have my memories of the actual games, and the actual season. Those are things this DVD could never document as well anyway.
Martin's Musings 