Bambino's Curse

Stuffed

Re Schilling: No news is good news?

Interestingly, the Herald is reporting this morning that it's about the money:

Indications point to the sides agreeing on the length of the deal (two years plus an option) and other provisions. Money, however, seemed to be the holdup, despite Schilling's insistence earlier in the week that it wouldn't be a deciding factor (Horrigan).

While the Globe is suggesting that family issues are at the heart of the matter:

The greatest challenge for the Sox was expected to be persuading Schilling that his family would be happier in Boston than New York or Philadelphia as he pitches the final years of his career (Hohler).

In a few hours we'll all know for certain, yeah or nay.

I'm already trying to prepare myself not to totally freak out if it's the latter.

I'll be off the grid and out of town until Sunday, so barring access via an internet cafe or the like, I won't be able to comment either way but will have to keep it all bottle up inside, the joy or the frustration.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, looks like we are going to have eat our turkey and stuffing without a side of Schilling for now.

[The Epstein] checked into a Phoenix hotel, and in all likelihood would remain encamped until he either had a deal or the 5 p.m. Friday deadline for Schilling to make a decision had passed (Edes, Globe).

Thanks Theo Epstein for giving up on a Thanksgiving at home with your family in order to woo Schilling to the Red Sox.

Thanks to all the men and women in the military for doing what you do in quite literally protecting and insuring the continuation all that we hold dear.

Thanks to all of you for reading this blog.

Thanks to those of you who've donated money to help defray the cost of my plan to attend the Boston Baseball Writers Dinner in January. (Currently at $155. Almost half way to the $400 goal! See button below if you with to donate.)

Minnie the Moocher

Hopefully you've noticed over the past three years that this site has been around that there are no ads, no "tip jars" nor "wish lists." I don't begrudge the many bloggers who do have such on their sites, I just never wanted to go down that path with Bambino's Curse.

So it's with great trepidation that I'm here to ask a monetary favor of you the readers.

Here's the deal. For the past 3 years I've wanted to attend the Annual Awards Dinner hosted by the Boston Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association, but haven't been able to. This year is no different: I really want to go.

However, as you know from reading the blog, I'm currently at some remove from Boston as I toil away down here in Virginia. This means getting to Boston on a Monday night for a quick up and back trip requires flying. Unfortunately, the current rates for a weekday flight to Boston are very high: as of today $407.

Meanwhile I can afford the $125 ticket to the dinner and the approx. $100 for hotel in Boston for the night, but just can't quite justify that $407.

So what I'm asking is for donations to help defray the cost. If just half of the average daily offseason readership donated a dollar, I'd have more than enough to purchase the ticket. (And I'll stop accepting donations if I reach that goal.)

What do you get in return besides my gratitude? How about a promise to blog from the dinner if they have Wi-Fi available and/or a couple of audio blogs (where I dial and post an MP3 file via cell phone) and plenty of pictures to share on the blog as well?

What do you think?

Thanks.

Let's Win 75! Woo-Hoo!

In the damned if you do and damned if you don't category, Michael Gee is the first to to criticize the Red Sox off season moves.

Logicians and economists will note with interest that, try as they might, the supersmart businessmen who run the Sox can't escape the franchise's binge-purge relationship with its top talents. …The Sox aren't allowed to be longshots. …They're doomed to the costly and futile pursuit of invincibility. …Every winter, the new players hired to meet those imperatives are showered in a binge of public affection

… The delusional expectations that spin the Sox' wheel of causality are why the club hasn't won a World Series (Gee, Herald).

Remember, Gee is the guy who last month complained that "the Boston franchise has cast planning to the wind and blindly is flailing about in the aftermath of a difficult defeat" (10.31.03), now, evidently, they are doing too much planning?

OK. Before I get out my fisking shears, let's first grant that there is some truth to what Gee claims: There is a certain out with the old, in with the new mind set among fans. I have this tendency myself, and it's something to be mindful of when gathered around the hot stove.

However, I don't think, as Gee suggests, that such a mind set is unique to Boston Red Sox fans. Indeed, our American culture invented the notion of planned obsolescence. We, coast to coast, red states and blue states, love the new. Always have. Always will.

Even so, does anyone besides Gee think that Theo Epstein et al are just pure reactionaries acting entirely out of emotion? Give me a break. It's guys like Gee who proudly confess that they "think in terms of the game's timeless cliches" (10.27.03) who are the ones prone to gut or emotional decision making rather than looking at the stats and the logic therein of the Beane/James/Epstein school of thought.

So Gee concludes with a straight face :

After 30 years of watching the same baseball season over and over and over, no new manager, free agent signing, or big trade will ever change my mind about the Sox' ultimate destiny.

The first Boston team to be world champions won't be a club everyone forecasts to win 115 games. It'll be one picked to win about 75.

Ah, that's the spirit. I can hear the Fenway chants now: "Let's Win 75 Games!" Whoop dee friggin' do. And the rallying cry can be "Cowboy Upchuck." Heh heh …

You know I've been following the Red Sox for thirty something years, too, and I think Gee's entire premise is wrong. Sure there have been some really dubious moves by management over the years (this site is named after one after all); however, historically, after getting close to a World Series it seems to my recollection that Red Sox management has generally preferred to do nothing to improve the team the following year to try to get right back into a position to win it all.

Correct me if I'm wrong but after '67 what was done to improve the team? And after '75? And '78? And '86? Nothing, nothing, nothing. They either put the same team back on the field or a team not quite as good as the one the year before that got close but not all the way.

So in my mind, what Theo Epstein is up to so far is the complete opposite of Gee's "same baseball season over and over." This time it's a totally different ball game.

Of course, not everyone in the Boston media is falling back on the same old tired litany. Gordon Edes (but of course) actually gets out and does some creative thinking and reporting:

It sounds like voodoo economics, but it's possible that the only way the Red Sox can afford both ace Curt Schilling and closer Keith Foulke and still stay under the luxury-tax threshold of $120.5 million for 2004 is by making another deal -- one that nets them Alex Rodriguez and the biggest contract in sports (Edes, Globe).

Read Gee then read Edes and reach your own conclusion about the sagacity of what the Red Sox are up to.

A Chicken for Every Pot?

While it's never a good idea (especially for Red Sox fans, nudge, nudge, wink, wink) to count the proverbial chickens before they've hatched, still how can one not, upon hearing the news about Schilling (Globe, Herald, ESPN), do just that?

The rotation:

1. Schilling
2. Wakefield
3. Martinez/[somebody?]*
4. Lowe
5. Kim

Oh, and while we're at it, let's just go nuts and imagine that Foulke is the closer.

Note: My "*" next to Martinez is to account for the de rigueur 2-3 months our lil' Petey will spend on the DL. (C'mon, why would this year be any different: there's the arm, the shoulder, the groin to worry about and then there's the mumps, measles and rubella out there too.) And I'm imagining Wakefield in the number 2 spot just for how much that'd freak out opposing hitters to face the knuckleball between the heat of Schilling and Martinez.

Now we wait and see …

Obstacle 2

"If you can fix me up we'll go a long way."

I don't have anything to say about baseball. I want to talk about Interpol. The rock band. Perhaps you've heard of them?

For the moment they, Interpol, are on endless repeat in my iTunes. They are my current preferred mechanism for coping with a jacked up pineal gland. Yeah, you heard me, it's that one right between the eyes that controls all the melatonin secretions. Mine sucks. (Maybe yours does as well?)

As the days grow shorter, so do I, collapsing daily into my own little black hell hole where the world seems rotten, hopeless, and devoid.

But thank [insert the name of your preferred deity and/or Darwin] for Interpol who are so introverted, dark, and brooding that, oddly enough, I'm made, if not cheerful, at least functional. (The 80s band The Smiths had this same effect on me.)

You know what is especially cool about Interpol? Many their songs are set in winter. You know this for sure because they make direct references to it with lines like, "Oh look it stopped snowing" (Roland) and "I'm gonna hold your face, and toast the snow that fell" (Obstacle 2), and subtly here "The pavements they are a mess" (NYC).

So it's perfect music for the approach of the "Heavenly Hurt" of winter.

OK. Now here's the thing I really find fascinating. As you probably know, the cure for Seasonal Affective Disorder which comes on in winter (and of which I suffer annually) is light, specifically bright light. From the NIMR:

What is remarkable about this form of depression is that exposure to bright lights alleviates the symptoms. Depending on the light intensity, as little as half an hour each day causes the worst of the symptoms to pass. The mood lifts, and energy returns.

And what it the title to Interpol's album? Why it's "Turn on the Bright Lights."

I think my work here is done. Time to go in search of a few thousand lux.