Bambino's Curse

Bogway Park?

Quick and dirty this morning as I have to take the pooch to the vet and overslept a bit (still on Holiday break).

DirtDogs is back even sooner than I'd expected. Check out the 2004 calendar over there.

Bambino's reader and frequent commenter Deane Crilley joins the blogosphere with his own Red Sox blog: Buckner Was Framed.

Homework question: What is the difference between a bog and a fen?

Happy New Year!

As they say, time flies when you're having fun: It was 4 years ago on our about New Years Day that I scratched down my original spec notes "to create a Red Sox weblog."

Makes perfect sense, too, that the idea to start a blog came during this time of year, winter, when the approach of Spring and baseball holds every dream and hope of good things to come.

Next year is this year? I don't see any reason why not.

As Giamatti might say: Whenever the game is played, our most noble hopes are revived.

Burn Bright Through the Night, Two Pockets Lead the Way

While I doubt this is one of the cold season's rewarding "mysteries" and "discoveries" that Roger Angell referred to, yesterday it dawned on me that baseball is the only major sport in which the uniforms have pockets.¹ (Look, it was a slow day, OK?)

And the pockets aren't just decoration, aren't just some sartorial throwback like the lonesome little watch pocked in a pair of Levi jeans. No, ballplayers use their uniform pockets to hold all kinds of things like tins of chew, bubble gum, sunflower seeds, batting gloves … I've even seen Manny lug a large bottled water in his uniform back pocket while roaming left field. (Manny, it seems, has no concerns about any decrease in outfielder mobility.)

And who can forget during one of those September series with the Yankees when an errant hot dog wrapper blew out of the stands and settled to rest on a spot a few feet in front of home plate how David Ortiz called time and strode out of the batter's box to pick it up and …yes, stuff the wrapper into his back pocket before continuing his at bat?

So file "uniforms with pockets" along with "the manager wears a uniform" under the heading of what makes baseball different in a funny sort of way than any other sport.

Meanwhile, Silva at DirtDogs is holding to his pledge to shutter the site after today in protest of all that went wrong in the A-Rod (no) deal. While I can't imagine this will become more than a temporary condition, I applaud the effort and the willingness to follow through with stated intentions.

Just when I think I'm getting over my anger and disappointment, I read something like this from Edes and I get all pissy again:

… it was Boston that Rodriguez had handpicked as the place where he intended to pursue his dream of winning a World Series… And by the following Tuesday, Dec. 23 -- despite an extraordinary, legally questionable offer by Rodriguez to pay Hicks out of his own pocket in order to facilitate a trade -- the deadline Hicks had set for a deal passed without an agreement (Edes, Globe).

I'm done wondering whether the trade would be a good thing or bad thing for the Red Sox overall, but still it stings to think how excited A-Rod was, how much he wanted to play for Boston, only to have it all come to naught.

¹ Pockets, of course, play a role in both tennis and golf, but the players aren't in a team uniform. I suspect NASCAR racers have pockets as well, but that doesn't count in my mind either.

Benches Clearing Brawl

See this is what happens when your dog watches playoff baseball on TV.

Seems my boy Butch (in white) internalized the Pedro take down of the charging Zimmer in the benches clearing brawl with the Yankees during the ALCS as he is about to lower the boom on Güero (in gold) during one of the many friendly (most of the time!) bouts at the beach house last week. (Click for larger image, 108kb.)

The Board Is Set. The Pieces Are Moving.

The return of Brian Daubach is a very good omen methinks. And you've gotta love the baseball mythology at work in this true life romantic tale:

Daubach met his wife, Chrissie, when she cut his hair in Baltimore before the Sox played the Orioles April 4, 2001. Daubach hit two home runs off Sidney Ponson that night and Hideo Nomo no-hit the Orioles, 3-0. Chrissie, who owned the Baltimore barbershop, cut Daubach's hair again on Oct. 6, 2001, the night Cal Ripken Jr. retired. And the rest is history -- or matrimony; the Daubachs were married this month (Hohler, Globe).

While there is no statistical veracity to it, I think a metric for "good karma" can hold its own next to "win shares." And Brian Daubach's good karma number is very high.

In what has become standardized among sports columnists in the end of the year cleaning out the desk drawer style of column, Dan Shaughnessy humorously uncovers a truth about the results of the A-Rod no deal:

No need to worry about the Sox mending fences with Nomar and Manny. Garciaparra plays his butt off at all times and never seems to be happy, so he'll be the same guy -- with or without a contract extension. As for Manny, he won't even know any of it happened. Had Manny been shipped to Texas, he probably wouldn't have noticed until sometime in mid June when he'd say, "Gee, it's hot out here!" (Shaughnessy, Globe).

It's all good.

No Apologies

I'm really growing tired of the continual, banausic whines and complaints along this sort:

The Pats should be the talk of the town. Indeed, of all New England. And, for that matter, much of the U.S. of A.

Instead, far too many of the region's angst-ridden -- and angst-loving -- sports fans have spent the past month talking about a deal the perennially runner-up Red Sox couldn't pull off, managing only to irritate two of their biggest stars and further frustrate a fan base that hasn't celebrated a championship in 85 years (Donaldson, ProJo).

Since when is it expected that a fan is supposed to love all the sports equally? Since when am I supposed to lock behind the closet door my Red Sox fetish just because it's football season and the Patriots are doing well?

Don't get me wrong, I like Tom Brady and company just fine. I watch the games. I root loudly. And I want very much to see that Super Bowl bling bling again.

But the Patriots are not the Red Sox. Baseball is not football. The two are not on equal ground in my mind, apples and oranges.

Regardless of the hype of the A-Rod thing, fans like myself would still, by default, be filling their heads thoughts of the diamond and not the gridiron in December and January. It's just the way it is and should not be viewed as a diss toward the Pats.

Roger Angell (of course) nails the how and why of our off season preoccupation with all things baseball in this quote courtesy of Belth's Bronx Banter:

There is a game of baseball that is not to be found in the schedules or the record books. It has no season, but it is best played in the winter, without the distraction of box scores and standings.

This is the inner game, baseball in the mind, and there is no real fan who does not know it. It is a game of recollections, recapturings, and visions: Yet this is only the beginning, for baseball in the mind in not a mere yearning and returning. In time, this easy envisioning of restored players, winning hits, and famous rallies gives way to reconsiderations and reflections about the sport itself.

By thinking about baseball like this, by playing it over and yet keeping it to ourselves, keeping it warm in a cold season, we begin to make discoveries. With luck, we may even penetrate some of its mysteries and learn once again how richly and variously the game can reward us.

So don't apologize of make excuses if you like me find yourself always occupied with the Red Sox regardless of how the Patriots are doing. We are making discoveries, seeking rewards only baseball can bestow.

"Hi, I'm Wes Clark"

As many have said before and as I'll surely say again and again, the best thing about going away (on vacation, on a business trip, on a pilgrimage) is coming home again. I always get a rejuvenated appreciation for the so-called "little things" in life, the things you take for granted day in and day out not realizing how integral they are to your daily contentment.

This morning, I'm so grateful for my fenced in back yard, such that I can open the door and let the dog out as often as he wants, which you quickly realize when staying at a beach house with no such fenced enclosure for a pooch is very often, annoyingly often, awfully often.

As I alluded to in the audioblog post last Thursday, I've made peace with the fact that the Ramirez-for-Rodriguez/Garciaparra-for-Ordoñez isn't going to happen. More than that, I'm actually quite happy it isn't going to happen. (By the way, you saw that the Rangers signed Brian Jordan and David Dellucci, outfielders both, signaling that the proposed deal is in fact dead?)

What led to this for me was this quote that was attributed to Nomar when Red Sox management wanted him to do a meet and greet with some VIP types: "I'm here to play baseball, not shake hands." (Sorry I don't so far have a link to the source on this one.)

I've never been much of flesh presser myself; indeed, I'm so much of the "and that's why you'll always find him in the kitchen at parties" sort. I just don't like the schmoozing scene and go through life wanted to be respected and admired for what I do rather than how well I smile and talk the talk aimed at making somebody else feel self-important or otherwise special. (I'd be a horrible stripper for instance.)

And, yes, I know, you don't build a championship baseball roster by trying to find connections between your own inner mental workings and that of a major league baseball player, but I'm not Theo Epstein. I'm a fan. And as a fan, having players on your team that you can identify with on some personal level is part of the fun, part of the attraction to the game of baseball.

So I'm looking forward to watching number 5 do what he does best: play baseball.