Wells and Schilling take some grounders on the first day of Spring Training
Well it's now official, Spring Training has started. Seeing the team out there yesterday was great and I was extremelly happy with how quickly it looks like Schilling is recovering. He's stated that he's "...working with the mindset that April 3 is the day." and that's just great news. Yes it would be great drama to have him and Randy going head to head to start the season, but the even bigger plus is the fact that that's one more start we'll have him for. After leading the Major Leauge in wins last year Schilling proved he was a huge X-Factor for us. Now with the smell of fresh cut grass still in the air the Sox hang on a few question marks going into the year. The factor I'll address today is David Wells. First off, I'm shocked at how much attention the NY papers are giving him. He dominated the front and back of the NY Post today among others which seemed rather odd. But I'll touch more on this below. David can be great for us. If his back is healthy he'll be a very solid #2. There's no doubt he'll be able to handle any pressure thrown at him by fans or media. It is strange for him to be with us, hell, I remember 2 years a go standing behind him during his bullpen workout at Fenway and asking (screamed more like it) him if he was half drunk. Sigh, times change I guess. I think he'll really like our clubhouse atmosphere and think he'll "go to war" with us just fine. Just another page in the Sox Yanks book which leads me to...
The War of the Words
I'm going to start this off by saying yes, baseball between these two teams will be more intense then ever this year. I've already had my first mini-arguement with a best friend and great Yankee fan today, a day after pitchers and catchers report. And it all started from the real players talking. Last year this was done in Spring Training with Henry and Steinbrener, and started a year before with Larry's now infamous "Evil Empire" quote. But the talking has spilled over to the players. Sheffield said some choice words last year before and during the ALCS. Then Curt made his "Busch League play" remark numerous times (which it was) and eventually Slap-Rod said how he couldn't wait to beat him up (on the baseball field). Trot's gotten into the fray because he felt like Alex was questioning his training regimine and it's starting to slowly snowball a little too much. I don't want this to start resmebeling professional wrestleing. Terry's going to address this once all players report and was quoted as saying, "We may have to discuss that a little bit, with this rivalry, there's enough s*** there already." This isn't horrible though, and as long as it doesn't get too out of hand, I think it's good. Regardless of who won last year, or the year before etc. A Sox Yankees game is the best, and the more the rivalry, the more fun it is to watch/root. I'm sure you'll see this cool off (for awhile at least) and hopefully no-one will be challenging anyone to a freestyle dis' battle on 106 and Park!
Lord of the Bling
The fan version of the W.S. Title Rings
The new big thing Sox fans are all up in a bunch about now that Ballgate is over is the Ring Ceremony. Keeping with the Sox/Yanks theme, the Sox may now not present their rings for the Season Opener. This originally was being billed as a good will gesture to not rub anything in. Cough! Cough! Cough! Cough! I'm sorry, that was me just choking a HUGE chunk are you f****** kidding me. Seriously. Are you kidding me? This is how things are done. The winner of the champioship gets their rings and raises the flag on their home opener. You think that if the yanks won it all they'd not mention anything on April 3rd? Yeah...right. This is the same "classy" franchise that had Bucky "F******" Dent throw out the first pitch before Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. They also offered the Sox management the use of the Babe Ruth suite for the game. And the Sox begged management to not take batting practice because of how loud the Yankeeographies were being blared through the sound sytem. Oh yeah, Yankee greats were parading on the field as a little intimidation factor as well. All of that is fine and pretty funny actually. Even I see the humor in some of that. It's just part of it. And yes, the Yanks were classy when keeping the lights on for the team to celebrate. But seriously, since when is the Sox front office afraid to boast a little bit. John Henry now is saying the rings may not be ready by then, and that gets a big ol' PPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. If you went to college with me then that make sense to you. I pray this gets turned around and there's already a huge outcry to turn this around. Wow, after writing all this I just got REAL excited for the season. At least we have March Madness to tie us over.
Notes from the baseline
- Get well Teddy.
- Fantasy Baseball, who's your number one pick?
- Thanks to my roommate, I will now enjoy games when not at the park on a 42'' HD Plasma screen TV.
- Hearing Gerry on WEEI reminds me of the Ssummertime.
- TGIF
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