Category: Boston Red Sox

I do not track these statistics, but if I were a betting man (and I am), I would wager that the percentage of calls into WEEI that cry for Red Sox manager Terry Francona’s head to be put on a chopping block is somewhere around 10-15%.  He might be the most unpopular Red Sox manager since, well…. Grady Little.  The more things change…

It is no secret that the Boston media are an extremely cynical bunch.

This also just in: Halle Berry is pretty good-looking.

I am compelled to voice my opinion on the way Nomar Garciaparra has been portrayed as a lame-duck shortstop – as if he is just a few scant months or a trading deadline away from waving bye-bye to The Bean. Not only that, but there is a rising number of media types and fans that are pulling for this scenario.

Leave it to the Boston Red Sox to ruin a perfect day.

The script was all right there in front of me, every detail pointing to June 30, 2004 going down in history as one of the watershed days of my life.  The weather was gorgeous, a moderate mixture of temperature, sun intensity, and gentle breeze that could have passed for San Diego in April as easily as Boston in early summer.

Pressure?  Urgency?

The Red Sox could get swept by the Yankees this week and still hold a 6-4 lead in the season series.

Unfortunately, the glass-is-hall-full approach is not shared by many citizens of Red Sox Nation, who have been known to demand the firing of pennant-winning managers and other field generals who take the team to the ALCS.  In some baseball cities, reaching Game 7 of the ALCS would be seen as a triumphant season.  In the hardball meccas of Boston and New York, however, such a season is a disappointment, a chapter in the annals of the franchise that deserves to be skimmed over.  In these two cities, where baseball is not as much a diversionary sport as it is a fan’s validation of his own self-worth, the greatest rivalry in professional sports is renewed (for the eighth time this year) this week in the Bronx.

 Now that the Beltran saga is behind us, at least till 2005, and A-Rod is the new Yankee for life, the Red Sox may now have to reap the consequences.
 

Bill Simmons, the self-proclaimed Boston Sports Guy, writes about The Leap: those moments when good or even great players transcend their previous limitations and solidify their immortality as one of the truly elite.

While not quite the same idea, Red Sox fans witnessed The Leap of a different variety on Sunday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers at a brisk Fenway Park.

Tuning into sports talk radio and hearing all of the complaints, you would think that the Sox are a 2nd rate team owned by Bud Selig’s daughter.  The 11 or 12 fans in Milwaukee or Montreal would give up their first born to watch a team like the Sox night-in and night-out.  Believe me, it’s true.  Nobody there cares.  I have a friend who’s a Brewers’ “fan” and I asked him the other day how his team looks this year.  He answered with, “I like the Packers chances in the NFC North.”