It’s opening night.
We have assumed the baseball positions, with Terri knitting and me blogging.
I have nothing intelligent to say about the actual game that hasn’t been said already, so I’ll point out that I’m happy to see that Don Orsillo has taken over play-by-play from Sean McDonough on UPN. I know people might like McDonough, but I find him insufferable.
Ed’s recent posts about the unfortunately named Worcester Tornadoes reminded me that I’ve been meaning to mention that I was happy to see, during our recent jaunt to New York, that Brooklyn has gotten a minor league team, a Mets affiliate, the Cyclones (named for the famous Coney Island roller coaster, not a natural disaster).
I think this is good. I’ve often wondered what I’d do for baseball if I lived in New York. Obviously, rooting for the Yankees is not an option. It’s like rooting for Microsoft or Glaxo Smith Kline or something. Being nostalgic for the Brooklyn Dodgers is not an option. It would be kind of ridiculous for me, being born decades too late and hundreds of miles too far west. The Mets, well they’re not an option either, but the reasons are sort of harder to explain. They just seem like such a soulless expansion team whose only purpose is to be there for people who can’t stand the Yankees and who lost the Dodgers.
Anyway, as manufactured as the Cyclones might be, it seems like a slightly more inspired, real kind of fake, which, as you might guess, I think is a noble ideal.
Non-Bostonians: here’s another example of what people are talking about when they talk about the agro Boston baseball media.
Here’s the scoop. The Yankees ($25m), the Sox ($3m), and the Angels ($0.9m) have to pay the “tax”. The Yankees’ tax is bigger than Tampa’s payroll.
Every few months it seems like there’s a news story about a new perverse level of advertising: Fox “photoshopping” out MLB ballparks’ stadium ads with their own, actors paid to go to bars and show off their cool digital cameras, etc. So what’s so perverse about average people interspersing endorsements into their daily interactions with friends and acquaintences? They’re unpaid.
It’s hard for most people in these parts to stomach that Schilling helped us win the World Series, and then started campaigning for Bush. Saw this grafitti in Harvard Square last night.
While I have adopted the baseball team of my adopted city, I have no such feelings for their football team, so I was quite happy to see the Steelers just end the Patriot’s streak.
OK, no more sports posts until Spring Training! (Unless the Steelers win the Super Bowl).
Helmecki came up from Connecticut Friday night, and he, Terri, and I went to the big Red Sox victory parade yesterday morning. Photo highlights are here. There were 17 duck boats full of players, coaches, former players, management, front-office employees, some kids from the Red Sox Foundation, and “Red Sox Partners”, which I assume are people who paid to be in the parade.
It was fun. We stood at the corner of Charles and Boylston, and were pretty close to the action. The boats went by pretty fast, though; there were lots of folks we didn’t manage to see because it happened so suddenly. After they went by, we walked up Charles St., through Beacon Hill, and on to the Longfellow Bridge. We hung out there until the boats went into the river, and we watched them go up one side from there. There were an amazing number of people along the Esplanade watching them go by. We went down to the Cambridge side, in the park between the Cambridge Parkway and the river, and caught them making the final leg on the North side of the river.
In case you wonder what people are talking about when they’re talking about the noxiousness of the Boston sports media, here’s a little snotty streak from Bob Ryan. He starts off as if he’s going to put it in perspective. It’s just a game:
It’s about baseball.
This is not the Boston Symphony whipping the St. Louis Symphony. This is not about Mass. General taking out Barnes-Jewish. This is not about chowdah getting the measure of toasted ravioli.
This is about the Boston Red Sox having a better baseball team than the New York Yankees. This is about the Boston Red Sox having a better baseball team than the St. Louis Cardinals.
Now, Bob, come on, don’t we have any way to feel a sense of superiority?
While an entire nation has sold its soul to the violence and essential callousness of football, Boston has been a proud, stubborn holdout, preferring a more subtle, intricate sport appealing equally to the mind and the senses. If we are the only locale in America in which baseball is king, so be it. When you’re right, you’re right.
Ah, that’s the smugness I thought I could count on. Thanks Bob!
If form holds, the Red Sox’ gaudy, well-earned rings will be handed out in a ceremony April 11 when the 2004 World Series championship flag is raised above Fenway Park for the home opener.
The team in the third base dugout for that historic event? The New York Yankees.
Sweet.
.
with champagne, and peanut butter.
Here’s another bogus World Series statistic, from no less than Sky and Telescope:
What’s more, in a conjunction of events never before seen in history, this eclipse happens during Game 4 of the World Series. The World Series Lunar Eclipse should be visible to fans with good sight lines from Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, and we can hope that TV crews periodically aim up to show the progress of the event — if the sky is not too cloudy! Millions of watchers could be inspired to duck outside for a look between innings. (P.S.: Go Sox!)
(Nice plug, though.)
Now, I don’t believe that this statistic is meaningful, but I do believe that this is a portentious astrological event.
Prepare for humiliation. It shall be upon you at the designated hour.