I have not seen the Sox team play since last October. I did see Diasuke and Youk play in the World Baseball Classic, and I had a potential chance to see the Sox play against the Orioles in Ft. Lauderdale a few weeks ago but opted to play golf instead. I do not live in New England so I do not get NESN, and the only spring season game that Comcast had on the MBL network was rained out a few days ago. I do get the In demand baseball package, but that does not broadcast games until the season starts. Therefore, the MLB network's broadcast of the Sox Yankee game tonight is the opening night equivalent for me for this year's season. I am looking forward to watching the game despite the Obama news conference taking a bit of my concentration away for part of the game.

Now I know it is still spring training season, but I hope the sox take this game seriously and try to win all out. If they do, I will be excited for the upcoming real season and will give credence to all the good things I have read here lately! However if they don't do well, then there are 2 potential scenarios for me (see poll). One is to just understand that it is the spring seasons, and to hope for better results the next game. The other is to expect the worst for the year, and to maybe cancel my In-demand contract and save $170.00.

I do not know why others have not posted this idea before, but being a Boston fan with a history of having to live with Fenway park and now seeing the season extending into November, has to eventually bring up this subject. Baseball is a warm weather sport, and it is tough for the best players to perform in mid thirty degree weather with rain and/or snow. It is just not fair to go an entire season and then have the best team determined by weather luck or who is the best "mudder"! Is that what we watch all season long for and keep all these stats that become useless in foul weather.

Baseball in the northern climes cannot be played predictably well in late October or November. Either shorten the season so it is over by Oct 12, or force all teams north of the Mason-Dixon line (arbitrary line--could be further south) to have domed stadiums if they want to keep their teams.

Thoughts??

Well I am just now coming out of shock from last night's Wakefield absolute disaster, and rather than staying quiet as I first was going to do, I am now inclined to get wordy for my daily therapy! The Red Sox had momentum building over the last week, and with the loss by the Rays yesterday, the one thing that the Sox should never have allowed was a momentum sucking black hole to develop. What could have been that potential momentum sucking black hole?? Lugo? No he was not in the lineup. Varitek? Well he has been improving lately, and besides, one fielder-type player can only have only so much effect on the team effort by himself! Let me see, Hmmmmm? How about a totally unpredictable knuckleballer who does not know from pitch to pitch what will happen, and whose overall record is not that impressive. Yes, lets throw the dice and put our momentum high streak in jeopardy.

I know lots of fans here will go out of their way with relatively meaningless numbers to support all current Red Sox, but sometime the reality of protecting one's momentum at critical times calls for hard decisions. Letting Wakefield sink in his own crap until the game was so out of reach that the team was depressed (the absolute definition of momentum sucking) was not good managerial skills at this critical time. Francona should have had relievers getting ready as soon as Wakefield walked 2 players, period.

Last nights loss may have done more damage than most expect, but either way, it was unnecessary to allow Wakefild to single-handedly blow all that important built up momentum in this critical time, IMO!

With all the crap of ? throwing 90-100 MPH balls at players intentionally for whatever reason, all I can think of is what happened to Tony C.  He basically was killed by such a ball, although nobody ever said the pitch was intentionally thrown at his head.  Still, these pitchers today throw 100 miles and hour, and at that speed (and much less), a ball to the head could kill. If such a pitch was thrown intentionally, it is assault with a deadly weapon, and if it kills, it is murder. Now maybe if the criminal authorities in the jurisdiction were to get involved in some of these cases, maybe that would finally stop this crap!

In the early part of the 20th century, there was no TV and minimal radio, so most if not all revenues for baseball teams had to be generated by sale of seats at the ballpark.  That being so, why would anyone build a non-revenue-generating wall instead of more bleachers for paying customers??

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