seabeachfred

It was brought to my attention Dojji by MVP yesterday and you today and I stand corrected. Thanks for the heads-up. I must have inadvertantly assumed that since he was dead meat in 2009 and 2010 before we traded him away that his 2008 season was mush as well. It wasn't. Perhaps it was the fact that after pitching well during the regular season in 2007, especially towards the end, that he crapped out in the World Series. At any rate, thanks again you and MVP.

Not to change the topic but is anyone planning to go to Chicago to see the Red Sox there on June 15-17? I chose to go here because I think watching two classic teams in a classic park would be a winner.

Well this is one area where we are all in this together. Oh, I follow football and basketball but they are small potatoes compared to baseball. That is why Spring is my favorite time of the year. This is when baseball takes over, and in my opinion there is no sport like baseball. There is something timeless and historic about our sport and as Red Sox fans we are already biting our nails and pulling at our hair for this Grapefruit League season to get underway so we can get a glipse at how our team is shaping up. There is something else some of you might have noticed and that most Red Sox fans say without a shadow of a doubt that baseball is their favorite sport. I know of fans of other teams who do not take this tack and tell you that they enjoy football, basketball and hockey just as much as root for their teams in those sports as hard as they do for their baseball team. That is not even remotely true about Red Sox fans. To us the Sox come first and everything else comes second.

As someone told me very recently, butt out and mind your own damn business. You were not part of this exchange LynNay, so take your own advice. BUTT OUT AND MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS. :thumbdown:thumbdown:thumbdown:thumbdown

Let me tell you User it isn't very ironic at all. Unless I am attacked personally I do not attack posters in a personal manner. I do attack the players, front office and ownership. Big difference!!!!!!!!

You know Lyn Nay, I've tried my best to reach an accommodation with you and will keep trying but you seem to love to snipe at people you don't agree with and make snotty caustic remarks as you did with a couple of my posts tonight. Look, you are very reluctant to criticize the Red Sox for anything and I happen to sometimes be overly critical. I accept your position on things even though I disagree with mosto of them. You do NOT accept my position or Ted's or Muggah's or Elk's or Pumpsie"s or many others who take a more critical stand on the goings-on in Red Sox country. You're quick with sarcasm and wonder why some give it back to y ou as Ted does. Accept the fact that you and I are going to disagree a good deal of the time...accept it as I accept your positions which I mostly find faulty. Keep the nasty personal comments to yourself and we will all get along better on this board.

There are some things in your post Dutch that I can totally agree with but for you to wax poetic at what has gone down the past THREE seasons is to me disengenuous. After we blew the pennant in 2008 due to Francona's miserable handling of the pitching staff and his usuall safety first strategy, we have had three very disappointing seasons in a row. I don't call a three and out ALDS fiasco part of a successful season in 2009, and remember, we were three games ahead at the ASB and proceeded to go into the tank right after tha. Coincidental or not, ever since Henry married that sweetheart of his, the interest he has shown in the team has been muddled at best. Then there was the miserable FA signings of Epstein, and Francona's continued unraveling in the dugout. We have NOT WON A DAMN THING IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS----NOTHING, NOT A DIVISION, NOT A PENNANT AND CERTAINLY NOT A WS. I call that failure, pure and simple. Some don't like to hear that and rail at it and you may be one of those people. No matter, facts are facts. Zilch is what we have won the past four seasons. Some of us think the front office has lost its way. Some of us think changes should have been made earlier via Francona and Epstein. But for whatever reasons, the team is not playing as it did back in the days of 2003-2007, not even close. Did some of us get spoiled? Speaking for myself I did--and I expected more success that we've gotten the past four seasons. Perhaps you are satisfied with what'ss gone down since 2007 but a lot of us are not. We can read the standings at the end of the season and it doesn't spell success. And just for the re cord, success to me is at least winning the division. We haven't even done that.

Manny Delcarmen???? Sorry Dojji, you lost me there. We had that bum for the better part of six seasons (2005-2010) and except for a stretch in 2007 he was known to a lot of us as MDC---Major Disaster Coming. Even Epstein threw in the towel in 2010 when he referred to him as a "sunk cost". He went to Colorado and failed miserably there, didn't exactly distinguish himself in the minors in 2011 either. Keep in mind that in 2009 Francona had to go out to the mound to take him out of the game an astounding 14 times. He was real garbage. Please sir, do not try and sell us Carpenter as another MDC; we feel bad enough just knowing what we eventually got.

Muggah, I don't know if I would go quite as far as you on this but rest assured I'm pretty damned close. If 700 says Doji can be relied on then what we got was garbage. He will fit right in with the rest of the various and sundry dung for the heap. At least this farce is now over.

More dung for the heap 700 because if he is challenged to throw strikes you have a real dud on your hands. No matter, we seem to have signed a plethora of that type all winter. So much for Garza and McNutt. We got ourselves a real potential lemon.

I like those nicknames and will use them occasionally. I know you don't but I also get the impression that you and a few others don't have a real sense of humor. I could be wrong on that but you shouldn't get worked up about those names. Carlos "Hi Ho" Silva? I kind of like that myself. How everything shapes up on this board depends on how the team does this year, and, please Lyn Nay, don't tell me that trouble started when a few of us came on board here. I lurked here last year during the season and some of the stuff I saw on the game threads make anything I've seen on this one look like small potatoes indeed. As for Varitek and Wakefield, you are right, I really did expend a lot of energy worrying if those two were really going to be added to the team again. You know, the Yankees don't fool around like that. When Bernie Williams is done, when Jorge Posada is finished, when Tino Martinez is no longer contributing it is adios amigo. We need to do the same.

Didn't know that Jacko. If what you say is true then Henry is nothing more than a miserable ungrateful son of a bitch. I'm no Francona fan as everyone knows but to do something like that to him is beyond the pale. Then I have never had that big a regard for Henry in the first place. On another board I refer to him as Prune Face.

I gave him that name on another board in salutation for his miserable play from 2008 through last season. Here's hoping I never have to use it again....if you get my drift.

Do you also love the part of your boy Francona getting his ass canned by the team because he lost the clubhouse in September, didn't have the team prepared to open the regular season, treated Spring Training last year like it was a country club and is on the managerial unemployment line this season after being rejected by the Cardinals for another person who never managed before? Check with Muggah, he kept a running account of the games your Terry might have cost us with his less than adroit managerial skills in the dugout. Look, we don't have to belabor this point any longer here. We're on another board and what we argued about last September was settled when your pals fled to form that echo chamber they now have. Francona is gone, Epstein is gone but the damage they wrought will be difficult to dig ourselves out from. The s*** we hurled at each other last season should die because this is a new venue for both of us and we should be looking to the future instead of the past.

Strange as it may seem to my pals on this board, I was NOT in favor of the Abreu trade and glad it didn't take place. As a matter of fact I called the RedSox front office and spoke to one of Theo's assistants (can't remember who) and said I didn't want to make this trade because names like Ellsbury, Pedroia, Lester and Papelbon were being mentioned and even back then I had predicted that in a couple of years Pedey and Ells would be stars for our team (one of my proudest moments to be honest with you). I wasn't sure yet about Lester but that possible trade just didn't sit with me too well. Nixon Next year Pedroia hit 317 and was AL Rookie of the Year, Lester recovered from his cancer fight a winner and pitched some key games for us late in the year, and Ells came up in the summer and tore the living s*** out of the ball. That year was 2007.....need I say more. Now I know that 700 is perturbed the way Abreu came in and thrashed us in that humiliating five game series, but a couple of things need to be remembered here. One, Varitek and Nixon has sustained serious injuries and they were out for most of the season, Jason the rest of it. In addition, FrancoMa, in one of his usual mishandling of the rotation, decided to pitch Boomer Wells in a series finale against a lesser club and hold him off for the Yankee series until game 5. He could have been saved for that first game and we most likely would have won it since we did score five runs I believe. Wells gave up only two the last game of the series while we, completely demoralized, got only one. Why FrancoMa opened with Jason Johnson still astounds me. I couldn't believe FrancoMa was that stupid. I know better now.

Well I guess Spring Training really starts tomorrow and I'm jealous about this new Jet Blue Stadium that has been built and me having to wait until next season to see it. Maybe some of this clamor of last year will die down long enough for the team to start getting the kinks out and get in shape....and this year stay in shape. I think Valentine will see to that because he promised he would, and, besides, the press is now very unfavorably disposed towards the players and very much in favor of BV taking over and restoring order. One point of contention....When the hell are we going to finally settle with the Cubs over Theo's compensation. Selig said he would step in; so why hasn't the owners lackey done that? Seems that should be one of the first orders of business if you ask me.

You know I think SCM made a very salient point here. Varitek WAS the backup catcher last year and I wonder just what respect he did command in that position. I only know that Beckett wanted him as his personal catcher but aside from that I wonder if Josh and some others even paid attention to him when the game was over. It wouldn't surprise me if some players did, in fact, laugh behind his back. I'm no fan of Varitek as you all know; I think he should have retired three years ago, but there could be something to this. It is hard for me to turn on Beckett, though, even if the evidence of this guy being an ******* is beginning to pile up mile high. I remember so well what he did for us in 2007; remember, he was the best pitcher in baseball that year and he was the horse we depended on to win the big games for us. Maybe all this went to his head because he isn't helping his team in the maturity department at the moment. BV may really have to sit on this guy unless his attitude changes.