seabeachfred

HA!!!!! You've got to be kidding Pal. The two Spring Trainings I was down in Fort Myers no one seemed to give a hoot in hell about that cup so I know you're trying to get a laugh. The one thing I do fear though is that if we lose a ton of games in ST we could be sluggish at the start of the regular season as we were in 2011. Remember that one? At one point we lost 12 games in a row with our distracted manager Tito. Last season the Angels had an abominable pre-season record and were flattened almost from the start. In basketball the Lakers got off to an 0-8 pre season record in 2011-2012 and cratered, a process that continued all season. Coming out of ST with a mediocre record doesn't mean beans, but something like six or seven wins and over 20 losses certainly does in my opinion.

Check signals Wyo. I got on Yesterday just in time to see the Red Sox look like a pack of clowns against the Twins. Well it's only Spring Training and these games don't mean much except to get in shape and get in shape for the real season. The only thing to be aware of is not to get into a big losing streak in these games. As it happened to the Angels last season and us in 2011, a bad streak can be a very bad sign for the coming year......my opinion only.

Youk---I get the MLB package, the prices varies in how much you want besides the games--post games, special events, etc. I get mine automatically renewed every year. I get only the games and then it is shut down. Call MLB at 1-866-800-1275 and someone will give you the lowdown. Sitting and watching it on the computer is not as good as watching a game on TV but I would much rather watch the Red Sox this way then have to endure watching the Angels and Dodgers on LA Television. Come to think of it, the Bums are no longer on regular TV out here so it is just the Angels.

Well he caught "a full game" this afternoon if you know what I mean. Couch and Kehrt---who the hell are these guys anyway? They did everything they could to give the game away. Well they can thank Farrell for giving them a chance to show what they could do and next time they had better do better. Never heard of these two before. Are they just invitees or what? As for Lav he got a good workout today and I'm sure John will give him some more work to see what he can do. Great to see the Red Sox on the tube again even if I have to see the on my computer screen.

Bogaerts is a middle of the order type hitter, starting most likely at six or so and then within a year or two moving to fifth or fourth and maybe some day the third spot. He projects to be the type of hitter who can hit for both average and power and to put him at leadoff I don't think the Red Sox would get the best out of him. Since we don't have a prototype leadoff hitter anymore, the idea is no more strange than some of the other ones I've heard or some of the suggestions I've made myself. Though it might be a tough assignment I would throw Bradley to the wolves and let him leadoff and when he sits we put Sizemore there since he has led off before. We may be underestimating Jackie's ability as a hitter. Why not take a chance on him for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. He can't be any worse than that crybaby we gave $143 million to a couple of years back who sucked big time for us in that spot and did his best work as a moaner, complainer and total underachiever.

I hate to say it but the leadoff spot in our lineup is going to be a problem for us all season unless someone takes the bull by the horns and cements himself in that spot. I don't like the idea of alternating leadoff hitters depending on who is pitching for the opposition. Continuity at leadoff is what we should strive for and if Bradley can't do it offensively for us Sizemore can because he has done it and done it well before.

I know you're not much of a Lavarnway fan but at least be accurate. He was not a negative on both sides of the plate last year. He hit 299 in his little time with the Red Sox, and it has come down to the fact that they do not think he has what it takes to be a catcher. However, I think the Red Sox have screwed up on this guy and have programmed him to fail. Look at Salty; he was total s*** behind the dish and yet the team went with him for three seasons. With Ryan, they tried to chance his batting approach when they thought he was swinging too much for power even though he showed good ability to drive the ball. Trying to turn him into a singles and doubles hitter didn't work. I agree with you on Vasquez with one qualification. If he expects to be the first string catcher for the Red Sox he better hit better than he does and show some power. Blake Swihart is a much better hitter and projects into almost as good a catcher as Vas is. Perhaps long range they might move Blake to first base but they are talking about doing that with Middlebrooks too, and there is still a good chance Travis Shaw could continue to show what he showed with the bat this past winter in the AFL. I also think with all these possibilities things will just have to sort themselves out over the next couple of years, but the Red Sox are not known for carrying two or three defensive men in their lineup at the expense of hitting and I don't think they will. You want to play for the Red Sox, you have to be able to hit.

Come on Drew, swallow your pride and sign........WITH THE METS!!!!!!!!

Spud----Fixated is the right word as it applies to me in this case and the reason I feel they (Ben and John) are fixated on Drew is that they have yet to say they are moving on, that Drew is no longer in their plans and because they still say they would consider him if he wanted to come back. THAT"S WHY!!!!!!!! Look, the Mets would rather go with perhaps the worst all around returning shortstop around than sign Drew, the Cardinals choose a druggie over him and up to now the Yankees have shown no interest. Who else is there but us? I keep hoping to hear that he has signed with some other team but the longer this goes on the more I am convinced that Boras will once again come to the Red Sox to get his chestnuts out of the fire just as he did back in late 2008 when he guessed wrong with Varitek who had no offers at all. We took back an aging and rapidly declining player twice in three years. I don't want to see us help Yankee fan Boras in any way. It is about time he and his greedy client sucked some wind. Besides, we don't need Drew.

I might still be a Dodger fan too---who knows? Rickey was a genius and his judgment of black players was outstanding. When he was in charge we got Robinson, Campanella, Newcombe and later Joe Black. When that fat ass O'Malley took over we got the re-runs like Gilliam, Charlie Neal and other duds while the Willie Mayses, Frank Robinsons, Henry Aarons and Ernie Bankses ent elsewhere. Then the bastard yanked the team out of Brooklyn. I will never forgive that dickweed for doing that. Fortunately I know have the Red Sox and they will always be in Boston. BTW, unlike most Red Sox fans I don't have a NL team I follow with any fervor or enthusiasm at all, but since my wife and I take a summer vacation down in San Diego we kind of wanted to see that team shake the cobwebs and become successful------until the O'Malley Family bought that team. Now they can drop dead. Maybe I'll adopt the Cubs as my distantly second team.

It looks a little like that to me too, but the Yankees are crazy like foxes and they seem to always run into a plethora of luck. It would be nice to see all this fall flat on their kissers. Come to think of it, though, we're still a little slapdash ourselves. I still think Cherington is fixated on bringing Drew back to Boston, a colossal mistake in my opinion and a way to take Yankee fan Boras' chestnuts out of the fire. For a filthy rat who sent Damon, Ellsbury and Teixiera to the Yankees and stuck it to us, I really want this time to really stick it to him. That, plus the fact that we don't need Drew and I don't like that greedy bastard.

Branch Rickey, one of the greatest owner-general managers in baseball history, once said that luck was the residue of design. For my luck the residue is that I am now in my 70's, retired with most of my life behind me. You, OTOH, have it all in front of you. So I have earned my luck by my age and the Red Sox are my passion in life aside from my wife, daughter and grandkids. You will be able to take all those trips yourself soon enough and probably years before I first took mine which was in 2000---which is when I became a Red Sox fan. You will have plenty of time to do all the things you want.

Barring some unforeseen circumstances like getting sick or hit by a car, I will be in Boston for that opening home series. The bill came for the trip and it has been paid and my air fare bill will soon arrive. I have also salted away my spending money for that trip so I am all set. You owe me a call my friend because I never seem to able to get hold of you.

Blew that one too, did I? Well, back to the laboratory. Help me out RJ. Are you a Red Sox or Yankee fan? As you posted I can use a little help there.

I finally figured out that rj is a Yankee fan. That's what senior moments can to you Pal. I should have had it figured out from the get go.

Glad you cleared the air with that one mvp. I took the 2009-2012 era to show just how much the gods of fate were playing Russian Roulette with our ball club---and winning. We have a lot go wrong last year but I guess what Jacko was thinking was nothing went wrong in comparison to other seasons. If we wasn't thinking is that mode, then he was just paddling as fast as his mouth would let him up a river of ******** trying to save his own ass at our expense.

That almost matches what I would predict my friend but am scared to, but this could be your lucky day. I would love to have the season end the way you say it would. Nothing would please me more than see our Red Sox in the WS again except for being able to play the Dodgers and slay them in the World Series. That happens, you get in touch with and I will send you a check for $75.00 to be used for your favorite charity---you or anything else. That's how much that would mean to me.

As Ted said, not everything went right for us last season, just the vast majority of things. OK on that, but keep in mind that from 2009 through 2012, we had about the worst run of luck imaginable. Bad signings, players running into one another for season long injuries, pitchers coming up lame, players going into the deep freeze in their stats, a totally f***ed up medical staff that made one miserable and wrong diagnoses after another, a veteran manager who became so distracted he was little more than a pet bear in his last season, and a new manager that was a total car wreck. Did I leave anything out? If so, jump in fellow Red Soxers. I'm sure I probably have. So Jacko, if things really even out in the long run as they say, or even if they don't always do precisely but come close, then we are due for a couple more seasons to make up for those four that we witnessed before the rising of 2013.

Go for it my friend.....and worry the s*** out of Jacko. He probably wishes you picked the Red Sox to go all the way. I wish I could know that guy personally just to read him and know how he really feels about his team not making the Playoffs. So many Yankee fans I know have this feeling of entitlement that tells them a WS Title or it is a failed season. To give Jacko credit, he doesn't seem to be that type of Yankee fan, but, as I said, I don't know him personally to anything but take an educated guess at what motivates him.

So was I Ted. I really had no clue what was going to happen to our team last season when they assembled at ST. The best I could hope for, and under perfect conditions, was maybe sneaking off with the AL East---a long long long shot at best. Since your dad was a Brooklyn fan as I was as a kid in Queens before my family moved West, I think you can understand what I am going to say better than most of our friends on this board. Right now if I was to compare our Red Sox to any defending WS Champion it would be the 1959 LA Dodgers. They came to LA the year before and finished 7th in an eight team league and they really sucked.....which made me do cartwheels. In '59 they came back, tied for the league lead, won a playoff against the Braves and beat the White Sox in the WS. In 1960 they had a large number of good prospects vieing for spots occupied by the old guard---Hodges, Gilliam, Snider, Podres, etc. They finished fourth. I'm hoping any comparison to that miserable outfit ends with that and we do not succumb to an off season of settling into the middle of the pack. They went with their old guard; we have the chance to having our "old guard", still fairly young for the most part, and augmented by some good young players------Bogey, JBjr and WMB----and that is one reason I don't want to resign Drew. I want to get this mixture of youth and experience blended in this season----and it can be done successfully.

He explained why RSFFL. He said he hates to predict his team to finish first because he's afraid that will jinx them. You know as well as I do that baseball fans are full of superstitions and that one is Ted's. I don't like to predict finishes either for primarily the same reason but now even more so because of the division we're in. Look at mvp's picks. He has the O's dead last but you know what? With their recent haul of a good starter and a slugging outfielder they could actually come all the way and win the AL East this season. That's how close and tough our division is.....and so could the Rays, the Yankees and us. Hell, even the Jays might make a big turnaround. I give kudos to those who make these predictions; I only hope they thought out those picks carefully.

There is a long way to go mvp, but what if Grady actually outplays Jackie and wins the center field position. What then? Does JBjr then go to the minors? I actually think this was the year we could cement Middlebrooks at third, insert Bogaerts at short and Bradley in center and have three stalwarts of the coming years in the same lineup and paving the way for the Cecchinis, Bettses, Swiharts, Brentzes and Vasguezes, not to mention the upcoming pitchers like Renaudo, Owens, Barnes and maybe Webster and Delarosa. Personally, I would gladly take my chances this year and start the procession of getting our younger players acclimated to the Bigs and risk not winning something this season in order to be in a commanding position the rest of the decade to get into two or maybe three WS from 2015-2020. Two of those in six or better yet three sounds pretty good to me.

Well let me remind you of something we both said to one another last March when we were either drunk, in a stupor, or out of our minds. We both made the ridiculous argument that if everyone in the division beat up on everyone else and the teams in the other divisions were strong enough, we might actually cobble about 85 or 86 wins and sneak away with the division. I remember both of us saying it could happen even if neither one of us really believed a word of it. Well, I know I didn't.

Well thanks for your counter-thrust in reaction to my friend's ALE predictions. He let all the air out of my balloon and all the wind out of my sails with those pearls. To see the Yankees back on top of the division and us buried deep within it is too hateful to contemplate. Hey Ted, are you trying to ruin the freakin' day?

As Bellhorn said Zac was not Dutchy. I knew him well on two other boards but he acted differently there as I remember. Trying to take you on was silly on his part and I guess he paid for it. Has he really been banned forever though?