a700hitter

This was already posted in the "Schilling: Sign Beckett -- Now" thread.

Optimism on Beckett talks. http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2010/03/optimism_on_bec.html

Mark Wagner has some pop-- a hard double and a HR today.

He was throwing 93 today.

Filthy breaking ball. Three k's so far.

Bonser throwing 91-93 with good movement.

it's the job of the FO to hype their prospects, but hopefully they can differentiate between the hyped guys and the real deal.

Followed by two walks.

Bucholz serving up a gopher ball in the first inning to Markakis.

Thanks.

...an he has a job helping the mentally handicapped... and example of government run health care?

Yes, it should be the station that you get on Comcast.

Tomorrow's game is on the MLB station. Who is pitching?

Joe Nathan hurt his elbow in today's game. He had surgery on that elbow in October.

It's a different game today. Ballparks are smaller today. The pitching mound is lower. The 1960's were ridiculously pitching dominated, because of the higher mound. As for fielding, if you can get a copy of the second to last game of the 1967 season (which is the oldest known full game broadcast in color) you will see the drastic difference in field condition from today. The groundskeepers for today's teams have all sorts of Masters degrees in grass and dirt. Back then heads groundskeepers were retired fireman, cops etc. The grounds crew were part-time guys. Today's infields are made of composite materials that cost millions and they are carefully manicured. Back then the IF's were dirt. There were lot's of bad hops. If you watch that game you will see how the Infield got chewed up after a few innings from the players cleats. The outfielders were splashing around because of all the standing water from the prior day. Scott was the premier fielding 1B of his day. The stats don't translate to today. They just don't.... offensively or defensively. Youk is not the best fielding 1B in the game today. He is very, very good, but he is not the best. Tex is much better with the leather. No one was better than Scott in that era. It's got nothing to do with putting anyone on pedestals. Greatness is determined in the context of a player's contemporaries. You didn't see him play, and if you want to use stats to judge him, judge him against the stats of his peers.

He could throw around the leather. He played a fair amount of third base too.

People get irritated when I say during the season that "Yaz would have played." To put that statement in context, I was 2 years old when Yaz broke into the majors and he retired when I was almost 25. For my entire childhood and part of my adult life, he played every day year in and year out. I have been a huge Pedro fan, but we had him for only 7 years. We had Manny for 7 1/2 years. Ortiz has been with us for 7 seasons. Nomar was here for 8 1/2 seasons. These guys were huge stars and heroes. Yaz played more seasons for the Sox than any combination of three of those four guys. That's just amazing. It took me a long time to get used to a Red Sox team without #8 in the lineup, because it had been such a constant.

Yaz was almost single-handedly responsible for the rebirth of the franchise. 1967 set the franchise on a path of sustained and it has never turned back except for the momentary lapse when Butch Hobson was the manager.

That stinks. They don't give away anything. I subscribe to the SportsPack on Directv in addition to paying for the Extra-Innings Pack to get all the MLB games. I get the SportsPack to get NESN so I can see the pre-game and post-game shows. However, it blacks me out of other Red Sox programming like the weekly Red Sox wrap up show, classic game replays etc. That pisses me off. I am paying extra for NESN and I am paying MLB to get the games on Extra Innings, but they still black me out for certain Red Sox programming. What is stupid about it, and there are few things the Sox are stupid about, is that I can't even purchase the additional programming.

In past years, MLB didn't blackout the radio feed for pre-season games. I don't know if that is still true.

What do you do?

If you have access to a computer at work, you can stream the WEEI feed.

If I have to pick a SS for 1 year for my team, this year Jeter heads my list- ahead of Hanley. I don't care what the numbers say. That's elite. I hate anything with pinstripes, but the devil must get his due.