Scottish Red Sox Fan

True that. The turnaround has been amazing. My expectations for this year were very low, thankfully the team had other ideas.

12 months ago would have predicted John Lackey being in this situation and pitching the way he is? Talk about R-E-D-E-M-P-T-I-O-N.

You can't really say enough about the job John Farrell has done this year, it's been fantastic.

I can't believe the average cost of a ticket for tonight's game is $2000(£1,000). That's batshit crazy.

Stick a fork in the Cards, they're done.

I thought it was great to see Sweet Caroline being played at Yankee Stadium and to see the Yankee fans having a bit of fun with it. Strange how tragic events can bring out the best in people. I guess New Yorkers must have a pretty good grasp of how Bostonians feel right now after what happened in 2001.

He's pitching his ass off right now and it's good to see. I think it's still too early to view him as an ace though.

What a lovely start to the season. It was nice to see Victorino and Iglesias get off to such a good start with the bat. It would have been nice if Jon Lester could have gone deeper than 5 innings but his early departure gave us an insight into what the bullpen can do, it looked promising. 1-0 baby! :thumbsup: PS. A cleanly shaven Kevin Youkilis in a Yankee uniform is just wrong.

Bloody hell. Is it really nearly 10 years already? We're gettin old people! When I sit back now and think about the 2004 WS I realise that I remember shockingly little about it! I watched all 4 games and yet my memory of it is very sketchy. The things I remember most are Derek Lowe pitching a gem in Game 4 and obviously I remember the final out. I'm pretty sure that the reason I don't remember so much about that WS is because of the ALCS that preceded it. That was the most dramatic series of baseball that's ever been played, it has to be. The ALCS really took it out of me, I was emotionally drained by the time it was over. There were just so many facets to it. We were playing the Yankees, we went 0-3 down, the games took forever to play, the extra innings, the dramatic comebacks, THE stolen base, Johnny Damon's grand slam. It blows my mind even now when I think back to everything that happened in that series. Somebody said earlier on in this thread that it was like a Hollywood script being enacted in real life and they are right. Games 4, 5 and 6 were not shown on television over here so I had to rely on the radio to listen to the games. I could only just barely get a reception on Armed Forces Radio. I sat up each night till 5-6am listening to the Red Sox claw their way back into that series, run by run and out by out. It was absolutely gripping. When we scored the winning run in Game 5 I was leaping about my living room at around 6am with my walkman in my ear and punching the air. Anyone looking in the window would have thought I'd lost the plot altogether. lol Thankfully Game 7 was shown on the TV over here so I got to see that one. As long as I live I don't think there will ever be a series of baseball to top that one. So the World Series for me got completely overshadowed. Which is a shame because sweeping that Cardinals team 4-0 was no small achievement. If we had done that any other year then I think it would have been talked about more than it has been.

I would say I am generally about a 5. I don't know what you would call that - level headed, a realist, middle of the road........whatever. I try to think positive about the team and I will always talk up the good things they do but I am also not shy about criticising the team if I think they are playing poorly or they make mistakes off the field. I reckon I got as high as a 3 when Terry Francona was here, I felt the team was really good then and every year I felt like winning the WS was a live possibility. At the moment I have probably sunk to about a 7. I just don't know where this current Red Sox team is headed. So if you average that out then it comes to 5. 5 for me.

AL East 1. Tampa Bay Rays 2. NY Yankees 3. Toronto Blue Jays 4. Baltimore Orioles 5. Boston Red Sox I've never felt so bad about a Red Sox team as I do about this one. It's gonna be a rough ride I reckon. AL Centrals Detroit Tigers AL West Los Angeles Angels NL East Washington Nationals NL Central St. Louis Cardinals NL West San Francisco Giants

I think my expectations for the Red Sox heading into 2013 are going to be as low as they were in 2012. I haven't been all that excited by the moves we've made in the off season to be honest. A 4th or 5th place finish wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Last year when I watched Bobby V on the TV as an analyst I did not get a good vibe off him at all. Some people in life you just warm to and some people you don't. I can't warm to Bobby V. He comes across to me as smarmy and arrogant so I was pretty horrified when I saw the Red Sox appoint him as manager. He just doesn't strike me as a guy who would be a good leader of men. I could be completely wrong but that's my own personal impression of him. I have to be honest and say that I hope he gets fired at the end of the season. I'm not sure that he will get fired though. I think the ownership might be keen to give him another chance to get it right next year. I miss Tito.

The one in the dress = DAYUMMMMM!! The man who could pull me off of her would be declared King of England.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

How long have you been a fan? I have regarded the Red Sox as my baseball team since I was a kid(mid 80's) but I only started actually watching the sport in 2001. So I will leave it to you to decide how long I've been a fan for. How did you become a Red Sox fan? I have Cheers to thank for me becoming a Red Sox fan. I loved that show and watched it a lot when I was young. Obviously there were a lot of references made to the Red Sox on Cheers so I had a soft spot for them from then on. For many years there was no baseball on UK television. So I had never actually seen a baseball game although I regarded the Red Sox as 'my team'. Then in 2001 I noticed one night that there was live baseball on one of our TV channels. I had followed the NFL for years so I had a bit of an appreciation for American sport and I decided to sit down and watch the baseball. It was the 2001 World Series that was on. It was such an enthralling series to watch that it immediately hooked me on the sport. I must confess that I almost got lured to the dark side through watching that series. I didn't like the look of the Diamondbacks so I found myself wanting the Yankees to win the series. However I resisted Satan's attempts to lead me astray and waited eagerly for the new season to start so I could watch a Red Sox game and see what they were like. Early on in the new season a Red Sox game was shown live over here. So I watched it. As soon as I saw Fenway Park, the Red Sox uniform, Nomar Garciaparra, Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez - that was me hooked! I knew they were the team for me. The fact that they were cursed and hadn't won a WS since dinosaurs roamed the planet just made them all the more interesting. As I watched the sport more I grew to learn more about the rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees and thanked my lucky stars for the narrow escape I had in 2001. Beating the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS is still my favourite baseball memory to this day, I think it always will be too. Who is your favorite current Red Sox player? There isn't anyone in the current team that really stands out for me. If I had to choose then I would choose Big Papi. He's a legend. Who is your favorite all-time Red Sox player? Manny Ramirez. I loved Manny. That swing of his was just poetry in motion. He looked as if he wasn't even trying and yet he could crush the ball, I just loved his whole laid back, loosy goosy approach. He was such a great hitter. I was really gutted when the Red Sox traded him and even more gutted when the allegations about him being 'juiced up' came out. It kind of cast a cloud over all the good memories I have of him. Who is your least favorite Red Sox player ever? Daisuke Matsuzaka or Julio Lugo. It actually gave me rage seeing those guys out on the field in Red Sox uniforms. Lugo was just awful and I was against the signing of Dice-K from the start. That move had 'waste of money' written all over it. What state/country do you live in (to see how spread out the fan base is here)? As you'll gather from my username, I live in Scotland. What is your favorite memory being a Red Sox fan? The 2004 ALCS. To be 0-3 down to the Yankees and come back and beat them 4-3 was just BEAUTIFUL!!! Especially after the Aaron Boone episode the year before. I remember sitting in my living room at around 5.30am listening to game 5 of the 2004 ALCS. The game wasn't on the TV so I had to sit and listen to very weak radio signal on AFN Europe to keep in touch with the game. The signal would keep dropping out so you had to keep moving round the room and sitting in silly positions trying to get it back again. When the Red Sox hit the winning run in that game I remember jumping around the living room and going nuts. I'm pretty sure I woke my g/f up but I didn't care. If someone had been looking in the window they'd have thought 'Why is this guy jumping round the room at 5.30am with his walkman in his ears?'. They'd have thought I was insane no doubt. When was the first time you ever went to Fenway Park? I've never been to Fenway sadly. It's one of my ambitions in life to make it there for a game though. Who is your least favorite Yankee player of all-time? Oooooo........tough question. I'll go for Alex Rodriguez. Dirty cheating ******* that he is. Any other comments that you would like to add? Just that my saddest day as a Red Sox fan was the day Terry Francona left. Tito was such a classy guy and he brought us 2 World Series titles. I can never thank him enough for that. It makes me feel so sad now when I see Tito in the booth on a Sunday night. If I had my way he would still be in the Red Sox dugout where he belongs. Tito will always have my admiration for what he did in Boston.

Jenny Dell is yummy. :thumbsup:

Daniel Nava has done well this year. He's not a player who is All-Star material but he is a guy who has made the most of his ability so far and who has filled in well for the Red Sox at a time when injuries have decimated the team. Hopefully Nava can keep developing and improving.

Possibly. It's hard to tell though isn't it? I've seen several people on here saying that Lester's mechanics are out at the moment and, as for Josh Beckett, well he's had struggles in Boston before Saltalamacchia was even a Red Sox player. The only thing that is certain is that there is a problem somewhere with Beckett and Lester.

Bringing Varitek back would look like desperation and it would be a bit of a slap in the face to Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Kelly Shoppach. You would basically be saying they can't get the job done without Varitek holding their hand. Not a very positive message to be sending out. Josh Beckett and Jon Lester are the biggest problems for this team at the moment, not the catchers. Both Beckett and Lester were at the heart of the clubhouse meltdown at the end of last season and they are both under-performing by a long way again this year. It's time they looked in the mirror and asked themselves if they're giving it everything they've got. It sure doesn't look like they are! Anyway, back to the catchers..................I quite like Salty and I think Shoppach is a decent guy to have as a backup catcher.

I'm sure the Red Sox do monitor the players fitness but I definitely think some questions need to be asked of the staff who are in charge of the players physical conditioning. The amount of injuries we suffer, year after year, is almost ridiculous. I know every team gets injuries but we seem to get more than most. It's hard to win when your best players spend a lot of time sitting on the bench.

I've always been a fan of Josh Beckett but he's really trying my patience this year. He needs to give himself a shake, NOW! This team can't go deep into the play-offs, and probably won't even make the play-offs, without Josh Beckett pitching well. It's time he started earning the large salary he is on and pitching like the ace he is supposed to be.

It is so strange seeing Youk in another team's uniform, it just doesn't feel right. I was glad to see the Fenway faithful gave him a standing ovation earlier this week, Youk really deserved that after everything he gave to the Red Sox. I'll always be grateful to Youk for what he did for us. The same way I will always be grateful to Terry Francona. YOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!

We are only 3.5 games out in the Wild Card race. Talk of giving up is crazy, there's a long way to go yet.