I have been writing for Fenway West for several years now. My FW posts are here, as well as posts about the San Francisco Giants and MLB.
WELCOME!
And Thank You for visiting Sonoma Dave's Giant Red Sox Blog! This blog is an archive of most of my posts on Fenway West. Effective immediately, I will be be including posts about the San Francisco Giants, MLB, and on occasion, stuff that has nothing to do with baseball at all.
"No, we will not sign Manny. His moment has passed with the Red Sox," said Red Sox president Larry Lucchino.
Lucchino went so far as to mock Manny. Appearing at a fundraiser for the Boston College baseball team on Tuesday, Lucchino handed out some prizes to the audience. A Jonathan Papelbon jersey; a Terry Francona autographed ball. When he gave out a DVD of the Red Sox' 2007 World Series win over the Rockies, Lucchino said, "If you look closely you can see Manny hustle."
Lucchino also had comments about Teixiera, Lowell, Ortiz, and the Yankees & Sox in 2009.
Thanks to Sports Illustrated (12/29/08) for this nugget from Tito:
TERRY FRANCONA, RED SOX MANAGER, when asked who was tougher to handle, his 14-year-old daughter, or petulent slugger Manny Ramirez: "I plead the eighth." (Aug. 4)
Brad Mills, bench coach for the Red Sox grew up in the San Joaquin Valley (CA) town of Exeter, and played college ball for College of the Sequoias in nearby Visalia, where he calls home during the offseason.
"This is home," said Mills, who took time out of his busy schedule to talk to the players at the Tulare Western baseball camp on Wednesday. "My children and their families are here. I have a lot of special relationships with people around here."
Mills, who will turn 52 on Jan. 19, was born in Exeter. He graduated from Exeter High School and proceeded to play baseball at College of the Sequoias. He then moved on to the University of Arizona before being drafted by the Montreal Expos in the 17th round of the 1979 amateur draft.
Mills played four seasons in the major leagues with the Expos from 1980-1983, but a knee injury ended his career prematurely.
During the recap of the A's rout by the Sox last week on Baseball Tonight, one of the replays was of a great Lowrie-Pedroia-Youkilis double play. Berthiaume then declares "You may never see Lugo again!" One could only wish.
Originally published on Sawxheads.com 08/16/08
I could've sworn I posted it on FenwayWest.com, too, but since it's so old, and I did write it, I'm posting it here.
The ABC hit TV show “LOST” tells the story of the 48 survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 that crashed on a remote South Pacific island. I first discovered the show shortly after it began in 2004. Red Sox fans can be excused from not watching it from episode #1, as the Sox were on a rampage. After a shocking trade of Nomar Garciaparra, playing .500 ball for too long and falling more than 10 games behind those despised Yankees, the Sox had come to life and were bearing down on 1st place. They didn’t win their division, but still made the playoffs. They then proceeded to shock the pro baseball world by winning the pennant after being down three games to none in the playoffs, and about to lose the 4th and final game in the bottom of the 9th inning, when their epic odds defying rally began, a feat no other baseball team had ever done, and against the Yankees no less! There were still 4 games left to be played against St. Louis, but looking back, they were almost a moot point after that spectacular comeback over the Yanks. October 27th, 2004 marked the 1st time in 86 years that the Red Sox had won a World Series, so Sox fans were basically incommunicado until after that date.
After watching too many years of police and law dramas (Hill St. Blues, LA Law, NYPD Blue, and the bazillion incarnations of CSI and Law & Order), I was ready for something different. I had been expecting LOST to be a real life drama about survival (think Tom Hanks in “Castaway”), but by the time I realized it was as much science fiction as it was real life drama, I was hooked. Besides dealing with a horrifically traumatic experience (surviving a plane crash), the survivors must deal with immediate needs such as medical treatment, water, food, and shelter. As the show progresses, they slowly come to realize that help is NOT on the way. Temporary needs turning into permanent needs present dilemmas. These dilemmas are harshened by the fact that there are violent, predatory others already living there, and that there are many inexplicable discoveries such as a centuries old pirate ship and a small plane wreck in the middle of the island, a highly involved and detailed science project, supernatural beings, and a polar bear; all on a tropical island.
Besides being lost in a geographical sense, the characters discover that many of themselves are also lost inside. Backstories are interwoven throughout the tale, illuminating aspects of each character that the audience would not otherwise be aware of. At least one of the survivors seems to have ‘found’ himself on the island from the very onset of their ordeal. These backstories also show how interwoven the lives of the survivors had been, unbeknownst to them.
One of the main characters is Jack Shephard who is a brilliant surgeon with a strong need to fix as many patients as possible. He has flown to Australia to pick up his dead father’s body. Sawyer, another survivor, is a loner con-man who was seeking revenge in Australia, and had the opportunity to share a few moments in a bar with Jack’s father before he died. The following exchange happened in Australia sometime before September 22, 2004, the date of the doomed flight.
Shephard the elder comments that Australia is as close to hell as you can get.
"We're in hell, huh?"
"Don't let the air conditioning fool you, son. You're here too. You are suffering. But don't beat yourself up about it. It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn Series.”
On or about October 22, 2004, less than a week before the Sox actually did win the Series, the following dialogue occurred between Jack and Sawyer:
Jack: That’s why the Sox will never win the Series. Sawyer: What’s that? Jack: I said, ‘That’s why the Red Sox will never win the Series.’ Sawyer: What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Jack: “[It’s] just something my father used to say—[he] went through life knowing that people hated him. Instead of taking responsibility for it, he just put it on fate. Said he was made that way."
Con-man Sawyer does not reveal to Jack that he spoke with his father at the bar back in Australia. He keeps this to himself, waiting for the right time to barter the information for his ever present ulterior motives.
The Red Sox won the World Series as season #1, episode #8 was wrapping up. The writers then worked this into episode #9, which originally aired on February 16, 2005.
[S]o the writers [knew] at the time they wrote that episode that the Red Sox had won the World Series, providing some irony to the comments by Christian and by Jack. The Red Sox win in 2004 proved that they were not "destined" to lose, and the team's ability to win over enormous odds resonates with the difficulties facing the castaways on the Island.
After the survivors of the crash discover that there is a colony of people already living on the island with homes, medicine, and some modern conveniences and technology, Jack is held captive by these “Others” as the survivors have taken to calling them. The survivors are scared, confused, ‘lost’, and very wary of all their mysterious surroundings. The “Others” are wary of the survivors, as they do not want to be found by search parties. While being held by the “Others”, Benjamin Linus, leader of the colony, trying to prove to Jack that they indeed do have contact with the rest of the world, tells him that since they have been on the island, George W. Bush had been re-elected, Christopher Reeve passed away, and the Red Sox won the World Series. Jack laughs and says that he almost believed Linus up until he said that the Sox won the Series. Linus says that it’s true and shows him a clip of Keith Foulke tossing the ball to Doug Mientkewicz for the deciding out.
In season #4, a search party eventually lands on the island. In one episode Jack asks the helicopter pilot if the Sox really did win the Series, to which the pilot replies, "Don't even get me started on that, I grew up in the Bronx". Jack mentions that he has not seen a Red Sox game in over 100 days.
The show is not an easy one to follow, especially if you have not been watching it from the beginning. Although the show started airing over 4 years ago, only a couple of months have passed on the island since the crash. Themes of fate and destiny, and faith versus science are a constant. It has a cult-like following with Internet fan sites and discussion groups too numerous to mention. Many of these fans discuss and analyze just about every detail that occurs during the show, seeking any possible relevance in determining the importance of events that occur or which direction the story will take.
One of the most dissected details is the recurring appearance of the following numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. These were the winning lottery numbers chosen by one of the characters, they were important numbers as part of the science project that was discovered on the island, as well other appearances. Interestingly, the Yankees retired numbers include all of the numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. The Boston Red Sox retired numbers are 1, 4, 8, 9, 27, and 42. Furthur investigation reveals that executive producer Carlton Cuse is a Red Sox fan, and executive producer Damon Lindelof is a Yankees fan. Lindelof has described the use of the Red Sox win in LOST as therapeutic. (Therapeutic? He uses his favorite team’s biggest choke ever in his show and he calls that therapeutic? He must be one glutton for punishment!)
So, is Jack a Red Sox fan? I have not been able to find proof positive that he is. He lives in Los Angeles, but I suppose it is possible he went to med school in Boston. Viewers have not learned that much detail of Jack’s past, but judging from his reaction to Linus telling him about the amazing Sox comeback (Sox fans, think about this for a minute…. how would you react if you were in Jack’s shoes?) and his reaction to seeing the Foulke to Mientkewicz final out (Damn! I can’t believe I’m on this island when the Sox finally won it all!), I would think that he is indeed, a Sox fan. He even sought reaffirmation from the helicopter pilot.
Will Jack’s apparent citizenship in Red Sox Nation have any significance in upcoming episodes? Hard to say. As a Sox fan, I would hope so, but I wouldn’t need it to enjoy the show. Season #5 begins airing on January 21st.
Mirabelli -- a two-time World Series champion catcher with the Boston Red Sox -- hosted two clinics for boys and girls ages 8-12, focusing on pitching and catching."I felt like this would be a good chance where I could bring out some of my specialties to the community, and they responded really nicely,"..."I'm done," Mirabelli said. "I'm retired and having fun here with the kids. (I have) a chance to coach and do that kind of thing, that's great. That's all I want to do."
A few years back, I received a gift of a sweatshirt from a friend. I really used to like it a lot. There's just one recently discovered problem. I finally pulled it out of the closet the other day for the first time this winter, and to my horror I realized what I had been wearing. I only recently learned that the Yankees were once called the Highlanders. And what does this shirt say on it? Yup, you guessed it! New York Highlanders! Excuse me while I make an emergency trip to the Goodwill!
There's not a whole lot of Sox content in this post, but it was a great night, nonetheless. A good friend (Tom, the Giants fan and band mate) gave me a ticket to see the Ratdog/Phil & Friends with Jackie Greene NYE show last night. We had a good crew together (including 5 of 7 in our band), got in line early, and got some choice (general admission) seats. Dead NYE shows are always marathons, so I made sure I was well rested and well prepped for what turned out to be an epic night.
There were a lot of Sox shirts and hats all over. One of the first (or so I thought) I saw was in Sox blue, but when I saw the front of the shirt, it said Grateful Dead in the same font as Sox unis. 'Good idea for a shirt', I thought
The most noticeable hat of the evening was sitting on the head of a true Dead icon. I don't know if this guy went on tour with the Dead, but at Bay Area (CA) Dead shows before Jerry died, he would don a heavy, full bear suit with flashing lights all over it while carrying a spinning ball also covered with flashing lights and walk all over the venue. These days, he wears just a vest with lights, and as he passed by our section, I noticed he had a Sox hat on! Cool, way cool! (I have see if anyone got a photo of him. Will post if found.)
Jackie Greene came on first at 6 pm and played a great 1 hour set. His Dylan influence is noticeable immediately. Phil & Friends with Jackie Greene came on and played a huge set. Barry Sless also played both sets. The 3rd set of the night was just Phil, Bobby, and John Molo on drums playing a mostly acoustic, but very tasty set. Next up was Ratdog. All bands were firing on all cylinders. The last set started just before midnight and went on past 2 am, featuring almost all of the members of both Bobby and Phil's bands.
Didn't get to sleep last night 'til the morning came around, slept 'til way past noon, and am still feeling quite Dead {grin}
