Like a lot of people, I catch a large number of the Sox games from the car each summer. Whether it’s visiting family, a long weekend away, or traveling for work, few things pass the time more effectively than a ballgame. At least for me. But nothing is more frustrating than getting to a critical part of the ballgame and losing the signal and then the game because you can’t find the local affiliate.
The last time we had this problem, the fiancée found and bookmarked the Wikipedia list of Red Sox affiliates here. This weekend found us traversing the green and white mountains, however, where neither of us knew from the list what cities or towns were actually close enough to pick up. In spite of being wicked clevah, I’d never considered that this was a problem with a solution. Fortunately, my fiancée is quite a bit brighter than yours truly and suggested that I map the affiliates.
So I did. I’ll see if I can tweak this a bit going forward to improve the usability, but in the meantime, if you find yourself in New England short of a Red Sox radio affiliate, we hope the above is of use to you.
Kudos to Quincy’s own Dave O’Brien for his courteous and respectful response to my criticism some days back. Rather than popping off as a national scribe did at one point in response to something written by me, online, O’Brien’s response was measured and considered. I still do not agree with him, but I do understand now where he’s coming from.
My knock on him, as you might recall, centered around his willingness to “jinx” in process events. His pushback included the following:
But more to the point, my job is to tell you what I see, not to worry about what you may hold as a baseball superstition. Let’s say you leave the restraunt, get in the car and turn on the radio, just in time to hear the 3rd out in the top of the 7th … Lester is 6 outs away from a no-hitter … But the play by play guy isn’t TELLING you that, because … he doesn’t want to jinx it for the pitcher? Well, if you are not listening closely, you may not pick up on those preferred “code” phrases, designed to avoid calling it what it is. Now we’ve got a problem. You may not return to the game at all. You may go home and turn on HBO, and then get to read about “John Lester’s No-Hitter” in the Boston Globe the next morning, or catch it on the 8:00 am “SportsCenter.” How would you feel then about the announcer’s reporting skills?
A fair point, and an important consideration for a broadcaster, I’m sure.
I tend to believe that Red Sox fans are, as a rule, clued in enough to pick up the “code phrases” and continue listening to that game, but perhaps that’s an unrealistic expectation on the whole. Even so, I think O’Brien is assuming responsibilities that rightly belong to the listener. I’ve had the good fortune to watch (on TV, not in person) or listen to all four of the recent Red Sox no hitters (Nomo, Lowe, Buchholz and Lester), and I considered it my job to listen to the full game. If I broke off simply because I didn’t hear the magic words of “no hitter,” then I’d consider that my responsibility and my error. Not the broadcast team’s.
But reasonable minds may disagree on that subject, of course.
What I still have a problem with, however, is the lack of usage of conditionals for less-than-exceptional circumstances. Consider an example from today’s broadcast, where after Griffey’s second at bat, O’Brien announced that Griffey hadn’t hurt us at all during the series.
Which was, of course, the case. And didn’t end up costing us. But as a (heavily) superstitious fan, I would prefer not to tempt fate. If, as a broadcaster, you feel obligated to draw fans’ attention to that point, do so with a conditional, or a modifier. Something such as “Griffey hasn’t managed to hurt us yet during this season, but the 600 home run hitter is always dangerous” would have been just fine.
To be clear, I’m not attempting to imply that O’Brien is wrong in his reporting. Nor that he literally has the ability to affect the outcome of the game. I’m not even attempting to defend my own sanity on the subject. Merely to make the point that it would be nice if O’Brien showed some patience with and consideration for the fan base. Even if he is admirably immune from the admitted irrationality of superstition, Red Sox fans by and large are not. And then some.
In any event, however, I do appreciate Dave’s willingness to stop by and explain his position and his tone in doing so.
Well, I don’t even know where to start. You’re screwed. You missed 1.) a sweep of Tampa, 2.) a brawl with Tampa, 3.) a brawl between Manny and Youk (not joking), 4.) an injury to Ellsbury, 5.) progress from Schill, 6.) held breath on Papi, 7.) two more good starts from Masterson and so on.
Oh, and the draft was this week.
So good luck catching up on all of that. But I’ll tell you what, we’ll try for you anyway.
The Brawl
I’m with the SOSH folks on this one: I’m not sure I can defend Coco here. Maybe on the hard slide – that’s debatable, but not in charging the mound. Shields – to his credit – hit him in exactly the right way, not dialing it up and not shooting for the head. True, he was an idiot for doing it in the second inning, but he handled himself well, while Coco – in my view – did not.
Either way, I’ll take the sweep.
The Bullpen
One of the brighter spots in the past week to ten days has been – shockingly – Boston’s bullpen. Tito seems to be easing Hansen into a MDC-in-’07-like 7th inning role. The onetime bust out of St John’s is unscored upon in his last five apperances, and over 5.2 IP has K’d 5, walked 2 and given up just one hit. Speaking of MDC, you know who also has exactly the same numbers over his last five appearances? That’s right. MDC. Throw in the potential of Masterson down the stretch, and we may not have to do too much to reconstruct our once leaky pen.
One minor down note: Daniel Bard, he of the 100 MPH fastball, got lit up today against Akron. In 1.2 IP, he coughed up 4 hits – 2 of them homers – and 4 runs, striking out only one. On the plus side, he didn’t walk anybody.
The Draft
Lots of takes on the club’s haul in the draft, and obviously the signing process for these kids will be lengthy, but I’m encouraged not just by the reports but by the fact that it would appear that we’ll be ignoring the commissioner office’s slot recommendations once again. As we should.
Here’s Baseball America’s page (sub req’d, sorry), but, better, here‘s Keith Law’s take on our draft class:
Boston bet it all on red, taking one high-ceiling player after another. Apparently, they’re willing to worry about the signability of these players later on. Casey Kelly is a first-rounder as a pitcher or position player, but his bonus demands and commitment to play quarterback at Tennessee scared off potential suitors. Ryan Westmoreland’s bonus demands ($1.6 to $2.1 million) and commitment to Vanderbilt had him viewed as completely unsignable all spring, even though he was a top-40 talent and had performed well over the summer with a wood bat. Bryan Price was totally misused at Rice, and was one of the best reliever-to-starter conversion opportunities in the draft. Derrik Gibson and Pete Hissey are both athletic, projectable tools players with the chance to play in the middle of the field (Gibson as a shortstop/second baseman, Hissey as a center fielder); both also have commitments to strong college programs (North Carolina and Virginia, respectively). Even if the Red Sox don’t sign all four of those high school talents, signing Kelly and one of the others would be an impressive haul of talent — and we know the Sox have the resources to sign more than just two.
So the class is good. But good as in better than the Yankees? Law says yes:
Steve (Clemson, SC): Hey Keith, Sorry but I have to ask: Better 2008 draft, if they sign most of their picks, Red Sox or Yankees?
SportsNation Keith Law: Red Sox.
We can only hope.
The Fight
At the SeaDog brewpub down in Brunswick, they have HD. Which is good. They don’t have audio, which is bad. So I had no idea what the hell was happening when M-Ram and Yoooook had to be separated in our own dugout. Neither, I learned later, did anyone else, but still.
If the reports are accurate, and that this centered around the (potentially widely held) perception that Youk is putting his own concerns in front of the teams by tearing apart the dugout post an at bat in games where we’re up comfortably, then I’m glad this came out now. Better to let it out now, ugly as it appeared, then let it fester.
Besides, the guys are Surviving Grady are spot on, it was worth it just to hear Tito’s one line summary:
I think they were just exchanging some views on things.
The O’Brien Factor
I’ll acknowledge up front that this could just be me. I’ll also acknowledge that I don’t particularly care for Dave O’Brien (I’d prefer to have a Sox only play by play announcer), even while I’ll concede that he’s a well regarded national broadcaster. But there is one thing he’s doing that is making me insane: he’s ignoring, completely, generally accepted rules against jinxing games, performances or players.
Jon Lester’s no hitter? He was discussing it freely in the fifth. We’re poised to take the third of three games against Tampa? He’s calling it a sweep before the game is ended. Masterson’s the pitcher of record in a game we’re winning by a run? O’Brien’s word choice is “will win.” Not the conditional “would,” but “will.”
I’m not saying that this is anything but trivial. I’m also not saying I’m sane. But listen to a game he broadcasts and see if you notice: he has no sense whatsoever with his tenses or conditionals. None.
Anyway, another day, another new feature here at wicked clevah. Bringing you the news quickly. If not succinctly.
Bullpen Breakdown
Firebrand of the American League: I’ll be taking my own look at the roster – probably after we have more to go on, say midway through Spring Training – but in the meantime, Evan Brunell over on Firebrand of the American League has an interesting look at the battle for the final few bullpen roles. I think it under emphasizes slightly the role that roster status will play in the decision making process – I’d personally be shocked if any of the folks that don’t have to pass through waivers make the club from the outset – but it’s a good roundup of the candidates and their strengths and weaknesses.
One note worth adding: FBAL’s Dave B is not unique in his fascination with non-roster invitee Lee Gronkiewicz. Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan had this to say in his AL East preview:
Journeyman right-hander Lee Gronkiewicz has a 2.48 career ERA in the minors with nearly a 4:1 career K/BB. That ratio was 85/12 last year in 78 2/3 innings at three levels. There’s not much room in Fenway’s bullpen, but an injury to somebody could create an opportunity for the veteran to be this year’s Lee Gardner.
A long shot? Of course. But if there’s any front office that will give him credit for those numbers, it’s ours.
More Truck Day
Kelly O’Connor: Via Surviving Grady comes word of Kelly O’Connor’s Truck Day pictures. In case you, like me, can’t get enough.
New Radio Team Announced
Boston Globe: I’ll be honest: I never really cared for Jerry Trupiano, the long term radio partner of Joe Castiglione. His delivery was nothing to write home about, but the grating factor for me was his stale humor. A few summers back he had a running joke about some karaoke that Castiglione had done – Runaround Sue, I think it was – that became one of his running gags. It wasn’t particularly amusing the first time around, and to say it never grew on me was putting it mildly.
But neither was I big fan of Dave O’Brien (who other folks love) or Glenn Gefner (whom other folks most certainly did not). Most particularly, however, I didn’t like the transition back and forth between the two, and the obvious lack of chemistry between the boothmates, where chemistry = knowing who says what, and when, and who fills silences, and how.
Apparently, things are going to get worse in that department this season: not only are we not consolidating things in the booth, we’re adding a fourth. Castiglione remains, which is good, as does O’Brien, but when the latter is absent he’ll be replaced by a tag team of Dale Arnold or Jon Rish. I’ve heard both before, of course, in the context of their respective WEEI duties, and neither inspires strong feelings one way or the other.
I’ll reserve judgement until I hear the three pairings play out, but I’m not optimistic about the state of Red Sox radio in ’08. Which pains me in particular, because I don’t have TV set up in the cottage I live in in the summer (it’s in the one next door), meaning that radio is my primary medium whether I’m at home, on the boat or in the car.
Why I Love Amalie
Boston Globe: I’m far from alone in the massive crush I have on Amalie Benjamin – see the page footer over on the brilliance that is Surviving Grady – but a piece of hers today may win you over as well. In discussing Matsuzaka, she penned the following:
Matsuzaka, meanwhile, has turned his Mohawk from last season into something of a mullet. It’s definitely a party in the back.
Priceless, I think we can all agree.
But it’s even more valuable in the context of her competition: crusty old embittered white men. To me she’s a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale medium. Also, there’s the hotness.
wicked clevah 