Bambino's Curse

fan devotion, an example

From theBoston Globe:

How much is Garciaparra missed? When Joan Soule's sixth-grade class at Sacred Heart School in Weymouth was assigned to write the prayers of the faithful earlier this week, one child offered this one: ''For Nomar Garciaparra that he recovers from his surgery and is back in the Red Sox lineup soon. We pray to the Lord.''

Tidbits

This kind of trivia is one of the reasons baseball is so fun to follow:

• Manny Ramirez homered in his last at bat as an Indian and his first at bat as a Red Sox.
• It was the second consecutive successful Opening Day at Fenway for Everett, who socked a pair of home runs in last year's game. He is the first Sox player to homer in consecutive home openers since Dwight Evans accomplished the feat in 1984 and '85.

Fenway Opener

Now that's more like it.

Manny Ramirez hit a 3-run home on the first pitch to him in at Fenway as a Red Sox!

All that bats came to life in this one as the Sox win 11-3 over Tamba Bay. (Rumor has it TB toned down their uniform colors, but I've yet to see for myself.) [full ESPN story]

Now don't that feel a whole lot better?

the uncanny

Gotta love these kinds of coincidences.

From the Boston Globe:

When Nomo pitched his first no-hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers, on Sept.. 17, 1996, in Colorado, the game was delayed almost two hours by rain. Wednesday night, there was a power outage that delayed the start almost 43 minutes. There was another coincidence. In the no-no against the Rockies, Nomo threw 110 pitches. When he retired DeShields for the final out Wednesday night, it was on his 110th pitch.

[insert Twilight Zone music here]

back to reality [big time]

Well, the Sox suffered yet another defeat, 2-1, to perhaps one of the worst teams in baseball. Derek Lowe walked in the winning run and the team's bats remained dead.

Hopefully, the home opener today will turn things around

It's disheartening, though not unexpected, that it's the offensive that is sucking wind. The pitching has been solid in general.

Hopefully, I'll catch most of today's 1pm game on the streaming webcast. Although since everything is now consolidated through the MLB site, things seem to be running slow. The other day I couldn't connect at all. Considering that they expect people to begin paying $9.95 for access to the audio streams, they better get their act together.

basking [rare moment]

Yes. OK. ESPN is correct: This is only one win and they need a good 93 more to have a shot at the post-season. And, of course, the Orioles are not best hitting club in the AL this year.

Still this sure does feel good and it's one of those rare moments as a fan when we can kick back, consider the Red Sox and quote Browning:

"God is in His heaven and all is right with the world."

I'm going to enjoy the moment fully.

NO HITTER!

I'm stunned. Unbelievable. Happy.

Oh, boy, just when you think it can't get worse ...

From the Boston Globe

''I've seen it with a lot of managers who got fired,'' the executive said. ''They start doing all kinds of crazy things they've never done before that lead them to getting fired, and you may be seeing that with Jimy.

''Jimy's a pretty strong-willed guy. He may be thinking Duquette put him through so much grief last year with [Carl] Everett and other stuff over the years, he hasn't gotten a contract extension past this year, he's saying to himself, `You know what, big shot? I'm going to do it the way I want, and if you don't like it, fire me. Put me out of my misery."

I'm not liking this.

No disrespect.

I don't mean any disrespect to Nomar Garciaparra; we all know he is a fantastic Red Sox. However, I just don't understand why this injury that was promulgated in September of last year, yet the short stop All-Star goes the entire off-season without getting it attended to? If it hurt the first week of Spring Training, didn't it hurt the week before that and the week before that all the way back to last September? Why wasn't the team doctor looking at this in the off-season? Sure would have been nice to have the surgery in say December or January rather than Opening Day.

I don't get it.

the opener . . .

Didn't go well. This is the kind of thing that you just knew would happen: ace pitcher going against lousy team and ... we lose in 11 innings.

Now it's up to Nomo or one of the other not Pedro pitchers on the staff to deliver the first win.

161 to go.

An optimistic Shaughnessy?

In a rare moment of optimism (or perhaps it's subtle sarcasm?) the usually cynical Boston Globe reporter Dan Shaughnessy writes:

Red Sox Nation's fascination with the local nine tends to highlight the team's flaws and often causes us to lose perspective on the flaws of the opposition. Worrying about Jose Offerman's lost speed, we tend to forget how truly bad some of the competition is. In dark moments, Sox fans must remember that the Sons of Jimy should be able to beat Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Detroit, Kansas City, and Anaheim just by showing up.

So fear not, faithful Fenway fans. The Red Sox, even without Nomar for half a season, should have enough to stay competitive. They enter their 101st season with a chance to win, and, after the calamity of Florida, that'll have to be enough.

That's the kind of thing I need to read as I sit here with my usual poor adjustment to the switch to daylight savings time. (DST is the only thing I dislike about spring.)

jitters

I've got 'em.

jitters

I've got 'em.

Opening Day

For Major League Baseball and for this weblog

The end of the void at last. Texas Rangers v. Toronto Blue Jays at 4:4:05pm today.

Red Sox open tomorrow against Baltimore.

I had planned to begin the Curse of the Bambino weblog at the start of Spring Training and chronicle all 6 weeks of it; however, with all that has happened, I'm glad I didn't.

I can't think of a Spring that has been so foreboding. I don't think I've gone into an Opening Day with such a sense of gloom. Yes, it's normal for those of us in Red Sox Nation to be cynical, but this is different from that even. I don't even feel like joking that the Sox are tied for first place!

If nothing else, it should be an interesting year.