Bambino's Curse

TQM

Man, it sure is difficult to write about Grady Little and resist the urge to title the post with a pun on "Little." (No wonder the papers are always doing it.)

Michael Holley (so glad he's back with the Globe) has an informative piece this morning on the Red Sox's new manager:

This is not only your Little preview, this is the Little show itself. This is the man players know. There are many reasons they applauded when he was introduced as their boss, but the most important is this: They trust his baseball background and they trust him. Few things terrify an athlete more than a leader who doesn't understand them (Holley, The Boston Globe).

So I'll trust Little's experience when he says,

``It's just some adjusting that he needs to make, but he's going to be fine … He's got to get used to pitching with this extra weight on him. It's all part of the adjustment period'' (Horrigan, The Boston Herald).

Cross your fingers and hope it's true as things are only a bit more than a week from getting serious. The training period is almost over.

Want fries with that?

The Red Sox appear prepared to eat Jose Offerman's contract:

Red Sox manager Grady Little came just short of saying that Lou Merloni had made the Opening Day roster …

Little didn't directly compare Merloni to Offerman, but his words spoke volumes about where the popular Framingham native fits in his plans.

``Lou's one of those guys who will help us win games, and we're going to keep the ones who'll help us win the most baseball games''(Horrigan, The Boston Herald).

As has been mentioned before, a willingness to eat these big contracts when a player doesn't produce would be the biggest signal that things are different with the Red Sox under new ownership. I don't know how any other course of action would make sense. The overall goal must be to win baseball games. Making some bad decisions, like giving Offerman a contract such that he'll make $6.5 million salary in 2002, is part of the game. While the onus for that one falls on Duquette, these new folks will have there share of busts in the coming years.

So pass the salt and start eating.

Season Tickets Dreams

A comment from yesterday regarding season tickets reminded me of this scheme I had back in '94. It was my first summer in Texas, and I was really missing the Red Sox. While I'd been out of New England for several years attending graduate school in Mississippi, I'd always gone back home for all or a considerable portion of the summer. (Plus there was SEC college baseball every spring in grad school and that took some of the edge off.)

But once in Texas it was more difficult to return. However, that year, 1994, my sister was getting married at the end August, meaning a trip to the Boston area and Fenway, so I bought tickets and ticked off the days on the calendar. And this was pre-web, too. No Boston papers online. No web radio. It made being away intolerable. On top of that, I was lonely in Texas, felt I didn't fit in, weather was too hot, closest baseball was 4 hours away in Houston …

If you remember your history, '94 was a notable year. It was the year without a World Series, the year of the strike shortened season. And, yes, the player walkout occurred just before my sister's wedding. So there I was in Boston, with the Red Sox in first place, holding tickets to Fenway but with no games being played.

I was devastated. So on the plane back to Texas after the wedding I thought of a plan. As a community college teacher I could take summers off from mid-May all the way 'til the end of August. On top of that my apartment in Corpus was inexpensive, I think it was $225/mo, and I was making a decent wage as a college instructor (and was on a 12 month contract so collected a paycheck in the summer even if I didn't work), plus I didn't have too many expenses . . .

So this was my plan. Buy season tickets. Squirrel away money during the winter. Then come May pack up and find a cheap by-the-week or month rental within public transportation distance to Fenway and go to every damn Red Sox home game for the next 3 months!

It was a masterful plan.

Now, you may be thinking that it was a financial stretch, especially considering the price of even the seediest locations and flop houses in the Boston area. But you've got to understand I was in great mental shape for such fiscal duress. I had only recently finished 2 and a half years of graduate school where I had learned to live fairly comfortably on $6000/yr. Yes, 6k. That's it. I'd buy rice in 25# bags and eat beans and rice nearly every night. It wasn't bad. I even had money for wine.

So the $25k I was making as an instructor at the community college seemed like a fortune. And I was living in the middle of the barrio in Corpus, so I could handle less than perfect living arrangements. (Funny aside. Just after getting settled into my apartment in Corpus, I'm kicking back on my first night there, eating rice and beans and watching the 10pm TV news when I hear the local news reporter say, "The second violent murder in two weeks on the most dangerous street in Corpus Christi, Park Avenue. A brutal stabbing… " Where was I living? 905 Park Ave. Apt. B.)

It was a great plan. It would have worked.

But it never came to be. Why? Well, what's the one thing that can keep a guy from baseball? Si, las chicas. During the winter of 94/95 I got wrapped up in what was to become the most horific, codependent, vicious relationship of my life. Honestly, I barely survived it. (And that's the subject of another blog. Not that I'd ever write of it, since my wife, not the same woman, thank God, would get pissed. Yes, they knew each other. The vitriol flows . . . )

So those of you lucky enough to have season tickets, I tip my hat to you.

Dugout Seats

At the risk of inspiring the wrath of the conservative wing of Red Sox Nation, I'm intrigued:

The Red Sox are calling them ''dugout seats,'' which is a pretty accurate term. These high-roller fans are going to be closer to the action than the players in the dugout. Some spectators will be closer to home plate than Martinez.

… You can see the bat rack from the new front row by the corner of the dugout. The third base (visitor's) side is even better because there is no camera well between the new seats and the dugout. A fan in the new seat closest to the Yankee dugout will be able to hear everything Joe Torre is saying (Shaughnessy, The Boston Globe).

What I want to know is how you get your hands on tickets to these seats? I imagine, like so many things, you have to know somebody. Having a pocket full of cash just won't do it.

Not that I've got pockets full of cash, but I'd be willing to tweak my budget a bit, sacrifice a few things here and there, to get my butt in one of those seats. As I mentioned previously, I once had the good fortune to sit right behind the dugout at the Ballpark in Arlington for a series with the Red Sox, and the experience forever altered me: 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

At this point, I'm sitting in grandstand section 23 for my pilgrimage in July. While the seats aren't bad, I'd go for an upgrade in a heartbeat. I looked into getting tix from several of those ticket brokers, but they wanted $200 for those lousy, in my opinion, seats on the field but facing toward the outfield in sections 2-3. No thanks. Not for $200 at least.

Panic subsides

I'm willing myself out of the feeling of doom I experienced on Sunday.

Pedro says,

``Just knowing I can throw the ball in the mid-90s, and I feel good the next day, is good enough for me'' (Silverman, The Boston Herald).

If that's good enough for Pedro, then it's good enough for me. (Though, I'll be keeping the Xanax close by.)

Pass the Xanax*

9.35 (9 ER, 8 2/3 IP)

''If you start panicking now,'' Martinez said, ''we'll be in trouble, deep trouble.''

*(Xanax is indicated for the management of anxiety disorder or the short-term relief of symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety or tension associated with the stress of everyday life usually does not require treatment with an antiolytic medication. Xanax is also indicated for the treatment of panic disorder, with or without agoraphobia.)