Fenway frustration, soccer salvation?

Yeah, I’m impressed the Boston Red Sox scored 10 runs in an inning. And yeah, I’m impressed they ultimately put up 19 runs in their victory over the visiting Texas Rangers. But c’mon … do we need games like these?

Maybe they remind us what a delight good pitching is. We certainly didn’t see much of it from either side — although kudos go to Hideki Okajima for providing some bullpen stability in the late innings. And the game, being so long, showed us baseball’s power to make players both hero and goat in the same game, like Kevin Youkilis, who delivered the game-winning homer in the bottom of the eighth, and whose error in the top of the ninth resulted in what eventually became the Rangers’ last run.

I like baseball and I’ll be a Red Sox fan despite the team’s history of heartache (or maybe because of it). But I’m thinking of changing my ways.

Let’s see. Where could I find a sport where there’s …

a) Relatively little scoring to make spectators appreciate the scores their team gets?

b) A defined time limit so fans don’t have to stay up late, persevering through pitching changes?

c) The willingness to say, “Okay, this game’s gone on too long, we’ll call it a tie”?

Someone get me tickets to Gillette Stadium for a Revs game, pronto!

No-hit wonder by Lester

Add Jon Lester to the list of Boston Red Sox pitchers to have thrown no-hitters this decade, joining Hideo Nomo, Derek Lowe, and Clay Buchholz. Another sign Sox fans are getting spoiled. After Dave Morehead threw one in 1965, no Boston pitcher (OK, Matt Young) achieved the feat for the rest of the previous century. While I lament the homer-happy offenses of today’s teams, I don’t mind seeing pitchers dominate. Especially pitchers who have prevailed against personal adversity, which has been the case with Lester, a cancer survivor.

Remembering Jackie Robinson

Sixty-one years ago today, Jackie Robinson began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League. Robinson broke the color barrier in the major leagues and is justly celebrated for doing so. Members of current big-league rosters, including three representatives of the Boston Red Sox, will wear Robinson’s retired number 42 today.

It is right that major-league baseball recognizes Robinson, and yet it seems that the big leagues — and the Red Sox — can do more. Stories in the Boston press referencing the Red Sox tribute can note that the Robinson anniversary of April 15 comes a day before a more odious anniversary — that of April 16, 1945, when the Sox staged a sham tryout for three African-American players (including Robinson) at Fenway Park. Pressured by Boston city councilor Isidore Muchnick and sportswriter Wendell Smith, members of the Sox front office watched three potential pioneers … and then did not sign them. Even worse, instead of becoming the first major-league baseball team to integrate, the Red Sox became the last (in 1959, when Elijah “Pumpsie” Green took the field at Fenway).

A few parting points: First, the media acts arrogantly when it claims that Robinson broke the color line for all of baseball. Media members imply that the only legitimate system of professional baseball in the US in the early 20th century was the all-white major leagues, but during those decades, Negro League teams also earned respect and fans. Because they did not survive the integration of the American and National Leagues, the media’s memory evaporates concerning the Negro Leagues. Why doesn’t organized baseball celebrate the first white player to play for a Negro League team (Eddie Klepp, Cleveland Buckeyes, 1946) as much as it celebrates Robinson’s belated debut?

Secondly, one critique of the Red Sox for their delay in signing African-American players is that had it done so, it might have broken the Curse of the Bambino sooner. This does not get at the reason why it was wrong for the Sox to postpone signing an African-American player: It ought to have been about justice, not about winning. Players deserve consideration for a spot on a major-league team based on performance, not on their background. Was Ernie Banks any less of a ballplayer because he never won a World Series? The focus of media members and fans should be on fairness here.

Opening Day at Fenway

Spring is officially upon us. The defending world champion Boston Red Sox inaugurate the home portion of their 2008 regular season with a 2:05 p.m. game against the Detroit Tigers.

What’s new about this team and this game? After 86 seasons without a ring, the Red Sox have won two World Series titles in the past four years. And after a century of pretentiousness about our national pastime being worthy of a World Series, baseball bloviators finally have a point: The Sox visited three countries — Japan, the US, and Canada — during their 19-day season-opening road/plane trip.

What’s stayed the same? Fan perspective. The same folks who grouse about the Sox entering Fenway Park with a last-place record in the American League (3-4 after a sweep by the Toronto Blue Jays) don’t seem to realize that things could be worse. Boston’s opponent, the Detroit Tigers, is 0-6 to start the season.

Go Sox!

The Papelbon effect

Looks to me like a relatively controversy-free Red Sox spring training thus far. Yes, closer Jonathan Papelbon wants a new contract — the poor shayne ingele only makes $425,000. “I feel a certain obligation, not only to myself and my family to make the money I deserve, but to the game of baseball,” he said. I’m sure he’ll be commanding Mariano Rivera numbers — or better – sometime soon.

Papelbon is a symbol of a Sox strength: the farm system. Pap, Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester — these players helped the Sox win their second World Series in four seasons, just like the Yankees used their own farm system to develop stars like Derek Jeter and Rivera.

Granted, the Sox wouldn’t be in their current enviable positions without big-name deals and signings. Their last World Series MVP, Mike Lowell, came in a trade that also brought star pitcher Josh Beckett, while the team got the eventual 2004 Series MVP, Manny Ramirez, through free agency. A good farm system, however, can provide a team with solid players that it knows well, as opposed to gambles in free agency or trades. Strong minor-league programs also help when a team feels ready to make a big trade — Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez for Beckett and Lowell worked well for both the Sox and Florida Marlins. And farm systems provide valuable insurance; when a team loses the services of a Carney Lansford or a John Wetteland, there’s a reliable understudy waiting to step in and star.

So whether he gets a big contract or not, here’s to you, Jonathan Papelbon — and more importantly, here’s to the system that produced you.

Spring training — the political version

Hey there, all you snowbound New Englanders. Want something to take your mind off winter? Your Boston Red Sox are in spring training in Florida. Want something else to take your mind off winter? Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton are duelling it out in another warm-weather locale — Texas, site of Thursday’s debate. Bob and Susannah discuss these two different kinds of spring training — baseball vs. political — in a vacation-themed “Running Gags”!

Merci to my muse for the idea.

Steroids and silliness

Suddenly, we’re in Joe McCarthy territory again, only this time it’s former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell producing an infamous list — of steroid abusers in major-league baseball.

“In total, the report names 77 players, both past and present,” Newsday reported. 

Like the Communist ”threat” Tailgunner Joe pursued, the big-league steroid scandal is largely a chimera. Yes, steroid abuse suggests unfairness on the playing field, and Americans love their sports stars to obey the rules. But such scrutiny only invites a charge of hypocrisy.

After all, would that fans were equally fond of athletes challenging the rules. The uproar over Barry Bonds and his home-run record would sound a tad more convincing if there was a similar outcry against every benchmark set by every Hall of Famer who played in a whites-only atmosphere (pre-1947; this means you, Babe Ruth!).

Red Sox bring back Lowell

Another way the Boston Red Sox are breaking with precedent: They’re keeping their stars.

Boston brought back third baseman — and World Series MVP — Mike Lowell with a three-year contract on Monday. Just as the team kept pitchers Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield this offseason, it has shown a similar willingness to hold onto its top performers at the plate.

One reason why the Sox never made it to back-to-back postseason appearances for much of the Curse of the Bambino epoch — from after the 1918 World Series till the 1998-99 seasons under manager Jimy Williams — is that they failed to retain key players. Iconic catcher Carlton Fisk departed after the 1980 season when he failed to receive a new contract on time, while the late-1990s exits of Roger Clemens and Mo Vaughn helped to tarnish the tenure of general manager Dan Duquette.

So the good news from Yawkey Way continues. Can it translate into another postseason visit in 2008?

A Red Sox time warp

Once again, the Boston Red Sox are toying with time. The team that once made fans agonize over when it would next win a World Series is now capturing championships with the regularity of its pinstriped rivals from New York.

Some cosmic force must be at work for such a radical time shift to occur. The Sox-time continuum once used a pace of change befitting an Ice Age glacier, or a Green Line subway train. Now the carmine-hose particles pulsate faster than fans rushing to claim their free Jordan’s furniture. It’s an effect that should attract the attention of a modern-day Albert Einstein (in a smart-looking world championship baseball cap, of course).

Sox stalwarts remember how slowly things went on Yawkey Way. Eighty-six years passed before Boston won its sixth title. Team management, beginning under former owner Tom Yawkey and continuing into the present regime, rarely budged from prioritizing home-run hitters ahead of base stealers and pitching. And so power-hitting Ted Williams was protected but Pee Wee Reese was not, just as the team dealt for Danny Cater and sent Sparky Lyle to the Yankees. This meant that Sox stars like Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, and Jim Rice would spend their careers waiting for a championship that never came.

Far more reprehensible was the Sox’ longstanding unfairness on racial issues. In 1959, twelve years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, Boston became the last major-league team to integrate when Pumpsie Green took the field. The intransigence lingered; in 1978, former Sox pitcher Bill Lee told an interviewer that racism “always has been” a problem with the Sox, and “always” more so than it was for the rest of the majors. “It’s ownership catering to the demands of the city,” Lee said.

If change is afoot in Boston, the Red Sox now represent its herald. The front office is thinking more creatively, and one way the team is responding is with more frequent playoff appearances — including the two successful Series trips. The Red Sox, who until 1998-99 hadn’t appeared in back-to-back postseasons since 1915-16, have clinched a playoff berth for three of the past four seasons. They’ve done it with pitching staffs that, while not the Fab Four of the Atlanta Braves’ glory years, have nevertheless impressed in big games: Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield, and the unsavory duo of Curt Schilling and Derek Lowe in 2004, and Schilling, Wakefield, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, and Jon Lester in 2007. The diverse roster, which includes African-American, Latino and Asian players, reflects a fairer philosophy by team management and a better example for Boston and New England.

Bob Dylan might have the final insight on the time transformation of the Red Sox. “Your old road is rapidly agin’,” the Minnesotan sang in 1964. “Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand.” And that applies to Yawkey Way.

Close Encounters of the Red Sox Kind

On Thursday, the Boston Red Sox delivered a convincing 13-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies in Game One of the World Series. Dustin Pedroia, playing in his inaugural season with the Sox, was the first Boston batter of the game and established the tone with a home run. Boston settled matters by adding seven runs in the fifth inning.

What may determine this Series, though, is whether the Sox can perform as proficiently in close games. They should recall the example of the 1996 Atlanta Braves. Atlanta rallied to capture the National League Championship Series after trailing three games to one, and then won Game One of the World Series decisively (12-1) over the New York Yankees. The Braves ultimately lost that Series because they could not win tighter matchups against the Yankees. None of the Yankees’ four victories were decided by more than three runs.

When the Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino in 2004, they deviated from their norm of collapsing in close games. Two extra-inning victories over the Yankees in the American League Championship Series stunned the New Yorkers, as well as those Sox fans who were already drafting another chapter to the Curse. What the 2004 ALCS demonstrated is that baseball is a mixture of rout and nail-biter, from an easy 19-8 win for New York to a dramatic 5-4 Sox victory in 14 innings. Championship teams need to know how to win both types of games.

A 13-1 Series-opening win is certainly a promising start for the Sox, and for New Englanders who remember good Boston teams in the past who never made it to Game One of a Fall Classic. But the Sox are successful now. They are playing in their second Series in four seasons, and their batting and pitching both seem to be peaking (even if, as I mentioned when they began their playoff quest, they seem overly dependent on home runs). If they can win 2-1 as well as 13-1, the Sox might have another title to share with their fans.