Sox to Warm Up

This is always the worst time of year for sports fanatics, especially one such as me who’s made a conscious decision to boycott the travesty that is the National Basketball Association. The Bruins aren’t helping much this year with a Jekyll and Hyde approach to game effort. Then there’s the eight feet of snow contributing to the general malaise. It is therefore with intense pleasure that I gaze south as the boys of summer, and most importantly, the Boston Red Sox, begin their annual Florida rituals.

Any true native New Englander lives and more often dies with Red Sox. While last year was most definitely a down year, we as a region, have suffered a true embarrassment of riches over the past decade. This year’s team is intriguing. Pedroia, the heart of the team, looks healthy for the first time in two years and the ageless Ortiz has the 500 career home run goal within reach. He’ll have to adjust to the new rules that will require him to do less preening between pitches. I love that new rule, anything to speed up the pace of a game that has devolved with the need for both the pitcher and hitter to war-game each pitch. They need to address the pitchers’ timing as well. The best way to address the time problem would be to ban the TV close-ups of both the pitchers and the batter. They would be less prone to preening if they didn’t know the camera was locked on them.

The off season acquisitions of two bona fide hitters in Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval has to help with the lack of offense that last year’s team experienced. A return to form by a Mike Napoli able to sleep through the night and Shane Victorino back to switch hitting while being pushed by some youngsters in a very crowded outfield will help as well.

Pitching is the only real question mark but I kind of like the way they’ve gone about it. Each the starting five has the potential to emerge as a true stopper. If more than a couple do that then the Sox might just catch lightning in a bottle. I hope they avoid mortgaging the future by feeling the need to acquire a true ace. Just watching them going through the motions on the green field of Fort Meyers has me gazing over the snow bound fields trying to will the melting into overdrive and as any Sox fan will tell you in February – THIS IS THE YEAR!

ABFA and Son Last Weekend -Saddled with Me This Weekend

Something certain to warm this frozen heart will be the arrival this afternoon of my favorite son. He may even make it First Friday celebrations at Brew City so I can show him off to co-workers again. He’ll be joined tomorrow by the ABFA and in a welcome surprise, the ABFA’s parents as well. They obviously thought I was lonely without my favorite Panamanian (true that) and took steps to relieve those feelings. I’m very psyched.  Of course that meant I had to spend a significant portion of Thursday night returning the house to something resembling sanitary conditions. Buddy was a little ticked off as I scourged the house of bachelor living evidence.

The Pride of Carlisle PA Reigning in Austin

According to media reports the Curbside girls are absolutely dominating the Austin, Texas scene. Putting these volatile personalities together is always a recipe for memorable times. They’re gathering for the marriage of one of their own and WingMan flies in today to join to that cacophony after finishing his tour  up in Chicago.