My Sports Shopping Spree

Someone needs to take my credit card away! I'm quite a few dollars poorer thanks to online shopping. I am the type of person who goes in spurts. I will not get a hair cut for a year and then chop all my hair off. I don't go shopping often, but every now and then I go on a spree.
It all started with Spring Training. I have been dying for baseball to return. Not just because that means winter is over, but because the Red Sox ended last season on such a sour note. It's time to correct that.

This app has a clock as well as an alarm and a news feed. It's kind of dumb, but kind of funny!

I bought this app last year and loved it. I was disappointed that the price went up this year, but that didn't stop me from buying it. It's a great app to keep track of games when you can't be near the TV or computer. It has video recaps of the game as well as audio of all the games with your choice of home or away team's broadcasts. I was disappointed to find out that is only updates the Spring Training games on the half inning, but in the regular season it updates every few minutes.
I've been to two Red  Sox games in my life. Both were in Boston last year. This year I decided that, in addition to one game in Boston in August, I wanted to check out some other stadia, not that they can hold candle to Fenway Park!

I have actually been to Rogers Center before for a baseball game. It was on a class trip to Toronto in the eighth grade. I remember nothing other than the roof! I don't remember who the Blue Jays were playing, but it wasn't the Sox. I can't wait to go again. I haven't been north of the border since a passport was involved. It will be the first time I've used mine, though hopefully not the last.

I have only heard great things about Camden Yards. One day out of the clear blue my dad comes home from work and says that we should take a vacation to Baltimore. A coworker of his was raving about the aquarium and railroad museum among other things. I immediately got on the Sox schedule to find out when they would be in Baltimore.

I, sadly, live outside of NESN territory. (Trust me, everyday I dream of ways to get myself a job and place to live in Suffolk County.) This year I finally broke down and bought MLB.TV. Today, I watched the game against the Orioles. It was so nice to be able to see it, rather than just hear it. I watched it in lower quality so that my internet could keep up. I had to watch the feed from MASN, but when regular season starts I'll get a choice.
After reading all of this you might say I'm obsessed.
I would say guilty as charged!

Vested Interest

Baseball season has begun! Ok, so technically it is only the preseason games that have begun, but we know that the regular season is not far away. Even though the games don't count, it is nice to hear the crack of the bat again!
I root for the Red Sox (and whoever is playing the Yankees) but this year I'll be keeping my eye on Justin Duschucherer, Jason Nix, Jeff Bailey, and Aaron Bates. Are they on my fantasy team? No. (I tried fantasy baseball last year and failed miserably and I'm not sure I'll bother again this year.) I keep my eye on these players because I want to see them do well. My concern for their careers is not out of the goodness of my heart, however. I have a vested interest in each of these guys.
Justin Duchscherer and Jason Nix
I collect baseball cards. Through the luck of the draw, I've ended up with four different Justin Duchscherer cards with doubles of one and triples of another. I have also ended up with two different Jason Nix rookie cards and his card for this year. I'm rooting for these guys to become the next Cy Young and Bobby Doerr, respectively. Who doesn't dream about one of your ordinary cards becoming really valuable!
Jeff Bailey
Red Sox fans know Bailey has moved on to Arizona Diamondbacks where he will be playing in the majors. I'm rooting for the guy not just because he worked so many years in the Sox minor league system, but also because I saw him in the minors where he got two home runs in one game against the Rochester Red Wings. (Random fact: Rochester is the oldest minor league team.) I'd love for Bailey to become the next Hank Aaron so that I could say I saw him hit a home run in person. That would be a great story to tell the grandkids!
Aaron Bates
At a July 7, 2009 game in Boston, Bates had been pulled up from the minors. Bates went hitless that day, but he did get a walk. Ever since then I have been dreaming of the day when he sets some record for career walks and I can say I saw him get his first big-league walk! I also saw Bates play first base in a minor league game where I sat in the second row right by the bag. He was probably ten feet away! (Bonus random fact: the longest recorded game was 33 innings long played by the Rochester Red Wings verses the Pawtucket Red Sox.)
Maybe I'll go sign up for a fantasy baseball team after all. I love this game!

Mad about March

Obviously, March Madness is the first thing I think about this time of year. I always fill out a bracket. Last year, I picked North Carolina Tar Heels to win it all (as I had the year before) and they did! I don’t have high hope this year; what are the odds of a picking the winner again? I had to laugh when ESPN had coverage of President Obama filling out his bracket. When he made his selection of UNC to win it all (I had already filled out my bracket), he turned to the camera and said, “Now Tar Heels, I picked you last year and you let me down. Don’t let me down again.” If I had been followed around by cameras when I filled out my bracket, that’s exactly what I would have said!

Now that the winter holidays and the Olympics are over, some of my favorite television shows are coming back. 30 for 30 is a great series of documentaries on ESPN about different sports. Calling them “sports documentaries” doesn’t do them justice. I was near tears watching “The Band that Wouldn’t Die” which is about a group of dedicated fans as they dealt with the Colts moving out of Baltimore. I’m looking forward to new installments starting with “Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks” on March 14.
There will also be new episodes of Chuck (March 1) and Ugly Betty (March 10)!

Spring Training is officially underway and the first preseason game is March 3 with the Red Sox going up against Northeastern University and Boston College. The preseason games themselves aren’t terribly exciting since the results don’t count. But it is nice to hear about pitching rotations, starting lineups, and box scores again after a long winter without baseball!

March 21 is the Vernal Equinox which means the first day of spring. I don’t get too excited about this because where I live there will still be snow on the ground until the beginning of April. I have to laugh because every year in the middle of February I get my March issue of Martha Stewart Living in the mail. The March issue is the “Gardening Issue” but I won’t be doing any gardening for a least another two months!

The month of March seems heavily populated with birthdays. My father turns 59! There are also birthdays for my boss Kevin and my friend Mark and his son. My friends JOE_COOK and iChazzer even have the same birthday!
One of my favorite authors, Dr. Seuss (born Theodore Seuss Geisel in Springfield, MA) would be 106 on March 2.
All in all, March is going to be a good month! Plus, after March we get to April and we all know what that means: Go Red Sox!!!

Pitchers and Catchers Report (A Poem)

Pitchers and catchers report 
We know the season soon starts 
Catchers are crouching 
Pitchers are tossing 
We will be hearing "play ball!"  


Two thousand ten has begun!

Truck Day 2010

My first YouTube video! And I made it in honor of Truck Day 2010!



In case you are wondering what Truck Day is, I'll explain. Truck Day is when equipment is loaded up from Fenway Park and taken down to the Red Sox Spring Training facility in Fort Myers, Florida. Truck Day, this year it's February 12, marks he unofficial beginning of Spring Training. The official beginning is when "pitchers and catchers report" on February 18.
I made the still images in Pages and imported them into iPhoto. Then I played (poorly I might add) "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in GarageBand and exported it to iTunes. I opened iMovie and brought the video and audio together.
I love how I mostly used programs that come already on the Mac! I wanted to get to know iMovie and Garageband better. This project taught me that these are very capable programs and I still have a lot to learn!

A Season in Review

It was a season of ups and downs. The boys made it to the playoffs, but no one was expecting them to go all they way. The history books suggested a victory at the beginning of the playoffs was all but guaranteed. They put the ball into the hands of the man with the proven track record in the playoffs. Sadly, he was but human and the streak was snapped and the season is over.

Oh yeah, and the same thing happened to the Patriots.

It’s just a coincidence, obviously, but it’s a darn spooky one.

The Patriots and Red Sox had uneven seasons. After starting 2-6, the Sox had an 11 game winning streak. The offense set a record with 12 runs in an inning and then scored only 1 run in the first two playoff games combined. The Pats had 3 separate 3-game winning streaks, but lost a game where they lead by 17 points in the fourth quarter. They were 6-4 against teams that finished over .500, but on Sunday they didn’t have a first down until over 6 minutes into their first-round playoff loss to Baltimore.

The Sox officially clinched a playoff spot on a day they lost a game to Toronto (and would go on to be swept at home). Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe wrote that New England should be happy they made the playoffs since they won’t win more than just the first game. The mood around both teams wasn’t that of a championship-bound club. Everyone just seemed glad to be playing in the post-season.

Going into the American League Divisional Series, the Red Sox hadn’t lost a playoff series to the Angels. The Patriots hadn’t lost a home playoff game in about three decades. Neither team was resting on its laurels, but nothing suggested that this year had to be the year those streaks would end. They were wrong.

Who is more trusted in big games than Jonathan Papelbon and Tom Brady? The Sox closer had a 0.00 postseason ERA! Terrific Tom was 14-3 in the playoffs! It doesn’t get much better than that, but past successes just weren’t enough as Papelbon gave up 3 runs in the 9th (not to mention the hits that lead to the 2 runs charged to Billy Wagner in the 8^th) and Brady had 3 picks on Sunday. The Sox were down 2 games to none when Papelbon took the mound and Brady was not helped by the injury to Wes Welker or a defense that allowed 33 points. Neither man was singularly to blame, of course, but in times of struggle they had always been the ones you could look to.

Is there some cosmic significance to sports? Of course not. That’s not why we watch. We watch because we don’t know what’s going to happen. We know what we want to happen or what we think will happen, but none of us has been to 2015 and brought back Gray’s Sports Almanac so we just don’t know. After disappointments this year are going to give up on our teams? No way! We’ll be watching the offseason moves and counting down to the new season. By the way, baseball’s Opening Day is coming up in just 84 short days and football is only 244 days away! Can’t wait!