Sunday, March 06, 2005

Miscellaneous Stuff

The Red Sox beat the Phillies today 5-4. Tomorrow they play the New York Yankees at City of Palms Park. The Sox are now 5-1 in Spring Training, 3-1 in the Grapefruit League and 1-1 against Minnesota for the Ft. Myers Mayor's Cup.

The Hockey East tournament begins Thursday night. 6th seeded Northeastern goes to #3 seed New Hampshire to begin their best of 3 series. On Friday night #2 BU hosts #7 Providence, #1 BC hosts #8 UMass, #4 Maine hosts #5 UMass-Lowell, and #3 UNH hosts #6 Northeastern.

Boston College not only won Hockey East's regular season, but they won the Big East basketball regular season. They earned a #1 seed in the Big East tournament which begins Wednesday at Madison Square Garden when 9th seeded Providence plays 8th seeded West Virginia. On the same day, #7 Georgetown will play #10 Seton Hall and #6 Notre Dame will play #11 Rutgers. BC will play the winner of the Providence/West Virginia game on Thursday. Villanova, UConn, Syracuse, and Pitt also received byes. If Boston College wins the tournament convincingly, they will have a good shot at getting a 2 seed and if some other teams have poor conference tournaments, they might even get a 1 seed.

Right now I think the 4 #1 seeds should be Illinois even though they lost to Ohio State, North Carolina, Wake Forest, and then either Kentucky or Boston College. Both UK and BC have few quality wins and have some losses to unranked teams. I think if UK has a poor SEC tournament and BC makes the Big East finals or wins, BC deserves the 1 seed.

The Celtics lost to Kevin McHale's T-Wolves tonight but since they got Antoine Walker back, they are 4-1. Furthermore, they got Gary Payton back. They basically traded nothing for Antoine Walker. It is the first really good move Ainge has made. The young players look pretty good too. With the additional draft picks the Celtics have amassed, they have the potential to build a solid championship contender in the next few years.

-BFKAP

Early Spring Training

I watched the first game of spring training the other day thanks to MLB.TV broadcasting it online for free. It was nice to see the champions. That's the only way to describe it. It was nice.

The Red Sox began the 2005 spring training season with a 4-3 victory over their crosstown rivals, the Minnesota Twins. The Sox then crushed the Northeastern Huskies 17-0 and beat the BC Eagles 11-5 later that night. Saturday the Sox lost to the Twins 12-7. But they also beat the Reds 8-7. On Sunday, the Red Sox host the Phillies.

Red Sox Records
Spring Training: 4-1
Grapefruit League: 2-1
Mayor's Cup: 1-1

New Season, New Blog

The era of Pedro Martinez has passed. Although I still like Pedro, he is a Met now. Thankfully he is not a Yankee and thankfully, the Sox will not have to face him apart from spring training, interleague play, and maybe even the World Series. I am no longer the PEDROphile. I am the Blogger Formerly Known As PEDROphile. (BFKAP for short)

The last time the Red Sox were champions, there was no such thing as spring training. Only white players were allowed to play. Most games were deseminated via telegraph. There was no system of minor leagues. Games were often called due to darkness. In the 86 years it took the Red Sox to reclaim the World Series trophy, baseball has completely modernized. Spring training is a huge part of preparing for the season. Players of all races contribute to the game. One can watch a game over the internet or listen to one on satelite radio. There are dozens of minor league teams. Games can be played all night long.

Every time I thought about what it would be like to win a World Series, I never ever considered what my feelings would be toward the next season. Would I be as anticapitory as I normally was? I guess I am feeling a different type of anticipation. In years past, I have needed the season to start to get over the failure of the previous one. This time, I WANT the season to begin because I want to take the same ride again.
-BFKAP