No Show Francona

After Boston's embarrassing and catastrophic collapse at the end of the 2011 season, there was no one quite to blame but Manager Terry Francona. He was the first and best target to attack for the fall of the Red Sox. Two weeks following the team's last loss in Baltimore, an article was released from the Boston Globe, "Inside the Collapse," in which it questioned Francona's professionalism and the team's deteriorating clubhouse. Francona was extremely hurt and disappointed in the organization he had worked for for so long AND was apart of for the last two World Series wins. It is not surprising to hear that he has denied the invitation to attend Fenway's 100th Anniversary game on April 20th against the Yankees. Francona claims, "It’s a shame. I’m sure they’ll have a great event and I was part of a lot of that stuff there, but I just can’t go back there and start hugging people and stuff without feeling a little bit hypocritical.’’ 


Every living ex-player and manager has been invited to celebrate with the Red Sox, but Francona rejected over a phone call with owner John Henry in March. CEO Larry Lucchino tried to convince him yet again last week, but he had no luck. "He got a little perturbed at me, telling me I was being unfair to them. I called him back last night and left him a message. He called me back and we ended up getting into an argument. I just feel like someone in the organization went out of their way to hurt me and the more we talked I realized we’re just not on the same wavelength. They’re probably better off going forth and leaving me out of it,’’ stated Francona. 


For Red Sox fans and just for the history of Red Sox baseball, it is sad to celebrate an exciting birthday without an important piece of the puzzle there with them. Terry Francona was the manager of the 2004 team, the team that brought the Sox back to life and kissed an 86 year curse goodbye. He was also there for the 2007 World Series win, but in this case, the negatives are weighing out the positives. 


As we saw in Moneyball, working for a baseball organization is nothing what we would have imagined. It is not all fun and games. Billy Beane was constantly on his toes, with concerns stretching farther than just wins and losses. When he indeed had the opportunity to join the Red Sox organization, he couldn't come to leave the team he had worked so hard to rebuild. They were important to him and money couldn't convince him otherwise. It is understandable why Terry Francona is hurt and doesn't want to be involved in a special occasion for the team that tossed him out just two days after their season ended. He had worked hard and created relationships within the organization, for it to then appear as if it meant nothing. It is completely unfair to blame the collapse of the 2011 Red Sox entirely on him. 

Red Sox Nation Celebrates Fenway's 100th Birthday

The Boston Red Sox and Welch's are teaming up to attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest toast in one venue. Fenway Park will be celebrating its 100th anniversary on April 20th, in which the Sox will play the Yankees, and the organization will commence a celebration for 37,493 fans. Welch's will serve every fan a glass of their sparkling grape juice to cheers to America's Most Beloved Ballpark and Major League Baseball's oldest operating ballpark in the United States.

Fenway Park's celebration is not only for the organization itself but for their devoted fan base; the infamous Red Sox Nation. They will be the ones creating history in the ballpark, not only while setting a new world record, but for the team as well. Fenway Park is a magical place full of history already and for the fans to make memories, not only for themselves but for their beloved Red Sox, is a rare and special occasion. When you are a baseball fan loving the team unconditionally, or attending every game, or even naming your pet after their ballpark (which I have already done!) is all you can do. You can be there to experience and witness the history in the making but as fans we do not create it ourselves. We are a different aspect of the game, a special and important part, but we just watch and cheer or cry and throw beer.

Red Sox fans, in particular, are a whole different breed of fan. For many Octobers in Fenway's past, fans suffered to witness catastrophic upsets and coming close but not close enough. They are bonded to each other, far and near, for this very reason. Come April 20th for generations of Red Sox fans and for the community of Boston, Fenway can celebrate something for the people who stood by the Sox for better or worse (and out of 100 of those years, 86 of them were World Series-less).

In Al Filreis' The Baseball Fan, he references Roger Angell's long list of New England places where fans celebrated Carlton Fisk's walk-off home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. A very special time in Red Sox history. He wrote,

"all my old absent and distant Sox-afflicted friends (and all the other Red Sox fans, all over New England), and I thought of them- in Brookline, Mass., and Brooklin, Maine; in Beverly Farms and Mashpee and Presque Isle and North Conway and Damariscotta; in Pomfret, Connecticut, and Pomfret, Vermont; in Wayland and Providence and Revere and Nashua, and in both Concords and all five Manchesters; and in Raymond, New Hampshire (where Carlton Fisk lives), and Bellows Falls, Vermont (where Carlton Fisk was born), and I saw all of them dancing and shouting and kissing and leaping about like the fans at Fenway- jumping up and down in their bedrooms and kitchens and living rooms, in bars and trailers, and even in some boats here and there, I suppose, and on back-country roads (a lone driver getting the news over the radio and blowing his horn over and over, and finally pulling up and getting out and leaping up and down on the cold macadam, yelling into the night), and all of them, for once at least utterly joyful and believing in that joy- alight with it."


But, we all know the end to this story...

The Times They Are a Changing

Before there was Facebook or Twitter, or even the internet (GASP!) people received news from newspapers. If a big news story broke you would have to wait until the following day to read about it or huddle around a radio to listen to it; reporting the news was strictly for the professionals. For the generation we live in today, the idea of physically holding a newspaper to learn about events occurring around the world seems foreign. A disastrous tsunami hits Japan and we know about it within minutes, a celebrity passes away and we can read about it on multiple online newspapers, Johnny Damon gets traded to New York and we can watch Red Sox Nation cry. The internet is infinite. Especially for a sports fan, the internet is full of possibilities. If you don't catch the game, there are websites for that, if you want to check the score, there are websites for that, and if you want to know where Kevin Millar is and who he is with, there is even a website for that. To imagine a life before that is laughable, why would we? We can do and say anything we want and put it on the web.

Recently, Major League Baseball released a policy regarding the use of social media. It is more closely related to a legal document but it contains ten prohibitions:

1. Players can’t make what can be construed as official club or league statements without permission;

2. Players can’t use copyrighted team logos and stuff without permission or tweet confidential or private information about teams or players, their families, etc.;

3. Players can’t link to any MLB website or platform from social media without permission;

4. No tweets condoning or appearing to condone the use of substances on the MLB banned drug list (which is everything but booze, right?);

5. No ripping umpires or questioning their integrity;

6. No racial, sexist, homophobic, anti-religious, etc. etc. content;

7. No harassment or threats of violence;

8. Nothing sexually explicit;

9. Nothing otherwise illegal.

10. Anyone who violates these rules is subject to discipline from the commissioner.

Years ago the only connection you had to baseball, besides physically being in the stadium (or playing it), was by listening to the game on the radio or reading about it in the newspaper. In Curt Smith's article, Baseball and Mass Media, he states, "In 1938, only 13 MLB teams used the radio. The exception: New York City's Yankees, Giants, and Brooklyn Dodgers, completing a self- imposed five year ban." The teams believed that the broadcast would hurt attendance, so they banned coverage. What on earth would we do today if the Yankees didn't allowed live coverage, play-by-play, pitch-by-pitch? Cheer for joy? :) Banning coverage of a game from any team would cause an outrage if that was the case today. Fans are diverse all over the country. 

Not only does the publication of baseball information seem insane, but the way it was done before television or internet is just an insult to the game entirely. Smith says, "An announcer knew how to describe a game he never saw. A Western Union Simplex telegraphy machine operator at the park sent data to a studio; b1 meant ball one, low; s2c, strike two called..." 

It was a whole different world of communication. As a fan you only heard news from announcers or newspaper writers, never directly from a player the way we do today. Any MLB Organization can send out a tweet seconds after the final score of a game is determined and you can receive it straight to your phone. The news is not just for journalists anymore. The rules for social media use only make sense. Not only is the player a representation of who he is to his fans but he is a representation of the organization, which could end up biting him in the butt. A possibility that was never an option when the radio was your only source of news. 


http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/03/14/major-league-baseball-releases-its-social-media-policy-and-its-pretty-good/

Racism and the Red Sox

In Major League Baseball today, race is not something of a problem anymore. African Americans play with other African Americans. Japanese play with other Japanese. Dominicans play with Hispanics and Puerto Ricans, who all play with Whites. As professionals in a business that span the interests of America's melting pot, they are all treated with the same respect, responsibility, and authority. Each man is viewed and critiqued on the type of ball player he is, not by the color of his skin.

Although that wasn't always the case. In Leslie Heaphy's article Baseball and the Color Line, he discusses the history of African Americans throughout baseball. There was a booming popularity of the Negro Leagues amongst black communities as that was the only place the sport and the colored man could be together. After WWII, possibilities of integration were being discussed. Heaphy said, "... it became harder to argue that both black and white young men could fight and die for their country, but not play baseball together."

To much dismay, the Red Sox were the last major league team to cross the color line and sign an African American player. Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers in 1945 and Pumpsie Green signed with Boston in 1959. He came from their Triple AAA team but never really became a regular player. It wasn't until 1962 when Earl Wilson began a five year run with the Sox and became a regular in the rotation. The Red Sox integration 14 years after Robinson entered the major leagues was half-hearted.

MLB.com profiled countless players during the month of February as a part of Black History Month. They just so happened to focus on left fielder Tommy Harper and his accomplishments playing in a Red Sox uniform. He held the record for stolen bases, 54, in 1973, which happened to be the same year he was voted MVP for the Red Sox. He was a great player for Boston but did not have fond feelings for Fenway and Red Sox fans for quite sometime. African American fans weren't welcomed whole heartedly into Fenway Park. The majority of people who went to see the Red Sox play were white.

When asked about having colored skin in Boston, Harper said, "Sometimes people think it's an exaggeration from the fans who said, 'I didn't feel comfortable, I didn't feel welcome at Fenway Park.' I'm going to tell you the truth. They were right. How could they feel comfortable when I wasn't? And I was on the field. I know what they were talking about." He says he was constantly hearing racial slurs from the stands and had no intention but to get to Fenway, work, and get out of there. Even after 14 years of playing in Boston, African Americans still did not feel worthy enough to be there.

John Henry, Larry Lucchino, and Tom Werner took over in 2002. They had every intention of cleaning up their awful reputation and making a new name for the organization. Pumpsie Green comes back for team events, but refused to until new ownership took over. Can we blame him?

Risky Business

As we saw in Moneyball, Billy Beane is one to take many risks when it comes to selectively choosing a roster. He picks the underdogs and shapes them, signs players with contracts worth nothing, and changes player's familiar positions and places them else where. As of today, there is a chance that the Oakland A's will pick up Manny Ramirez. Talk about taking a risk.

According to NESN and the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland could potentially sign Manny Ramirez as their DH soon after the start of spring training. Ramirez, 39, played the first five games of the 2011 season with the Rays before he declared his retirement. This fell coincidentally after he was caught with steroids, which means if he were to come out of retirement he would be suspended for the first 50 games of the season.

Signing Manny is an interesting leap of faith. When he played as an outfielder in Boston, he seemed to be a consistent hitter, but occasionally lacked enthusiasm in left field. This laziness and bad attitude was just the excuse that Manny was being Manny. The A's signing Manny and giving him a second chance in the major leagues will be risky. First of all, he is 39 years old. He could potentially come back for one season just because of that. His statistics, although still close to a .300 batting average, have decreased and he hasn't played for over a year. At this point, who wants him? He can't play the first 50 games, has a past of taking steroids, is a little rusty, has an attitude problem and his age doesn't help. There isn't talk of what his contract may be worth, but assuming the A's are the only ones offering anything, it won't be very large. No one else wants him so he will most likely settle for anything.

Just like in Moneyball, Beane signing Manny is a similar situation to when he signed David Justice. The Yankees didn't want him anymore, he had a nasty attitude, and he was coming to the end of his career. Beane gave him a second chance. If things go Beane's way, are we looking at Manny's comeback?


Source: http://www.nesn.com/2012/02/report-athletics-likely-to-sign-manny-ramirez-before-or-soon-after-start-of-spring-training.html