Brian Wilson Randomness

Brian Wilson.

Initially, I kind of got a kick out of him.  But he wears on me now.  I feel like he’s trying much too hard to be funny or edgy or quirky or all three.

Wilson is driving what appears to be a fully equipped police cruiser, complete with a loudspeaker. He literally announces his arrival when he pulls into the Scottsdale Stadium parking lot, getting on the horn to blare, “I’m heeeere” to the group of autograph seekers lining the rail.

I read this today and my first thought was that he went from being amusing to being boorish.  We get it, Brian.  You’re wacky.  You go on national late night talk shows and bring a teammate dressed in bondage gear.  You wear a mohawk and have tattoos and a beard.

I don’t get it.  I mean, I don’t dislike the guy.  He’s a good pitcher and I was happy for him and his team to win the World Series.  He reminds me of someone I know who is constantly telling people he’s a renegade, a rebel, a non-conformist.  It’s difficult not to roll my eyes.  The in your face stuff just grows old with me.

Maybe I’m just having a bad day.

Goodbye, Chuck

Associated Press photo of Tanner in 1979 lifted without permission

The 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates are the team that truly made me realize and appreciate that there was baseball outside of the Boston Red Sox.  I always credit the 1979 World Series and especially the Pirates for giving me an appreciation of the rest of Major League Baseball that I didn’t have before and keep with me to this day.

I was 10 years old in October of ’79.  A sixth-grade girl who had just written an essay on the person I most admired:  Fred Lynn.  (True story.  According to my father, I was the only one in the class who didn’t choose a parent or other relative.)  I was serious about my baseball.  Coming off the Bucky Dent home run in 1978, the Red Sox finished that season in third behind both the Orioles and the Milwaukee Brewers.  But I wasn’t deterred, I still wanted more baseball.

Somehow, I talked my parents into letting me stay up to watch the World Series that year.  I don’t remember watching any of the seven games with either of them, although I’m sure I probably did.  I only remember going to school after each game and getting harassed by the boys who were all rooting for Baltimore because I had made it clear in class that I was rooting for Willie Stargell and the Pirates.

As an aside, I fell in love with Willie Stargell that fall.  Just fell hard.  He gave Fred Lynn a run for his money in 1979.

I’m remembering all this because the first thought I had when I heard about Chuck Tanner dying was that I had written “Tanner’s Terrors” across most of my books in school and kept them that way throughout the school year, long after the World Series was over.  Chuck Tanner was the first manager, aside from any who managed the Red Sox, who I actually paid attention to.

I thought Chuck Tanner was the best, most personable manager ever.  I liked him better than Earl Weaver.  Heck, I liked him a whole lot more than Don Zimmer!  I wanted him to manage the Red Sox in 1980 because I was convinced that if he did the Red Sox would win the World Series.  And that was all before the 1979 Series had even finished.

At nine your world view is based on what is going on in the moment.  For those seven games, Willie Stargell and Chuck Tanner were, in my eyes, the best.  And as man things from our youth do, the feelings about them stuck with me my entire life, even if I wasn’t always consciously aware of them.

So hearing about Tanner’s death brought immediate tears to my eyes as if someone I knew had passed on.  This April it will be 10 years that Willie Stargell has been dead.  While there are plenty of other players from that team still alive, he and Tanner were the links my brain made to that era…and now they’re both gone.

That makes me sad.  It also makes me want to appreciate how much joy this game has given me, especially the people involved in the game.

I own both boxed sets of the Red Sox World Series wins from 2004 and 2007.  The only other World Series boxed set I own is that of the 1979 World Series.  Thanks to that, I’ll always have an opportunity to remember that October.

Sad is no way to begin the new season.  So let’s dance!

“We are Family” was the rally song of the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. To this day that’s the only reason I like the song!

My Plea to Larry Lucchino about the New Video Boards

Made sure I took this on my last trip to Yankee Stadium just to prove it happens.

What are the chances that Larry Lucchino spends any amount of time on the computer Googling his name?  This entire entry is being written in the hopes that he, or someone who works for him, does just that.

See, Larry Lucchino, I keep reading about the fantastic video boards the Red Sox will have at Fenway Park this year and I’m tickled pink about it.  For years we’ve been watching the board at Fenway go blank for no discernible reason, show fuzzy photos and videos that we can barely see.  Going to just about any other park in baseball and seeing the video boards they have just reinforces how terrible the one at Fenway is…so I’m delighted that this is part of the renovations.

I’m also worried that these new video boards are going to encourage you, Larry Lucchino, and the rest of the Red Sox organization to do terrible things like put “Make Some Noise” signs on them.  Animated clapping hands encouraging fans to cheer at various times during the game when they should already know to be cheering.  At Yankee Stadium, the NEW Yankee Stadium as well as the old, the “Make Some Noise” signs are shown throughout the game.   They also have encouragements to “CHARGE” as well.  They make me want to kick someone.  In Major League Baseball, there is no need for this.  None at all.  I get that they think this appeals to kids at the park but I also think kids at the park deserve better.

There are so many other things you could do with a video board.  Show us more of the players!  In Baltimore (and, I imagine, other cities) they have fun and interesting pieces like asking the players their favorite things (tv shows, movies, songs, etc)…showing behind the scenes video of the park…one of my favorite things in Baltimore is the profiles they show of the people who work at Fenway there and don’t happen to be baseball players.  Profiles on the beer vendors and folks who make pizza, this stuff is fun and a good use of the boards.  Asking us to make some noise, Larry Lucchino, or creating animated characters to race so the attention of the fans is on the board between innings…these things are Minor League moves (and, admittedly, fun at a Minor League game) and the Red Sox will be cheapened if this goes on at Fenway Park.  The place isn’t the most beloved ball park in America because the team caves in to what the rest of the league is doing.

I know this sounds like I’m just an old crank, but I’m not.  I went to more Minor League games last year than I did MLB games and I love them.  I think the atmosphere at a Minor League game is tremendous and I enjoy most every moment of it.  But that atmosphere is purposely different from that at the Major League level and I see no reason to make Major League Baseball  more like Minor League Baseball.  Heck, if anything, I appreciate that if you go to a Triple-A game in Pawtucket the atmosphere is more like MLB than MiLB.  At some point, as it is with the players and the teams they play against, there should be a marked difference as you make your way up through baseball.

So, Larry Lucchino, I want to thank you for all you’ve done for the fans, for the team and  with Fenway Park.  Your contributions have been historic and your name will forever be remembered with Red Sox fans.  I also implore you to not turn Fenway Park into the Cartoon Network with these new video boards.

I don’t usually ask for comments, but I’m interested to hear what other folks think about the video boards and how they would like to see or would NOT like to see them used.   Plus if I write Larry Lucchino enough times maybe he’ll actually see this entry and your suggestions as well!

STQJ67XT4YAC

Bobby Jenks is Big (Now that we have that out of the way…)

When I began writing this entry, around 9:15 this morning, it was 51 degrees in Ft. Myers and 41 degrees in Boston.  While 51 degrees is a heatwave in Boston in February, I don’t imagine they feel the same at the Fort.  I’ll take the 41 for now and enjoy the sound of melting snow.

As regular readers and anyone who knows me is aware, I hate reading most of the mainstream Boston sports media. During the season, this isn’t as much of an issue as I can get info pretty much anywhere but during Spring Training it becomes a little more problematic as the information coming out isn’t as easy to access if you aren’t reading the mainstreamers who made the trip to Florida.  So this morning I decided to get to reading so I can keep up with the fellas in the Fort.

I’m not sure this was such a good idea.

BUT instead of focusing on a lot of the already negative stuff they’re coming up with, today I choose to focus on one of the new guys:  Bobby Jenks.

I dig Jenks.  I can’t help it.  He’s a bullpen pitcher, he’s a big guy, and he says things like this:

“I don’t want to go into the whole Red Sox-Yankees battle just yet, but I’d rather be a Red Sox, for sure”

As has been the case for most of his career, Jenks is probably going to be the butt of ignorant fat jokes all season long. The only way to respond to them, aside from just punching some jackass in the face, is to pitch well.  I’m looking forward to watching him do just that.

An aside: The article I linked to above was written by Brian MacPherson at the Providence Journal.  It’s possible heband Gordon Edes will be the only mainstream Boston sports writers I link to all season.  We’ll see what happens as the season progresses.

Tomorrow everyone shows up in Fort Myers.  While NESN started their reporting from the Fort last night, this coming weekend will mark the beginning of their covering workouts live (on Saturday and Sunday morning).  It might sound like a silly thing to sit and watch but seeing the guys on the grass, throwing, running and getting back into playing shape is exactly what those of us who have been snowbound for the last month and a half really need to remember that someday soon baseball will be played again.

Thou Shalt Not Steal!

Look! A photo I did not take! Let's give credit where it is due: Photo taken by Kelly O'Connor @ sittingstill.smugmug.com and used with permission. See how easy that was?

So today is the day!  The day when pitchers and catchers are expected to report to Fort Myers (which, loosely translated, means they have to let the team know they’re in town since they don’t get down to business, really, until Tuesday).  We’ve waited for this day since October and it is here.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t be happy about yet another milestone on the way to Opening Day!

I thought it a good time to bring up one of my greatest pet peeves.  It’s gone beyond being a peeve and it as become a genuine concern.  I’ve beaten folks over the head with my rants on this before and here I go again…stealing off the Internet.

A couple of months ago, my friend Kelly O’Connor discovered that a contributor to Wikipedia had gone through her photos, used one for just about each Red Sox player and posted them on Wikipedia without crediting Kelly as the photographer.  That would have been bad enough, but this same person gave herself the photographer’s credit and gave permission for anyone to use the photos anywhere they wanted.  I think you have to be some kind of major league ass to do something like that.  But she was an anonymous major league ass.  She was a nobody who made herself feel better by taking credit for someone else’s work.  It was a lousy thing to do. It was also difficult to blame an actual person since we never found out who this person really was.  Fortunately for Kelly, Wikipedia eventually responded to her, deleted the photos and banned the user (when, really, what Kelly was looking for was her fair credit and a retraction of giving away the rights.  Something that was too late anyway since other sites had seen the photos and used them thinking they had the legal right to do so).

When I first started blogging I lifted photos all the time.  Initially, it didn’t occur to me that something I saw online needed to be credited back.  My ignorance stuns me now, but it was there.  If I used a photo where the photographer was specifically pointed out, I’d write somewhere in the post where I got it from.  But I was just as likely to Google a player’s name, find a photo already with no credit and use it again.  At the time, I didn’t even realized people were reading the blog.  As soon as I started to be aware of my audience, I started to realize that I shouldn’t be taking something and passing it off as mine (I never took credit for any photo that wasn’t mine but by using a photo and not crediting someone you are, basically, doing just that).  So now it feels like life’s work to educate those online about not stealing someone’s photographs.

Last night, Kelly showed me the Flickr page of another talented sports photographer.  Her handle is slidingsideways and she shoots both the Red Sox and the Bruins.  Hockey fans, especially, should check out her work because it’s pretty damned good.  So good, in fact, that folks over at NESN have been lifting some of her photos and not giving her credit.

NESN? Seriously?  NESN doesn’t have an official photographer who covers the sports that NESN airs nightly? NESN can’t afford to have a subscription to Getty Images?  NESN has to go trolling for photos on Flickr?  Not much surprises me any more, but this certainly did.  (Since being made aware that the photographer was not happy with their use of her photos without any credit, one article now has a different photo and another has a credit at the end of the piece.  Yes, NESN chose to pull a photo rather than just caption it with the photographer’s name.)

When I was at WEEI.com, I never found out where they got the photos they used but I do know that I never used Getty Images officially (hell, I had to bring up the subject of photos and giving credit to Rob Bradford during our first meeting).  I used Kelly’s photos and Kelly signed an agreement with them to give them permission for me to use them.  Something we had to push for in order to protect Kelly’s interests.  She didn’t get paid for them but she got credit.  Recently, I was invited to contribute to another website. I wrote a handful of pieces for them but ultimately decided I didn’t have the time to spend there and appreciatively bailed out.  This site is new and is trying to make money to become a contender and I respect that, but they too make it a habit of getting their pictures from Flickr without giving any credit.  It’s a practice I’m completely uncomfortable with and everyone else should be as well.

Most people who post their photos online are thrilled when someone expresses an interest in using their photos.  Everyone wants their work appreciated.  And most of the photographers I know don’t even expect payment for someone to use their work…they just want the proper credit (and a heads up…it helps if you ask for permission to use the photo…it’s the professional thing to do).  If you credit a photographer (but giving a link to where you found their work!) you’re helping them gain an audience.  It doesn’t cost you anything and since you’re using their photos it helps you both.

WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT FOR EVEN MAINSTREAM SITES TO UNDERSTAND?

Today marks a day that we start to see photos flooding out of Fort Myers.  I love looking at the photos of the guys getting back to work…the professional and the amateur photos.  So if you have a blog, or just like to post photos on your Twitter or Facebook feed, please remember to give the photographer proper credit.  It’s the least we can do for the people sharing their work with us.

(Pre) Season of Hope

Although none of them are required to be there until Sunday, a good portion of the Red Sox are currently in Fort Myers, already getting in some unofficial workouts.

I know there are a lot of people who steer clear of places like Twitter and Facebook, but they really are wonderful resources to get information (and photos) as the action happens down South.  Especially Twitter.  Beat writers are posting photos from their phones all day long.  Little bits of insight to what is going on in a place most likely much warmer than where you are right now.  As an example, not too long ago, Ian Browne tweeted this and attached a photo of Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia.  Not the best quality, but a pretty cool photo nonetheless.

This is the time of year that everything is possible in the eyes of baseball fans.  Not a pitch has yet been thrown, but we can believe that our team will be in the World Series because there is no one who can tell us differently. Not yet, anyway.  We have about a month and a half where we can bask in the anticipation of a fantastic season.  We all expect to be there in October!

Just think of all we, as Red Sox fans, have to look forward to this season: Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford…no Joe Morgan on Sunday Night Baseball…the world is our oyster!!

Final Truck Day Thoughts

Shiny (because they were wet!), Happy People

One more entry about Truck Day and then I promise I’ll stop!

The past month has the been month o’ suck for me personally. Just a lot of things, some big and some small, that have made this new year, so far, a bit on the suckish side.

Tuesday morning I woke up singing.  The sky was grey and my street was slushy and I couldn’t have cared less.  I left my house probably an hour earlier than I had to and got to Kenmore Square a good half an hour earlier than I told my friend Kelly I would be.

So I stood in Kenmore getting rained on and began to text Kelly to let her know I had arrived.  When I looked up from my phone, there was a guy looking at me and smiling a huge, genuine smile.  I went to smile back, realizing that I was already smiling and it hit me that he was smiling at me because of how big my smile was.  I was so happy for Truck Day that I was smiling without even knowing it.  And based on his reaction, it must have been quite a smile.

Now that all will seem silly to many people.  I promise you, every person at Fenway on Tuesday who wasn’t media-related understood how silly getting excited about a truck actually is.  Every fan I spoke to or who spoke to me acknowledged that it was a little crazy to stand in the freezing rain to watch men load cardboard boxes on to a truck.  We all knew it was annoying the locals who didn’t care about Truck Day and only cared about getting down Van Ness Street who had to wait for us to get out of the street because the truck took up most of the street and the sidewalk designated for us to stand on was covered in snow.  We knew that people in other cities (or who just don’t like baseball) would be mocking us.  We were sort of mocking ourselves.

See, the people who show up for Truck Day don’t show up because the Red Sox send out press releases about it.  They don’t go because they local news builds it up like there are thousands of crazy fans hanging at Fenway having a party.  We go because we want (and sometimes NEED) to see proof that the cold, dark days of winter will soon be behind us.  We want or need to remember that in a few weeks we’ll be watching ball played on green grass under blue skies and in a couple of months the green grass, blue skies and baseball players will be back in Boston.

The happiest I have been in all of 2011, so far, was this past Tuesday. Regardless of how “stupid” or “commercial” some folks deem it…it made me happy.  It made other people happy too.  Isn’t that the point?

Day of the Truck

Heidi was happy! (Police officer was cold!)*

It was rainy.  It was chilly.  We got yelled at to “move away” by the folks doing actual work because the truck took up half of Van Ness Street and there were cars trying to make their way down (also, the people doing the actual work didn’t seem overjoyed at having people with cameras and kids gawking at them and getting in their way – can’t say I blame them).  We only saw Wally for about three minutes and that was just to give away jetBlue caps and the only other “celebrities” there were Heidi Watney and a brief cameo by Larry Lucchino.

Yet it was the most fun I’ve had all winter!

Every fan there yesterday was happy.  I’m not sure there were more than 50 Red Sox fans there by the time the truck rolled away, but the fans who were there were smiling and excited and eager to discuss baseball and the significance of watching the truck get loaded and on its way.

There was a tweet yesterday that the Globe’s Eric Wilbur retweeted and added commentary to:Wilbur followed his up by saying that he is “tired of the unending Sox marketing machine”.  Aside from the signage on the truck, the only other “marketing” yesterday was Wally tossing fans jetBlue caps (okay they toss soft baseballs with the jetBlue logo on them as well…big deal).  There was a small group of fans, including some children, who knew being there was silly but it was FUN.  That’s all.  No one tried to sell us anything.  No one asked us for money to stand there in the rain and watch them load baby toys (seriously) on to the truck.  We did it because it was FUN.

Truck day has gone on much longer than the current owners have been with the Red Sox.  Fans have always gone to Fenway Park to watch it leave, it’s just more publicized than it used to be.  If you have a problem with this, I’d venture you have a problem with the ownership in general (as Mr. Wilbur seems to) because there was nothing negative about yesterday.  Again.  IT WAS FUN.

I know fun might be a foreign concept to some who cover sports but, really, the stick needs to be taken out of some asses in the Boston sports media.

The people at Fenway yesterday were happy.  Hell, Heidi Watney was DANCING at one point.  People took pictures of a truck and discussed the upcoming season with fellow Sox fans.  Many who were there were also planning on being at some of the Spring Training games and this was their pregame warmup of sorts.  I will never understand why so many in this town need to crap on the things that most people just find enjoyable.

I was at Fenway Park yesterday being reminded that on Sunday baseball season is beginning.  No one made me go.  I didn’t have to pay for anything, I just stood there happily staring at “America’s Most Beloved Ballpark” and getting excited for the 2011 season.  How can that possibly be a bad thing?

*Visit my Flickr page for more photos from the day

Don't Tread on Truck Day

Photo I took of "The" Truck on Truck Day in 2009

This Tuesday is one of my favorite days of the off-season.

It’s a silly, cold, tradition, yet still I love it and participate in it!

Truck Day is a joke to many.  Every year when I write about it I get messages from non-Sox fans mocking me (and the rest of us) for celebrating trucks packed with equipment pulling away from Fenway Park.  A good lot of the media, especially the Boston sports media, decry it for being overblown and, now, sponsored (although for years CVS has quietly sponsored it with a banner across the truck and no one seemed to complain about that).  Last year the sponsor was a bit more vocal with JetBlue giving out freebies and chances to win airline tickets.  JetBlue will once again sponsor Truck Day this year.  The local media loves to complain about the current ownership’s ability to make money off of anything. (Again and for the record, the fans didn’t have to pay anything at Truck Day last year.  We got free trucker’s caps, soft baseballs, foam fingers and the opportunity to win free tickets while we stood outside in the cold waiting for the vacuum cleaner to be loaded on to the truck.)

It’s harmless, silly fun.  Hell, one thing the media always seems to leave out in their stories on Truck Day is how there always appears to be more of THEM at Fenway than there are fans.  A small but dedicated (and, admittedly, slightly crazy) group of fans show up to watch the trucks roll away and mark the beginning of Spring Training and folks want to present it as something negative.  It isn’t.  It’s FUN.  That’s all.  Nothing else to see here.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, my butt (and the rest of me!) will be outside Fenway on Tuesday morning to see the trucks off and cheer the coming of Spring Training.  When that’s over, I’ll probably hit a bar to lift a glass to the Boys of Summer finally returning to us.

In two days…TWO DAYS we get our first real sign of baseball.  How can that not be a GOOD thing?

Project Cupid 2011

Isaias Thomas Valentin 9.9.99 ~ 9.5.09

It seems that everyone as been touched by cancer in some way…it’s hard to get away from it.  I’ve lost many loved ones to cancer, the most recent loss being my 38 year-old cousin who died a little over a week ago from complications brought on from colon cancer.  Cancer does, indeed, suck.

Last year I wrote about my friend Amy Blue.  She also lost a cousin to cancer, 9 year-old Isaias, and she took the pain of that loss and turned it into something positive:  Project Cupid.  This Friday (February 4th) Amy and Project Cupid will be holding their second annual charity date auction at Whiskey Park.

Your $15 donation (and 100% of the proceeds) will go to Dr. Kimberly Stegmaier’s Acute Myeloid Leukemia Research Fund.  Acute Myeloid Leukemia is the form of cancer that killed Amy’s cousin Isaias so the donations this year are taking on a very personal meaning for Amy and her family.

My emotions are still a bit raw for me to write much about my experiences with cancer right now, but my friend, and Amy’s husband, Josh wrote a heartfelt entry on his blog about how much this support means to their family.

Along with the auction there will be a live action and opportunity drawings for many items, including Boston sports memorabilia, so there should be something for everyone!

It promises to be a fun night for a great cause –  if you can make it out I hope you make it to Whiskey Park on Friday!