April Baseball and other Musings

For someone who loves baseball as much as I do, I suppose it’s odd that I pay as little attention to spring training as possible.

It just doesn’t get me going the way the ‘real’ games do.

And tomorrow night, we finally get to experience the beginning of the 2007 season!

Baseball-wise, this April will be a busy month for me.  I’ll be at Opening Day at Fenway and back there the following evening.  THEN I’ll be back that first Saturday at Fenway and the following Monday (Patriot’s Day).  My final game in April will be on the 28th.  I don’t have all the specifics ironed out just yet (that’ll come within the next few days, hopefully), but on Saturday, April 28th, I’ll be sitting in Yankee Stadium watching (probably) Julian Tavarez lead the Sox to victory over the Yankees.

It’ll only be my second (and possibly last) trip to the Bronx.  I haven’t seen a Sox road game since 2005, so I’m really looking forward to it.  Of course, I’ll be looking forward to it more when I find out the specifics!  🙂

Speaking of 2005, thanks to Nancy over at SG, I read a nice interview/article about Bronson Arroyo yesterday that got me thinking.  In almost every interview I’ve read with him, Kevin Millar and Johnny Damon, it inevitably gets brought up that they believe if the team was "kept together" in 2005 (meaning, pretty specifically, signing Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe) they would have won the World Series again.

Now, this could very well be true.  We’ll never know.  What sticks with me, though, is the tunnel vision these guys have in regard to this issue.  I understand fans saying it, but players, above just about everyone else, know about the business of baseball.  Lowe and Pedro were free agents looking for long-term, big money deals.  Nothing wrong with that, except Lowe only showed ‘brilliance’ with the team in 2004 in the POST-season and Pedro…well Pedro is amazing and I’m not bashing him here, but health-wise, Pedro had become the aunt you walk behind as she’s going up the stairs, so if she falls she doesn’t break a hip.

Where is he today?  And how would having him there help the Red Sox?  They would have been knee-deep in a long-term deal, with contract money getting soaked up.    And Lowe…well he’s definitely one of those pitchers (hi Bronson!) who has benefited from pitching in the National League.

Regardless of how the last two seasons worked out, I’ll never see the logic in signing guys to long-term, expensive deals, just for one more year of glory.  I’m thankful every day for what ALL the players from the 2004 team brought to us, but that doesn’t mean I still want them all on our team.  As much as I refer to and reflect on the 2004 team, it was a unique experience that will NEVER be repeated.  Doesn’t mean I think the Sox can’t win the World Series again, but like they did IN 2004, they needed to shake things up to do it.

(Photo lifted right off of Boston.com)