Sunday, December 25, 2011

Baseball is Awesome - It's December 25th

Dear Baseball and Red Sox fans: Today, being the 25th of December, I know most of my readers are thinking of other things.  There is so much going on today.  The NBA season is finally kicking off, there's an NFL game with playoff implications tonight, the sci-fi movie, The Darkest Hour is being released at theatres nationwide, people are concerned about Prince Philip's recovery and there's a myriad of other things for people to be thinking about.

But I'm thinking of something that happened hundreds of years ago.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Yu Darvish

There have been rumours over the last few days that he could be going to one of our rivals.  Among the favourites are the Yankees (who are rarely not favoured to win a bidding war) and the Blue Jays.  If either team wins, it will make our path to the postseason more difficult than it already is.  Rangers and Cubs among others are also supposedly in the mix.  But let me clear up all the confusion for you.

I have breaking news am am glad to be the first to publicly announce this.  An inside source has CONFIRMED that

Friday, December 9, 2011

Baseball is AWESOME! - Monster home run highlights sweep

Manny Ramirez had some memorable moments as a member of the Red Sox.  It started right away when he hit a 3 run home run on the very first pitch he saw at Fenway as a member of the Red Sox.   And of course, nobody will forget the moment pictured on the left, when he hit a walkoff homerun to give Boston a 2-0 ALDS lead over the Angels, whom they then swept en route to winning the 2007 World Series.

But the first time I realized we were watching something special, was on June 3rd, 2001  at the Skydome (as it was then called) in Toronto.  Not only did he hit an awe-inspiring blast, but at the time it looked like it might be a key moment in the season.

At the end of May Boston was tied with the Yankees for the AL East lead, and whoever didn't win the division was already 5 games behind in the wildcard chase.  Boston then went to Toronto, and as I've mentioned before, good things happen to the Red Sox when they cross the border.  Boston beat the Blue Jays the first 3 games and in the 4th game they were down 2-0 in the 4th inning when this happened:

Manny hits a towering home run that was measured at 491 feet, and before the crowd had time to stop ooing,  Dante Bichette hit another one to tie the game.  The Red Sox ended up winning to complete the sweep, and left Canada with a 2 game lead on New York.

Another reason baseball is awesome.  No matter the lack of importance of a game or the score, you should always keep watching because you never know when you are going to see something that makes you go "Wow!".


Epilogue: The Red Sox lead did not last long and by the end of the month they were chasing the Yankees who ended up running away with the division in what turned out to be a disappointing season.