Clash Of Personalities

Exactly two months ago the Red Sox fired the best manager in team history.   Today, after an extensive search that was as mismanaged as it was baffling, the team is set to name Bobby Valentine as its new manager.  Valentine, known best as a manager for being ejected from a game while coaching the Mets and reappearing in the dugout wearing a Groucho Marx mask, is an interesting choice.  Needless to say, he will not be the quiet, player-friendly voice of Grady Little or Terry Francona.  While not displaying the dictator-like qualities of Lou Piniella, he certainly will voice his opinions.  Boston media, eat your heart out. 

Valentine after all is the man who just last season, while working as a color commentator for ESPN, called foul on the speed of Red Sox vs. Yankee games and specifically took issue with Josh Beckett.  The complaint lit up the dials on sports radio stations throughout New England and even resulted in consideration from other players and managers.  I wonder how well that will go over at the first meeting between the burly Texan and the new skipper.   Perhaps the meeting will go smoothly and perhaps Beckett will be shipped off to parts unknown before it can happen.  Either way, Valentine is sure to ruffle some feathers.  He will call players out from not running out ground balls, change lineups daily, and go on “hunches” more than statistical analysis (Carmine beware). 

My guess is that there will be times when his honestly, candor, and know-it-all attitude will please, as he is the type of know it all personality that would make a great traveling salesman.  He did have major success in his latest coaching stint in Japan, and took the Mets to the World Series in 2000.  However, he has found himself at the center of controversy several times.  He was fired by the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japanese Pacific League in 2005 after a conflict with the general manager.  In 2000 he opened his mouth a bit too wide at a speaking engagement at the University of Pennsylvania, making backhanded comments about the Mets, his employer at the time.  Despite leading the Mets to the aforementioned World Series, his volatile relationship with General Manager Steve Phillips led to his firing in 2002.  He returned to Japan and the Marines, and despite great success and popularity, was fired due to a poor relationship with the General Manager after a brutal smear campaign against him.  He then returned stateside and has been working at ESPN ever since.

As we can see, Valentine's career follows a clear ebb and flow.  He takes a team, achieves moderate success before his personality wears his bosses thin and he is fired, usually in an ugly manner.  In a market like Boston, with a new G.M that appears to have little to no power, Valentine may very well find success.  But if the changes in Red Sox upper management have shown us anything in the past 10 years, it is that team President Larry Lucchino wields power and eats people alive.  A dispute over power led to then G.M Theo Epstein to walk away from his post in 2005.  Terry Francona was smeared on the way out of his position as manager this past June in a historically messy fashion.  If these two highly respected baseball men couldn’t deal with Lucchino, what chance does a personality like Bobby Valentine have? 

So I ask you, what happens when the  unstoppable force of Bobby’s mouth meets an immovable object like Lucchino?  I can’t tell you, but two or three years down the line, it should be fun to watch.

Last Time I Checked

A huge payroll? Check.   

A historic stadium? Check.

Rich tradition and fans willing to pay anything to see a game? Check.

A Hall of Fame manager? Che...oh, that's right, they fired that guy because a few under performing millionaire southern boys played asshole and ate fried chicken in the clubhouse.   But wasn't the guy they fired the same one who led the franchise to its greatest run of success in history, record ticket sales, pink merchandise, and those two diamond studded championship rings that hadn't been seen in Boston since “The Grippe” epidemic of 1918? 

Now that Terry Francona is gone, all that remains are questions, uncertainty, and an uneasy feeling about the direction of the organization.

Flash back to October 16, 2003 when Grady Little walked out to the mound with one out in the 8th inning of Game 7 of the ALCS to make the most obvious pitching change in history.   The World Series was just 5 outs away and calling in lefty Alan Embree to face lefty Hideki Matsui with a runner on first up 5-3 seemed obvious to everyone on the planet.  Remember the feeling of impending doom when Little, going on a "hunch", returned to the dugout without Pedro? How about the ulcer growing in your stomach as Pedro readied to pitch to Matsui, and the enraging scream you let out when his bloop single dropped and Jorge Posada doubled to tie the game?

Aaron Boone's 11th inning series ending home run off of a rolling Tim Wakefield knuckle ball ended it, but Little's decision was to our generation what Bob Stanly's over reliance on fastballs was to the Bill Buckner '86 tragedy -- the prequel to the inevitable end.

When it was all over, a change in manager seem obvious, as Little had bungled the biggest moment of his career.   But who could possibly come into such a situation and succeed?  A team with an 86 year title drought, and a city that was prepared to watch the team fail spectacularly rather than win gracefully, surrounded by as negative a media presence as there is in the sporting world.

When Terry Francona was hired, little was known of him other than that his dad was a great ballplayer, and that he was booed his way out of his managerial job with the Phillies.  Facing the intense Boston media ready to eat him alive, all he did in his first season was approve the trade of the franchises most popular current player(Nomar), and then lead his team of "Idiots" back into Yankee Stadium and vanquish their demons by completing the biggest comeback in baseball history.  As we know they steamrolled the Cardinals in four games to bring the Red Sox their first world series in 86 years.

He went on the lead the team to another World Series win in 2007 and managed the team to a 744-552 record for a robust .544 win percentage, never finishing a season below .500 while establishing himself as one of the best managers in all of baseball.  In his tenure he dealt with diva superstars Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, and Josh Beckett and never seemed to bat an eye.  There were few if any clubhouse leaks to the media, and when there were; players were shipped out (see Manny Ramirez vs traveling secretary Jack McCormick).   As a result, throughout these eight years he became known as an excellent clubhouse manager and someone who the players both loved and respected.

But during the last month of the 2011 season something changed. The team limped to a 7-20 September record and missed the playoffs for a second consecutive season. As the season ended something happened that was atypical of Francona's previous seven years -- the ship sprung a leak.  In a front page article by Boston Globe columnist Bob Hohler, multiple insider sources claimed there was widespread drinking and fried chicken eating during games by starting pitchers.  There were also whispers that Francona had lost the respect of the clubhouse and had been unable to motivate a team that boasted the second highest payroll in baseball and had been the league-wide consensus to win the World Series.

Most troubling, however, was the leak that Francona was addicted to pain killers and would spend games in a drug induced haze.  While this claim was denied by Francona, it was not denied by owners John Henry, Tom Werner, team President Larry Lucchino, or acting G.M Theo Epstein.  Whether or not this rumor was true, it was a bit puzzling that this type of personal information was leaked in the first place. In the past seven years clubhouse issues stayed in-house or at least within the organization and the guilty parties were dealt with internally.   So why the change now? 

The only reasonable explanation is that this was an attempt by the ownership group to place blame on their manager for a collapse that was in no small part due to a poorly constructed team.

After all this was the same ownership group that attempted to stop the team's September slide by going over their manager’s head and inviting the team to a private party on Henry’s yacht, giving them all $300 headphones in the process.  This gesture clearly had little effect other than further demonstrating to the players that their on field performance had no bearing on their ability to “live the life”.  It also demonstrated the ownerships desire to control the team and have a hand in the everyday running of the baseball operations. 

In contrast, Francona, the man who managed all of the ownership's investments, was not being given the job security that an elite manager should.  While his contract was in the upper echelon of major league managers, when he was extended at the end of 2008 season, the team held an option of $4.25 million for 2012 and $4.5 million in 2013 that ownership refused to re up or even discuss until days before his departure.  

While his last month was horrid, it seems that one bad month would not erode the good done in seven of the most successful years in the history of the franchise.  And while it seemed clear that changes needed to be made, one would think the players, who were reportedly out of shape and unfocused, would be shipped out of town and new rules would be put into effect.   However, only weeks after the season ended, Francona met with ownership and decided that a "new voice needed to be heard".  In a press conference short on details, one large one emerged.  Francona said, "To be honest with you, I'm not sure how much support there was from ownership." Hours later, ownership did what they do best and attempted to deflect blame from the situation.  Lucchino said he was puzzled by the comments while throughout the next days and weeks Henry and Lucchino expressed regret that Francona had “chosen” to leave.

However, if they tried to keep him as they continued to claim, why not pick up his option immediately after the season ended as a show of support? Why allow personal information to be leaked to the press? Why did John Henry show up at the 98.5 Studio and for an impromptu appearance on “Felger and Massarotti” with the explicit purpose of denying they leaked information or fired Francona, while blaming the signing of Carl Crawford on soon to be departed G.M Theo Epstein?

While these actions, or lack thereof, are enraging to fans, they are on par with this ownership group’s track record.   Both Principal Owner Henry and President Lucchino are good at two things -- making money, and saying all the right things.  It is what has led to the payrolls that have provided championship caliber teams, while also creating questions about priorities with other business ventures piggybacking on the Red Sox success.  In the case of Francona, it was made clear that what the organization wants most of all is a manager who will follow company orders, not step out of line, and keep the players happy and motivated, whoever they are.  It seems that Francona had overstayed his welcome and seeped up a bit too much power.

After all, if the organization were so insistent on a "new voice" and a change in direction, as most teams who make managerial changes are, they would have interviewed someone with major league experience and a "no nonsense" clubhouse demeanor.  As such, it would have surprised no one if they had interviewed either Bobby Valentine, Bruce Bochy, Joe Torre, or Trey Hillman. Instead, they have interviewed low profile candidates Dale Sveum, Pete Mackanin, Sandy Alomar Jr., Torey Lovullo, and Gene Lamont.  New G.M Ben Cherington has stressed that they are looking for someone who is open to the "organizational approach", which means someone who will follow the orders of Carmine, the stat-spewing computer, and President Lucchino.

As the interview process has progressed and Sveum has become the favorite, one has to wonder if Henry has any idea of the pulse of the franchise.  Just as heads shook when Henry signed Miami Heat star and Boston arch-enemy LeBron James to be his business partner; hiring Sveum, a man who was wildly unpopular in his stint as Red Sox third base coach in 2004-2005, would be a public relations blunder. 

While no one knows if Sveum or any of these other low profile candidates will be as successful as Francona, in the past two months Red Sox ownership dismissed the greatest manager in the history of their franchise, lost their G.M to the Cubs, watched their franchise closer sign elsewhere, and are preparing to hire a nobody to put it all back together.  

Terry Francona's situation back in 2004 seemed unenviable. The task awaiting the new manager in 2012 seems virtually impossible.

As the 2012 season approaches, Red Sox Nation is left with more questions than answers.

Impassioned fan base? Check.

Depleted bullpen? Check.

Clubhouse instability? Check.

A seven year veteran manager with two world championship rings? Che...oh, that's right, they fired that guy.

The Oldest Face in Baseball

As the sun struggled to break through the morning fog that had descended over the Red Sox spring training facility in Fort Myers, Florida last week, a small 86 year old man with milky white hair, dressed in full uniform, approached newly acquired first baseman J.T. Snow and tapped him on the shoulder. When Snow turned around and looked down at the man, he was greeted with an outstretched hand. “Hi, I’m Johnny Pesky,” the man said. Snow, a 14 year veteran, stood shell-shocked, looking like a child being introduced to his favorite movie star. “Hi, I’m J.T. Snow,” is all he could muster, smiling sheepishly with an “of course I know who you are” expression on his face. All Snow need do is read the sign hanging above the field he was standing on -- Johnny Pesky Field.

Since debuting with the Red Sox in 1942 -- through 3 owners, 4 changes in spring training venue, 9 GM’s, 24 managers, and countless numbers of players, ranging from Yastrzemski to Garciaparra. His job title has also ranged nearly all capacities: player, manager, special assistant, and spring training instructor. In fact, the only years he was not with the team were 1943-45 (WWII), and 1952-54, when he was traded to the Tigers.

One would think that after 63 years in the Red Sox organization, Pesky would have had enough time in the sun, and would slip into obscurity along with other baseball legends of yesteryear. One would think that after the death of Ruth, his beloved wife of 60 years, Pesky would spend the years he has left enjoying his family and mourning the loss of his one true love. One would think that Pesky would finally listen to the brass of Major League Baseball and call it quits after they inexplicably banned him from wearing his uniform and sitting on the bench in 2004, claiming he was not an official coach.

After all, what more does he have to accomplish in the game? He led the American League in hitting the first three seasons of his career (1942-45), managed the Red Sox (1963-64, 1980), the Paw Sox (1990), and was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 1995. He also has a piece of one of baseball’s most historic ballparks named after him (Pesky’s Pole), is one of the few people in the world to get close enough to Ted Williams to call the “Splendid Splinter” his friend, and was finally absolved of the “Pesky Held the Ball” incident in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series when the Red Sox buried the demons in 2004. Heck, he was even bestowed the honor of raising the Championship banner in center field during the Ring Ceremony on April 11, 2005 (along with Yaz).

Yet still he stands. And if you head down Interstate 75 to Edison Ave in Fort Myers this spring, you’re sure to see him strolling around, joking and jostling with players half his age, smiling ear to ear, and shaking hands with Red Sox fans of all generations. While the man you see is a far cry from the brashly handsome 23 year old who debuted for the Sox in 1942, don’t be fooled by his white hair, his slow walk, or his shaky voice -- Johnny Pesky’s passion for baseball and his love for the Red Sox is as strong as ever.

The Nine Gloveless Wonders of the World

What do a perennial all-star outfielder from the Dominican Republic, a first baseman with twelve letters in his last name, a veteran outfielder who plays for his dad and pees on his hands, and an outfielder named after a breakfast cereal all have in common? They all have money, fame, and fortune, in addition to their super human athleticism and incredible talent. More importantly, they symbolize four members of a unique baseball clique that seems to be shrinking by the day; a dying breed of ballplayer that prefers their tobacco unflavored, and their uniform left unwashed. The accolades needed to belong are not signified by home runs or RBI’s; but rather by blood blisters, calluses, and swollen fingers. Members of this group include Doug Mirabelli, Craig Counsell, Vladimir Guerrero, Doug Mientkiewicz, Moisus Alou, Jorge Posada, John Mabry, Bobby Kielty, and Coco Crisp. They all share an unspoken brotherhood - none of these nine men wear batting gloves.

First introduced by Bobby Thomson in spring training in 1949, batting gloves burst onto the major league scene in 1964 when Ken Harrelson of the Kansas City Athletics donned them. Designed to give players better grip on the bat while avoiding the painful calluses and blisters that naturally arise from swinging, batting gloves have evolved from a style originally designed for golf, to highly technical hand accessories. They have become essential to players of all ages, and come in every variety of color, and size.

The reasons that these nine particular players choose not to jump on the bandwagon vary man to man. Craig Counsell learned the practice from veteran teammate Mark Grace, while Moisus Alou uses urine to protect his hands rather than wear batting gloves. Some players do it to look tough, while others just never had them around as kids. In Coco Crisp’s case, batting gloves just never appealed to him, and simply are uncomfortable and unneeded.

However, with the growing popularity of batting gloves, sweat bands, Lance Armstrong wrist bracelets, shin guards, elbow pads, body armor, sun glasses, titanium necklaces, “breath-right” nasal strips, face masks and mouth guards, hitters today look more like characters from Transformers than ball players. In fact, any player who doesn’t accessorize sticks out from the rest. Stroll down to your local little league field and take a look for yourself; nearly every kid you see will have miniaturized batting gloves, wristbands, or some other doodad that is “corporation guaranteed” to help them achieve greater success on the field.

Yet, in an era where baseball has been irrevocably tarnished by steroids, bloated contracts, and expansion teams, it is important that the sport salvage some shred of the mystique and aura that have made it America’s favorite pastime. The overuse of these types of “sports accessories” is moving baseball closer to popular culture and farther from the pure game it was so many years ago. For every major leaguer who dons these accessories, hundreds of kids will do the same, thus perpetuating the transformation of baseball from a recreational sport into a sport personified by consumerism and fashion.

Not all wholesomeness has vanished from the game Alexander Cartwright envisioned in 1845. What remains is symbolized in the image of these nine men, stalking up to the plate, their hands as naked as they would have been when the first pitch was thrown in the 19^th century. And while their actual intention for batting barehanded has little to do with this greater cause, their fight is a noble one. If nothing else, they are unique and headstrong; ignoring the constant media blitz prodding them to buy, accessorize, and be cool. These barehanded hitters represent a time in the game that is vanishing as the years slide by.

Sometimes less is more. More glove-less heroes won’t necessarily bring back integrity to the game we love so dearly, but it’s a start.

The NBA -- Where Predictability Happens

Some day, the NBA regular season will really matter to all fans. Sure, as a fan of one of the NBA’s juggernauts you could argue that it matters right now. But lose your superiority complex for a moment and take out games featuring the Lakers, Heat, Bulls, Magic, Celtics and Spurs playing against each other. Then ignore the NBA marketing ploy that those games and games between lesser teams and these teams actually have some impact on the playoffs. Now admit to yourself that all those teams were probably playing at 80% until the last 5 minutes of the game and holding out any key player with as much as a hang nail to save them for the real season (see: playoffs).

Ah yes, the playoffs. The nearly three month soiree that seems to never quite end but never quite garner your interest until it is already over (much like the last minute of any regular season NBA game). And why should you be interested? Of the 16 NBA teams make the postseason each year, the majority of the teams in the field historically have little shot of winning. Since 1980 only 8 teams have won the NBA Finals. The Lakers lead the way with a staggering 9 titles in 30 years, while the Jordan Era Bulls have 6, and the Spurs and Celtics have 4 each. The Pistons have three but only one in the last 20 years, while the Rockets reeled off two in a row in 93-94’. The Heat and 76ers only have one each.

By contrast, the NFL has seen 16 Super Bowl winners in the same time frame. The NHL has had 14 winners, and MLB has had a staggering 20 winners in 30 years. The conclusion is clear – the NBA simply does not display parity at nearly the same level as other sports. The more concerning issue is the likelihood that this trend won't change any time soon. The NBA has a problem.

The culprit of this problem you ask? Cheap owners? Selfish players? The slam dunk? Nope, nope, and nope. The real culprit is “The Uber Team”: a team of NBA icons brought together via free agency or trade. Why you ask? Because “The Uber Team” is robbing the league of its parity and kidnapping its small market teams.

While talking heads and NBA officials claim that this is good for the league due to increased attendance, higher T.V ratings, and more marquee games, it is actually further advancing it into a state of utter predictability. While there is no doubt that Lebron James teaming up with Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade in Miami will increase interest in Miami, or that Carmelo Anthony pouting his way onto the Knicks to team up with Amar’e Stoudemire will help in New York, the cities these players demanded or chose to leave are left with major holes to fill. These three cities, Denver, Toronto, and Cleveland, also happen to be three perennial have-not’s and their fans will have to wait years for the next superstar to come along via draft to even dream of an NBA Championship.

Compounding the problem is that most teams are not even in the position to have a superstar to lose in the first place due to management's poor drafting, giving out bad contracts that tie up money, or the refusal to sign big name players. When one of these teams happens to finally grab a star, they have an increasingly small window in which to win. Fewer stars are staying with their original team and trying to win with a team built around them. Instead, they are leaving via free agency, demanding trades, and plotting with other stars to form super teams as an easy way to the top.

In fact, right now if I asked you who would win the NBA Finals this year and next, you would probably give me a list of around 6 teams. You would probably name the Celtics, Lakers, Spurs, Bulls, Heat, and Knicks (notice how many of the front runners have won titles winners since 1980). Of those favorites, only the Spurs and Bulls have become legitimate contenders without major trades or free agent signings with league icons joining their rosters. In a league where upsets clearly don’t happen in the pinnacle of the playoffs, the scales are tipped steeply against the other 22 teams in the league. For a team like the Milwaukee Bucks or Minnesota Timberwolves, fans are more likely to see their team contracted or moved than win a championship in their lifetimes. Something is clearly very broken.

But instead of trying to fix the problem, the NBA instead focuses their coverage on the perennial powers or the newly formed “Uber Teams”, deflecting attention from teams and cities that desperately need it. This has led to further putrification of a regular season and playoffs that are already too long and too drawn out (the 2010 NBA season lasted a staggering 170 days with the playoffs adding an additional 70 days). It seems silly to take 240 days of the year for something than can easily be predicted by the trading deadline (4 months before the NBA Finals).

The solution to the problem facing the NBA will eventually come in the form of contraction, abolishing guaranteed money in contracts, shortening of the playoffs, regular season, or more likely, a lockout. But these options would be merely serve as band aids for a league that has been broken for longer than most people realize.

The NFL has often coined the phrase “Any Given Sunday” to promote the idea that every team has a chance to win. Fans from downtrodden teams can always wait till next week or next year for a winner. They can always say to themselves that someday they will be able to see their team win and gloat like a true champion. Perhaps the NBA can use the following moniker to replace their much mocked “Where Amazing Happens” campaign. It would read, “The NBA: A Title for Your Team Any Given Some Day”.

But the problem for the majority of teams and fans in the NBA, is that under the current system, some day will never come.

Bruins Come up Lame

This story should have been an easy one to write. In fact, it was all planned out ahead of time. The Bruins, seething from the devastating blind side hit from Matt Cooke that effectively ended Marc Savard’s season, motivated by a sell-out crowd and the presence of the 1970 Big Bad Bruins, and enraged at the inaction of Colin Campbell, came out motivated and pounded the Pittsburgh Penguins into submission.

It was to be the signature game of an otherwise disappointing season. The proverbial cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that painfully and publicly turned from sweet to sour. Instead, it was a 3-0 loss characterized less by the two poundings delivered by Bruins fisticuffs than the glaring deficiencies that have plagued the Black and Gold all season.

1:58 into the first period, Shaun Thornton coaxed Cooke to left of the Penguins goal crease and did what he was supposed to, although not as convincingly as the Bruins faithful may have wanted. Seconds later, Milan Lucic pounded Sergei Gonchar into the boards. Zdeno Chara wringed a roaring slap shot off the post. The crowd roared, the Pens seemed to be on their heels, and the Bruins smelled blood. But, less than two minutes later, at 8:34, Tyler Kennedy slipped a wrist shot past Tuuka Rask on a two-on-one that resulted from an overaggressive Milan Lucic. The air left the building. The spark was gone. Throughout the rest of the period, the Bruins missed out on several scoring opportunities and entered the break down 1-0. The second period began, and it was as if the Matt Cooke incident never happened. The Bruins played like they have all season: sloppy, slow, and disjointed. They lost battles for the puck in the neutral zone, failed to connect on passes into the offensive zone, and took bad penalties. Zdeno Chara tried to provide a spark at 11:43 when he threw down the gloves with Mike Rupp. But much like the Bruins’ 2009-2010 performance, it didn’t work. Six minutes later, Steve Begin (the worst signing of Peter Chiarelli’s tenure) took an ill-advised tripping penalty and the Pens took advantage, scoring on a redirect from Alexie Ponikarovsky to take a 2-0 lead.

To start the third, the 17,565-plus began bellowing “We Want Cooke”. Bruins announcer Jack Edwards quipped that Bruins wanted some better scoring chances. They would, however, get neither the blood revenge they demanded, nor the miraculous transformation they all secretly knew they would never have. Mike Rupp scored at 5:14 of the third, and the dagger was twisted and left in to fester. The only remaining question was, with the game clearly out of hand, would the Bruins at least show some level of frustration or heart? The timing seemed perfect. A season down the drain, a hated opponent, and a blood thirsty crowd. But, as a seemingly fitting eulogy to the season, the Bruins came up empty.

With 11:40 left in the third, the Bruins managed their first shot of the period and the crowd gave a sarcastic cheer. As the clock wore down, boos began to rain down from the rafters. They were well deserved, because much like the Bruins season, expectations were not met, and a city hungry for some semblance of a hockey winner was left unfulfilled.

When Hope Sprung Eternal -- Repost

Today is a holiday in my family.

Right up there with New Years, Turkey Day, and Hanukkah.

On this day you drop what you are doing, call in sick, and head to the Fens to witness the unveiling of a new season.

For 16 years, starting in 1990, it was family tradition. My dad and my neighbor Stevie would sleep out on the cold pavement outside the Red Sox ticket window the day tickets went on sale. They would wake up the next morning, well positioned in line, and purchase tickets to multiple games, but most importantly, Opening Day.

When the day of the game would arrive, unfathomable excitement would overtake me. I would go to school in the morning, knowing I would be dismissed at around 11 A.M. As such, I spent my time in school entirely fixated on the game. Between writing down potential lineups, and staring at the clock, time seemed to move very quickly. At around 11, the call would come from the office to dismiss me. I would sprint down the hallway, my head spinning at how I would spend the rest of my day.

I would return to my house to the smell of microwaved popcorn and the sound my dad nagging my mom about how we needed leave at least an hour before game time. Along with our gloves, we would pack my parents old blue backpack with everything anyone could ever want to eat at a game: Peanuts, popcorn, grapes, cookies, cherries, turkey, apples, cracker-jacks, and sun flower seeds. Of course, my parents would stop at El Giardino's to grab huge overflowing deli sandwiches on the way, and by the time we got to the park, we had enough food to feed the whole section.

We would park in the secret ritzy neighborhood hidden between Comm Ave and Beacon street, where parking was free if you knew exactly where the police liked to ticket. We would walk to the game, stopping at "The Short Stop Deli" on Brookline Avenue to grab the best deal in Boston; 2 dogs, chips, and a large drink for $4.99. Usually the owner, Rosie, would also throw in some purple big league chew that she would order specially for me, free of charge.

Every year on the way to the park, right after we passed Graffiti Rock on Commonwealth Ave next to the BU bridge, my dad would turn to me and say the same 8 words. "I can feel it. This is the year." Most years we would both wait a few anxious seconds while this idea floated through our brains and then laugh because we knew it was a pipe dream. Remember, these were the early 90's and the Red Sox had a consistent track record of marching out teams with over hyped youngsters and veterans two or three years past their prime. Players like Scott Cooper and Carlos Quintana would tease with their seemingly huge upside, while there was always hope that vets like Jack Clark, Mark Whiten, and Rob Deer would suddenly regain the skills they possessed in their heyday, five years prior. We would proceed to park anyway, happy to watch what would usually amount to the beginning of a train wreck. We would cheer the Danny Darwin's of the world and try to hold out hope that it would all come together.

What I never imagined is that when it did, the whole Opening Day experience would be altered forever.

Instead of cheering on a lovable loser with a bunch of has-beens and never will be's, it was cheering the newest multi-million dollar acquisition of the John Henry and Co. Rosie's deli was turned into an Ace Ticket, a corrupt ticket broker who uses loopholes in the law and friends in high places to make a killing of tickets that used to go to the everyday fan.

Old, worn "good-luck" hats were replaced by Green and Pink ones sporting 10 different types of logos on the front, back, and sides.

Tickets stopped being sold at the box office, and went gradually from being sold over the phone, to strictly online. To top things off, instead of being able to buy multiple games at once it was changed to being able to buy one game before starting all over, or until a glitch in the system started you back at the beginning empty handed. Ticket prices went up and up and up, until it cost nearly $500 to take a family of 4 to a game. Fenway became the place to be seen, and everyone in New England tried to outbid one another to get in.

Now I am not saying that I haven't enjoyed what the new ownership has done for the organization. The new additions to the park look and feel great, the food and sound is better, and two championships in three years is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. But with all that, came what feels like a glamorizing of one of the simplest joys I have ever experienced.

And while the past few years my neighbor and dad have been able to find their way into opening day, through ticket brokers, or an entire day spent on the phone, it really has never been the same. Opening day turned into a "who's who" for celebrities and a place to take clients in big shot law firms. The regular fans were slowly and silently squeezed out. And this year, for the first time in over 20 years, my dad and neighbor were shut out. Tickets sold out too quickly and ticket brokers have gotten the best of them one too many times. So they are resigned to do like the rest of the so-called Nation. They will watch from home or follow along on the computer at work.

I just hope that somewhere out there, there is a little kid getting dismissed from school on his way to the park with a backpack full of food and his glove in his hand.

But somehow, I doubt it. And that makes me a little sad.