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Greetings from Spring Training
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| Written by Josh |
| For the 4th straight year my 8 year old son Jordan and I have made the trip down to Ft. Myers to watch the Boston Red Sox in Spring Training. Our tradition began when he was only 3 and the games here weren't sold out until at least the day of the game. Now they're all gone the 1st couple hours they are put on sale on the internet. Luckily I have a friend who lives here in Ft. Myers who's nice enough to stand in line and get me tickets the day they go on sale. I made the mistake of beginning our tradition by bribing my then 5 year old son with a 1 day stop on the way at Disney World which he holds me to to this day, though we did mix it up with a stop at Universal last year. It was a tough time to deal with the time change as we didn't get back from Disney until about 11pm and had to get up at 7am which was really 6am. Ft. Myers is about 3 1/2 hours from Disney but can be a little longer with traffic and add another 30 or 40 minutes to the ballpark and to park. We left our condo about 7:45 and got to The City of Palms Park about 11:20. Unfortunatly we got there right after The Sox had finished bating practice so we proceeded to the gift shop. Last year the hot ticket item was Coco Crisp merchandise, this year it's all about Dice-K. The Red Sox 100 million dollar man, pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. Everwhere you looked were shirts, jerseys and even Dice-K dice. No surprise Jordan snached up a Dice-K shirt right off the bat. Luckily for us we got a chance to see for ourselves what all the fuss was about because Sunday's starting pitcher was, The Dice-K man himself. The news was even better as we stood outside waiting to see the starting line-ups posted and to our delight the entire projected starting lineup was there and starting Sunday. It didn't take long for Dice-K to make an impression with us. With his wild wind up and delivery he struck out 2 of the first 3 Oriole batters with a mixture of 90 + mph fastballs and nasty breaking balls more than selling me and Jordan on his hype. He did prove he was human later giving up a pair of HR's but I still say watch out for the Dice-K man this year. Also worth mentioning was in attendance Sunday, the genius behind The New England Patriots 3 Super Bowls, Bill Belichick. The Red Sox lost the game 5-4 but I have learned Spring Training records are no indication of what the team will do the regualer season. The weather has been great and hopefully will stay that way tomorrow as we plan to play golf with my buddy Reid in the morning and then head back to the ballpark Monday night as The Red Sox take on The Yankees at 7:00. You can disregard my earlier statement about these games not being important at least for this one. Well, another big day lies ahead. Will update this Tuesday to let you know how the Red Sox/Yankees game turns out. |
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Super Bowl sightings
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| Written by Josh |
| I've been wanting to relay my trip to The Super Bowl for awhile now and here it is. Nate Hirsch and I had the opportunity to head down to Miami recently for the Super Bowl media day. And to quote the great Dennis Green, "it was what we thought it would be." Still, there's nothing like getting a chance to see it for yourself. Our main goal was to interview former Eagle great Adrian Peterson who plays for the Chicago Bears. It was clear from the beginning that this was a who's who of well known media members. Standing in line I met Jorge Sedano who is a radio personality for Fox Radio. Moments later I was face to face with sandwich eating Michael Strahan who was less than friendly. It was at that time Nate decided that media day meant a day to interview the media. After interviewing Adrain I'd wished I'd followed his lead. It was nice to catch up with AP, a great guy and always generous with his time, but his stuttering problems seem to have gotten a little worse and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to use too much of what he'd said. Luckily it wasn't quite as bad as I'd thought but I panicked a bit and went looking for other people to talk about Adrian, and that was something I wasn't prepared for. After the Bears media session it was time for brunch and time to start playing the "Do I know this guy" game. I ate luch with Michael Wilbon from ESPN's PTI show and saw quite a few other ESPN personalities. I also ran into Bob Ryan, a personal favorite from The Boston Globe. I had actually talked with him a couple times before at The Masters. The highlight of my trip came just after lunch as we were walking back to the field as I spotted Bill Simmons. Simmons writes a column for ESPN.com called The Sports Guy. I have been reading his stuff since he went by the title of The Boston Sports Guy about 8 years ago. If you haven't read his stuff I urge you to go there now. Stop reading this. Seriously. I wasn't sure and so I asked him if he was indeed Bill Simmons. He said yes, and I told him how much I enjoyed reading his column. He asked me what I was doing in Miami, I told him and then commiserated with him about The Patriots losing to The Colts and how tough it would be to see Adam Vineteri in a Colts uniform today. I had brought a camera but being in the tunnel waiting to get in wouldn't exactly have been the best picture so I hoped to get a picture with him on the field. He said no problem. I saw him a little later and pushing my luck asked him for an interview. He said he needed to get a few pictures and could we do it later. I said yes but unfortunately got busy and then couldn't find him. A couple other quick thoughts on some of the media members. Warren Sapp is fat. Chris Berman's hair looked like something from Jim Henson's muppets. Mike Golic - nice, Mike Greenberg - not so nice. John Clayton - lets leave looks out and just say quite nice and very knowledgeable. Shannon Sharpe - comes across a lot smarter in person than on TV. Peyton Manning - as much as I'd like to say someting bad, I can't. Quite a nice guy. In closing I had a great time and once again thanks to Nate for making it happen. |
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Jan. 22 - Another big mistake
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| Written by Josh |
| I made a big mistake in the fall of 2003. With my beloved Red Sox on the brink of the World Series, with the great Pedro Martinez on the mound, I accepted an invitation from a Yankee fan to come over to his house and watch game 7 of the American League Championship game between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Anyone familiar with sports knows how that one came out. One of the most gut wrenching sports losses in my lifetime made even worse knowing the person I was sitting with was taking great pleasure in my suffering. Fast forward to Sunday night, another offer from a different friend to come watch my favorite football team play in a league championship game. The New England Patriots were taking on the Indianapolis Colts. Now this friend wasn't as much a Colt's fan as he was a Patriots hater. With that in mind I thought long and hard about going over. I decided to watch the 1st quarter or so at home as I was getting the kid's ready for bed. With the Patriots up 14-3 I decided it was safe to go over. Just as I was about to leave New England scored another touchdown to grab a 21-3 lead making my decision to leave even easier. I get to his house and start having flashbacks to 2003. The Colts slowly start narrowing the gap. Oh no, it's 28-28. The game is definetly coming down to the wire. Do I run? What do I do? After a horribly officiated 2nd half Tom Brady's luck finally runs out and the Indainapolis Colts advance to their 1st ever Super Bowl. And I have to look at another friend enjoying my pain. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Well call me crazy because I know I 'll do it again just on the chance that one day I'll be the one laughing. |
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