From the Pedro Binder

2003 Upper Deck

What a fantastic card.

What’s so great about it? Only everything.

Let’s start with the picture. Look how much of the card it takes up. Upper Deck clearly makes Pedro the most important thing of the card. He’s front and center, and cropped to perfection. And, where is the UD logo? Tucked as far in the corner as it can get so that it’s out of the way. Right where it should be.

The name, team, and position are all right there on the front. They even added Pedro’s number to the section. My one complaint? The name and Red Sox logo are in foil, so they’re hard to see. The name is also written over the position and number, making it even harder. But, they are all set apart from the picture onto their own section. And that section is overlaid upon an image of…wait for it…Fenway!

That’s right. It’s not just some random baseball scene with no thought behind it. Nope. Upper deck selected an image of Pedro’s home park.

Perfection.

Well, That Wasn’t Much Fun

On Friday, I made it clear that the ring ceremony on Opening Day would make the result of the game meaningless. The fact that the Sox would be reliving the championship and receiving their rings meant it would be a good day no matter what happened afterwards.

I didn’t expect the Sox to test that theory quite so much.

But, they did.

Before I get to that, a few words on the ceremony itself. I feel like a moron if I critique a ring ceremony. Like some fan in San Diego is going to thump me if I mention a flaw in the third championship ceremony in ten years. But, they still give rings to a lot of people. And, the Sox have gotten much better at how they preset the rings. In 2005, they went in order of time with the team. So, there was a long stretch of players that only appeared in the 2004 season. Some of which even I had trouble remembering actually appeared for the Sox. This year, they spaced out the stars, so you didn’t go too long watching a line of nobodies come out of the dugout. Even so, there were naturally some dead spots and times where it seemed they were stalling before sending the next player out. Perhaps to line it up better with the music. But, that’s my only complaint. Promise.

Well, other than to wonder how Leon Powe got to represent the World Champion Celtics.

As for the collection of champions, I like how they did that. Again in 2004, they had a similar collection. But, they had to go through time to find them. Bill Russell and Bobby Orr came out to represent their franchises, for instance. This time, I like how they used the mayor’s tenure to define the time period for champions. Would any other city be able to put up a similar line-up in a similar timeframe? I was also surprised that Recchi came empty-handed. I know the Stanly Cup is in Chicago at the moment. (If only the Bruins had pulled it out last season.) But, does that mean that there isn’t even a copy given to the team? Every player gets a mini replica of the Commissioner’s Trophy when they win the World Series. But, the Bruins don’t get some sort of cup? Odd.

As we know the game went downhill from there. Heck, the whole weekend went downhill from there. These things happen. I mean, sometimes you get swept by a team leading their division. I can’t get too worked up about it.

I would feel worse if there was anything that I saw as a constant problem. But, the starters actually did pretty well. Clay had a hiccup. But, the rest of them did all you can ask of them. The bullpen did too. Really, only two members of the ‘pen had a bad outing. Considering all the innings they threw, that’s not terrible either.

Sure, the Sox couldn’t score runs. But, that’s what happens sometimes with an offense built on putting runners on base. Sometimes you string together enough base runners to score runs. Sometimes you fall just short. If you want all your runners to score, then you need more guys who hit three-run homers. That’s just not what this team is about. So, you’ll have to live with leaving guys on base.

Eventually they’ll score more than the other guys.

Got Rings?

It's the Home Opener!

And, of course, it's not just any home opener. Today the Red Sox will be having a little ceremony before the game. Something about getting some rings, or something.

Any Opening day is special. Ring ceremonies, even more so. Naturally. I mentioned in my Big Tickets post not too long ago, that the ring ceremonies are nice because you know that they're going to happen. If you have tickets for the game today, you know the Sox are going to get their rings. Any other big game is hinged on a "might." The Sox might win their home opener. Lester might pitch a great game. The Sox might clinch the World Series.

Today there are no "mights." There's going to be a party. There's going to be a celebration. Everyone who is at the game today is going to have a great time. There will be music. Specially appearances. Celebration.

It will be a giant party.

Beyond that, there will be baseball. Actual Red Sox baseball. Right there in Fenway Park. Is there anything more exciting than that?

If you're at the game today, hope you remember your camera. The Pics from Section 36 have been a bit stagnant with no games. The supply of pics for the Facebook daily postings has been dwindling during the off-season. They need to be restocked! The ring ceremony will be perfect for this. It creates a little downtime that can be used to take some great pictures. If you get yourself to Section 36, take your picture there. Or, if you can't, just aim your camera out to Section 36 and take your pic with it behind you. It couldn't be easier. Then just send it/them to me! Tweet them. Facebook message them. e-mail them. Whatever works the best. (And there's no such thing as too many!) I think I speak for everyone when I say that we like to see pictures of people enjoying Fenway's best  Section!

Enjoy it!

From the Pedro Binder

2002 Topps Opening Day.

A rather appropriate selection for this week, dontcha think?

As has been mentioned a few times previously, Topps has tried a few different things when it comes to the Opening Day set. Sometimes it has taken the flagship set and added a logo to it. Sometimes it changes the color of the borders on the flagship. In this case, they added a logo. That was a nice call because it allows the great gold borders to remain.

Unfortunately, the logo they added is a large foil depiction of a home run ball leaving a stadium. Yuck.

The problem is, the logo is too big, and the foil makes it hard to read. So, it’s really just a big blob of grey they stuck onto the base card. Not exactly what I’m looking for. It also creates the problem where the top of the card says “2002 Topps” and the large foil logo says “2002 Opening Day.”

Which is it?

Other than that, the card is just Pedro’s regular Topps issue. The borders are nicely done with the flags displaying the important information. There’s Pedro’s name and team logo. Curse them though, they stuck with the foil for Pedro’s name. Often they allow us to actually read the names on the OD cards by eliminating the foil. Not so much this time.

Pedro’s face could be better. But, that’s the face he makes when he fires one home, so it’s ok. It’s not like when camera angles make it look like the pitcher has an arm growing out of his back. The picture is nicely cropped, and lets the focus be on Pedro.

Once you get past the grey blob.

One of One-Sixty-Two

Sure, I could sit here and tell you it's only one game. That one loss doesn't matter.

Of course, that would be true.

But, it seems like there are two camps after an opening game. The people who run to social media and whine about all the problems, and the people who run to social media to declare that you can't tell anything after one game.

I don't really care to be in either camp today.

Of course, there are a few things that you can pick up from one game.

Grady Sizemore looks comfortable. Will he look like that forever? No. But, if you were wondering if he would look rusty once you got to real pitching, he doesn't. He looks pretty good. Now it's a matter of trying to keep him that way.

Jon Lester looked just great. He picked up right where he left off in October. Once again, if you were wondering how he would look once he faced real batter, he looks pretty darn good.

Did the Red Sox leave a lot of runners on base? Yup. Is that annoying? Yup. will they keep doing that all year? Nope. Of course, I've always been a person who would rather they leave runners on base than not get them on in the first place. The Sox had their chances. That's really all you can ask for. Eventually, the hits will string together in the right order to score some runs. It's just the way it works. It's certainly the way I expect it to work tomorrow.

I can't wait to find out.