From the Pedro Binder

2000 HoloGrFx

Yup. It's another HoloGrfx card, which means there is a ton of sizzle. And, I mean a TON!

But, really, why is it there? Just to be shiny? Just because it can be? The card is actually pretty dull. It's a fairly solid red card, with a tiny picture of Pedro. They even shoved the picture as far to one side as they could, apparently to leave even more room for the red.

The information? Yup. It's as tiny as humanly possible. Who cares what the player's name is? Or their team? Or what position they play? Who cares about that when we can give you this shiny red card!?!

Blech.

The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge: Day #2

Tony, the wonderful writer of the “Off Hiatus Baseball” blog, started a fun activity based off the “30-Day Music Challenge” that Twitter users were taking. The list of challenges looks like this:

Today, we have Challenge #2: A card with more than one player on it.

Here I am on my second challenge, and I'm wondering if I'm the wrong person to be doing these. Oh, don't get me wrong. They're fun, and I can't wait to do them all. But, I think I take things a little too seriously.

I'm not generally a person who answers "favorite" questions very well. Favorite color? Well, I like some shades of red. But, a good deep blue is wonderful. Or a dark forest green. They all have good sides. Favorite Pixar movie? Well, Toy Story 3 and Cars made me cry, but Up made me laugh. Wall-E was powerful, and Bugs Life was just fun.

So, it was with this attitude that I went into this challenge. A card i liked with more than one player. "A" card. Not, "A dozen cards that all have redeeming qualities." So, I grabbed my binders, and started flipping. After a while, I had several candidates and was analyzing the pros and cons of each, while wondering if there was one I had forgotten somewhere that was even better.

Finally I told myself to just stop it. This was supposed to be a fun post, not a doctoral thesis. So, I went back to the first card that came to mind.

Frankly, this should have been pretty obvious all along.

This is the team card from the 2004 Topps Red Sox World Champions set. Really, is there a better card in all the world? This card has it all. It had the scoreboard in the background thanking the team for breaking the curse. It has the Foil on the top of the card declaring the team the 2004 World Champions. Then it goes ahead and pictures every freakin' member of that 2004 team. (give or take)

So, if I'm going to pick a card with more than one player on it, it really has to be this one. It's the card of the team that changed everything as a Red Sox fan. The players on this card changed the world.

Not many cards can say that.

Sara Achorn Visits Section 36!

Section 36 has another visitor! Sara Achorn is a Red Sox fan, and the current Miss Plymouth County. She's getting ready to compete

for the Miss Massachusetts crown in just a couple months. Thankfully she was nice enough to take time out of her busy schedule and visit with us to discuss her time as Miss Plymouth County, the Red Sox, and more. 

So, let's see what happens when Sara Achorn visits Section 36!

What made you decide to compete for Miss Plymouth County?

Well of course, the crown is beautiful but it's everything that comes along with the crown. I love to give back to the community and people love having queens help out at different events!

Your platform is “Imperfection: Pushing the Importance of Body Positivity in Today’s Youth” Why is that important?

Body positivity is so important because we live in a very judgmental world and I was lacking support growing up and dealing with the way I looked. I want to be the girl I needed when I was a young girl.

You have a background performing in the theater. How did that experience help you in the Miss Plymouth County competition?

My theatre was definitely one of the most helpful things I could have done to prepare for this pageant. My theatre director is very big on thinking on your toes and going with the flow which is really helpful in interviews because you have to think on your toes and be prepared for anything that might get thrown your way.

You’ve sung at various venues, including the TD Garden. How is that different than singing for the talent portion of a competition?

If I'm being truly honest, it's not much different at all. I sang the

national Anthem at TD Garden for my high school basketball team's state championship game so I was in front of all of my peers. It's scary doing things in front of the people you go to school with because lets face it, high school kids are judgmental. In pageants, the judges are judging you in a positive way and are looking to help you improve so that would be the only difference. I'm still nervous as ever in both instances though!

What do you hope to accomplish during your time as Miss Plymouth County?

I am hoping to do lots and lots of appearances but on top of that I want to raise $2000 for the Children's Miracle Network. I am already at $1000 so I don't have far to go. I will be holding fundraisers in order to reach this goal. I really want to hold a Fenway Frank hotdog eating contest this summer before Miss Massachusetts in July because who doesn't love hodogs?!

The Red Sox just opened their season for the first time in a long time without David Ortiz on the roster. What’s your favorite Ortiz memory?

I know most people would talk about the very passionate speech he gave after the Boston Marathon bombing with his slightly vulgar language but no one pays attention to all of the charity work he does. He loves kids and loves to help other people. I love his passion about working with New England and Dominican Republic children's hospitals. He runs an organization called, "The David Ortiz Children’s Fund". It's things like this that we as the American people need to focus on with our celebrities.

Who is your favorite current Red Sox player? Why?

I really like Dustin Pedroia because he makes sure that he is a positive role model for his young fans. Some famous people make really dumb choices and don't give any kids reasons to look up to them but they do anyways. That's one of the reasons we have so many kids making bad decisions. They see their favorite pro doing it. You never hear about Pedroia doing things like that. Aside from that of course, he's a very good team player and works really hard at his craft. 

Is the Benintendi-Bradley-Betts trio the best outfield you’ve ever seen?

If I'm being quite honest, I don't pay attention THAT much to baseball but I asked my dad who is a huge fan and he said Rice-Lynn-Evans was the best he's ever seen.

How will the Red Sox finish the 2017 season?

Growing up in a house where the Red Sox is practically a religion, I'd be a disgrace if I didn't say I hope we win another World Series.

---

I agree, she'd definitely be a disgrace! Glad Sara had the right answer.

As always, I want to send a huge thank you to Sara for taking the time to visit with us. I hope you enjoyed it. Another big thanks for supplying so many great pictures to go along with the interview. They really make the interview much better than it would be otherwise.

If you'd like to keep up with Sara during her time as Miss Plymouth County, check out her official Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. Really, you should.

And, of course, I want to wish Sara luck at the Miss Massachusetts competition in July! Hopefully another former Section 36 visitor will bring home that crown.

Thanks again Sara, and good luck!

So, That’s Where the Offense Was

Every time the Red Sox have some trouble scoring runs, the questions come out. No matter how many runs they score the game before, or how many runs they’ve scored over the season. Whenever a game like Monday’s comes around, when they get a great pitching performance in a loss, there are questions.

And, I get that. It’s frustrating. Chris Sale was brilliant. He was everything we hoped he would be, and a couple things we didn’t dare hope we would be. But, he lost the game 2-1, to drop his record on the season to 0-1. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. Thankfully, in this case, there was a very simple answer to the question. Where was the offense?

In Boston.

Unfortunately for the Red Sox, while the Red Sox were trying to battle Justin Verlander in Detroit, Hanley Ramirez was in Boston sick. Xander Bogaerts was in Boston after his flight from Aruba was cancelled following bereavement leave. Those are your #4 and #6 hitters from Opening Day. Jackie Bradley Jr was out, and on the DL. There’s, now, a third of your preferred line-up sitting this one out. That would be enough to make a dent in any team’s offensive output.

But, it got worse. Mookie Betts was in his second game back following a bout with the flu. Think he was 100%? I doubt it. Andrew Benintendi didn’t miss any time after losing his lunch mid-game a couple games ago. But, I’m guessing he wasn’t in top form either. So, if you’re scoring at home…from your Opening Day line-up, the #2 and #3 hitters were less than 100%, the #4, #6, and #7 hitters were missing.

I’m amazed they managed to score one run. On the road. Against Justin Verlander.

Because, while I always agreed with Jimy Williams that his team was “all major leaguers” I always disagreed with the idea that this made them interchangeable. If you’re missing more than half of your expected line-up, there’s really not a lot you’re going to be able to do about it.

And, the Red Sox certainly suggested that was exactly the case. Once they added Xander and Hanley back in, and got the others another day healthier, the bats “suddenly” showed up. They scored a bunch of runs, and took advantage of opportunities. While in Detroit, the Sox couldn’t really take advantage of a fluke bases loaded situation, last night the Sox made the Orioles pay for every mistake. They showed everything we expected to see at the beginning of the season.

So, I think you really need to give the Sox a pass for the entire Detroit series. Honestly, going into the series, a split on the road is a decent goal. Winning one game instead of two wasn’t really that terrible of a performance. Especially when Verlander is pitching one of the games. In Detroit.

While your offense was in Boston.

The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge: Day #1

Tony, the wonderful writer of the “Off Hiatus Baseball” blog, started a fun activity based off the “30-Day Music Challenge” that Twitter users were taking.

The idea was to take a list of challenges, and find cards that meet those challenges. Along the lines of a scavenger hunt. You know I like scavenger hunts! The list of challenges looks like this:

Thankfully, Tony said the challenge didn’t have to be completed in 30 days. That might be a bit much for me to take on. (Plus, I’m already several days behind.) But, being able to take my time is very appealing. I’ve done long-term lists before like A-Z and 1-36, so this one should be fun. I’ll take a shot at doing these once a week, but we’ll see how that goes.

Today, we start with Challenge #1: A card from the current year with a photo you like.

Interesting. I don’t see where Tony said whether you need to personally own the cards, or not. But, I’m going to assume it needs to be a card in my collection. So, I went to my 2017 binder to find a card with a picture I like. Right away, I saw a problem.

I didn’t know how to define “like.”

Two cards came immediately to the forefront. The one that many people would pick is the Mookie Betts card shown below.

It’s a fabulous shot of Mookie doing everything he can to make a catch. You can even see the ball nestled in his glove. My issue was that as great a picture of a catch it is, it’s not like it’s the best picture of a diving catch ever. Which means there wasn’t really anything special about it. Even though I “liked” it.

Then I saw this card.

Now, I really “like” this picture. After all, as a Red Sox fan, was there a single part of the off-season that was better than learning that the Red Sox traded for Chris Sale? Not to me. Chris Sale would be pitching in Boston, and here’s the proof. Here’s Sale mid-windup showing off that Red Sox uniform he will eventually wear. 

What’s not to like?

But, obviously, this is not a remarkable picture at all. If this card showed Rick Porcello, or Tyler Thornburg, or Pedro Martinez it would be easily overlooked. But, it doesn’t show those pitchers. It shows hope. It shows expectation. It shows the path to the World Series.

I really like that.