Forward!

What exactly are the plans for the Red Sox moving forward? I have no idea. I have a sense I keep writing about this feeling of confusion. But, normally during the off-season there would be discussions of moves, or potential moves. There would be a list of needs, and a list of players that might just fit those needs. This year? Not so much.

So, I have to keep wondering what the plan is. There are holes all over the place. There are any number of players who could fill those holes, to about the same degree. More troubling, there are no favorites, or dream acquisitions out there. There’s nothing to focus all my attention on. So, I’m finding myself a little bit scattered.

The Red Sox signed David Ortiz. Great. I definitely think that the Sox needed to sign him. After you ship away all your talent to get flexibility, you need to use that flexibility to sign the face of your franchise. So, the Sox have a power hitter in the middle of the line-up. What’s next?

Cody Ross is still out there. Should the Sox sign him? Probably. He’s nothing I’m drooling over. But, he’s at least as good as any of the other options out there. And, he’s at least a known entity. That should give him a little bit of an edge.

I hear rumors that Torii Hunter wants to come play with his good friend, Ortiz. Sure. Why not? Is he a superstar? Nope. Is he at least as good as anything else out there? Yup. What about the kids? What about Kalish? Is he better than Hunter? Ross? Dunno. Maybe. Would I scream at the Sox if they passed on Ross and stuck with Kalish? Not at all. Would I scream if they signed Hunter and left Kalish in AAA? Nope.

Who’s playing short? Is it Iglesias? Bogaerts? Scutaro? Does it matter? Do you just hand the job to Iglesias? Give him a half-season to sink or swim. If he swims, trade Bogaerts? If he sinks, swap him with Bogaerts at the break? Do you sign a Scutaro-type and sit both the kids for another year? Does it affect the line-up no matter what you pick?

Which is really the problem with this off-season. Every hole can be filled by any number of players. Every hole that needs filling probably depends on the hole next to it. There are, what, five certain members of the line-up. The other four can be picks from a grab bag. All the Sox need is to throw something in the bag.

It really makes it impossible to get excited. I’m not checking the rumor mill to see if the Sox are mentioned along with a stud free agent. There aren’t any. If the Sox miss on Ross, Hunter will do. If they miss on both, Kalish will do. There’s no sense of urgency at all.

Which is quite unsettling.

Red Sox 1-36: 15 is for…

Red Sox record 15-game winning streak (4/25/46-5/10/46)

I’ve said before that streaks don’t excite me. Why do I keep posting about them then? Because they’re interesting. They’re statistical anomalies, which are fun. And, in some cases, they can be an example of greatness. This is one of those cases. The 1946 Red Sox won the second most games in team history, giving them the second best record as well. (Both titles, incidentally, are held by the amazing 1912 team.) If you’re talking about great Red Sox teams, that ’46 offering has to be in the discussion. This streak is an example of that greatness.

The streak didn’t make them great. If the 2012 Red Sox had managed to win 15 games in a row this season, it wouldn’t make them as great as the 1946 team. But, if you’re talking about the 1946 team, it’s interesting that they won so many games, they even went 15 games in a row without losing.

That’s a pretty long streak. They went just over two weeks without losing a game. That must have been a fun stretch to be a Red Sox fan. Especially coming so early in the season. Just when you’re wondering what the team will be like that year, they win 15 in a row. That led to a 21-win month of May. The mood was definitely set.

Of course, the season didn’t end that well for the Red Sox that year. The Sox lost the World Series in seven games. From there the team, anchored by the four young Teammates returning from the war, was supposed to run off a string of pennants. Obviously, that wasn’t quite the case.

But, they sure had a good run in 1946. Especially in late April and early May.

15 is for the Red Sox record 15-game winning streak. 

2012 Scavenger Hunt

Submitted by Ruben

Thankfully, we’ve reached the end of another baseball season. You know what that means. It’s time for the Fifth Annual Section 36 Scavenger Hunt! You remember how it works. Below, you’ll find a list of 36 items for you to try and find. When you find an item, take a picture of it and send it along to me in an e-mail. Whoever sends me pictures of the most items wins. Pretty simple, eh? We’ll make the end of the hunt be 12:36 PM eastern time on February 5, 2013. This both gives enough time to find the stuff, and fills the time right up to pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training. Sound like fun? What do you win if you find the most items? Worldwide fame and admiration! I will post the winner’s name (and picture if one is provided) on this very site and hail them as the 2012 Scavenger Hunt Champion! I’m sure that Jere has found his worldwide fame to be quite an honor this past year. If you actually want a prize you can hold in your hand, I’ll award a hardcover copy of Mark Frost’s fabulous book Game Six. I’m also including 200 different Red Sox baseball cards for the winner. Not too bad, right? Ready to get started? Here is this year’s list of items to get pictures of:

1. Cy Young Statue

2. Ticket to World Series game played by the Red Sox

3. Tris Speaker Hall of Fame plaque postcard

4. Official Program from 1999 All-Star game

5. “Sporting News” magazine with Red Sox player on cover

6. Homemade “Section 36” t-shirt

7. Red Sox rug

8. Wine bottle featuring Red Sox player

9. Red Sox Coca-Cola item

10. Red Sox ice-cream carton

11. Red Sox player

12. Cody Ross baseball card

13. Used official Section 36 scorecard

14. 2004 World Series baseball

15. Red Sox thermometer

16. Adrian Gonzalez replica jersey

17. 2012 Red Sox Media Guide

18. Hallmark Ornament of Red Sox player

19. Autograph of member of 2011 Red Sox

20. Red Sox bikini

21. “Fenway Park 100 Seasons” baseball

22. Will Middlebrooks t-shirt

23. Drawing of Wally

24. Red Sox lamp

25. Red Sox bear

26. Ticket stub from Section 36

27. Condiment with a picture of Red Sox player on it

28. Red Sox pen

29. Yawkey Way

30. 2004 World Championship banner

31. Red Sox license plate holder

32. Biography of Red Sox player

33. Non-Red Sox baseball card using a picture taken in Fenway Park

34. Red Sox paperweight

35. Female Red Sox fan

36. Male Red Sox fan

A quick clarification. Unless it says otherwise, “Red Sox Player” refers to anyone who ever played for the Sox in a regular season game. That counts even if the player isn’t depicted as a Red Sox player in the picture. So, Jim would be able to use anything from his Phillies Room depicting players like Curt Schilling and Jonathan Papelbon, even if they’re in their Phillies garb.

Now, since I want this to be a scavenger hunt, and not a google search, I’ll need a way to make sure you actually find these items yourself. So, in order to qualify any picture must have any one of these three things in it.

1. You. This might be the easiest way. If you’re in the picture, I can be pretty sure you actually found the item. This has one advantage in that it doesn’t have to be a new picture. If you went to Fenway last summer and took a picture on Yawkey Way, that would work. Or,
2. The Section 36 logo. Just have it showing somewhere in the picture. Or,
3. The address of this blog, “www.section-36.blogspot.com” , written somewhere in the picture. Either write it out on a piece of paper, on a sidewalk with chalk, on someone’s leg, whatever. (Just don’t vandalize anything).

That make sense? So, send in your pictures to me, section36 at gmail dot com (I bet you know which parts to replace with symbols) It would be nice if you told me which items you thought were in each picture. If there’s a tie between people who have the same number of found items, the tiebreaker will be the person who did it with the fewest number of pictures. If you get a picture of a Female Red Sox fan, wearing a Will Middlebrooks t-shirt, while holding a Red Sox pen, it would be 3 items in one picture. That’s a great start, although I’m sure you can do better. One year, Jere had over 20 items in a single photo! (If I need a second tiebreaker, I’ll have a vote to decide the best pictures.)

I think that covers everything! It’s now up to you to start sending me your pictures. I’ll keep reminding you as the months go by.

Good Luck!

Card of the Week

1987 Topps Dwight Evans RB

When people talk about baseball records that will never be broken, they often bring up Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game witting streak of the gold standard. Nobody ever mentions Dwight Evans and his record, honored by this card. Evans set the record by homering on the first pitch of the season. Let’s just see somebody break that record!

When I first saw this card, I was unaware of Evans’ feat from the year before. So, I was initially confused by the record, as stated on the front. The word “earliest” threw me. I always associate “early” with “time.” So, I would expect the earliest home run to be the one that comes first chronologically. So, I wondered why Evans had hit his home run earlier in the year than anyone else. Did the Red Sox happen to play a game on an early day on the calendar? Or, was it time? Since it was in Detroit, did the time zones help make it early in the day? Was 12:05 ET really early in the day for a home run? But, no. The card is referring to the number of pitches into the season. Even that begged questions. Was it the first pitch thrown that year by anyone in major league baseball? Was it just the first pitch thrown in that game? If the Red Sox were the home team, would it still have been the first pitch? So many questions.

But, the actual record is fairly irrelevant. It’s a card made to honor a specific feat from the year before. In that, it does a good job. The card is clear, other than the vocabulary. It nicely says that it’s a ’86 record breaker. It gives the name of the player, his team, and the accomplishment. And, it does all that without detracting from the picture on the card. It would have been fantastic if the picture were of the actual record breaker. But, that doesn’t look like Tiger Stadium to me. (What do you say, Jere?) At least Evans is in his road grays. And, he appears to be making pretty good contact with his swing. So, it’s a decent representation.

All of that makes for a great card.

Are Cubs Fans Scared by the 2012 Red Sox?

Or, are they encouraged?

The Cubs hired Theo Epstein to be their president based, I assume, quite a bit on his time with Boston. Really, who could blame them? Sure looked like he was doing pretty well as the Red Sox GM. Then, he left to go to the Cubs, and things sort of unraveled at Fenway Park for a bit. Was it because Theo left, or because of what Theo left?

The Sox are certainly making it seem like they needed to clean up the mess Theo ran out on. They traded away his two biggest free agent signings. Not just traded. Jettisoned. They cleared out Youkilis. Scutaro. Basically erased his time here. Does that worry Cubs fans? Do they look back and think the 2004 team was really mostly players he inherited. The MVPs of the two 2007 playoff series were acquired when he wasn’t GM. And, by all accounts, wasn’t a trade he would have made. Sure, he signed David Ortiz…but he signed him to back up Jeremy Giambi for crying out loud. Was it all smoke and mirrors? Was it luck? What did we get ourselves into?

Or, are they encouraged? Look at the mess that happened once he left! They couldn’t find a decent manager, once Theo stole their top choice. They traded away three great players once he wasn’t there to stop them. They even were able to dump an aging third baseman because of the young stud that Theo drafted. Clearly the rest of ownership was a bunch of clueless buffoons that only won two titles because Theo was there to steer the ship.

What’s going through their heads?