There’s 200 days or so of baseball to come this season and it can be quite intimidating to jump into the deep end of the baseball viewing pool.
To help, Refrigerator Logic is providing a list of reasons to watch every Major League Baseball team for the 2008 season. Anyone that’s read all the team lists should be able to pull up the MLB schedule on any day in early June and find reasons to enjoy any contest on the board that night.
Please join in the comments to add your own reasons. Tell everyone why your team is worth three and a half hours of their lives on any given day. Make us care and we’ll be there with a tasty beverage and an appreciation for what you feel each time your team takes the field.
The Most Important Person for the Boston Red Sox Is…
Since most people are familiar with the Boston Red Sox and their two World Series titles in 2004 and 2007, let’s concentrate on a slightly more obscure reason to watch the Red Sox this season. With all the stars of Boston baseball well known by now, focus your viewing energy on the most important man for the Boston Red Sox this season…
Yes, Doug Mirabelli. After all, why would a team trade a marginal backup catcher with a history of leg problems that batted .228 in 2005 to San Diego for a Lump O’Loretta, only to trade back for him on May 1, 2006, for a Block O’Cla, Doug’s failed replacement, *and* enough cash to put down a nice down payment on a loft downtown?
Upon reacquiring Mirabelli, tens of thousands more dollars were spent on a police escort to meet him at Logan International Airport and shepherd him to Fenway Park in time for the game against the Yankees, where his special Wakefield-ready catcher’s mitt was waiting for him just as he left it. Why would Mirabelli be worth this unless it were true?
And after 2007’s ring-worthy .202 batting effort that was again plagued by trunk issues, why was he given half a million dollars to return this season? There can only be one answer: he is the most important person on the Red Sox payroll and the reason they won two World Series titles.
Now Here’s a Bit of a Knuckler
However, what if it’s this guy instead?
After all, Doug Mirabelli is the one that carries the distance card cheat sheet for Tim Wakefield and helps him select one of his many wedges from his bag for each batter. (”Frank Thomas plays long and has a nasty dog left; you’ll want to toss the ball up high about 60 feet or so and let it roll in.”)
Also, the knuckleballer is a dying species in baseball due to the knuckeball’s complexity, fickle nature, and girlish figure. If the fastball is a measure of masculinity in baseball terms, Charlie Haeger might as well challenge Bobby Riggs to an at-bat.
Perhaps the Red Sox must protect their precious pitcher with the ageless warrior Mirabelli against the savage hordes of heater hitters to ensure their championship success and the health of the nation.
Now I Will Draw You a Map of Fenway in the Sand
If you’re still looking for the true story of the Red Sox’s success this year, watch Red Sox games after checking in with Curt Schilling, the highest-paid embedded reporter since Geraldo Rivera. Since he injured his shoulder sometime after (and definitely not before) signing a $8m one-year deal, Schilling will concentrate on his rehabilitation and his reporting behind the lines of Red Sox Nation’s battle against the pinstriped forces of evil.
At the home of his one-man news gathering organization, 38pitches.com, you can find such key tidbits to the Red Sox season as:
- How Curt’s rehabilitation is doing
- How Curt feels the team will do this season
- Curt’s analysis of the trade market this summer
- What Curt’s teammates think of Curt
- Where Curt stands on cloning dogs
- Why Curt isn’t retiring (until after the season)
- Curt’s analysis of the new towels in the locker room
- Why Curt would be a better President than Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or FDR
- Why Curt’s teammates think he should go off and run for President any time he wants to
With these invaluable nuggets of information, you will know just what to watch during Red Sox games when you can’t watch Curt Schilling pitch.
Manny’s Hair is Everywhere!
Perhaps you’re now convinced to watch a few Red Sox games before the postseason this year, but how can you see a Red Sox game? Surely you will have to move to Boston or steal Internet waves or learn semaphore or some such, right?
Of course not. Already, there are 18 regular season games scheduled for national consumption on Fox and ESPN. TBS will certainly plan more. All the networks will likely use any flex scheduling to gather more games as well. By September, you may know Clay Buchholz’s pitch selection better than his own mother does.
More Bait for the Ladies to Master
What’s that? You don’t know who Clay Buchholz is? You didn’t know you could tune in and see arguably the best pitching prospect in all baseball starting for the Red Sox some time this season? For shame! By July, his starts could become appointment viewing due to his 94 mph fastball, amazing curve, and scary intensity that could put Papelbon to shame?
You can add him to the Boston fan’s wet dream, along with stalker-friendly Jacoby Ellsbury (a top 20 prospect in center field himself), Jon Lester (the forgotten lefty with the very bright future), and Dustin Pedroia (the second baseman that keeps standing tall) to make a future Red Sox roster that’s awfully entertaining today as well:
Just watch out for their expensive experimental period in 2011.
Rock’n'Roll Dorks
However, if you’re able to see past all the other distractions and are still looking for the one true reason why it’s cool to watch the Red Sox this year, consider this evidence of Theo Epstein (Glorious Leader) and Peter Gammons (Shadow Prime Minster of Red Sox Nation):
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=US1wuo5p8pU]
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=kg7HQaGgZkQ]
Try getting Dayton Moore and Joe Posnanski to do that. (No, seriously. Please get them to do this. It would be the best thing to happen to Kansas City since Buck O’Neil.)
Tags: boston red sox
In all seriousness, the most important person for the Red Sox this year is Manny, and by extension Scott Boras, since Manny will actually have to work most of the year so someone will feel like paying him $20MM (ha!) next year. Hopefully this will bring us another, less stressful championship, since Manny being Manny causes us no end of grief, usually during Aug/Sept
Now all we have to deal wif is the daily travails of the Schill…ugh
April 14th: I feel badly that I can’t help my teammates today. Instead, I went by CHB’s Barber Shop and Perm. They’re so nice there. I got the best pedicure from a lady named Perdita or Lolita or some such. I wonder if she’s here legally.
Change that Apr date to several days in Sept and you hit that nail on the head
The sad thing is that I’ll be sorry to see him go…grill, classic cars, erykah badu wrap and all