Tag Archives: Baseball

2008 Fantasy Baseball team

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After the past few years (getting out of school, moving in with my girlfriend, getting in engaged to my girlfriend, and of course marrying her), I finally have some free time. Well, after I figure out how to buy this place and how to stay sound financially, but yeah, I have some free time.

Diving head first into my long neglected fantasy baseball team, I had high hopes. Owner of the #1 overall draft pick in the league, I set out to execute my draft plan and I think I succeeded.

Keepers: 1B Albert Pujols and P Jeremy Bonderman. Pujols is a no-brainer and Bonderman was my best pitcher.

Infield: Pudge, Pujols, Prince Fielder, Dustin Pedroia, Stephen Drew, David Eckstein, Aubrey Huff, Frank Thomas

Outfield: Jeff Francoeur, Aaron Rowland, Mark Teahen, Delmon Young

Starting Pitching: Jeremy Bonderman, Dice-K, Felix Hernandez, Bronson Arroyo, Zack Greinke.

Relievers: Bobby Jenks, Kerry Wood, Okaijima

I think I nicely balanced between young players who are due for bigger seasons, reliable veterans in their prime, and low-risk high reward older players that are injury risks.

If the dice roll right, this team could win the whole league championship for me. The key thing is to avoid too many injuries. The past few seasons my team was built on injury prone stars (Rich Harden? Ben Sheets? Mark Prior?) and roll players. Now at least I have depth (hard for teams to get Pujols and Fielder, nevermind both) and I have strong pitching (Bonderman, Dice-K, and Hernandez can all become true aces).

This should be fun. Or very frustrating.

Thoughts before opening day

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There is nothing like opening day in baseball.

You instantly feel like winter is behind you, whether or not you still have snow on the ground. You feel endless optimism as spring all the sudden starts appearing: your first week of 40+ degree temperatures, when the reports of snow remain confined to the north country (sorry pals), those small patches of grass that suddenly appear.

Only baseball makes you get up at 6 freaking A.M. in the morning to watch a kid’s game an ocean and continent away. Heck I am going to attempt to get all dressed and ready for work prior to 6 A.M. so have one and half hours of pure bliss.

I feel good about the Red Sox this year. I go 22-years of my life without a championship and I get two in the past four years. Most of the team is healthy and ready for the grind. I am excited and think we can go far again. Time to repeat. Can’t have those Patriots get all of the accolades in this town now can we? Oh yeah, I said the P word…I swore I wouldn’t say it till August after what happened.

To me it comes down to those young players, the rookies (Ellsbury, Bucholz) and now “veterans” (Pedroia, Lester). If they improve and show they can stay in the big leagues, plus the rest of the team stays as healthy as possible, we will be right back in the playoffs. Once your there, anything can happen (I’m thinking of you 2004 and 2007 Red Sox).

It feels damn good to say that we are the defending champions.

Nothing better then this

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After last night, I can’t keep the thought out of my head.

How long is this going to last?

Just 7 years ago, the Boston sports scene was completely different. The Red Sox had a disastrous 2001 season, which resulted in season ending injuries to Pedro and Nomar, Jimy Williams being fired and somehow replaced by a manager who did an even more horrible job, a GM who simply couldn’t handle people or build a complete team, and an ownership who just didn’t care. The Patriots were entering just year 2 of the Belichick era, had just lost Drew Bledsoe to injury, and were starting a 6th round pick Tom Brady that no one had even heard of. Rick Pitino resigned as head coach after completely destroying the Celtics with his ego. The Bruins won their first regular season title, but lost in the 1st round to the Canadians in 6 games.

7 years later?

The Patriots pulled off one of the best ever underdog performances in the 2002 Super Bowl, then went on to win championships in 2004 and 2005. They made the playoffs in 2006, nearly pulled off another Super Bowl appearance in 2007, and are now absolutely destroying their competition as they head to the 2008 Super Bowl. They have the best coaching staff, best offense, best defense, and best ownership. Oh yeah, the fans are among the best and most loyal in football as well.

The Red Sox were bought by new owners who knew exactly what needed to be done to make the team capable of catching the Yankees. They completely revamped the team’s finances, improve Fenway Park every season to squeeze every last cent out of a 95-year-old ballpark, hired the best GM in baseball, hire one of the best coaches in baseball, and make some of the best moves in the history of the game (Ortiz is exhibit A on this). Meanwhile the team was one pitching change away from the world series in 2003, won the World Series in 2004, was retooled in 2005 and 2006, and won the World Series in 2007 with a young core of players and a group of excellent veterans that look like the perfect compliment to each other.

The Celtics had some limited success in the first few seasons of the 21st century, but quickly fell apart amid countless rebuilding plans. Yet in the end, all of the pain and suffering could be worth it. The Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen trades brings us a new Big 3 and the closest chance this team will have at winning a championship in the next decade. Even if they don’t win, it should be entertaining to watch, which is something you couldn’t say about the team since the early 90s.

Finally there is the Bruins…well, no town is perfect. Moving along…

Last night was truly special though for Red Sox fans. For the first 22-years of my life, I never had hope of a championship for the Red Sox. Now within 4 years, I have witnessed 2 championships. You can’t get any better then that.

I am never more proud to be a sports fan then I am today.

Dear TBS

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I get the hint. You want us to watch FrankTV. Just in case we miss the commercial, you have kindly decided to play it every freaking’ commercial break, at least once with a few 2 times sprinkled in (heck, I am sure you threw a three-peat in there somewhere). Since this isn’t nearly enough, you decided to have the baseball announcers pretend to be really excited as they pimp the show during the game.

On behalf of baseball fans across the country, I just want to say one thing.

We. Don’t. Care. About. Frank. TV.

End of story.

Watching Pats/Bengals & Rockies/Padres

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A few sports thoughts as I watch the Pats/Bengals on Monday Night Football and the Rockies/Padres tiebreaker game.

  • The Colorado Rockies are one of those feel good stories that you love about sports. They have won 13 of their past 14 games in order to force a 1-game winner takes all tiebreaker game with the San Diego Padres. As I watch in the 8th inning, the Rockies have a runner on 2nd in a 6-6 game.
  • The Bengals defense is awful. Yes they did get an interception, but they are lucky to be down just 10 points right now.
  • Randy Moss is a freak…one of those freaks you absolutely love to have on your team.