I shoulda known that sooner or later Kevin Millar and Willie Harris would conspire to get revenge on me for all the fun I’ve made of them.

Last night it happened. The streak had to end sometime, of course, but to have it happen like this was pretty galling.

Harris “didn't need a Harvard symbologist in the mold of Robert Langdon standing next to him at first base with two outs in the ninth inning last night to know that the sign relayed to him ordered him not to attempt to steal,” writes Snow. “He saw and correctly interpreted that sign. He simply didn't obey it."

Well, as Rudy Pemberton puts it: “I hope he doesn't miss the sign waving him back to Pawtucket.”

For a guy with a noodle bat, whose sole redeeming quality is his speed, baserunning mistakes like that are inexcusable. He didn’t lose the game for us, but that’s a really, really silly way to end it.

Trot Nixon was diplomatic. (“That's Willie's game. Obviously, I did want to bat, but I'd never blame a guy for playing hard to get in scoring position.") But you know he's just talking nice. A dead-red hitter, facing a fastball pitcher with a 2-0 count, he had to be pretty pissed he was robbed of the chance to put us ahead with one swing.

We wouldn’t have needed to worry about late inning heroics — thanks for trying, Papi! — had we been able to score more than one run on two hits in the first eight innings.

And we woulda been in much better shape had Kevin Millar, the man who managed to hit a grand total of nine home runs for us last year, not put one over the fence in left in the fourth.

Oh well. “As the saying goes,” says Silverman, “even the blind squirrel will find a nut now and then.”

A night off tonight, then onward to Philly for interleague. They’re a good team. But not invincible.

Ortiz will play first. He’s not crazy about the idea.

(Better he than J.T. Snow, who may not play at all — which is why he’s requesting a trade.)

Papelbon will close, and he’ll like it. Most likely so will we.

Timlin will keep being one of the best set-up men in the game.

Two starts each for Ortiz, Lowell and Youks will get in a couple games each.

There will be a lot of mixing and matching. Not ideal, but we’ll make it work. This is a team, a team that plays well together.

The estimable Thomas Boswell has a great piece about the remade Red Sox in today’s Washington Post.

Yet with all the change and the continuing search for a new identity, Boston still finds itself in first place. Somehow, these New England dudes abide. Shake them up, shuffle the roster, misplace General Manager Theo Epstein, then coax him back into the fold again and yet, at least for the moment, the Yankees still aren't in front of them. Every day, the way the Red Sox see it, New York seems to find more problems, like Hideki Matsui's broken wrist or Randy Johnson's imitation of The Lost Unit, while the team from Fenway Park learns more about itself and begins to discover its future.

"We're getting a personality. We're developing loyalty toward each other," Manager Terry Francona said of his 23-15 team. "You'll see eight or 10 guys go to dinner together. When you have players who want to do it, when they want that atmosphere, it's a big part of becoming a team. I saw six or seven of them in a bar together last night. That's good."

Cover your eyes, kids. It was probably the hotel bar, before midnight and they were all drinking diet sodas.

The Red Sox were once the team that was famous for leaving the ballpark in 25 separate taxis. Now they bond, they communicate, they talk things out. Boston is one place you go if you want to see a true team in the making.

Etc.
It’s a night game Saturday, which will give stat-heads plenty of time to spend the day at the spring regional meeting of SABR Boston, the local chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research.

It’s in the BPL’s Rabb Lecture Hall from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., it’s free, and it’s open to the public.

Guest speakers will include:

* John Thorn, noted hardball historian, author of Total Baseball and The Hidden Game of Baseball, and the guy who uncovered evidence a couple years ago tracing the game’s origins to all the way back to Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1791.

* Brown University math professor Steven J. Miller, author of The Pythagorean Won-Loss Formula in Baseball: An Introduction to Statistics and Modelling

* Dr. Andy Andres, who teaches Sabermetrics 101 at Tufts

* Tom Tippett, creator of Diamond Mind Baseball

* David Grabiner, who’s currently surveying the research on clutch hitting

For more information, contact Seamus Kearney (skearney@tmfnet.org) or Cecilia Tan (sabrpublicity@yahoo.com).

5/18/2006 1:25:33 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

* “Major League Baseball will investigate alleged steroid use by Barry Bonds and other players, and plans to hire former Senate majority leader George Mitchell of Maine to lead the effort.”

I’m guessing the fact that Mitchell is also Director of the Boston Red Sox means no one on our team is juicing, right? Pfew! What a relief.

Seriously, as longtime senator from my home state (and a proud fellow Bowdoin alum ... Go U Bears!) I’ve been familiar with Mitchell pretty much my whole life, and he’s a man of integrity and piercing intelligence, and should do a fine job with a sticky task like this one. He’s helped bring peace to Northern Ireland, he’s dealt with problems in the Middle East, he’s even done his part to calm the tumultuous Disney boardroom. So there are few people better equipped to deal with such a complex and entrenched problem.

The only question is how hard he’s willing to push.

* Another seldom-seen Red Sox front office man, another soft-spoken guy with a huge brain and an undying love for the game, is profiled in today’s Globe. The incomparable statistician, founder of Sabermetrics, and Red Sox senior baseball operations adviser Bill James. Some noteworthy quotes:

“I work by obsession rather than by discipline."

''There's a player on our team who we might keep or who we might trade," he generalizes. ''And there's an issue about his performance last year about which we need specific information. The specific information is, do players who have this tendency ever get over it or is it permanent?

''I need to study that, and I need to get that done within a week or two because I need to send it to [general manager] Theo [Epstein] because Theo needs to make a decision. Is this guy going to stay with us or do we involve him in a trade?"

(Who on earth could that be? Lowell? Snow?)

James says he feels welcome to voice his opinions to the front office, but generally waits until someone asks. How important is he to the Sox? ''If I were to drop dead it would be quite awhile before the Red Sox noticed." Do they make moves you don't recommend? ''Yes, sometimes I'm filing a minority report," such as this spring, when James argued vociferously against one player and the Sox invited him to spring training nonetheless.

Even if they don’t listen to everything he says, John Henry’s here-goes-nothing 2002 e-mail, inviting “baseball’s wizard” to work for us is just one more reminder, as if another was needed, that, other past misgivings notwithstanding, when it comes to on-field performance, the right people bought this team:

With or without you, we are going to be building on what you have introduced to the game we love. We have access to great universities. We have access to highly intelligent people who love the Red Sox and thrive on devising strategies. But most of all we have a commitment to the people of New England to bring a world championship to a community that lives and dies daily with the fortunes of their Old Towne Team.

We're engaged in this epic, long-term battle/saga with the New York Yankees. We are determined to achieve what no long-suffering, die-hard Red Sox fan believes can actually happen. Wherever we go across the nation, Red Sox fans come out in large numbers. They're all waiting to be delivered. It's not an exaggeration. Short of war, there has not been a bigger quest since King Arthur's days. We've joined together, we're having a lot of fun and it's just beginning here.

As one SoSHer puts it: “Who says Henry is a mild mannered numbers guy? These are words Winston Churchill would be proud of.”

When you consider that, just a little more than two years after that e-mail was fired off, this was on the cover of Sports Illustrated...

...it really is (as Henry is also wont to say) “astonishing.”

(For further reading, might I suggest the new The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball by Scott Gray. I’m only about halfway through, but it’s a great, if slim, biography of the enigmatic man, and a tidy introduction to his epochal ideas.)

* Let's get another trophy. It all starts Monday. The lineup is set. The starters are as ready as they’re gonna be. The manager is satisfied. Play ball.

The odds, by the way, are 10-1. We’re projected for 91.5 wins. C'mon, we can do much better than that.

The Yankees, by the way, are predicted to win 97.5. But according to this New York magazine profile of the MFYs’ new savior, Alex Rodriguez is a bit a more optimistic. “Rodriguez likes a few reporters, and he exchanges win predictions with one before disappearing into the steam. The reporter says 98. A-Rod offers a shake of his head indicating no, and stage-whispers, “One-oh-three.”

Puh-leeze. With this rotation? Not a chance.

The article also has this gem of a quote, from Mr. October:

Before I left Tampa, I asked Reggie what impact Damon might have in the Yankee locker room. He looked at me like I was a slow child. “We know Johnny is a free spirit, but we got him here because he’s a great player, not because he’s a free spirit,” said Reggie. “All that personality and the lighthearted comments? How about hitting .350? How about October? If he doesn’t help us win a championship, he’ll be at the Laugh House in the meatpacking district on open-mike night, and it will be, ‘Here’s Johnny,’ and then Cashman will come out and say, ‘Johnny’s gone.’ ” Reggie started to walk away, then added, “And we’ll bring in a new comedian.”

What a great, fun-loving clubhouse. Have a great time with those naked pull-ups, Johnny!

3/30/2006 1:06:09 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

Opening day is, miraculously, less one week away. (Check back here for real-time blogging of the game, Red Sox at Rangers, starting at 1 pm next Monday.)

In the mean time, to get you psyched up for the coming season, might I recommend the 2006 Red Sox Annual, published by Hingham’s Maple Street Press.

Written in conjunction with the smartass smart guys at Sons of Sam Horn, it’s an invaluable handbook for the new-look Olde Towne Team.

Sure, its Bronson Arroyo coverage already makes it a little out of date (and its Dustan Mohr and Tony Graffanino capsules probably mean it will soon be more so). But if you’ve ever wanted the straight dope on what the Red Sox really think about the sacrifice bunt, or what the precise correlation is between the club’s financial wherewithal and the team’s performance on the field, or whether or not Craig Hansen might consider developing a split-finger pitch, this is the book for you.

Among some other highlights:

* Chad Finn takes a detailed look at the strengths and weaknesses of the 2006 roster.

* Aaron Gleeman surveys the rest of the American League competition.

* Brandon Magee heads down on the farm for an up-close look at the Sox’ minor league system.

* Shaun Kelly composes a moving memorial to the great Tony Conigliaro.

* David Laurila conducts insightful interviews with draftees like Hansen and Jed Lowrie.

* Bruce Allen offers an overview of the sprawling Boston sports media landscape.

Elsewhere, retired intelligence analyst Jim Bennett does some numbers crunching, using sabermetric tool of composite rate analysis (CRA) to get at some hard facts about what to expect from Red Sox pitchers and hitters this season. SoSH board member Steve Mastroyin takes stock of the reign of our once and future GM, Theo Epstein. And Stephen Vetere and Jim Walsh offer an intriguing and informative look back on Red Sox elimination games over the last six years.

It’s Maple Street’s first publication, but won’t be their last. More volumes are due this summer. That’s a good thing. It costs $9.95. Order a copy here.

3/27/2006 3:54:57 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [1] |  

In order to give it the space it deserves, we’re saving our interview with Baseball Prospectus staffer Steven Goldman, a contributor to BP’s excellent new book Baseball Between the Numbers, for the Phoenix’s Red Sox supplement (which will hit streets right before opening day).

But you should go check out Goldman’s Q&A, “Learning to Think Like Theo,” at the BU Barnes and Noble on Tuesday, March 21.

In Baseball Between the Numbers, the BP brainiacs lift the veil of mystery from Sabermetrics, gearing their lucid essays and number-crunching toward the average fan and, in the process, debunking some commonly held assumptions about the game — that batting order is important, for instance, or that a five-man rotation is preferable to four. Baseball Prospectus is an essential hardball handbook, and the ideas it's formulated have changed the game.

And don’t let the fact that Goldman is the creator of the long-running Pinstriped Bible and Pinstriped Blog pages at the YESNetwork Web site put you off. He was also the editor of the amazing Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning. If the Red Sox hadn’t starting thinking about the game and its statistics in a new way, he says, if they hadn’t hired Theo and taken on SABR founder Bill James as a consultant, that World Series banner probably wouldn’t have been raised last April.

Come ask him about his thoughts for the upcoming season. About whether or not David Ortiz really is a clutch hitter. About whether it’s really true that you can never have too much pitching. About whether it was worth trading Andy Marte to get Coco Crisp. Goldman is a smart dude who knows his baseball. Pick his brain.

That’s at 7 pm on Tuesday, March 21 at Barnes & Noble at Boston University, 660 Beacon Street, Kenmore Square, in Boston.

3/16/2006 12:37:20 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |