“At 1:40 p.m., under another cloudless sky and blazing sun, the 2006 Red Sox burst out of the clubhouse and took the field en masse for the first time in the spring season. Let the record show they were led through the crowd and onto the diamond by Lenny DiNardo.”

It’s DiNardo’s world. We just live in it.

No, not Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop Coadjutor of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

Not IU Bloomington football coach Gerry DiNardo.

And not this guy.

You know who I’m talking about.

Lenny DiNardo.

LENNY DINARDO!

He’s playing for Italy with his paisans Mike and Dougie in the World Baseball Classic. (Which is more than Tony Graffanino can say for himself.)

He sings Pixies songs with Juliana Hatfield.

(And sounds like she's got a crushie-poo: "I like Lenny DiNardo's form. His wind-up and his extension are balletic. I know he's not the fastest guy out there, but speed isn't everything, is it?")

He likes Television and Pavement.

He’s got his own blog!

He lowered his ERA from 10.80 to 1.84 last season.

He's a long man. A spot starter. And he’s the only lefty bullpen arm we got.

This is his year. Mark it down.

He’s sticking around for more than just a cup of coffee.

He’s getting the grand slam breakfast. (Figuratively speaking.)

And don’t you dare call him Leonard.

2/24/2006 11:28:18 AM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

As predicted, the churlish CHB column arrived this morning like clockwork. The remarkable thing: he was not only able to spin the fact that no one gave him any good quotes into a column-length piece — as he did with yesterday’s Wells “story” — but he was able to turn it into not just a jab at Manny but a dig at Theo and Lucchino too.

Reached on his cellphone in Fenway Park, Sox CEO Larry Lucchino (scheduled to be in camp today) said, ''I think it's all been said by the manager and the general manager. I don't have anything different to add. It's something the manager and player have worked out and that's as it should be."

Translation: Of course I'm hacked off about the whole situation, but I'm certainly not going to say anything that might make Theo mad. He's the voice of the franchise from now on and we all know Manny has us over a barrel.

Outstanding! Truly above and beyond the call of hackery. Nice work.

His bosses are OK with it. His teammates are OK with it. Until we hear that he’s not coming at all, why don’t we just shut up? (I’ll believe he’s going to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim — name now court-sanctioned! — when I see it.)

Whatever controversy exists here is even sillier if the rumors of Manny suddenly begging out of the World Baseball Classic are true.

In a way, I’m shocked. Who wouldn’t wanna goof around for a couple weeks with Papi and Miggy and Vladdy, busting Luny Tunes and Proyecto Uno jams while bashing their way to a World Title? Then again, it’s not all that surprising. Manny lives by his own rules, and often seems to make ‘em up as he goes along.

I’m sure the news will be a grave disappointment to Bud Selig and the manager of the Dominican squad. And sure, it would have been fun to see him hammer a homer off Lenny DiNardo. But if it means Manny will be in Fort Myers for 11 days more than he would have been otherwise, it’s fine with this fan.

After all, we have a Mayor's Cup to win.

Let’s just wait and see if he shows up on March 1. If he doesn't, then we can start taking bets.

Etc.
Good to see you, Gabe. Take your time. It’s enough to be a club house guy for a while.

Speaking of clubhouse guys, Kevin Millar at NESN? Hey, stranger things have happened.

2/22/2006 11:39:50 AM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

Sort of. This just came in over the transom...

JOINT STATEMENT FROM THE BOSTON RED SOX AND MANNY RAMIREZ

FORT MYERS, FL — The Boston Red Sox and Manny Ramirez today issued the following joint statement.

"With the permission of the Boston Red Sox, Manny Ramirez will report to Spring Training in Fort Myers on March 1, 2006.  Manny is in Florida completing an extensive training regimen and is prepared to have an exceptional season."

Florida? I thought he was in Italy!

Reporting date for Red Sox position players is, of course, tomorrow.

You can't make this stuff up. But can anyone say they're surprised?

Expect cackling Shaughnessy column in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...

2/21/2006 12:12:23 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

My Red Sox consciousness dates back only until about 1984, so the Curt Gowdy era was way before my time. But I’ve heard enough of his soothing, laconic voice over the years to understand what his passing means to legions of denizens of Red Sox Nation.

For 15 years, years during which games were more often heard over the radio rather than watched on television, Gowdy’s voice on WHDH was synonymous with the Boston Red Sox, a vital lifeline describing on-field happenings to those who couldn’t be there to see them.

He called Ted Williams’s last at-bat.

And Carl Yastrzemski’s first.

And it wasn’t his fault that his tenure happened to coincide with the team’s ‘50s/’60s doldrums.

He called ugly losses with the same measured passion for the game as he did the exhilarating wins. He was a professional.

''You always go by the voice, and when they got that good voice, you could listen to them all day." says Johnny Pesky.

The Voice of the Red Sox. The Voice of Baseball. "The Voice of an Artist."

Here’s his famous call of Hank Aaron's big blast, y’know, the one that crowned him all-time home run leader. Simple, to the point. He let the moment speak for itself instead of prattling on with inane and uninformed commentary. (Take note, Tim McCarver.)

And he can be heard at the end of this radio jingle for the newly-reborn Narragansett Beer.

RIP, Curt. Crack a cold one up there in that great broadcast booth in the sky.

2/21/2006 9:58:54 AM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

                                             -Algernon Charles Swinburne

Pitchers and catchers are due to report at City of Palms Park in less than 24 hours.

No, this isn’t fantasy, it’s really happening. Spring is here at last.

What happens after that? It’s anyone’s guess. (I like Red’s predictions a helluva lot more than John Donovan‘s.) Let’s just enjoy the moment.

Papelbon is already there. Josh “Don’t Call Me Rocket” Beckett too. They’re big boys.

Foulkey’s there. And Trot. They’ve both got their work cut out for them. (But maybe Trot shouldn’t work too hard.)

Timlin and Tek made the cut. Congrats! Don’t get hurt.

Curt and Coco are ready to go-go. So are Papi and Yook.

Check Sox Blog regularly as spring training progresses, of course. But definitely also check out Mike F’s regular updates from Fort Myers on Sons of Sam Horn. You may remember Mike from this piece last spring:

"The sun is shining ... soft but cooling breezes prevail. Spring training has started, God is in heaven, and all is right with the world."

Even better Narragansett is back, just in time to have one as you watch the games. (Too bad so many of them are on in the afternoon.)

Baseball starts tomorrow. Bottoms up.

2/17/2006 3:02:51 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

Just got back from the lyric little bandbox (Updike’s words), where I took a gander at “the largest renovation in the history of Fenway Park” (Lucchino’s words). At present time, however, the place is certainly not lyric — in fact, it’s a mess, but of course that’s to be expected in the middle of a construction project this huge. It’s also not quite as little as it used to be.

(Still the smallest in the majors, though. That’s why you didn’t get an e-mail today saying you’d been picked in the Yankee ticket lottery.)

As we all donned our hard hats — Steve Buckley made a joke that we wouldn’t have to if Bob Montgomery was still around ... no one seemed to get it — Lucky waxed rapturous about the work that’s been done in the name of the “preservation and protection of Fenway Park." Primarily, that means the demolition of the old .406 Club and the replacement of that TV-screen-from-the-inside with two levels of outdoor, open-air seating.

The seats (when they get here next month) will surely rank among the best in baseball. The field right now may be strewn with tarps and sand bags and 2x4s and temporary fencing and Jersey barriers and concrete blocks, and and enormous crane may sit atop the on-deck circle, but the vista from the future EMC Club is sublime, a front-and-center, bird’s-eye vantage of the field, and a commanding view of the Boston skyline, past the Back Bay skyscrapers and all the way downtown, almost to the waterfront. Breathtaking.

Of course, 99 percent of us will never have the kale to watch a game from such rarefied air, but on this frigid February day it was hard not to dream of sitting there on some golden Fenway dusk, watching a Big Papi blast sail deep to center right and past that red seat. Someday...

Janet Marie Smith pointed out that some other improvements are considerably less sexy but no less important, massive overhauls of infrastructure, like a state-of-the-art sound system, a new sprinkler system, new power service, and new through-ways and stairs. (There will be several new bars too, of course. This team knows where its bread is buttered.)

By opening day, capacity will have been bumped up to 38,805, and by the time Fenway’s centenary rolls around in 2012, it will be still higher, somewhere just over 39,000. They could have fit a lot more in if they'd been willing to put in a proper upper deck. But as part of their Hypocratic oath to “do no harm” to the old girl, the Sox opted to “keep the line of the upper level low and close and intimate,” Smith said.

She also said that, about 70 percent of the way into the off-season, the club has burned through about 70 percent of its budget for the project and the work is about 70 percent done. There’s still an awful lot left to do before the home opener, and the general disarray and ant-farm atmosphere attests to that. If the paint is dry by April 11, it won’t have been for long.

One other thing that may be very different from now on — not counting the ice rink — will be the air circulation in the park. Not only will the new EMC club be newly open to the elements, but Stan Grossfeld reports that “wind patterns in the 94-year-old baseball temple are being affected by new construction in the neighborhood, and it just might turn a David Ortiz bleacher blast into a warning-track catch by a certain clean-shaven Yankees center fielder.” Yikes.

Could that be one more reason why Theo & Co. have been emphasising pitching and defense this off-season?

(Looks like Grossfeld scored access to the park one day before the rest of the media ... the infamous 17 percent at work? Nah.)

Etc.
Who knows what Roger Clemens is thinking right now? All we can do is guess. Jeff Horrigan is pessimistic. (“The Red Sox may be preparing a video to help convince free agent Roger Clemens to return to Boston, but by all indications, the only 40-something pitcher at Fenway Park this season will be David Wells.”) But Nick Cafardo is sanguine. (“[Clemens’s agent Randy] Hendricks has indicated that the Red Sox are very much in the mix for Clemens.... Told that a possible Clemens return was being positively received in Boston, and asked how much that meant, Hendricks said, ‘A lot, and thanks for the update.’”)

Wait and see. But as one poster on Sons of Sam Horn said last night, we’re going about this exactly the right way. The only way we can, really. If it’s about money, he’ll be a Yankee before you can say Monument Park. If it’s about geography, staying close to home, he’ll stay in Houston or defect to the Rangers. All we really have to offer is history, legacy, and the chance to come full circle. (And not a little bit of money of our own.) If we can afford him — and especially if he and Matt Clement could do a little mid-season tag team action — we may as well give it a shot, if only to keep him away from the Yankees.

Still, let’s not get all warm and fuzzy just yet. History is a double-edged sword, especially in this town. SoSHer “xjack” puts it much better than I could:

If Clemens and his agents think he's going to able to return to Boston without revisiting the past, they're out of their minds.

How long before the local papers show the Jenny Craig-like before and after pictures of Roger in Boston and Roger in Toronto? How long before someone goes back and looks at the dreck in the Toronto bullpen in 1997 and 1998, and realizes that Roger's mid-'90s career stumble cannot be explained away by blaming the Boston bullpen? How long before someone asks him about begging out of Game 6 of the World Series or getting himself thrown out of the playoff game vs. Oakland? How long before someone (like Bill Simmons did recently) dredges up the time he disrespected his teammates by leaving the park early (yet got praised by CHB for doing so) or how he burned his bridges with the fans by urging Tim Naerhing and other free agents not to sign with the Sox?

Roger's history in Boston is NOT water under the bridge, which is why the Hendricks brothers would be fools to believe that a videotape prepared by the front office would be a fair representation of how Roger would be received by the local fandom.

The Rocket pissed off an awful lot of people around these parts those ten long years ago. And not everyone is willing to forgive and forget. (Remember Sports Guy's famous column? "My bosses at Page 2 gave me a simple assignment this week: 'Please explain to the world why Boston fans believe that Roger Clemens might be the Antichrist.'  With pleasure.")

Meanwhile, it looks like Johnny Damon realizes he's made a few enemies of his own — ya think? — which is probably why he laid out the considerable cash for this today:

It’s no cure-all, but the sentiment is nice enough. Better late than never.

2/8/2006 6:20:15 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [1] |  

“[T]he Red Sox as we speak are preparing to make a serious offer to one Roger Clemens, who will turn 44 in August. According to sources, the Sox’ pitch will include a slick video presentation that features a number of Red Sox fans imploring the Rocket to finish his career where it began."

-Gerry Callahan

Open with black screen.

Muted sounds of cheering are faintly audible, barely a murmur, then rising in volume as the picture fades in. Jubilant throngs pack the grandstands at sunny Fenway Park.

Cue strings, which swell grandly. On the pitcher’s mound, a beefy youth raises his glove to his baby face, peering over the edge with intense concentration and a hint of menace. He goes into his motion, reels back, and unleashes a fireball.

“He came east from the Lone Star State, a pudgy kid from Houston with a big arm and big dreams.”

“He threw heat. Heat matched only by his burning desire to win.”

“And win he did. Again and again and again.”

“In 1986, he won 24 games, helping his team secure the pennant, and spurring them on to an ultimately tragic World Series.”

“But it was a season that earned him the first of his seven Cy Young trophies. And the AL Most Valuable Player award.”

“Hank Aaron didn’t like it.”

“He said pitchers shouldn’t win MVPs. But Roger had something to say about that.”

Cue soundbite: “I wish he were still playing. I'd probably crack his head open to show him how valuable I was."

“It would not be the first time he’d throw at someone's head.”

“He won more Cy Young awards, in 1987 and again in 1991.”

“He threw a 20-strikeout game. Twice.”

“He threw some more balls at some more guys’ heads.”

“And sometimes broken bats.”

"But that would all come later. With the Boston Red Sox, he began a career for the ages. "

“He’s the all-time strikeout leader in the American League. He has more career wins than any other right-handed pitcher of the live-ball era.”

“But we let him go. He was eating a lot of donuts. Not working out. He’d lost some zing on his fastball.”

“It was the twilight of his career ... or so we thought.”

"We were wrong."

“Boy. Were. We. Wrong.”

"But this guy is no longer with the company."

“And we're sorry. So, so, so sorry.”

“Really.”

“Come back, Rocket. All is forgiven.”

“Compared to you, this guy's a chump.”

“Come back and prove it. We can think of 20 million reasons why you should.”

Cue sound of umpire calling strike. Crowd cheers wildly. Fade to black.

2/7/2006 2:45:48 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

On a day when the top Red Sox story on Boston.com has to do with F.W. Webb Co., the Red Sox’ new official distributor of plumbing, heating, HVAC, pipe-valves-fittings supplies, I figured this was as good a time as any to take a look at the news that’s gone down this week while I was busy finishing up a story (about these guys).

Punxsutawney Phil -- no stranger to corporate sponsorship himself -- saw his shadow yesterday. (Even if Staten Island Chuck begs to differ.)

Good to see Grady Little has gotten back on his feet with another line of work, by the way.

But who cares if there are six more weeks of winter? Pitchers and catchers report to Fort Myers in just two weeks’ time. Let’s all gaze longingly at this photo of #24 waiting in the batters box (taken at City of Palms Park last year by yours truly) and dream of warmer days.

Ahhhh...

Anyway, the invitations have been sent, the spring roster is posted, and soon the crack of the bat will be heard once again.

Tito’s ready. Are you?

There were some interesting invitees.

Gabe Kapler is a helluva guy, a real mensch. And he’s jacked beyond belief. But if he’s patrolling the outfield anytime before the All-Star break, I’ll eat my RSS feed.

And Enrique Wilson? Now that Manny’s unloaded his place at the Ritz wherever will they meet for drinks?

Since today is Fun With Photo Day, let’s play a game...

Enrique Wilson and Sloth Fratelli: Separated at birth?

 

Even if Mr. Wilson manages to break camp, at least we know he won’t be playing shortstop. Not now that we’ve got Alex Gonzalez. Color me surprised that he took a one year deal, but he did, and that’s a good thing. They say he’s got a noodle bat, but I’ll take the .974 fielding percentage any day of the week. And if he can mash 23 homers like he did in ’04? All the better.

You’ve gotta like this team. On paper, at least. Assuming they’re not really still looking to trade Manny, things are looking a whole lot brighter on the hitting, pitching, and fielding fronts than they were a couple months ago.

(How great is it that we’re able to have debates like this about Jonathan Papelbon?)

Still, "on paper" is "on paper." The best laid plans of Theo and Larry often go astray. Says Mike Fine: Don’t get too excited about that ‘pen.

At this moment at time, however, we look like a fine, well-balanced team.

Then again, so do the Blue Jays.

Etc.

* For those who didn’t read it on Wednesday, Gordon Edes wrote a terrific article about the travails of Tommy Harper, back in the bad old days of segregation and racist Red Sox clubhouses. It’s a touching and uplifting piece. (Sometimes it’s hard to believe Edes and Shaughnessy cover the same team for the same paper.)

* Sox Blog’s PMCG compadre Sandro Frattura seems to be having a blast down at Red Sox Fantasy Camp in Fort Myers, and he’s keeping a very entertaining journal about his week there.

Quoth the Spaceman, while looking Sandro up and down. considering whether to pick him for his squad, “Well, you've got all your teeth, and you can still see your belt. That’s a good sign.”

(In the end, he wound up on Rich Gedman’s team instead.)

* Cry, Johnny, Cry.

“My kids had a hard time dealing with it. I kinda told them [I was leaving the Red Sox] and they cried, and I cried with them. And I said, 'Hey, this team really just did not want me as much as I wanted them.'"

Uh, I think that quote should be: “Hey, the bad guys just offered me $3 million more per year. Someday you’ll understand.”

Hope Johnny Judas had fun chillin' with George (and spending George's Georges) down Tampa way yesterday.

And he'll surely have fun this season getting up early foa a 6 a.m. medicine ball regimen with this guy.

A-Rod called to wake me up the other day.

“Mornings are the most valuable time of the day, and I should know. You snooze you loose. So get up and get out and do something with your morning.” [Cue sound of a bat hitting a ball, crowd cheering]

I'd rather be tortured with this alarm clock.

It’s all part of Nike’s new marketing gimmick, where jocks like Amare Stoudemire and Maria Sharapova (and Joan Benoit Samuelson, who hails from Sox Blog’s hometown and went to his alma mater), call you to get you outta bed for an active day bedecked in swooshes galore..

Let’s see how jammed their phone logs are after every Sox fan in New England signs up their friends and enemies alike to get a surprise wake-up from Mr. Slappy McBluelips himself.

* Finally, Schilling and I don’t agree on much, but we do on this: Go Steelers.

2/3/2006 1:34:50 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |