The Year after the Other Next Year

Boston Red Sox 2008

Copyright © 2008 Timothy Horrigan

Back before the 2005 season, I put up a page about the then World Champion Red Sox. I revised it a few times over the course of the season. It's still on my site, if you really care:

• http://www.TimothyHorrigan.com/redsox2005.html

My 2005 Red Sox page didn't get a whole of hits, but I went ahead and put up a 2006 page:

• http://www.TimothyHorrigan.com/redsox2006.html

And then, I went ahead and put up a 2007 page, which brought them good luck:

• http://www.TimothyHorrigan.com/redsox2007.html

And now I am putting up a 2008 Red Sox page... If nothing else, the eBay auctions at the bottom of the page are worth checking out.

[March 20, 2008] The 2007-2008 off-season went fairly quietly for the World Champion Red Sox. At least it was quiet until the eve of their departure on the vernal equinox for a four game series in Japan. The players almost boycotted the team's trip halfway around the world to play two exhibition games against Japanese teams and two real games against the Oakland Athletics after the union reps discovered that the coaches (as well as the managers) were not getting the same $40,000 appearance fee as the players. (The coaches are not union members but most of them are former players.) The problem was solved the way most problems of this sort are, by digging up a little more money at the last minute:

• March 20, 2008 Boston Globe story

• March 19, 2008 MLB.com story

• Another March 19, 2008 MLB.com story

The offseason began peacefully: there were no major riots after the final game of the World Series. (The night was marred slightly, however, by a premature and highly misleading news leak— while Game 4 was still going on— to the effect that Alex Rodriguez would not be re-signing with the Yankees. Red Sox Nation found time, even in this moment of triumph, to bitch about A-Rod's timing. A few days later, he signed a contract with... the Yankees.)

Curt Schilling did re-sign with the Sox, but he is injured and may never pitch again. This stinks, but it was a pleasant surprise that he came back at all— and if his shoulder does in fact heal on schedule, he will be back for the second half of the season.

The highlight of the Major League off-season was the uproar over steroid use. The Sox got off fairly easy in the Mitchell Report (named after Sen. George Mitchell, who used to be a member of the Red Sox's corporate board.) The only recognizable name from the 2007 team to be scapegoated in the report was Eric Gagne, a relief pitcher who was soon shipped off to the Minnesota Twins. The big scapegoat, even more so than Barry Bonds, was the great pitcher Roger Clemens, who of course began his legendary career in Boston— but Clemens is in trouble for his activities as an Astro and as a Yankee.

Speaking of Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez has a small but finite chance, looking a few years down the road, of beating Bonds's home run record. It looks like Bonds will end his career with his current total of 762: he wants to keep playing but no one has signed him and in any case he will spend much of the 2008 season in federal court. Ramirez, who is 35 years of age, has 490. If Manny hypothetically keeps playing till the age Bonds (apparently has) retired at, he would have 7 additional seasons to hit an additional 273 homers before retiring in 2015. Manny certainly is capable of reaching that goal, even though he is injury prone and also has a tendency to well... be Manny. He already holds one major home run record: most post-season homers (24 as of the 2007 World Series.)

However, A-Rod will probably beat Manny to the record: A-Rod is only 32 years old and has already hit 518 home runs— and is a much more consistent player. If he continues to have good luck and to keep his current rate of production, A-Rod is likely to pass Bonds and quite possibly also Japanese champion Sadaharu Oh (868 home runs) and Negro Leagues champion Josh Gibson (an estimated 800 to 1000.) We wish A-Rod well in his quest, even if he is a Yankee.

2007 was a great year for the Red Sox: they led the American League wire to wire, and won the World Series for the second time in 4 years. They have won 29% of the Series so far this century, and the Yankees haven't won one since the last century. (2000 was in the 20^th century, not the 21^st.)

The first half of the Sox's 2007 season was flawless. They slowed down a little bit in June and July, but they still had the best record in baseball and were 10 games ahead of the Yankees by the All-Star Game break. The early spring schedule was front loaded with Yankees-Red Sox contests: in April, the Sox won five of six games against the Yankees, including a wild April 21, 2007 game where they tied a record by hitting four consecutive home runs. The Sox sent six players to the midsummer classic including an almost unhittable Japanese pitcher— not Daisuke Matsuzaka, but rather the "other" Japanese pitcher, left-handed reliever Hideki Okajima. The winning pitcher in the All-Star game was the Sox's Josh Beckett.

The summer was an up-and-down time for the Red Sox. However, through it all, they stayed in first place, out of reach of the Yankees. The last week or so of the summer epitomized the rollercoaster nature of the season. The Red Sox played a four game series with the Other Sox in Chicago, and scored 10 or more runs in all four games. The composite score for the four games was Red Sox 46, White Sox 7. The the Red Sox came home and dropped three heartbreakers in a row to the Yankees. The Yanks' Roger Clemens and Chien-Ming Wang both took nohitters deep into their starts. Then after dropping another heartbreaker to the last place Orioles, the Sox broke their l4-game losing streak when rookie Clay Buchholz pitched a nohitter in his second career start.

• September 1, 2007: Boston 10-14-0, Baltimore 0-0-0

Like in 2004, they had to battle back in 2007 from 1-3 deficit in the League Championship series. However, this was against the Cleveland Indians, not the hated Yankees, and those last three games went by pretty smoothly. I not be an underdog: their World Series opponent was the lowly Colorado Rockies, who needed to win a 163^rd game by literally a millimetre just to be in the playoffs at all.

Post-Season Sox Box Scores:

• Division Series:

  1. Boston Red Sox 4, Pasadena Angels of Anaheim 0 (October 3, 2007 @ Fenway Park)

  2. Boston Red Sox 6, West Hollywood Angels of Anaheim 3 (October 5, 2007 @ Fenway Park): Manny Ramirez was the hero on Friday night: he ended the game a few minutes before 1 a.m with an amazing home run in the bottom of the 9th which looked like something out of a Home Run Derby. He hit it not just over the MassPike, but also over Route 128. (I am exaggerating, of course— but only a little.)

  3. Boston Red Sox 9, Laguna Beach Angels of Anaheim 1 (October 3, 2007 @ The Big A)

• American League Championship Series:

  1. Boston Red Sox 10, Cleveland Indians 3 (October 12, 2007 @ Fenway Park)

  2. Cleveland Indians 13, Boston Red Sox 6 (October 13-14, 2007 @ Fenway Park) I stayed up till the disastrous 11^th inning, which ran almost till 2 a.m. Luckily, I just had the TV on with the volume pretty far down, because one of my Second Life avatars was hosting a party at Gypsy's Midnight Club. And, at least the party was fun.

  3. Cleveland Indians 4, Boston Red Sox 2 (October 15, 2007 @ Jacobs Field)

  4. Cleveland Indians 7, Boston Red Sox 3 (October 16, 2007 @ Jacobs Field) Boston's big guns— Kevin "The Uke" Youkilis, Big Papi & Manny — fired off three huge blasts in the top of the sixth. The only problem was, the Sox were already down 7-0, and those three solo home runs were the only positive things the Sox did all night.

  5. Boston Red Sox 7, Cleveland Indians 1 (October 18, 2007 @ Jacobs Field) Manny drove in the winning run on a very Manny-like play. He hit what seemed to be a certain home run and went into his home run trot. However, the ball came down a little faster than expected and it hit the rightfield fence and bounced back into an outfielder's glove— and Manny ended up hitting a 375-foot single. He almost got thrown out at second. David Ortiz, not known as a speedy runner, scored easily from first on the play.

  6. Boston Red Sox 12, Cleveland Indians 2 (October 20, 2007 @ Fenway Park)

  7. Boston Red Sox 11, Cleveland Indians 2 (October 21, 2007 @ Fenway Park) This game was much closer than the score indicates: it was a tight 3-2 contest until the Sox exploded for 8 runs in the 7^th and 8^th innings.

• World Series:

1. Boston Red Sox 13, Colorado Rockies 1 (October 24, 2007 @ Fenway Park) Josh Beckett struck out the side in the top of the first, Dustin Pedroia hit a leadoff home run in the top of the first— and it just got better from there for the Sox.

2. Boston Red Sox 2, Colorado Rockies 1 (October 25, 2007 @ Fenway Park) This may very well be the last game of Curt Schilling's Hall of Fame career— and this win would certainly be a high note to go out on. The Rockies' Matt Holliday went 4 for 4 against the otherwise untouchable Red Sox pitchers— and yet he ended being the goat by getting picked off on a very bad baserunning play which killed off the 8th inning.

3. Boston Red Sox 10, Colorado Rockies 5 (October 27 @ Coors Field) Dice-K won this game with his bat as well as his arm: he drove two runs with a timely single.

4. Boston Red Sox 4,Colorado Rockies 3 (October 28 @ Coors Field) THE SOX WIN! This time Red Sox Nation only waited 3 years, not 86. Jon Lester, whose cancer diagnosis was the low point of the 2006 season, was the winning pitcher in the final game of the glorious 2007 season, contributing 5-plus scoreless innings.

Some Red Sox links:

• Official Red Sox web site: http://redsox.mlb.com  

• Boston.com's Red Sox page: http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox  

• Baseball-Reference.com Red Sox page: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS

• CBS Sportsline Red Sox Page: http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/teams/page/BOS

Web Directories about the Boston Red Sox:

• Boston Red Sox — Open Directory

• Boston Red Sox — Yahoo

• Boston Red Sox — Google