Different Opinions And A Second Start to Baseball 2008, USA Style

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY!! It's time to begin the 2008 Red Sox baseball season on THIS continent, albeit on the left coast. The game will begin at 10PM EDT, televised on NESN, almost guaranteeing me two or three innings of enjoyment before my Gold Bond (plug!) king sized set of bedding sends me to ZZZZZZ land. But I must address my yesterday post. As you might have read, I picked the AL East finish to be Toronto, Boston and New York. What I should have said was that those three teams are SO close, at least on paper, and if all the players live up to their stats, the division would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE to call. Right now, it is! But read this, from ESPN dot com...

"On ESPN.com, 14 of 18 "experts" pick the Sox to win the division, Peter Gammons predicts Manny Ramírez will win the MVP, and Steve Phillips, the former Mets general manager, selected David Ortiz as his MVP. "Baseball Tonight" regular Tim Kurkjian has the Sox beating the Mets in the World Series, while Sean McAdam, who writes for the website in addition to his duties covering the team for the Providence Journal, likes the Sox over the Diamondbacks in October.
"Life has been awfully good for Boston fans," proclaims Foxsports.com, "and it doesn't figure to change much in 2008 . . . For a baseball-mad city, life doesn't get much better than this."

Peter here. I loved reading that! Toronto will have to OVER-perform to able to finish in first place. The Red Sox will only need to perform as expected to be at the top. But what if a fifth starter for Boston makes his presence known. Bartolo Colon maybe? It's clear that Clay Buchholz will need more seasoning, more experience. Curt is as good as gone, and raise your hand if you want to see Tavarez as our number five guy. I'm looking..I'm still looking...I don't see any hands. No surprise to me.

Tonight in the Bay area of California, the Boston Red Sox will face the Oakland Athletics, with Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has to cut down on his walks and control his lack of control, ready to face Big Joe Blanton. Both hurlers earned a no decision in their first face-off in Japan. I hope the end result of this game is the same as the last time the two pitchers faced each other, less than one week ago. The players are ALMOST used to the time zone change and they're ready to play ball. So let's do it!

Good wishes go out to the Unniversity of Connecticut Women's number one in the nation basketball team. They play their Big East rival Rutgers tonight on ESPN2 and ESPN2HD shortly after 9pm. The winner goes on to the Final Four. The loser goes home, with tears in their eyes. And mine. GO UCONN. And of course, GO SOX!

Click on the title of this post for the Boston Herald's Tony Massarotti and his look at tonight's game, Daisuke and all. It's illuminating and informative. And I'd love to read and respond to any and all of your comments. I thank every one of you who left all the great comments yesterday, and I hope it's a sign of things to come. I was a little down yesterday, and no, BFW, it's not my health or my wealth (haha)! Family stuff and things I cannot do anything about are to blame. But I go on, and always will, for as long as I can. That's a promise I made to you when I started this blog, and I haven't missed more than a day or two in the two and a third years since I started this personal journal of highs and lows, sadness and euphoria in November of 2005. And I ain't going anywhere. GOD willing.

Click on that title and GO SOX...GO UCONN. And as always, BE WELL.