Sports Writing

I don’t really need anything for Christmas, since the Sox gave me a World Championship for 2013. Which was good, since the last time I wrote on this blog was on October 2011, just after I became a father, and I will conveniently ignore the part of the history where Bobby Valentine became the Sox manager when I tell my son of his early days.

This has been one heck of a World Series, and considering how the season ended for the Sox I’m about as happy with it as can be. (I would’ve preferred the Brewers in the NL, if only to leave Tito certain to be the only manager with 2 World Series rings in the 21st century.)

The odd but happy problem about actually being in the US, on Eastern Standard Time (or Eastern Daylight Time), is that I get to watch a lot of baseball, but end up with not much time to write about it. So I’ve decided to tweet about baseball as well, at @singaporesoxfan. We’ll see how microbursts on baseball go…

Joe Posnanski is one hell of a sportswriter. Perhaps the best in the business, and I’m not even sure I should have included the “perhaps” at the start of this sentence. His farewell to Kansas City blog post was very moving, and it also inspired me to join the Negro League Baseball Museum as a member.

Very happy at the Sox’s offense. Love the runs. Wish they didn’t actually have the runs though. Last night’s game against the Padres would have been much better if Josh Beckett didn’t have “intestinal turmoil”.

I blame Mike Cameron. That out he made on the basepaths killed a lot of momentum.

The turnaround of the starters has been amazing. I still can’t really stand the John Lackey Face, but it’s a lot more tolerable when he’s winning…

What a terrible start to a promising season, leavened by Lowrie’s emergence. Still, I believe the operating phrase is “small sample size”… I’m loving the iPad MLB app for this year. Much less so the iPhone app, which not only has an unintuitive interface but doesn’t seem to refresh Gameday scores etc.

Since I came back to America I’ve also watched a lot of (American) football, at least once baseball season ended. And part of the reason is the joy of sports in HD. So I followed the news about Andrew Luck’s decision to stay at Stanford to get his degree with some interest.

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, proving once again that good pitching always wins.

I love this post on the Platoon Advantage blog on the 40 greatest seasons on terrible teams. (Steve Carlton comes in at #1, natch.) Specifically, I love it for the “Law of Conservation of Dave Robertses” line.

It is such a joy to be watching the ALCS and NLCS live on TV, in high definition. Helps that both series have had great games. But oh, the pang of dismay when I was in the Sheraton in Boston last week, realised I had a room with a view of Fenway Park on Day 1 of the ALCS, and knew that the lights would not be on in the park…

So, with a couple of days in Boston for work, I found myself getting a breather of an hour for lunch before my flight… which naturally allowed me to go to take a Fenway Park tour. The last time I’d been was in 2001, before all the renovations, which I have to say are amazing - the Green Monster seats, the right field deck, that unmistakeable shade of green. Even the numbers have changed, and it was good to see the “14” and the “6” amid the familiar 914827… Pure heaven.

So the Sox are 6.5 back. But I’m happy that Theo didn’t make a blockbuster deal at the trade deadline if it would’ve meant giving up prospects. This team might get on a hot streak and bust out despite its serious bad luck with injuries, but not worth selling the farm for.

Okay, the Sox injury situation is just ridiculous. Besides Beltre the human cannonball knocking out all and sundry, the Buchholz-Pedroia-VMart-Varitek string has been ludicrous.

Yes, I am now living in the Washington DC area, having just moved here for work - moving halfway across the world has taken its toll on blogging, but now I’m settled in and hoping to get tickets to a Stephen Strasburg game. Man, DC is lucky to have a pitcher like that - not just that his stuff is electric, but that his starts are must-see events. Reminds me of when Pedro was in his heyday in Boston.

One thing baseball teaches is not to let the day-to-day swings in fortune get to you. The Sox have looked good of late, even with the sweep by Baltimore. A pity that 4 out of 5 AL East teams have 7-3 records in their past 10 games, but I have reached a state of peace with the Sox, 2010 edition at the moment.

What a frustrating start to the season. Injuries to the outfield galore. The vaunted defence looking a tad over-vaunted. Ugh. But at least baseball is here.

So happy Nomar got to retire as a member of the Red Sox. I fell in love with the Sox in the late 90s, and he was the Sox offence. Frankly, even while I’ll always root for the laundry, Pedro and Nomar made it possible to love some of the early 2000s teams, which otherwise were filled with a roster of scrubs and unlikeable characters.

I have moved Singaporesoxfan.com off FTP into Google Custom Domains by edict. Normal service should resume shortly, but do tell me if there are files or entries that have gone missing!