Boston's True Heroes

There was a moment at this Saturday's World Series parade when the crowd spontaneously began to cheer, more than half an hour before the first duckboat appeared.

At first I thought it was simply an outburst of excitement. After all, there were people who had been waiting for more than five hours by 10am, so the anticipation was palpable.

But then I caught a glimpse of this guy, through the crowd:

©Kayla Chadwick 2013

You could argue that a crowd as amped up as these Red Sox fans would cheer for anything, but I disagree. The crowd was going wild for Boston's finest, their men and women in blue.

Boston has always had a love-hate relationship with its police force. We complain about them to our fellow Bostonians, but will unleash our accented wrath on any interloper who dares to badmouth the BPD.

This past Patriot's Day, we witnessed the incredible bravery and selflessness of the Boston Police and Fire Departments. After the terrible events of that April 15th, three of Boston's finest were immortalized on one of the most emotionally charged Sports Illustrated covers in my memory.

Source

Those same three officers, Javier Pagan, Rachel McGuire, and Kevin McGill, are featured on this week's cover, with Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz.

Boston is no stranger to hyperbole when describing its athletes: we call them bosses, legends, heroes. But that fateful day this April, we were jarringly reminded of who the real heroes are.

Sure, the Red Sox inspired and united the city in one of its darkest hours - but the true heroes of the Boston Marathon Bombing (police officers, firefighters, runners, and bystanders) inspired the Red Sox. 

The Red Sox put a grieving city on their backs, and went on an absolute rampage through Major League Baseball - refusing to let up until the World Series trophy was in Boston where it belonged.

It seemed fitting that Red Sox fans cheered their police officers even before their favorite team. Without the Boston Police Department, sporting events in Beantown would feel a lot less secure.

David Ortiz: Ultimate DH

Unsurprisingly, David Ortiz is currently the leading vote-getter for the designated hitter position for the 2013 All-Star Game. Ortiz has played in every All-Star Game since 2004 (winning the Home Run Derby in 2010), with the exception of 2009 when he didn't hit his first home run of the season until May 22nd - he managed to hit 28 homers that season, but most of them came in the second half.

That season aside, it's no secret that David Ortiz is one of the greatest designated hitters to ever play the position, especially since so few players really make a career of it. For many teams the DH spot is a great place to stick your aging players to lengthen their careers, and a convenient way for those recovering from injury to ease back into playing every day - but not for the Red Sox, not since Big Papi came onto the scene in 2003.

Of course, 2004 was the year that David Ortiz earned that nickname and his legendary status, "The Greatest Clutch Hitter in the History of the Boston Red Sox," and neither he nor the Red Sox have looked back. Even Sports Illustrated recognizes Ortiz's special status in a special postion: in their June 24th issue, they ran an excellent article entitled "In Praise [Ducking] of the DH," (paywall at the link) and though it was largely the story of the first DH, Ron Blomberg, the cover photo is a collage of notable designated hitters.

It's no mistake that Ortiz is the central and largest player in that group, despite playing forty years after the first DH stepped into the batter's box. Big Papi is portrayed even slightly larger than Edgar Martinez, a man so talented at the position that the Outstanding Designated Hitter trophy was renamed after him. There aren't many people you want to see at the plate more than David Ortiz with the game on the line, and his prowess is so renowned that the phrase "designated hitter" is basically synonymous with one man: he's leading the All-Star Game voting for the AL DH by a large margin, and will likely be starting in New York next month.

The New Moneyball

"The new Moneyball player looks a lot like Boston's new centerfielder: fast, athletic, a slick fielder who even at age 37 and for $8 million a year is a bargain. 'Mike Cameron played on two of the 10 best defensive teams of all time [the 2001 Marlins and the 1999 Reds],' says [Tony] Blengino. 'Every team he's played for has gotten better. Every team he's left collapsed when he left. No, Mike Cameron's not a Hall of Famer. But he's clearly a winning baseball player.'" -p. 67, Sports Illustrated (March 1, 2010)


Hello skeptics! I know you're out there: you Red Sox fans who scoff at Theo's newfound love for run prevention and predict a downfall of epic proportions. I disagree with you. The players disagree with you. The front office (obviously) disagrees with you. But I know that won't sway you, so maybe this will: Sports Illustrated recently ran a six page article [in the Olympic issue, no less!] on the "new Moneyball," which, in case you were wondering, is defense and run prevention.

I'm guessing there's a lot of overlap in the "doubt Theo" and "Moneyball is all about OBP and Billy Beane is a failure" demographics, so before I start, I'm going to make some clarifications. Moneyball was not about OBP, but rather the exploitation of undervalued commodities within baseball. In the early days of the last decade, OBP was all but ignored, and so those who paid attention to it (Hey there, Billy Beane) reaped the benefits. Now, of course, on base percentage is quoted just as often as the old standby, the batting average, and it's displayed on scoreboards and television screens across the country. OBP is no longer undervalued by the market, and so teams looking for an edge no longer prioritize it as the Holy Grail of statistics.

According to SI's Albert Chen, defense is the new byword, and the movement is being spearheaded by the Seattle Mariners, who, despite scoring fewer runs than anyone in the American League, won 85 games last year, overcoming a pitching staff that essentially boasted Felix Hernandez and no one else. These same Mariners went 4-2 against your very own Boston Red Sox, on the back of a defense and run prevention strategy.


Theo's not stupid. He saw what we all saw: a stacked lineup (and bottomless pockets) to the south, and a team out west with a small payroll but good results. He put two and two together, added Cameron, Adrian Beltre, and Marco Scutaro, and as a result, Sox fans are about to be treated to a parade of defensive gems from April to [hopefully] sometime in October. This offense will be just fine, and the defense promises to be one of the best New England has seen. Let's all just take a deep breath and relax... and if you really feel the need to worry about something, I suggest you fret over the state of Beltre's balls.

HA! Sports Illustrated is Silly

So, as a college student, a daily trip to the mailbox is a must.  Normally I don't receive anything more than the usual campus memos about library hours, meetings, and lectures, and the occasional takeout place advertisement.  However, today I got a package from my mom, which confused me, as she hadn't told me she was sending one, and I'll be home in two weeks anyway.

When I opened the envelope and saw that she had sent me the Sports Illustrated (my subscription gets delivered to my house) baseball preview issue, I'll admit to being pretty excited.  Even though I could have read it online on April 6th, when it was published, I hadn't, so I decided to leaf through it and see how their predictions were panning out so far.

I barely got past the first page.  Ben Reiter wrote the page on the Yankees, who SI predicts will win the AL East with a 97-65 record (one ahead of the Sox, who supposedly win the Wild Card).  Halfway through his gushing (nauseating) take on the Yankees is a sentence that made me choke (oh, that's A*Rod's job? Right.): "[New York's] success will spring from its rotation-which is second to none."  

I understand that this was written before the season started, but right now, New York's rotation is second to a lot of people's.  Their team ERA is 6.24.  Ours is 4.18.  Heck, the Kansas City Royals have a sub-4 ERA.  No American League team is pitching worse than New York so far.  All of those expensive pieces? Not panning out just yet.  However, I'll admit that the season is long, and we all know that CC Sabathia at least will work out of the current funk he's in.  If AJ Burnett can stay healthy, he should do well too... though that's  big "if" with his track record.

But really, Sports Illustrated, that was quite the proclamation...

Ohhh, I see now, Sabathia's pitching poorly due to the SI cover jinx...