A clean slate for the World Champs

Today is the official reporting date for all Red Sox position players, and the last of the stragglers are now in camp.

Honestly, I almost forgot today was the official date because the vast majority of Red Sox players have been in Fort Myers for days or even weeks - we're a long way from the days of Manny Ramirez's constant tardiness due to perennial family illness.

It's one of the many reasons I feel great about this team's chances for 2014. Of course, the talent matters, and luck plays a role every year. But it would be a mistake to discount the effects of twenty-five players who truly enjoy showing up to work every day, working toward the same goal.

The Red Sox labored for decades with rosters full of talented me-first athletes; the "25 Players, 25 Cabs" mentality haunted them through the nineties. In the last decade, the Red Sox have won three World Series titles, and though the 2004, 2007, and 2013 squads all had their unique flavors, they also had key moments of (often bizarre) team solidarity.

In 2004, we had the Idiots and team shots of Jack Daniels, and a region-wide exorcism of a decades-long curse. In 2007, the squad reveled in the strange antics of Jonathan Papelbon, extending Dustin Pedroia's Rookie of the Year campaign to the World Series in Colorado. And last year, we had the beards. Some were scruffy, some were glorious, but all were a sign of unity.

Obviously it's impossible to know anything based on the first day of spring training, but his year's team has that feeling of community that always seems to end in good things. 

The next generation of knuckleballers

Yesterday in the game against Toronto, the Blue Jays started knuckleballer and 2012 Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey against the newest Red Sox knuckleballer, Steven Wright. After Tim Wakefield retired during last year's spring training, the Red Sox went out and acquired Wright from the Indians for prospect Lars Anderson in July.

Although the Sox are now in need of some depth at first base, the Wright trade seems to be a good one. After a successful seventeen year trip down knuckleball lane with Tim Wakefield, the Red Sox were ready to invest some time in the next generation.

Wright is just 28, and if he was a "conventional" pitcher, he'd be entering his prime. For knuckleballers, a player's prime is somewhat more difficult to pinpoint; Wakefield had one of his best seasons when he was 40, then became an All Star for the first and only time when he was 42.

Wake is headed to spring training to work with Wright, and help Wright with the pitch as previous generations of kuckleballers assisted Wakefield. Because Wakefield doesn't have an official role with the Red Sox like former teammates Jason Varitek and Pedro Martinez, he's free to help out when and how he sees fit, and he's going to start by passing on his considerable knuckleball wisdom.

Spring training pipe dreams

Today, the Red Sox did what they've become very good at recently: they lost a baseball game. Granted, it was only spring training, and the games are about getting everyone back into the proverbial and literal swing of things, not winning.

On the good side of todays events, Jose Iglesias hit a homerun in the loss to put the Red Sox on the board in the seventh inning. It's pretty clear that Stephen Drew will be the starting shortstop for the 2013 Red Sox, but it would be nice if Iglesias took such strides with his hitting that John Farrell was left with an impossible decision to make with Iglesias knocking on the door.

I realize this whole speculation is based of a single homerun in one spring training game, but isn't that what spring training is for? If I can't indulge my far-fetched dreams during spring training, when can I indulge them?

Spring Training games begin tomorrow!

Though the Red Sox played BC and Northeastern's baseball teams yesterday, actual spring training games against other major league teams will commence tomorrow at JetBlue Park versus the Rays.  There were some teams who began the games part of spring training today, but sadly for Red Sox fans, we'll have to wait until tomorrow.

It's funny how much I'm looking forward to this, because I know that in about a week's time I'll be counting down the days until it's over and the real games can get started.  But for now, it's nice to be able to watch established veterans playing with hyped prospects in February rather than July, knowing that the lineup is wonky because the games don't really matter rather than because so much of the roster is on the disabled list.

Greetings from Logan!

I'm flying out of Logan this morning on my way to Florida - surprisingly, not to Fort Myers, but to Orlando, to see a college friend.  However, the airport is filled to the brim with Red Sox fans heading down to see the team in action for the first time in 2013.

The crowd is mostly families with children young enough to be able to miss a week or two of school with no problem, all decked out in their Red Sox finest.  Official workouts for pitchers and catchers start this morning, and position players have until later in the week, with the first full workout taking place this Friday.

Everyone commenting about the team on record, from manager John Farrell to team owner John Henry, seems cautiously optimistic about the upcoming season. It certainly can't be much worse than last year's injury-riddled fiasco.

Lightning and good luck?

Today is the official reporting day for pitcher and catcher in Fort Myers, which means, in my head, that SPRING HAS SPRUNG (despite the nearly two feet of snow outside my apartment). Of course, most of the pitchers and catchers have been in camp for a number of days, and their position player peers are trickling in, as well.

Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia had a nerve-shaking flight to Florida yesterday, when the plane they were on was struck by lightning in midair. Ells took this occurrence as good luck:

I'm not sure that I've heard anything about this particular kind of omen, but I'll take Ellsbury's word that it's good luck. No word from Pedey (whose lack of a Twitter account is bordering on criminal), but he apparently isn't a huge fan of air travel in the first place, so he was probably just happy to get his feet back on the ground (though you have to think he chose a tough career for a guy who dislikes flying).

Apparently, lightning strikes are somewhat routine for commercial airlines, with each plane being struck once per calendar year, on average. Planes are built to handle such stress, so while the passengers might be unnerved by the bright flash of light, there's typically nothing to worry about.

Hopefully Elssbury's assessment of the situation is correct, because if there's a team out there in need of some luck, it's the Red Sox. Luck to get the clubhouse back where it needs to be, luck to make John Farrell's first season as Red Sox manager a roaring success, and perhaps most importantly, luck to ensure that everyone stays healthy.

This is probably a lot to hope for from a simple lightning strike, but today is the first official day of spring training, the first of many practices and games for the 2013 season, and hope springs eternal, after all.

Somehow, so close...

It's hard to believe, given the weather here in Boston, but official workouts for Red Sox pitchers and catchers start in just three days.  According to Manager John Farrell, about half of the players invited to spring training have already reported to camp.

The players who live full time in the Boston area might be a little late to report, as it's still snowing here at the moment, and the MBTA will be closed through today - flights out of Logan are dependent on individual airlines, but most have been cancelled through today and part of tomorrow.

Of course, having the late players coming from within minutes of Fenway Park has a certain delicious irony, since normally late players are those coming from other countries, who might be having visa issues. 

Does the early bird get the worm?

There are a pretty significant number of Red Sox players already participating in informal workouts down in Fort Myers, which can only be a good thing after last year's rash of injuries that seemed to surpass even the 2010 Parade of Carnage.

While a bunch of early arrivals don't guarantee in-season, or even Spring Training success, it's nice to know that the players are almost as eager to get things going as the fans. As was noted by Globe reporters Steve Silva and Nick Cafardo, being down at Fort Myers early doesn't mean those players are working any harder - most players have pretty legitimate workout spaces and regimens in their own homes.

I haven't seen any photos or reports of Dustin Pedroia in camp, for instance, but anyone insinuating that Pedey is working any less hard than his teammates would be in for a serious and indignant lecture from the outspoken second-baseman.

But it's certainly a good sign that so many players came down to work out together, and I'll hazard a guess that if Bobby Valentine was still employed by the team, we would be seeing fewer Red Sox so early. The pitchers in particular seem excited about Farrell, which (though not a sure thing) can only bode well for clubhouse harmony throughout the season.

A shot at redemption for John Lackey

There are quite a few pitchers down in Fort Myers already, though their official reporting date isn't until Sunday. Presumptive starters Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, John Lackey, and Felix Doubront are already on hand and throwing - getting their photos taken and even speaking to the early arrivals among the Red Sox beat writers.

The Globe has a great profile of Lackey out today (available online here), and some additional Q&A with the big righthander is available over at the Extra Bases blog. It details Lackey's first few troubled years in Boston, and his understanding of why the fans haven't embraced him.

I really think that John Lackey could be an important cog in the rotation this year - the projections for him from the Bill James 2013 Handbook are decent. Though the win-loss record isn't terribly impressive, James still projects Lackey to toss over 200 innings, something he's done five times so far in his career.

The first official workout for the pitchers and catchers isn't until next Tuesday, but Lackey was among the pitchers throwing bullpen sessions yesterday. Lackey looks to be in great shape after taking the entire 2012 season to recover from Tommy John surgery, and is eager to get started and prove to the fans that he's worth some of that enormous salary he's getting.

Happy birthday to me!

It's my birthday today, and I've gotten the news I was waiting for: there are Red Sox players already down at Fort Meyers getting ready for spring training. So what if they don't actually have to be there for weeks? Who cares if practices don't officially commence for almost a month? Felix Doubront and Franklin Morales are in Fort Meyers already!

[If you wanted to "Like" this blog on Facebook, it would make me very happy on my birthday!]

Counting down to pitchers and catchers

While stumbling around the internet this morning, I found a wonderful website to give me hope even on days (like today) when the snow is falling outside.

Introducing Spring Training Countdown, a site with the sole purpose of letting anxious baseball fans know how long they'll be waiting for pitchers and catchers to report to spring training:

As you can see, there's less than a month until spring training! And even this clock can't estimate when the early birds will start to arrive; there are always players who show up before they have to, and with the abysmal showing the Red Sox had in 2012, I'm hoping we have a lot of them.

By the time you read this post, the screenshot  just took for the photo will be minutes or hours old - so go ahead, click through, and indulge your daydreams of springtime and baseball for a few moments.

Red Sox fan in a foreign land: Part 1

For me, the day pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training is the first signifier that the snow will eventually melt, my extremities will begin to thaw, and there will be baseball once again. This year is a little different, as I'm currently studying abroad in Delhi, India. There's never been any snow here, and I've been overheated since we arrived, so it's not the coming of spring I'm most excited about this time around, but the long-awaited arrival of baseball season.

Thankfully, my host family has WiFi, so I've been able to keep up with the (scarce) Sox news for the last few weeks, but I'm not sure if that will be true in Dakar, Senegal, or Buenos Aires, Argentina, so I'll try to post as much as time allows while I have the luxury of internet.

Until actual practices get underway, there's not too much to talk about, so I thought I might share some of my stories as a traveling Red Sox fan, far from home. The program started in New York, and so I naturally had a few run-ins with Yankees fans before we left the country.

In Harlem we met a 14-year-old boy named Elijah, who claimed to the biggest Yankees fan ever. He proceeded to berate me about Manny and Papi's "steroid use," and exalted Andy ettitte and A*Rod for coming forward. "After they got caught," I scoffed, "That's hardly admirable." He clammed right up.

Perhaps the best anecdote occurred in the Newark airport. I (naturally) had worn a Red Sox shirt, and when I took off my jacket to go through security, the metal detector attendant announced that she didn't let Red Sox fans through. I decided to plead with her better nature, turning around to display "WAKEFIELD: 49" on the back, and asserting that no one can dislike a gamer like Wake. She laughingly agreed, and let me through - because, as she said, I was "a nice Red Sox fan."

When we finally arrived in Delhi, a friend turned to me and quipped "I feel much better about you wearing that Boston hat now that we're safely out of New York." It's pretty easy to be a baseball fan of any type here and stay virtually incognito, as the entire country is gearing up for the Cricket World Cup, and no one has a moment to spare for a silly American sport like baseball. I am determined to gain at least a cursory understanding of cricket before I leave, but I will (obviously) remain a loyal baseball fan for life.