Preparing for sleep deprivation

I hate Red Sox West Coast road trips. Like, I really, seriously LOATHE West Coast road trips. I'm one of those people who's really finicky about my sleep schedule, to the point that I'll ditch my friends to go home and sleep. But as you all know by now, I'm also extremely serious about the Red Sox, and I'm willing to sacrifice a consistent sleep schedule for a few days to watch them play.

That being said, I'm pretty happy that there are two afternoon starts during this particular trip, as well as Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, meaning that the game will start at 8pm this Sunday. If ESPN didn't have this Sunday's game, we'd get a third afternoon start, so in addition to suffering through the inanity of non-NESN play-by-play, we have to do it until around 11pm.

The Red Sox will have Felix Doubront starting for them tonight against Angels lefty C.J. Wilson. Though Doubront's ERA is nearly a run higher than Wilson's, I have confidence that he can begin the road trip on a high note for the Sox. The Red Sox bats have been on a roll lately, and they made quick work of Wilson the last time they faced him, so Doubront should have enough run support to earn the win... around 1am tomorrow.

Remy and Eck: a match made in heaven

Let me first start by stating the obvious: like any true Red Sox fan, I have endless love for Jerry Remy, and I wish him the speediest of recoveries as he fights his most recent health issues.

I love the dynamic duo of RemDawg and Don Orsillo, and their voices have been the soundtrack to my summers for a long time (along with the dulcet tones of Joe Castiglione, on occasions when I am away from the TV). But I have a confession to make.

I LOVE the games when Dennis Eckersley ends up in the booth with Don. Eck is full of hilarious slang to go along with his pitching know-how and awesome mustache that's been unchanged since the mid-1970s.

There are some interesting parallels between Remy and Eckersley, the most obvious being that they were Red Sox teammates for about six seasons. Though their styles are somewhat different in the booth, they both have tons of baseball knowledge and anecdotes (albeit their specialties differ), and they're both prone to fits of silliness.

I guess what I'm saying is that I want to see a three-man booth. I know NESN likes to have Eck doing pre- and post-game content, but all I want out of life is to watch a Red Sox game and hear the inevitable hilarity of Don, Remy, and Eck describing the action. I want to hear the best clubhouse antics from their days sharing a clubhouse, and most of all I want to know the details of the time that they both modeled for Playgirl.

Make it happen, NESN.

Opening Day Thoughts

If you follow me on Twitter, you already know that I missed watching today's game live, because I was stuck in Port Authority and then on a bus from 11am-7pm.  Luckily, I was able to listen to the WEEI coverage via the MLB AtBat app, and then I watched the Sox in 2 replay on NESN when I finally made it home.

I love Opening Day. It's truly a clean slate - everything about last year is wiped away, and, as they say, hope springs eternal. It especially helps when the team can start off the year with a decisive win over their storied rivals.

It was pretty strange to watch a Red Sox/Yankees Opening Day sans David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, and Alex Rodriguez - and it just seemed plain wrong to see Kevin Youkilis, clean-shaven and pinstriped, scoring the first Yankees run of the year. But everything went according to plan for the Red Sox, who didn't trail once during the game.

On a personal note, I have Jon Lester on my fantasy team, but I never got to set my roster (I was computerless in New York and New Jersey all weekend), so I won't be getting any credit for his first win of the season. Since that was the only negative aspect of the day, I think I can get over it.

Shorter Red Sox/Yankees games?

The Red Sox and the Yankees have a legendary history, individually and combined. Both franchises have had proud moments at the expense of the other, which has only intensified the rivalry - even if it has somewhat lost its edge in recent years.

But even as brazen insults between the teams have given way to measured discourse emphasizing "mutual respect," there is one thing that seemingly never changes about the Red Sox and the Yankees: they can claim the longest running games in the league.

In today's spring training game, regulation play took up just 2 hours and seventeen minutes - veritable hyper speed when it comes to these two teams. Of course, there are a variety of different reasons for the marathon contests during the regular season, starting with the fact that (this year excepted) the Red Sox and Yankees are featured on national television more often than any other combination. Games on Fox and ESPN, aside from suffering terrible commentators, have extremely long commercial breaks, which leads to longer overall run time.

But even when the games are aired on NESN and YES respectively, they seem to take forever - and that's a testament to team strategy and skill. In September of 2011 (just before the Red Sox's epic collapse) baseball-reference.com ran a blog post about this very phenomenon. It turns out that not only were the Red Sox and Yankees ranked #1 and #2 in the American League in terms of plate appearances per game, but they were also #1 and #2 in pitches seen per plate appearance, which obviously eats up a chunk of game time.

But even in the past year or so, as fans, bloggers, and media types have opined the Sox getting away from the fundamental skill of patience at the plate, the games have still dragged on rather longer than average. Well, it's time to shift attention from hitters to pitchers, and Red Sox pitchers are often atop the list of those who take the longest time between pitches.

That's something that the staff is working on this spring training, so perhaps the four-hour (yet only nine inning) Red Sox/Yankees games are destined to be a thing of the past. If the edge can be taken off the enmity, perhaps an hour or so can be shaved off the game times - we can only hope.

Season tickets no longer scarce

The Boston Red Sox are losing season ticket holders in droves - to the point that they are having players and executives call deserters personally to try to entice them to stay. Upon reading about this turn of events, I was briefly tempted to add my name to the list, but then I remembered that I don't have any money.

I don't know how the Sox brass can be surprised by this turn of events, since the Boston Red Sox haven't won a playoff game since 2008, and haven't even played in the postseason since 2009.  Meanwhile the ticket prices are among the highest in baseball, but even if they were much lower the Red Sox would be in fine financial shape, as NESN would continue to be lucrative.

Fans - and especially season ticket holders, who shell out for dozens of games - are tired of being expected to pay premium prices for a product that has been overwhelmingly mediocre recently.  The resale market is in dire straights, as anyone who has been to a game in the last year could tell you; you can hear the desperation of the scalpers camped out between the Kenmore T stop and Yawkey Way.

There's something to be said for buying low, since the Red Sox will recover eventually (whether that takes one year or five) and season tickets won't be so available when that rebound eventually comes. Personally, I'm going to keep buying my tickets one game at a time, and capitalize on the below face value rates I'm sure to encounter on mid-week games this April.