Don't look now..

But things are looking up!  Stop reading if you're the type of 'fan' who revels in criticizing the team.  You know the type I'm talking about.  They can be heard calling in to WEEI every day asking for the firing of the manager or the trading of our best players because they've had a couple of bad games in a row.  They're the same guys who said Pedroia was too small to be an everyday player, and were 'proven' right, when he hit .191 in his first cup of coffee in September of 2006 and followed that up by hitting $1.82 in April of 2007.  (Of course he then went on to win Rookie of the Year and MVP the following season.)

Not resigning Papelbon was a mistake, they said.  How can you leave closing of games to Andrew Bailey and Mark Melancon?  And when Bailey went to the DL before the season started and Melancon was sent to Pawtucket with an ERA near 50(!) it looked like the naysayers knew what they were talking about.

RSN Watch party recap

It started off well enough.  But in the 2nd inning some idiot decided to tweet this from the bar:

"a short afternoon for Freddy Garcia". Doesn't get out of 2nd inning and we are on way to 7th consecutive RSN watch party victory. (*)

Well, apparently that angered the The Baseball Gods and we know how the game turned out.  No need to rehash it here.   But that doesn't mean that this group of 17 or so local Red Sox fans didn't have fun.

(*) We won all 6 last year.  Some blowouts, some come from behind, but they were all great games.  Here's a recap I wrote previously on them.

Below is a pictorial recap of the afternoon:

Baseball is AWESOME! - Gives you perspective

I haven't written an article in the ongoing Baseball is AWESOME series in a while.  But today as I watch the tribute to Tanner Craswell and Mitch MacLean during the Blue Jays home opener against the Red Sox, I am once again reminded why Baseball is indeed awesome.  For the past few days I have been discussing the problems with the Red Sox.  Holes in the lineup, not enough starting pitching, shaky bullpen, Bobby the 5th is an idiot... blah, blah, blah. And after last night's loss it only got worse.

But listening to the tragedy (which I wrote about previously on my sister blog) that befell these young players and their families, helps put everything in perspective.  We watch these games to entertain us. It's really not life and death.  What happened to these boys and their friend Tabitha Steeple, as well as Shanya Conway who survived the ordeal but has to live with what she witnessed the rest of her life, is.

It sometimes takes a meaningless baseball game to remind oneself what truly is and isn't important.

How to improve on perfection?

A year ago,  I thought at this time I might be writing a post with this title about the 162-0 Red Sox who swept their way to become 2011 World Series champions.  But that didn't quite happen as planned.  However, in the baseball world I did see something that I believed was about as close to perfect as possible.  That was Out of The Park Development's OOTP12 baseball game.  It was a very realistic simulation that included all the details of running a major league franchise.  "Best game ever", I proclaimed, and many others echoed that sentiment.  Well, I recently got my hands on this year's version of the game, OOTP 13, and incredibly IT'S EVEN BETTER!

Let me start by recapping what this game does, for those of you not familiar with sports simulation games.  This is not a flashy graphics arcade action console type game, where those with the quickest reflexes can win.  It is a game of wit and strategy.  You play not in the role of a batter facing a 90 MPH slider, but rather as a GM who gets to draft players, sign free agents and make trades.