As all my readers already know, Kevin Youkilis was recently traded to the White Sox. I'm not going to discuss the value of the trade, or recap Youks' career and highlights. That's already been done on plenty of other sites. Check out my list of Red Sox blogs if you want further reading. What I want to highlight today is one of my personal most memorable Youkilis moments, and its Canadian connection, in the latest instalment of the Baseball Is Awesome series.
I'll start with the backstory: Dubbed "The Greek God of Walks" in the bestseller Moneyball, he was much sought after by Billy Beane's A's but the Red Sox beat them to the punch and drafted him in 2001. He didn't look much like an athlete, but somehow always found a way to get on base. He rose quickly through the Sox minor league ranks, but in 2004 it didn't look like he'd have much of a chance to crack the Red Sox lineup, as Boston had the league's reigning batting champ, Bill Mueller, playing third base.
I haven't written a BASEBALL IS AWESOME post in a few weeks, and today's post was a bit of a stretch as I tried to keep some Canadian content in it. It's more of a "Baseball isn't as awful as it could be" type of post. Read on....
Dear Baseball and Red Sox fans: Today, being the 25th of December, I know most of my readers are thinking of other things. There is so much going on today. The NBA season is finally kicking off, there's an NFL game with playoff implications tonight, the sci-fi movie, The Darkest Hour is being released at theatres nationwide, people are concerned about Prince Philip's recovery and there's a myriad of other things for people to be thinking about.
But I'm thinking of something that happened hundreds of years ago.
Manny Ramirez had some memorable moments as a member of the Red Sox. It started right away when he hit a 3 run home run on the very first pitch he saw at Fenway as a member of the Red Sox. And of course, nobody will forget the moment pictured on the left, when he hit a walkoff homerun to give Boston a 2-0 ALDS lead over the Angels, whom they then swept en route to winning the 2007 World Series.
But the first time I realized we were watching something special, was on June 3rd, 2001 at the Skydome (as it was then called) in Toronto. Not only did he hit an awe-inspiring blast, but at the time it looked like it might be a key moment in the season.
At the end of May Boston was tied with the Yankees for the AL East lead, and whoever didn't win the division was already 5 games behind in the wildcard chase. Boston then went to Toronto, and as I've mentioned before, good things happen to the Red Sox when they cross the border. Boston beat the Blue Jays the first 3 games and in the 4th game they were down 2-0 in the 4th inning when this happened:
Manny hits a towering home run that was measured at 491 feet, and before the crowd had time to stop ooing, Dante Bichette hit another one to tie the game. The Red Sox ended up winning to complete the sweep, and left Canada with a 2 game lead on New York.
Another reason baseball is awesome. No matter the lack of importance of a game or the score, you should always keep watching because you never know when you are going to see something that makes you go "Wow!".
Epilogue: The Red Sox lead did not last long and by the end of the month they were chasing the Yankees who ended up running away with the division in what turned out to be a disappointing season.
This is my next entry in my series of Baseball is Awesome off-season posts. If you've read the introductory post and the first one I wrote on Mike Gardiner you know that this is a series of posts focusing on great Red Sox related moments with some Canadian content. Today's post is on a game that came to be known simply as "The Jeff Stone game".
Ok, there were no Canadians involved in this game, and it took place at Fenway. So where's the Canadian connection?
First, a brief (or not so) history lesson. Believe it or not, the Yankees were not always our most hated rivals.
This is the first in my series of Baseball is Awesome off-season posts. Something to read and keep you looking forward to those first days of spring when baseball season starts and anything can happen. Most of these stories will not show up on The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told. But they will be interesting to any baseball fan, and as this series focuses on Red Sox related moments with some Canadian content, I hope in particular Red Sox and/or Canadian fans enjoy them.
On September 8th, 1990 Mike Gardiner made his MLB debut, at Fenway. He had languished in the Mariners farm system for a while, never getting above AA, but was rewarded with a September call up. In a blowout game he came in to pitch with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th with his team losing 9-2. He gave up a hit allowing an inherited runner to score, but then struck out Randy Kutcher to end the inning. It was a fairly unremarkable appearance, not noted by many, except me. You see, Mike Gardiner was not only one of the handful of Canadians in the MLB, he was from my hometown of Sarnia. I did everything I could to follow his career path (which was difficult in those pre-internet days). Once he made that first appearance in the show, I told everyone how great he was going to be, and how proud I was that someone from my little hometown was going to make it big. It mainly fell on deaf ears. And this post is not about this first appearance anyways....
Now that we have the obvious out of the way... I've finally gotten over the painful end of the Sox season, and am ready to start writing again. I am going to start a series called "Baseball is Awesome" where every week, (or every few days or whenever I feel like writing) I will post a new article recapping a particular game, moment or event, in Red Sox history that shows why Baseball IS awesome. Now, the greatest moments in Sox history has already been done... probably multiple times, in blogs, books and even video form, if you want to get it below,
but this will have a slight twist to it.
I am restricting this list to great Canadian moments in Red Sox history. May be by a Canadian player or it happened in Canada or otherwise has some significance for Canadians. But it should be an entertaining read for any fan of our Old-Towne Team. I look forward to writing it, hope you are looking forward to reading it.
and 
is hot.