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Friday, March 14, 2008

It won't seem like Opening Day....please let the bars open early

The Red Sox open the season in just 11 days....in Tokyo on March 25th at 6 AM Boston time.

One of Boston's rite of spring is for friends to gather at their local watering hole and cheer the team on in the first game of the season. However that is going to be a problem this year as bars in Massachusetts can not open before 8 AM.

So who can come to the rescue here. Is it a city issue or does it have to be addressed by the Great and General Court ( yes that is the official name the state legislature ). Seriously this is a tradition that must continue. The idea of breakfast at the Pour House appeals to me in a sadistic way.

Somehow the entire idea of watching the Red Sox at 6 AM borders on the bizarre. Instead of watching Bianca de la Garza or Gene Lavanchy doing the morning news we will be waking up with the RemDog.

Speaking of the Red Sox the team said goodbye to Doug Mirabelli who spent 6 1/2 years as Tim Wakefield's personal catcher. Art Martone of the Providence Journal said Doug was one very lucky ballplayer to fall into his role in Boston and bloggers like Base Girl also said goodbye.

2 years ago Doug was no longer a Red Sox and the catcher who took his place found he could not catch Wakefield. So Theo made a very bad deal with San Diego to bring him back. Martone looks back
Oh, it was a great story. They completed the trade in mid-morning on the East Coast. They flew him cross-country from San Francisco, where the Padres were playing, on a private plane. They arranged for a police escort, rushing him from Logan Airport to Fenway Park in less than 15 minutes as he changed into his game uniform in the back seat. (“First time I’ve ever been naked in a police car,” he later quipped.) He got to the park just in time to trot onto the field for the top of the first inning, to cheers worthy of a Williams or a Yastrzemski. And into the lineup he went, against the Yankees on national TV, no less.

In the 107 games he played for the Red Sox after that dramatic moment, Mirabelli batted .196 with 11 home runs, 41 RBI and 95 strikeouts. In that same time frame, Bard — sent to San Diego as part of the deal — has hit .305 in 211 games for the Padres, with a .380 on-base percentage and a .453 slugging percentage. Reliever Cla Meredith, the other player who went West in the trade, has a 2.55 ERA in 125 appearances.

Not much of a trade. But what excitement.


Doug wound up with 2 World Series rings which most ballplayers can only dream about it.

Now back to the issue at hand........open the bars early on March 25th

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you really think anybody will watch at 6 AM? Boston isn't that crazy.

Rachel C said...

Of course we will! We absolutely are that crazy. Folks don't want to be drinking at 6am, they just want a fun place to watch the World Champion Red Sox open the 2008 Season. I want to eat a hearty breakfast and cheer on the team with a fun crowd.

Open the bars!!!