2018 MLB Season

[Wings]

Come on Sean Manaea!!!

 

[ozzyman314]

Wow, Talk about going from 1 extreme to the other. LOL

Red Sox went from not being able to stop hitting things, to not being able to hit anything. 

 

'Grats to Sean Manaea on the No-Hitter. 

[Dilbert]

The Reds are officially off to the worst start in franchise history. Another loss, another sweep today.

[Sport]

20 hours ago, Dilbert said:

The Reds are officially off to the worst start in franchise history. Another loss, another sweep today.

 

This is the oldest team in MLB* so that's hard to do. I turned on one of the games, watched Brandon Finnegan throw 6 balls in 8 pitches and turned it off. They're unwatchable. 

 

What's surprising myself is how little I care anymore. I'm angry, of course, but that's turned into straight apathy. I just don't give a s***. In 2012 and 2013 I think I watched or listened to at least 300 Reds games and of those I was probably in attendance for over 60 games. I put a lot of time and money into the Cincinnati Reds. I was still in in 14 and 15, less in 2016, but still went to about 10 games, and I followed the last couple months closely last season because it looked like they were turning the corner, but this start has soured me again. Caring is gone. I'll check back in periodically through the season, but they've done a fine job of making me completely disinterested. I think I'll zip up to Dayton and try to see Hunter Greene once, but that's it. 

 

I understand tanking, but I had zero confidence in this front office successfully engineering a Kansas City Tank. I don't think they even have a plan and that's the worst part. 

[8BW14]

I think the saddest part of the mess that is the 2016-2018 Reds is the fact that Joey Votto is stuck in the middle of it. I'm a Cardinals fan, so I've seen a lot of him over the years and spent a lot of time cussing him too. He is legitimately one of the greatest hitters to have ever played and he goes largely unnoticed since he plays on butt teams in Cincinnati. It's too bad the Reds can't/won't? put a better team around him.

[shstpt1]

17 hours ago, 8BW14 said:

I think the saddest part of the mess that is the 2016-2018 Reds is the fact that Joey Votto is stuck in the middle of it. I'm a Cardinals fan, so I've seen a lot of him over the years and spent a lot of time cussing him too. He is legitimately one of the greatest hitters to have ever played and he goes largely unnoticed since he plays on butt teams in Cincinnati. It's too bad the Reds can't/won't? put a better team around him.

 

Imagine if they got rid of him, how empty would that stadium be?? The fact that he keeps hitting and producing like he has, when he knows that they are going to loose a lot of games every year is pretty impressive. It makes you wonder too how much better he would be if he played for a competitive team.

[ozzyman314]

The change from "Yawkey Way" back to "Jersey Street" is now official. 

 

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/26/605851052/boston-red-sox-want-to-strike-former-owners-name-off-street-sign

Quote

"Especially weird, she says to see the street revert to its old name: Jersey Street. As many have noted, that might not be such a great trade for the Red Sox. The Jersey Street name was apparently meant to honor the British Isle of Jersey, where — in a long ago era — local aristocracy boosted their fortunes buying and selling slaves."
 

Though something tells me the proponents behind the change didn't quite think it through. 

 

I knew they should have just renamed it Fen Way. 

[Pharos04]

Makes me wonder if the park's address will be readjusted to it's original address of 24 Jersey St now that they're removing Yawkey

[Digby]

Fenway is already a street (one word, like Broadway) -- nearby, but not adjacent to the ballpark. It becomes Riverway then Jamaicaway then Arborway as the east side of the Emerald Necklace parks through the city.

[Tracy Jordan]

Ohtani with another homer tonight but the Angels lose in extra innings to the Yankees.

[Brass]

People will still call it "Yawkey Way" until an entire generation of people who experienced Yawkey Way die. Though I wouldn't put it past the money-hungry culture of Boston sports to fine people every time someone says "Yawkey Way" or they force you to buy some $350 brick with your name on it.

 

Cambridge must be loving this faux activism.

[ninersdd]

Corey Seager done for the year with Tommy John surgery. Tough start for LA gets worse.

[The Six]

Red Sox would have loved to have this arm in their bullpen. They really let one get away.

 

 

[ozzyman314]

1 minute ago, The Six said:

Red Sox would have loved to have this arm in their bullpen. They really let one get away.

 

 

I don’t get it. What am I supposed to be watching? All I see is a giant turd throwing a baseball. 

[Dynasty]

How many runs are the Red Sox averaging a game? It's almost like every time I check the final score for a few of their games, they've scored up to 8 runs or more.

[ozzyman314]

1 hour ago, Dolphins Dynasty said:

How many runs are the Red Sox averaging a game? It's almost like every time I check the final score for a few of their games, they've scored up to 8 runs or more.

Right now, 5.52. A bit of a drop off after the Manaea no hitter though. 

 

The real crazy thing is that the team that hit 0 Grand Slams last year already has 6 of them this year. 

[LMU]

5 hours ago, ninersdd said:

Corey Seager done for the year with Tommy John surgery. Tough start for LA gets worse.

[Digby]

On 4/28/2018 at 11:50 PM, Kaz said:

I always found Yawkey Way to be a strange name for its location because it vaguely sounds like Yankee Way

 

Plus, Tom Yawkey was maybe a racist and maybe covered up for a pedophile, but he was definitely a garbage owner. No doubt John Henry is obsessed with crowning himself King of Boston, but at least he's got some titles to show for it.

[pmoehrin]

On 5/1/2018 at 2:25 PM, Digby said:

 

Plus, Tom Yawkey was maybe a racist and maybe covered up for a pedophile, but he was definitely a garbage owner. No doubt John Henry is obsessed with crowning himself King of Boston, but at least he's got some titles to show for it.

 

I'll say this about Tom Yawkey because I think a lot of people are jumping to conclusions in saying things like "he was a garbage owner" without having any idea or context about what the hell they're talking about.

 

It is understandable because there's not a whole lot of information regarding Tom Yawkey and the kind of person he was. He rarely spoke to the media, and as far as I know, there's only one biography written about him.

 

Here's what is known about Yawkey.

 

First of all, Yawkey was not a "garbage owner" by any definition. From the day he bought the team, Yawkey immediately started pouring money into the club and the ballpark itself. Without Tom Yawkey's extensive renovations in the 30's, Fenway would have been torn down decades ago. He brought in Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, and Joe Cronin and was never shy about paying for star players.

 

The Red Sox were often criticized in the 50's for being too overpaid which made them "soft" and was frequently cited as a reason for why they couldn't get past the Yankees.

 

You will be very hard pressed to find a single Red Sox player black or white who played under Tom Yawkey with anything negative to say about him.

 

Yawkey was also known to frequent the Red Sox locker room which as is the case now is nearly unheard of for an owner to do. Most when they show up to practice will make it a point never to step on the field or even touch the equipment.

 

The closest modern-day parallel I can draw to the kind of owner he was would be Mark Cuban. He was only 30 years old when he took over the team and as far as I can tell was like Cuban a giant fanboy. You could do a lot worse in terms of a boss.

 

As far as his alleged racism goes, again I think it gets a lot murkier than people think.

 

Is there any question that there were racists in the Red Sox front office who's behavior Yawkey excused? No. For as much money as the Red Sox spent there is no reason why they couldn't have had an outfield that consisted of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Ted Williams.

 

Jackie Robinson's tryout for the Red Sox in 1945 was a straight up embarrassment who's blame is in the end largely on Yawkey because he hired virtually everyone who was there. Robinson would say about Yawkey that he was the most bigoted owner in the game and it's very easy to see why he would have this view.

 

However, there's no evidence the two ever even met. As far as most bigoted owner in baseball at the time, Calvin Griffith has that title hands down. There are many Senator meeting minutes where he is quoted as having dropped multiple N bombs, and he specifically moved to Minnesota because Washington D.C. was becoming too black for him. That's the most racist owner in baseball at the time, bar none.

 

With Yawkey, it is true that the Red Sox were the last team in baseball to integrate, but they were also the team under the least amount of pressure. Think of the great Negro League teams and where they were from; Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Chicago, New York, Detroit, Havana, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Newark, Atlanta. But I can tell you one city that never comes up, Boston. And there's no nefarious reason for this regarding Boston holding back a negro league team from being developed. In 1940 the city's racial makeup was 97% white. The market for a Negro League team didn't exist.

 

Also, consider the American League as a whole. Think of your black Hall of Famers from the 50's, 60's and early 70's. Aaron, Clemente, Mays, McCovey, Stargell, Banks, Frank Robinson. What do they all have in common? They all spent a significant portion of if not their entire careers in the National League. Was Yawkey a hardened racist or merely a guy who didn't want to rock the boat? To say there's not a difference between the two is silly.

 

Fast forward to the 1960's, and you'll find that the Red Sox are second only to the White Sox in the American League with regards to aggressively signing black players. Their '67 squad featured Reggie Smith, George Scott, Elston Howard and Jose Tartabull. Again find a player with a bad thing to say about him.

 

As for Jackie Robinson, his foundation was asked to speak on the issue and in response, they sent a letter highlighting the Yawkey foundation's charitable works which regularly donates millions of dollars in charity to inner city programs. But there was no mention made regarding whether or not they support keeping the name or getting rid of it and that's pretty much where I am at on this too.

 

I think its a shame that we're having what I think is a very rushed conversation on this to pass judgment on a person without fully understanding him or how he acted in the context of his generation. By no means was this man a champion of Civil Rights, but I do wonder if that's becoming more and more the only people we feel like honoring. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, just an observation.

 

By the same token though the decision to name the street after he was also a very rushed decision.

 

The Red Sox stance seems to be merely taking the name off the street name but little if anything else. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of naming anything after anybody. I think its pretty pretentious to want to have your name on something as badly as the Yawkey foundation seems to want their name on things. At the same time its far from the most unforgivable sin.

 

To be clear I'm not necessarily an advocate of keeping the name either, even though I sound a little defensive of Yawkey. I'm just trying to put the person in proper perspective which I wonder how many people are even able to do given what's out there about him compared to what's not.

[JerseyJimmy]

uh

 

hey mets

 

you can get good again now