Humor

According to many fair-weather Red Sox fans, the loss of the first game may spell doom for the Boston team.

Out in the lost wilds of Texas, where longhorns are periodically turned into prime beef, the Red Sox were succulent morsels for the Texas Rangers.

Rounded up like the usual suspects, the team that only a week ago had fans humming 100 wins this season began to sink like the sun after a hot day into the Western sky.

Every year the Mariners come out with a new set of five or six commercials in which they feature their most exciting players.  This year we got to meet Larry Bernandez and watch Ichiro hit tic-tacs.  The marketing team always comes up with something pretty clever.

Here's a look at some of the best:

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Out-of-court settlements are usually the fate of frivolous lawsuits.

Today, the lawyers for two tempests in a teapot settled their dispute about as amicably as warriors in the longstanding baseball feud involving the Red Sox and Yankees could.

Yes, Jay-Z of rap music and friendly fan of publicity had sued Big Papi of the friendly Red Sox Nation for copyright infringement.

I had previously thought that Cubs manager Mike Quade didn't possess a "mean streak." I'm not talking like a Chris Brown/Mel Gibson anti-Semitic streak. Hell, I'm not even talking about the visible anger shown by the young, African-American couple in the State Farm commercial.

With the start of another season of major league baseball just around the corner, teams are making their final preparations, ensuring their opening day game is one that fans will remember.

Part of the opening day festivities is getting just the right person to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.  Sounds like a simple task right?  Guess again. 

Here are celebrity “first pitcher” performances that you will definitely remember.

If you want to know why the hobgoblins of 1989’s Field of Dreams refused to allow Ty Cobb to play ball on their ghostly field, you have only to re-watch the classic 1994 movie Cobb, starring the inimitable Tommy Lee Jones.

Alas, one was the lovely, tear-jerking movie that men loved to bawl about. The other was an antidote to sugarcoated cotton candy about life and death that Field of Dreams provided.

We’ve all heard of Roger Clemens and Manny Ramirez and their “alleged” flirtation with performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). We know about Andy Pettitte (just seems like an inordinate amount of t’s in his name), and his admitted drug abuse in order to get a leg up on the competition in Major League Baseball.

Alex Rodriguez has been called “A-Roid” more times in a season than there are pennies in his ridiculously bloated contract. PEDs were, and probably will continue to be, a big problem in the big leagues.

Craftsbury, Vermont, nestled in the forests of northern New England, is famous for two movies filmed on location: one film was made by Alfred Hitchcock, and the other stars Bill "Spaceman" Lee.

Alfred Hitchcock, The Master of Suspense who brought us Psycho and The Birds, went to Craftsbury in 1954. He was attracted to the rural small-town setting where for a few weeks in the autumn, the foliage and splash of colors roll over the hills for miles in every direction.

It’s a sad day in baseball when humorists cannot find anything to chuckle about during Red Sox spring training. There is no laughing in baseball this season.

This year’s team is a sober group, unwilling to crack a joke along with the crack of their bats. Their breakfast is the cereal of champions.

With the alleged ghostly spirits that live at the 99-year-old Fenway Park, ghost-seeking fans may have plenty to spook them late in the night. Bumps in the Monster seats may be more scary when the Sox are on the road.

According to Baseball Hauntings by Mickey Bradley and Dan Gordon, there is a bit of action at Fenway Park. Among the alleged spirits to be found there on off-nights when the Sox are on road trips are the late announcer Sherm Feller and owner Tom Yawkey.