Fan News

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You know what?  I grew up in Red Sox Nation and I didn’t really like baseball.  Or the Red Sox.  It’s true.

Not that I rooted for another team, but in terms of my allegiances, the Sox trailed the Celtics and Patriots, and maybe even professional wrestling.

It wasn’t always that way.  When I was really young, I followed the Sox just like I did the other teams.  Dwight Evans was my favorite player.

The first game of this series between the 2-1 San Francisco Giants and the 2-2 San Diego Padres begins today in San Diego. 

The Giants are coming into this series with hot bats where they scored nineteen runs and racked up 30 hits in the three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers.  The hottest player so far is Aaron Rowand who is batting .545 with a home run and four RBI.

First off I want to go on record and say that I am a Red Sox fan and yet this touched me in such a big way.

The death of Nick Adenhart is something that should touch everyone that is a fan of baseball, a fan of sports in gerneral, it is so big that it should affect everyone.

In the day of blogging and the Internet, anyone with access to a computer can post anything they want about anything.

And in the case of MLB, we've got boatloads of bloggers doing just that—posting about whatever nonsense they can come up with.

For instance, on this website alone, I saw a headline proclaiming "Rangers proving they can win the West."

Hello?

The season is only three games in—four now. The Rangers lost 15-2 in Detroit after their 3-0 start, and suddenly people think a team has "proven" itself with some early-season success?

The Red Sox have dropped two of the first three games of the 2009 season. No cause for alarm; it's far to early for that.

But what makes it sting a bit is the fact that they were at home, where they have the best winning percentage in baseball over the past six seasons (.652), and they lost to their newest rival—the defending AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays.

We've all become accustomed to the Red Sox wining their home series, as well as beating up on the lowly Rays. Things are changing. At the least, the Rays have changed.

The baseball season has started, and when every team begins 0-0, it seems all clubs feel they have a shot at a magical year, if they have a good start.

And it's funny how people react when they do get off to say, a perfect start.

Take the Texas Rangers, for example.

They're off to a 3-0 start, and it's the first time they've begun a season with three-straight wins since 1996.

The rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox is often said to be the best in baseball, if not in all of American sports. It is not as ancient as some passionate fans may think, however.

It certainly is not as venerable as the competition between the Cubs and Cardinals, which dates back to a championship series played in 1885. Nor does it have the longevity of the feud between the Dodgers and Giants, which began when the two teams encountered one another in postseason play in 1889.

Develop, use, trade, and start over. That's the unofficial Florida Marlins team motto. 

We all know and appreciate that the Florida Marlins consistently have great young talent. But at some point, you have to wonder how the heck they got all this talent.

Sure, when you trade away anyone that gets too expensive for prospects, at least one of those prospects will probably pan out. But what are the chances of one of these guys becoming the top player in the game?

It took them longer than some hoped, but the Yankees got their first win of the season behind A.J. Burnett last night.

Today they hope to keep that going with veteran lefty Andy Pettitte on the mound, who is going up against former Yankee Sidney Ponson.

Here are their numbers from last season:

Pettitte 14-14, 4.54 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 158 K’s, 55 BB’s, 204 innings.