Yes, the excitement is indeed Fever Pitch. The baseball season formally began with Opening Day on Sunday. The Champions, Boston Red Sox ( I am still to get out of last October's celebrations) faced the 800 pound gorilla, NY Yankees. The Yanks with sizeable pitching additions to their roster (Big Unit & Carl Parano) are strong favorites to win the championships this year. But then, who can forget the choke of the century last October (Can't beat that one, eh?). The Sox on the other hand have been all talk, all winter long and its time their bats do the talking. Will this be a repeat or will the Yanks rise up to the challenge, only time will tell. But for now, its Sox mania all over again. :)
An interesting aside to the season is a movie named 'Fever Pitch' that is getting released this Friday. Starring Jimmy Fallon (of SNL fame) and Drew Barrymore (of Charlie's Angels fame), the movie is a baseball version of a soccer book by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity) who also serves as a co-producer. Shalini and I got a chance to watch a sneak preview of the movie last week and thankfully, the movie didn't tarnish the glory of the Red Sox. Directed by the Farelly brothers (There's Something about Mary, Shallow Hal) the mild romantic comedy about a hot shot exec (Barrymore) and a Sox crazy school teacher (Fallon) was funny and didnt tarnish the Sox name or the game. Aside from the fact that the climax was shot in St.Louis during last year's
championship and didn't go very well with fans (myself included) the movie used Fenway Park and the lore of the Curse pretty well. A decent time-pass for lovers of Sox, baseball fans (well, Yankees fans excluded) and romantic comedies.
Go Sox!
Update: The third game of the season for the Sox is progressing as this blog is being posted. The Sox have opened badly, but on par with expectations, by losing the first two games to the Yankees. I am not hoping to see any fireworks until mid-season when things hot up. Until then, I shall just soak in the joy of seeing a game a day, everyday.
19 comments:
If my memory serves me right, the folks behind the movie had to apparently scramble and rewrite the script to accomodate the Sox's winning the championship.
Wonder if they will release the original ending to the script as an alternate version on DVD, just for kicks.
I can’t believe the 2005 season started already. It was just like yesterday when I did a little pump fist when Doug Mientkewiz earned his “retirement fund” (I have to say that I used to lean more towards the Yankees than the redsox, unless it is the post season).
Good to have the baseball season back, it has helped me blissfully spend many a weekend afternoons. Ranga, were you in New England before, wondering how you chose to root for the teams from new England (of course no need to stay in a particular place to root for a team)
thought that "fever pitch" was a chick flick. Is it so? (going by the promos)
Heard that the Red Sox are trying to rope in Adam Gilchrist for a skills test !!
http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,12779792-32463,00.html
Go Sox....me too :)
Ramesh
You are correct. The ending was modified to suit the fact that the Sox won the championships. And I wouldnt mind seeing the alternate ending, if ever they shot one.
Hellboy
The first big city I spent decent time in was Boston (Summer 2001 as an intern). I got hooked on baseball and pro football then. Hasnt left me since.
Fever Pitch is indeed a chick flick but not as bad as most of the common chick flicks out there.
Hand o'er Skin
Nice link. I never knew of this until I read the article.
Saran
The fans just keep piling on :)
Buddy
Sox lost it 2-1 but got to Rivera twice and nothing makes me more happy then seeing Rivera blow it. I continue my allegiance for the Sox but I want the lovable losers in the other league to go the distance this time - Chicago Cubs!!!!. I am also rooting for the Yankees for exactly 1/5 of the games, courtesy the Big Unit Randy Johnson, the dude should have had a Cy Young last year had he played for any other team other than the D'Backs....
I am learning ABC's of the game now.
Hope to give a detailed analysis of the game one day in my blog.
Sudarshan
Well, I had only heard about Big Units exceptional pitching skills (courtesy World Series 2001) and he did throw a great game on Sunday. That said, his greed for money and ring brought him to the Evil Empire and hence I can never root for him.
With the Cubs, well I have no allegiance to them. I wouldnt mind them doing well this year. I dont expect the RedSox to win the World Series again but wouldnt mind them doing so :)
Me
Join the bandawagon and enjoy the ride !
ranga,
i beg your pardon, was randy johnson greedy??? hell no...he could have had the same money (that includes arizona) where ever he chose to go.
imagine yourself as a top notch engineer, who is working for a company that doesnt make money now nor do they intend to make any in the future (lets say that they dont want to make any, at all)
In this situation, will you accept that if some one calls you greedy when you switch companies where your skills are used to make some profit and little more dough for yourself (in randys case a contender)
imagine winning 15 games by yourself in a team that won only 50 games all season. That 15 games would have been easily 20-22 and a cy young to go with, had randy got enough run support. Not the kind of support that curt schilling(7-8) gets but just a decent support of 4 runs.
when everything is said and done he will be the greatest left handed pitcher ever to take the mound in MLB. accusing him of playing for a ring is not fair too, for one he has done everything before taking that flight to the big apple.
please man he is not greedy and this is after all business, and I betcha any blue blooded sox player will take the same kind of offer without blinking twice
Greed , no greed. Rings, no rings. The Unit just rocks.... I predict a minimum of 20 wins and a maximum of 30 wins this season, if he stays healthy
To be fair, it was the greed of money/ring that brought Curt Schilling to the Sox in the first place.
And to be even more fair, these Sox are not exactly your hometown boys either. Maybe not on the scale of the Yanks, but with a payroll of $125 million, they are not exactly small spenders. CNN SI even carried a feature after last years World Series which reflected on what the Sox had to become to win the World Series - the junior version of the Yanks.
That said, no one can deny the club-house chemistry of last year's Sox and the way they all embraced their "bunch of idiots" philosophy. That is something the Yanks of last year lacked, and it caught up with them and committed them to the worst collapse in MLB history. And considering their current talent, I still do not believe that they are cohesive enough to win it all.
My money is on the St Louis Cardinals to beat the Yanks and win it all this year.
I am not a big baseball fan..but for some reason I like the Yankees.! Sorry.!!
And I like the guy Randy Johnson, who I think is a great pitcher with a lot of variety.
Hi, first time here. I studied at Philly and worked briefly in King of Prussia before coming to the DC area for good. Used to know a friend at Devon called Bhat (from my Drexel days). Regards.
Sudarshan
I concur with you on the win count forthe Big Unit. I mean he pitched awfully on Saturday with the Orioles but the Yankee big guns still saved the day for him. With the amount of firepower in the Yankee arsenal, its hard to lose, even more so with a good pitcher like Big Unit.
Ramesh and Hellboy
I guess you jumped on my statement about Randy being greedy and all. Let me explain. I agree that the Sox are no cheapos when it comes to their payroll. I also admit that given what the Boss was offering Big Unit, it makes all the sense in the world to take it. The one reason I didnt like the way Big Unit moved to NY was the way he pushed the Diamondbacks management to trade him last Summer and Fall and this was when the Diamondbacks were bad but still not as bad as they ended up by the end of the season. I mean he has seen enough to know that being a team player is what its all about.
Also, the mark of a class player is when he joins an average to good team and leads them to greater heights. There were enough teams willing to offer him good money (maybe not 20 mil but definitely 15 mil) to strengthen their pitching staff. But Randy would have none of it. He wanted to be with the Yankees, who were more than good by the way.
As a parting note, we Yankee haters have a name for the team- "Retirement Policy". No good farm system, no developing good players over time like the Twins or even the RedSox. Its more of buying the best money can afford which usually ends up being the player at the twilight of his career or atleast inching there.
Narayanan
Its a great game and well, Yankees are a popular team to start with. You have chosen to start with the blue chips of baseball. I prefer staying with the stuff that has a lot of growth portfolio myself (read Boston RedSox).
Thennavan
Nice to know of someone from the area. I still work in KoP and used to live there for more than a year or so.
Ranga,
I knew that you will bring up the fact that a class player should stay with his team and help build it. The dbacks management isn’t buying the “win now” attitude and they want to build the team over a couple of years (my “they don’t want to win at all” line). This is too long a time frame for randy considering his age. And I didn’t jump on your statement, the word greedy sounded too strong for what randy did as a pro player.
Aside, when the Yankees can use the rest of the ML teams as their farm system, do you think they need a separate farm system ;-)
Don't know diddly-squat about the game. Am waiting for your next post :)
Ammani
I guess baseball isnt that big a game outside the US. But I am working on my next post as I type this, that might have a bigger audience, hopefully.
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