every smith
  • MS: Max Smith's blog
  • History to the Defeated
  • every smith: independent creative consultants
  • Words: Max - a brief bio
  • Sites to see

Leamington Letters #22: Let's play ball

4/4/2012

3 Comments

 

In its wisdom, the management of the Leamington Spa Apollo did not consider that Moneyball the movie would fill even the smallest of their screens, so it was only last night that I eventually got to see it. On DVD at home.  Half way through my phone bleeped with the news that Bailey had injured his thumb and would be out for three or four months: “Won’t be back until after the All-Star game” said Bobby V, “but don’t which All-Star game yet”.

Good timing, with the first game of the season tomorrow at 6pm UK time.

If I was optimistic at the beginning of spring training, I am pretty pessimistic at the end. The last news I heard of Beckett was his dissing of Schilling who was dissing Bobby V.  Last night, we managed to blow a 6-0 lead but hung on to beat the Nationals 8-7, with Choye Spoone closing – just.

I don’t know the truth of the reports and rumours which have been emanating from Florida over the past few weeks. If it’s true that the players have major issues with the style and substance of the new skipper, then maybe we have serious problems ahead of us. Mind you, this time last year, we had lost 10 or more games and went on to lose the first six of the regular season with a skipper that we all admired, although – it subsequently transpired – the players had little respect for him.

They liked him, sure. But Tito had lost the dressing room, and in retrospect it happened in Fort Myers before the season started.

This year, I’m not going to be around to sort things out when the Sox open at Fenway, so I’m happier with a skipper that the players listen to, even they don’t like what he’s saying. And watching Brad Pitt as Billy Beane demanding silence in the locker room and telling his players that “this is what losing sounds like”, I thought that maybe a guy who loses his temper now and again might be a good idea at Fenway.

One thing is for sure: I shall be glued to my screen for the first pitch in Detroit and, at that moment, I will believe that the Sox can do it.

And here’s a reminder for all of us of what it feels like. Go Sox!

Picture
Thanks to the Globe.
Today's listening: New Order, Closer.
3 Comments
Sean
4/4/2012 08:40:18

I share your fears for this season, as you know. But hope is a wonderful thing and who knows. I shall be glued too, can't wait. It's felt like a very, very long winter. We feel much weaker as a squad to this time last year, at least to me we do. But nothing will become clear for a while I suppose. Losing Bailey is a blow, and unrest in the camp? Well, I'd rather have a manager the players at least react to, he might even get them to get off their under performing arses to actually do something as a group this year. Whatever the expectation it will be another great ride.
Go Sox! indeed.

Reply
Hough
6/4/2012 10:31:25

I'm in the "who knows but it'll be entertaining" camp. The worst we can hope for is it'll become dour and unwatchable. The rest is about good health and luck. This is a team that won a championship with Julio Lugo batting 240 and from time-to-time, turning up some homely leather.
I hope the boys are a little disgruntled with Bobby V presumabley treating them like AA talent. In the honest places in their hearts, they had to see it coming. Bearing it meekly would show a deficiency of another aspect of character.
Hell yeah! I'm in full pom-pom swing! Root for this pitching rotation? One hundred percent! Dice-K on the mend? Yeah, baby! Salty feeling the warmth of Lavarnaway at his heels? Good for everybody!

GO!-TEAM!-GO!

(Leaps, does split on landing, children assist to the couch.)

Reply
Max
12/4/2012 23:35:17

A delayed response while I digested the image of you in "full Pom-Pom swing". This time last year I was there - and my absence this year hurts. Of course I agree that entertainment is all, but I'm not sure we will get too much of it over the course of the next few months. Wll I take ugly wins over entertainment? Too right. Look out for my chums next week. (they're all right really!)

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Baseball
    Books
    Film
    Food + Drink
    French Letters
    Leamington Letters
    Media
    Music
    People
    Personal
    Politics
    Sport