The Boston Red Sox; faltering in Toronto, shining,with their fans, at home

Remember what I said in my last post about not getting too excited that the Boston Red Sox opened the season with a 3-1 winning series against the Oakland As? Well, they demonstrated why, over the weekend in Toronto, where they dropped all three games, essentialy limping home for the home opener on Tuesday.

First, a word about the opposition. It was interesting to see Toronto come back in the opening game of the weekend series and then go on to take the next two. They're something like 28-3 (an off-the-cuff guess) in home openers anyway, but if they have any hope of displacing either the Sox or the Yankees in the post-season, these were just the sort of games they want to win against these two clubs. Although, as Totonto centerfielder Vernon Wells noted in SI's baseball preview, it's not all about defeating just the Sox and the Yankees, against whom they are 37-36 over the past two years, but playing consistenly against other clubs.

Now, as to Detroit, about whom much is being written regarding their 0-6 (now, 0-7) start. It would seem that while we need to be cautioned against getting too excited at 3-1, Tigers fans need to be cautioned about pushing the panic button at 0-7, although after today's 5-0 Sox season opener, someone ought to at least have their hand poised over whatever button it is that someone's going to have to push if the slide continues much longer.

Kenny Rogers didn't pitch all that badly, giving up only two earned runs in his 4 2/3 earnings, although 8 hits ain't exactly "lights out," either. Under normal circumstances, a 3-0 lead for your opponent at the end of 6 innings wouldn't be all that worrisome, but the Tigers didn't hit (5 singles), didn't field (two errors, after three in their previous game) and overall, gave up 12 hits, 6 walks and adding insult to injury, tossed in a balk for good measure.

The Boston Red Sox, meanwhile, got to do their Ring Ceremony and trotted out a pretty impressive list of the usual suspects (Bobby Orr, Bill Russell) to help them do it. And Bill Buckner wound up and threw the ceremonial first pitch to his old teammate, Dewey Evans.

Just a quick note on this: I can't think of another baseball city and crowd on the face of this planet that would have treated Bill Buckner with as much respect and well-deserved admiration as the fans in Boston did. They did much the same thing when he stepped out on the field in 1987, six months after he'd let that ground ball by Mookie Wilson get through his legs that pretty much cost them the World Series in 1986. He was an admirable player, who made an error. The fans of Boston (say what you will, Yankee loyalists) showed their true character by affording that man the respect that all but a single play of his career deserved.

That said, however, Mr. Buckner's mid-game visit to the announcer's booth, was a total disaster. The man couldn't string two coherent sentences together and it's incomprehensible to me that Sean McDonough suggested at one point that he might want to consider doing TV analysis. Based on his performance in the booth yesterday, I don't think he could get a job analysing what time it is. Sorry, Bill. Lot of respect for you as a player and had I been there, I'd have stood and applauded you, as well, but God save us, don't come back as an announcer or 'color' man. You'd lose all that good will.

Johnny Pesky, with an assist from David Ortiz, ran the Championship flag up its pole and it was time to play baseball.

And the Sox evened their record at 4-4. Eight games in the book; .049382716049382716049382716049383 % of the season (isn't it odd how those middle numbers 93827 & 1604 repeat?).

Haven't even looked at the Yankees record so far. Maybe next time, I'll take a look at how the Bombers are doing and report back from the Big Apple.