Where the Hell Am I?

I will take the time to explain that question a little bit. Last October, I moved to Kansas City, Missouri to be closer to my girlfriend. It's a very heartwarming story and I'd love to explain it to you, however this blog machine will be used for the purposes of chronicling the 2007 season for the Boston Red Sox. I am aping the idea from a friend of mine in my hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota who publishes a blog by the name of Twins Town which by the name you should figure out what it pertains to. It's much better written than this blog will be as the guy did actually go to school for journalism. Even though I'm not sure how much of that education is being taken advantage of. I on the other hand, am just a lowly banker. As a matter of fact, you should be able to see my office building in the skyline in the picture posted above.

All introductions aside, I had said this blog will be devoted to my favorite Major League Baseball team and that's how I'd like to keep it. How does one from South Dakota escape the clutches of being a Twins fan you ask? I can tell you briefly that my love for this team came from hating my Dad's team, the New York Yankees. I've followed them since about 1997 and closely followed not only the big league team, but all the farm teams affiliated with the entire organization since about 1999. I fell in love with the team after my first (and hopefully not last) trip to Boston and Fenway Park in 2002 and as I have said elsewhere it is something that every true baseball fan, Red Sox fan or otherwise, needs to experience in their life. After the high of winning the 2004 World Series the team has hit a bit of a lull the past two seasons completely dropping out of the playoff picture late last season after being swept by the Yankees at home in late August. This started a downward sputter to the end of the season which was not without it's share of rays. Jonathan Papelbon emerged as a more than capable rookie closer for Boston earning 4 wins and losing 2 as a closer and finishing the season with an impressive 0.92 ERA despite a pitching arm shoulder injury in early September.

Since this is a little late into the new season I figured that Papelbon would be a good segue into last nights game against the Texas Rangers. Papelbon entered in the 8th inning with runners on 1st and 3rd after the Rangers closed into Boston's slim lead making the score 3-2. Papelbon came on in the 8th to pitch to the meat of the Rangers line up. He blazed three strikes past Micheal Young and jammed Mark Tiexeria to pop out to end the inning. No thanks to offseason aquisition Joel Pinera picked up from the Seattle Mariners who walked the first two batters and gave up a hit to bring the Rangers within one and put the go ahead run on base. It almost looked like Curt Shilling's first productive outing of the young season was about to be washed away by Boston's questionable bullpen. However Papelbon would go on to take care of the first three batters the Rangers threw at him in the bottom of the 9th and the Sox managed to hold on for the win and salvage the series and avoid the sweep in Arlington.

Tomorrow it's back home for a three game set with the Seattle Mariners, and while the world will be discussing the first meeting in the U.S. between Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki and Boston's new ace Daisuke "Dice K" Matsuzaka from the Seibu Lions. I'll be more interested to see if Josh Beckett will have a better outing even though he did earn his first victory against my hometown Kansas City Royals, but hey, it's still the Royals and you can get a win off them even if you do have a bit of a sloppy opening.

This first entry will not be memorable since I've spent most of the day puking my guts up from some bad food yesterday (Happy Easter!!) so I can promise that next entries will be a little more in depth, detailed, and splashed with some of my award winning personality. Until that time, this is KC Bean Boy signing off.