FRS

At Least Two More Beard Posts

I said in the middle of last month that I hoped I had made my last beard post, but as long as the FRS are still in the playoffs people will be writing about them, so shall I.

Grantland posted up another article about baseball, beards and Boston: Sportstorialist: Basebeards

Inside that article they linked to a Boston Globe photo essay that is worth a look: Red Sox? ?beard bonding? symbolic of attitude adjustment

The title says at least two more beard posts, this counts as one. The other will be the one with a photo of my shaggy mug when the Sox are done with the playoffs, which could come as early as this Friday, October 11th or as late as Thursday, October 31st.

We Own The East?

WOTEAll the clubhouse celebration photos of the FRS from last Friday showed the players all wearing this shirt. Do you think that they were contractually obligated to do so? Or did they just not care what the heck they were wearing after downing several Bud Lights (the official beer of MLB Playoff Clinching)?

First off they don’t own the East, at best they were leasing it for a year. Secondly, last night the Braves donned T-shirts with the same words on it. So just who does “own” the East?

The only thing worse than that shirt is this hat!

Be Funky Beard

BeFunky_Sox-Beard

The night before last’s photo run through something called underpainting1 on BeFunky.com, an online photo editor with effects.

Some more (and hopefully the last) Red Sox Beard updates:

  1. Those dollar tickets for next Wednesday’s Dollar Beard Night game against the Orioles are “until supplies last” and there is no mention of how big the supply is.
  2. My RedSox Blue Beard photo made the official gallery: http://mlb.mlb.com/bos/social/virtual_beard_gallery.jsp?transactionId=318226764

The Power Of Facial Hair

My Red Sox Beard

I have been wearing a beard since 1978, before then I only sported a mustache because that is all the facial hair I could have as a Naval Air Crewman. Beards prevented full sealing of the oxygen mask.

Nearly every guy on this year’s FRS team is sporting a beard and they come in a large variety styles and lengths. It started with a couple of the off season’s free agent signees in Spring Training and over the season has spread through the clubhouse like a zombie virus.

I’ve always kept my beard trimmed, but I want to help the guys in their quest to go from worst to first and hopefully beyond this year, so until the Red Sox season ends, be it being swept in the division series or winning the World Series in seven games, I won’t trim my beard (sideburns and mustache excluded.)

Lucky for Donna my beard isn’t very thick and doesn’t grow very fast, so I won’t end up looking like a member of the Duck Dynasty or ZZ Top.

Here’s A recent NY Times story on the bearded Bosox: Bonding With Beards, the Red Sox Repair Their Clubhouse Chemistry and the team also features many winners in Grantland’s Base-Beards (The 2013 MLB Beard Awards)

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1256

Reappearing Commercials

A couple weeks ago I tweeted, “With Gameday Audio from MLB during innings I hear the local commercials, but on MLB.TV any ads are blacked out. Why?”

I think I know why, Adblock Plus.

When you click on the link to open the video of the game it opens in a separate window and 99.9% of the time I’m using Firefox, which is my default browser. In FF I run the Adblock Plus add-on, but yesterday I tried watching the game using Internet Explorer with no Adblock and lo and behold I get to see the NESN’s commercials on MLBTV.

Normally I abhor commercials, but they are actually better than silence with this image showing for 2 to 3 minutes:
Commercial in Progress

The Holy Grail of Watching a Televised Red Sox Game Realized

After trying all kinds of shenanigans over the years to get it so I could watch the Red Sox on television and listen to the radio crew call the game, turns out it was available all along. No audio and or video delaying software required, all I had to do was subscribe to MLB.TV, install their NextDef add-in and that combination is right there for the selecting.

I don’t see it tonight, but last night I could select no audio and just have the stadium crowd noise while viewing the game. Tried it for a bit, and while interesting, I couldn’t do it. Maybe if I just watched the game instead of my usual internet surfing multitasking…

Better Than Being There

img_mlbtv_smWhen I went to check out the start time for last night Red Sox game on their home page I noticed a news item that said get the rest of the season of MLB.TV Premium for $19.95. I’m in, no more watching badly pixelated streams off of European servers…. The HD picture is awesome. Why bother paying all that money to actually go to a game?

Watched part of last night’s loss, but today and tomorrow I will not be able to use it the watch the FRS, seems that when the game is selected to be carried by FOX on Saturday it is unavailable for watching on MLB.TV. Even if the game you want is not being shown by your local FOX station. Sunday’s night game belongs of ESPN and the same deal applies. Luckily today’s Red Sox/Dodgers game was on my local FOX channel so I could watch it.

It seems like this thing is really geared for the fan of a team who he lives nowhere near, because there blackout restrictions to protect sports cable networks monetary interests. Fortunately I’m a fan of of a team that is a thousand miles away, because if I was an Atlanta Braves fan I’d be blacked out.