FRS

It’s Playoff Time

Last month I abandoned my plan of watching the 2018 World Series Champion Red Sox season all over again and jumped ahead three months for fear that MLB was going to actually have a 2020 season.

Because I jumped ahead and started skipping off days, I finished watching the season 3 months and a week early. Today’s game watched was number 162 in which we beat our hated rivals the MFY, 10 to 2, to finish out the season with 108 wins against 54 losses.

There’s a saying in baseball – every team knows they’re going to win 54 games and lose 54 games. It’s what they do with the other 54 games that counts. What the 2018 FRS did was to actually win all those other 54…

The first Red Sox playoff game happened 5 days after the season ended while they waited the results of the one game Wild Card Playoff between those dreaded Yankees and the Oakland A’s. I seem to remember that it does end up being the Yankees they play in the Division Series, I’m not sure if it is Cleveland or Houston in the ACLS, but I do know that they beat the LA Dodgers in the World Series, I’m just not sure how many games each series goes. This should be exciting.

I also know that we won’t be waiting 5 days to start watching the playoffs. The American League Division Series starts tomorrow.

It’s August in May

So, 3-1/2 weeks ago I started reliving the the 2018 Boston Red Sox World Championship season. I down loaded the schedule from that year in CSV (comma separated value) format and edited the year from 2018 to 2020 so I could import it into my Google calendar. I also changed the start times to 6:30 AM because, so far, almost all of the games have been watched with, or after, breakfast.

I was not sure when “real” baseball would return for 2020, or if ever, so I planned to just keep watching 2018 games on the day they occurred all the way through the World Series in October. This was assuming that MLBTV would keep offering free access to their archives. I was also basing this assumption on that they wouldn’t be playing baseball in 2020 at all, because I’m sure if they did, access to the 2018 archive would disappear.

This past Sunday I read an article in the paper that they are proposing to start an 82 game season on the 4th of July weekend. Uh, oh! The regular season ended on September 30th, so now I probably need to finish watching the season by June 30th. This morning I edited my CSV file by eliminating three month’s worth of games. Today’s game I watched was an inter-league game against the Philadelphia Phillies and originally played on August 14, 2018.

The downside to jumping ahead 3 full months and MLB does shut off my access when they start playing ball in July is that I won’t see any of the playoff games. The final World Series game was played on the 26th of October, so to see these games I would have to had jumped ahead 4 months and that would left only 2 weeks worth of regular season games. I do remember that they beat the MFY in the Divisional Series, the Astros in the ACLS and the Dodgers in the World Series, but I don’t know how many games it takes in each of those match ups. If the 2020 season doesn’t start in early July or they don’t shut off access to the archive I’ll watch those games.

Living in the Recent Past

With the 2020 Major League Baseball season on hold, possibly forever, MLBTV has opened up the 2018 & 2019 archives for viewing. Because I am subscribed to MLB Audio and my $20 yearly subscription was automatically renewed on the 1st of March I can watch any of the approximately 4,800 games, regular and post-season, from the last 2 years. From what I can find, this treat is available to all users. You may have to create an MLB account, which if I know these guys they will require a credit card and this will mean that if they do start the season, they will probably hit your card and sign you up for $100 package.

Having exhausted all the Brit TV we could stand, MLBTV becomes a perfect TV time waster in these times of #stayonyourcouchtoflattenthecurveandsavelives. So, I figured it would be cool to watch a Red Sox game a day, on the date the game was played. Well, guess which which season I’m going to pick? A) Last year, 2019, where the Sox finished just 6 games over .500 in third place in the division, 19 games behind the Yankees or B) 2018 when they won the division by 5 games and ended up winning the World Series. No-brainer huh?

Yesterday’s game was the finale of a 3 game shellacking of the Angels in the their home stadium where the FRS outscored them 27 to 3 to move their won/loss record to 16-2. For all of the entire 2019 season, I remember about this April series and the fact that they won the Worlds Series, everything else will be “new” to me.

Truck Day +1

The truck left Boston,MA yesterday and is headed for Fort Meyers, FL.
Inside is:
20,400 baseballs
1,100 bats
200 batting gloves
200 batting helmets
320 BP tops
160 jerseys
300 pairs of pants
400 t-shirts
400 pairs of socks
20 cases of bubble gum
60 cases of sunflower seeds

I hope none of that belongs to Mookie Betts or David Price, that stuff needs to go to Glendale, AZ.

Hey, Where Ya Been?

I’ve been here, just one part busy, one part watching TV and one part not feeling like writing anything.

Turns out I wasn’t the savior the Red Sox needed. I watched half a game on ESPN then listened to the other half a game and they lost. I listened to a game and they won. I didn’t listen to two games and they won one and lost the other. Since the last time I posted they have played .500 ball, which if that trend continues probably won’t get them in the playoffs, but it may keep them from finishing last.

I have been re-watching some of my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks. Not because I’m anxiously awaiting the next Avengers movie, but more because everyone is talking about them. There are a ton of lists online how to watch all of them in order to prepare yourself to watch Avengers: Endgame. There are 21 movies released so far and I was surprised to realize that I had copies of more than half of them. Growing up I was a fan of both the Iron Man and Captain America comic books, so I have the movies with those guys in the titles. I was a casual Thor reader too, so I have those three flicks. The first Ant Man movies struck the right cord with me, so I got the second one too. Never knew of the Guardians of the Galaxy but the first movie was fun, so I picked up the second one as well. I haven’t re-watched it yet and I may not because if I recall correctly I didn’t like it as much as the first. But then again, I am a sucker for origin stories and so far I have liked the first movie of the hero’s series more than any of the followups.

Not just watching movies either. I went back and re-binge watched Season 1 of Killing Eve because Season 2 started last Sunday night and I wanted to remember what went on. I also re-binge watched Season 1 of Fleabag because Season 2 is coming to America soon.

Add on top of that, Donna and I spent nearly 32 hours over 4 days this past weekend sitting on the screened porch watching golf on TV. Neither one of us golfs and we don’t watch it any other time of the year, but, because we have actually trod the hallowed grounds of Augusta National, every year for the first week of April we become fans and watch The Masters. Thank heaven for masters.com where you can watch practically the whole tournament commercial free. You just need to select “featured groups” and they follow 2 groups over the whole 18 holes and when they finish you get 2 more groupings.

We also managed to sneak in a couple of short Moss Motoring Challenge trips locally. We snagged 5 on Saturday morning and 3 yesterday afternoon.

I Found The Problem With The Red Sox

A week ago I was worried that they were going to repeat the first-to-worst trip they took in 2014. That feeling continued. By Saturday they had gone from 1-3 to 2-8!

They have been playing on the west coast, so I haven’t really had an opportunity to listen to a game. Finally, today, they had an afternoon game in Arizona that we listened to while on the porch. They won the game!

Ergo, because I listened, they won. So, now, all I have to do is listen to every game for the rest of the season and they will finish with 154 wins and only 8 losses.