Boston Red Sox

I'm thrilled they won.
I think they will even be better next year. Sign Lowell.

I am also happy that it is finally over.
With spring training and the post season you are looking at 8 months.
I'm really looking forward to the break.

pjhawks wrote:

question for Red Sox fans - what do you think of Francona? Is he a great manager or a guy who has done a good job of getting out of the way and letting the talent win? with 2 series titles do you put him in the Torre, La Russa level of managers or just a guy who was in the right place at the right time? As a Phillies fan I'm intrigued to hear your answers since we ran him out of this town. Personally he did a terrible job here, but it was different circumstances and different time. Love to hear what the people who watch him all the time truly think of him.

I have the mlb package and have seen him when he managed both in Philly and in Boston. He is really loyal to his guys and never blames anyone for a mistake. He also keeps everything in house and protects his players from the media. In the regular season, he sometimes leaves pitchers in one or two too many batters to see what they're made of and that can be excruciating at times to watch. But in the post season, he rarely if ever left anyone in too long. He is just very laid back and has his team convinced to play at a one game at a time mentality. He managed the same way in Philly for the most part, but just didn't have the talent. Good players make managers look great and bad players make managers look bad.

That said, he is the ideal manager for the Red Sox. He's just very even keeled and keeps them focused on the game at hand instead of what the media is saying or what the fans are clamoring about. I think strategy wise he's an average to slightly above average manager, but in team dynamics and dealing with issues off the field he is one of the best and that's what you need to win in a big high pressure media market.

ryan198 wrote:

No...it's the Red Sox Nation crowd in general (note I said general not everyone in RSN is), the most outwardly racist and sexist fan community in American sports this side of the University of Mississippi and the media loves them...ugh.

you can say "in general" all you want ... but this is a bold statement with no fact behind it.

you want to talk about Boston of the past ... I'll give you there are certainly some racists moments in Boston sports (and non sports) history everyone would love to forget (most notably Jackie Robinson's tryout where someone yelled from the stands "Get that ni**er off the field!" ... supposedly one of Tom Yawkey's crew, maybe even Yawkey himself)

but ... red sox fans? outwardly racist & sexist? go on ... let's hear it ... how do you justify that statement?

pjhawks wrote:

still can't get over him not playing Scott Rolen on Scott Rolen day though when he was here. what a dumb ass move that was

He took the hit on that and protected Rolen. But Rolen had long scheduled that as one of his off days and neither of them had checked the promotions calendar. Much like when Manny had a scheduled off day in 06 with the Red Sox OF hurt, he let the player keep his off day and dealt with the consequences.

In the Phillies case, Francona got booed for months. In the Red Sox case, Francona played Youklis in left while Manny sat smiling in the dugout.

The thing is he wouldn't let his player take the hit and instead took the bullet himself.

Poncier wrote:

Especially the sexist part...the pink hats may be well over 50% now.

luckily, that craze hasn't swept the west coast yet ... maybe next year when we finally overtake the amount of A's fans in attandence at the Coliseum ... (now it's about 2/5 sox fans 3/5 A's fans at every sox v a's game.)

Solat13 wrote:

He took the hit on that and protected Rolen. But Rolen had long scheduled that as one of his off days and neither of them had checked the promotions calendar. Much like when Manny had a scheduled off day in 06 with the Red Sox OF hurt, he let the player keep his off day and dealt with the consequences.

In the Phillies case, Francona got booed for months. In the Red Sox case, Francona played Youklis in left while Manny sat smiling in the dugout.

The thing is he wouldn't let his player take the hit and instead took the bullet himself.

That's a true manager for ya.

Peace

WhiteMaleRat wrote:

anyone else think that Papelbon should have been the series MVP?

When he entered the game my thought was, if he saves game 4, he's MVP...if not and Colorado wins, Beckett will be MVP after game 5.

So yeah I thought he should have won it.

jimed14 wrote:

you can say "in general" all you want ... but this is a bold statement with no fact behind it.

you want to talk about Boston of the past ... I'll give you there are certainly some racists moments in Boston sports (and non sports) history everyone would love to forget (most notably Jackie Robinson's tryout where someone yelled from the stands "Get that ni**er off the field!" ... supposedly one of Tom Yawkey's crew, maybe even Yawkey himself)

but ... red sox fans? outwardly racist & sexist? go on ... let's hear it ... how do you justify that statement?

Dude I've been following Red Sox Nation around for my dissertation...I have a decent amount of video/photos/field notes which shows the fans of this team as being sexist (pink hat fans as a deragatory term), homophobic ('queer' and 'fag' being a huge part of New England humor), and yes racist (from the orientalism of wearing Dice-K bandanas, to hearing lots of people laughing at this guy outside of the Cask 'N Flagon saying "herro, herro" while mocking a Japanese TV crew, to the media and fans infantilizing Manny Ramirez ("Manny being Manny") even though by player accounts from Jim Thome to David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez is one of the most intelligent, hard working players there is and he's making fun of RSN every time he messes around. On top of that I have these articles from Torri Hunter (http://umpbump.com/press/tori-hunter-weighs-in-on-honoring-jackie-robinson/), Gary Matthews Jr. (http://www.rootzoo.com/threads/view/24011/)*, Michael Wilbon being inteveiewed by Bill Simmons, interviews with noted proffesors around the northeast, interviews with Shaughnessy, Cafardo, and others actually in the organization, the people who did Sox appeal, and they all say the same thing ... it's not gone. The racism is still there, and they can't do much about it.

What do I mean by that:
It's in the way that Robinson's #42 is emblanized in right field, despite the fact that he wasn't allowed to play for the Sox, it's in the way that into the late 80's the team was referred to as "the plantation", it's in the way that following the '86 World Series there was a race riot on UMass-Amherst's campus, or the way Sox fans called Jim Rice "Uncle Ben", or chanted "you're not Irish" to Troy O'Leary, the way Sox fans cheer louder for "great white hopes" like Jason Varitek, Dustin Padroia, and Kevin Youkilis, the former and latter that both sucked last year but Manny Ramirez who absolutely carried the team with David Ortiz got the blame for 'tanking the season' after he took September off, it's in the way that you could get little Japanese drums with Dice-K (that's not how you pronounce his last name by the way that was a marketing scheme) printed on it, its in the way that in one Boston Globe commentary this year a writer said that he was going into Fenway when a little kid road by on a bike (he was black), and someone entering the game with him said "go steal a radio" and the crowd around him laughed. I've got more if you want it, I'm just starting to write this thing.

*that's not the full article but it has some of the quotes the Boston media conveniently cut out.

ryan198 wrote:

I don't hate the Sawx per se, my fiancee is from Scituate, MA, and I was happy for her and her family, it's the New England mentality that bothers me. As you can see above I'm pretty sure I know a bit about what I'm talking about.

I didn't know New England had a "mentality." Where have I been for the past 22 years?

1STmammal2wearPants wrote:

I didn't know New England had a "mentality." Where have I been for the past 22 years?

Shaughnessy had an article breaking down the general demographic of each sports teams fans last year in July. Generally Red Sox fans, at least that go to games, are white (95% whatever white means), college educated (67%), and middle-upper class. Thus there is a general level of (un)spoken white privilege that goes on in the New England area, that doesn't often get talked about, and my dissertation is an attempt to generate a discussion about that.