Play Ball!
The Splendid Splinter was my Dad's favorite.  Yaz was mine.  I enjoyed our 'heated' discussions about who was better.  Something about arguing with Dad just always felt like the right thing to do.  Fortunately, I remember these exchanges with great joy, as practice bouts where Dad was just letting me work some things out, because he has not over the years since reminded me of how many times I was wrong.  Sure, Yaz was my hero and a great player...but better than Ted Williams?  What was I thinking?


My brothers and I are hoping that Dad will join us for a couple a spring training games in Fort Myers next year.  Maybe we can also catch a Florida Gulf Coast basketball practice!

Openning Day is tomorrow at Yankee Stadium.  Jon Lester will start for the Sox and his spring ERA was less than one.  Papi is still out.  There are a few new faces.  But as the greatest Red Sox fan ever, Nanny, might have said:  'When the Sox win, we all win; when the Sox lose they stink.  Let's listen to the game on the radio with the TV sound off.'

So, my prediction this year (not that much different from last year, every year) is a Red Sox World Series title.  Lester and Buchholtz will finish one-two in the AL Cy Young Award voting.  Ellsbury will regain his five tool MVP contributions.  Middlebrooks will emerge as a feared power hitter.  The Blue Jays might win the East, with the Sox getting in as a wild card, but then it will be all Sox.