Stop the (Day Game) Insanity!

I have a theory about Boston's current streak of sucktastitude, their 4 and 9 start, their 5 game losing streak, their 1 and 6 home record, their 3 for their last 10, and it has nothing to do with voodoo like team slumps or lack of gelling or anything crazy like that. No, the real problem is a preponderance of day games.

Bear with me, I have a half serious theory on this one.

Six out of the first thirteen games took place during the day (including some weekend games), which was fun for me because it meant I got to listen to baseball at work, but seems to have been absolutely awful for the Sox, because they lost most of them. They even lost the Patriots' Day game - where the Sox have the advantage because that game is so bloody early - and lost it so badly that Paul Revere is probably still spinning in his grave from shock. And besides coincidence, here's why day games matter: strong defense requires stealth, and stealth cannot be accomplished without the dark of night. Unlike our Baltimorean neighbors in the standings, the Red Sox are not a .300 team; it'll just take a few less day games to start that climb back to respectability.

No Sushi For You, Mr. Selig

Edit: Oh good, the idiocy has been resolved. Early drinking is still on!

Through fortuitous circumstances, I have next week off, so I was planning on reliving my college years by drinking my breakfast and watching baseball from Japan at six in the morning in a bar (note that only one of those things actually happened in college) when the Sox start the season against the A's on Tuesday. Except now that might not be happening, because Major League Baseball isn't going to be paying the coaches the $40,000 stipend they'd allegedly promised them for making the trip, and the players are threatening to boycott the trip. Two thoughts about this choice PR fiasco:

1. Major League Baseball is in super awesome profit mode right now, as a quick news search will reveal. Are they really going to screw a fairly small group of people out of a comparatively small amount of money, especially when they're forcing those people to go on a trip that really only benefits Major League Baseball and - hopefully - Japanese fans? I mean, come on now, MLB: the players and staffs of two teams flying thousands of miles to act as ambassadors for major league American baseball - you know, the institution you control with an iron fist covered with hundred dollar bills - going on a trip that will inconvenience many of their fans and quite possibly throw the entire first part of their season out of whack, and you don't have the courtesy to make it worth their while? That's corporate asshattery of the worst kind, and hats off to the players for calling it for what it is.
2. To the numerous douchebags who are calling the coaches selfish for wanting the money and the players idiots for backing them: are you serious? You're really going to tell the people who have the toughest jobs in the sport - and make far less money than everyone else - that they don't deserve the money from a corporate parent who can afford that small monetary drop in the bucket many times over? Yes, these guys still make far more than the average joe, but saying they're being whiny over money is retard logic; adjust the relative pay scales in your head so it fits your position and you'll hopefully get why not paying them to go - especially after you've promised to do so - makes Major League Baseball the selfish ones.
   

A Coming Sign of the Apocalypse

Robin and I joked yesterday that we weren't going to write anything big or make any jokes about Clemens signing with the Yankees ("I thought Clemens said he wanted to sign with a team that was in contention?") but then I opened up the Globe sports section, my "damn, I hate stupid people" mental alarm went off and now I'm up on my soapbox. Here's what's grinding my gears: the Globe is running poll asking whether or not the Sox messed up by not offering Roger the Dodger more than a prorated $18 million to pitch in the 2007 season. Out of the 10,415 people who had voted, only a paltry 1,094 (10.5 percent) said no, the Sox did not drop the ball by not offering the world's most famous merc a king's ransom to pitch. In other words, there are 9,321 (89.5 percent) people out there who have some serious explaining to do, lest I smack them upside the head with a defunct Red Sox Nation member's card, tied to a brick.

Why Eric, you may be saying, that's the sort of foaming-at-the-mouth crazy we'd expect from Robin, not you. Well, here's my problem: I hate it when people act like star-struck morons. Yes, for all of his personality issues, Roger Clemens is one of the greatest pitchers to throw a baseball; a man whose lifetime ERA+ (144) and 2006 VORP (42.1) put him among the top tier of current pitchers, no matter what age. But there are three things that Red Sox fans are forgetting when they vote "yes" to assign blame to their team:

1. Age may finally be catching up to the Rocket. Baseball Prospectus puts his projected 2007 VORP at 28.3, which puts him in the same league as leading lights like Javier Vazquez and Freddy Garcia. VORP projections can be inaccurate - Josh Beckett is almost certainly pitching better than his projected 27.5 VORP right now - but there's no way Boston should overpay for an elderly pitcher with third spot in the rotation potential.
   
2. Have you seen our pitching staff? Who would Clemens replace? Schilling and Beckett are solid as rocks. Matsuzaka has some problems, but they're surmountable and he's not going anywhere anyway. Getting rid of Wakefield is an unthinkable sacrilege that would cause the computer sending the transfer request to burst into flames on the spot and by the numbers (lack of run support and all), Wakefield is still the best pitcher in the rotation. JT Killer is the fifth spot wildcard, but guess what? We've got Jon Lester gunning for his position in the wings and he's already paid for!
3. Curt Schilling. After playing second fiddle for years, Schilling has been solo in the top spot since Pedro left in 2004, growing into the elder statesman role that caresses his ego like Dr. Evil stroking Mr. Bigglesworth. Bring on another older power pitcher in a different year and there would be an acceptable level of friction (say, the level of competition between Schilling and Johnson in 2001); do it today and I think you just end up pissing Schilling off because he'll feel knocked off his perch.
   

Psychologist Says Fans are of Two Minds During Sporting Events

According to an article in the Washington Post (helpfully reprinted on the subscription-free Nashuatelegraph.com), a psychologist named Emily Pronin administered a questionnaire during Superbowl XXXIX (aka The Last Time The Patriots Won) to a group of 58 Eagles fans watching the game on a big-screen TV. During the game, the questions centered on how much attention the fans were paying to the game. Afterwards, Pronin had one last question: "How responsible did the person feel for Philadelphia’s defeat?"

According to Pronin, her study found that people have a tendency to believe that things they do can have magical effects over other, entirely separate events - like fans believing that following certain rituals or yelling at the TV will influence the course of events on the field. All of this research is probably true, but I could have told you that in five minutes, with one very simple anecdote.

In 2004, as some of you may remember, the Red Sox won the World Series after a trip through the ALCS so harrowing that it probably cost me several years of my life. At the end of Game 5, which was probably the climax of the madness, Robin, my then roommate Ryan and I all stood, smacking our hands against our thighs like we were banging mystic baseball-season-saving drums, because that was the only thing that would make Big Papi get a hit. And you know what? Everyone in Fenway was doing it, too. And you know what else? Papi got the hit that won the game on the tenth pitch of the at-bat. What does this prove? Sports fans are absolutely, complete and totally 100% crazy because we think that banging an improvised drum made a man hit a ball with a piece of wood. Holy crap am I excited for a new baseball season.

Via Deadspin; Pronin has her own take on the subject here.