It’s been a busy year and I haven’t been able to catch as many Red Sox games as I would have liked. Granted, the urgency has been diminished by two championships in the last four years after a near century of long-suffering from close calls and dramatic second-place denouements. The championship in 2004, which broke the slump, was highly cathartic and wonderfully expressed by this surprisingly sympathetic and understanding Nike (NKE) commercial. I cry every time I watch it. Since that 2004 campaign, I’ve watched the franchise grow in sophistication. …

Spring training has arrived – hard to believe that I’ll get to watch my Red Sox play for games that count in a couple months. The team has a good chance to improve on last year’s championship season because of the infusion of youth that Theo Epstein and his Ivy League staff are ushering in. Of course, old superstars like Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz will continue to carry the team. But, with Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia, and Clay Buchholz projected to play major roles, the team seems …

As a Boston Red Sox fan (a long-suffering, loyal fan I might add), I’ve watched nervously Gary Sheffield‘s at-bats against my favorite team. Ever since moving over from the National League, he’s been a threatening presence at the plate against my boys from Boston, especially when he played for the hated New York Yankees. Only after John Henry, a wealthy hedge fund manager, bought the Red Sox and instilled a philosophy of scientific management based on sabermetrics did the Fenway Faithful enjoy the team’s recent dominance over the …