They’ll be ego free when he stops saying “I learned this” and “he told me.” Take out the first-person stuff and just report.

And enough with the sucking up. It’s one thing to not be negative, another to have your lips secured to the players’ butts.

The Sox have a few interesting draft-and-follows this year, including 11th-round pick Brandon Belt, a promising LHP out of Texas. But this is the last year for draft-and-follows, because the new CBA requires all draft picks to be signed by mid-August of their draft year, or they go back into the hopper.

Couple questions:
Since Manny was not present for most of the fitness portion of ST, have you been able to discern the shape he is in? He has a reputation of a good personal routine, but I haven’t heard how he looks so far this session.

You breifly mentioned the rule change to promote less time between pitches (20 secs down to 12). Have you heard any thoughts or opinions on this? Is it an actual rule, or more of a guideline?

Thanks, again!

You are quickly setting the standard Rob! Keep up the great work!

Good stuff, as always … cross-promotion (also known as “pimping” in the blog world) is a time-honored tradition, so don’t be shy.

Finally, a real point: it seems like Wily Mo Pena at first base would be a really useful thing moving forward with Lowell on his last year and no top corner IFs in the system, and yet the Sox haven’t really tried it since a brief experiment in … I don’t remember where. Was the experience watching him at first so horrible and traumatizing that they don’t even want to make the attempt again?