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Dear Rob,
I am a Gloucester resident who has always enjoyed and admired your sportswriting for our local paper.

I am also a Red Sox fan and wanted to tell you that we were in Fort Myers last week (while in Florida during February Vacation Week), and that we were pretty disgusted. If you are within driving distance of Fort Myers and think you might want to pop over and see your heroes, it is a game of chance. The Spring Training website is lousy. It prints no updated-daily info at all. The directions to the park from Interstate 75 are out-of-date, suggesting an exit number that no longer exists (the exits were renumbered years ago, sheesh!). If you call, there is no answer. So, you get in your car and go. When you get to City of Palms Park, you discover that (1) the training is not there after all…it is down the road a few miles. You can pay a few bucks for a wristband and ride a coach bus to the practice fields. IF there is a practice. (2) if you choose to stay at the park, they are happy to open the gift shop and charge you heavily for souvenirs.
Thanks for coming by, fans, but the team is done for the day/out at a golf tournament. Why don’t you come on into our gift shop and open your wallets?

Oh yes…you can take a park tour. This takes about 20 minutes. The highlight is sending your kids down into the Sox dugout to let them pretend to call the bullpen. Or viewing the seat that belongs to Stephen King. Or finding out, as our tour guide told us, all the prices: $12 tickets, $24 tickets, very expensive “season tickets”. How about a pricey chair you can buy and sit in, in a designated area, but only use once? (If you were to bring it to another game, they would try to sell you another one.)

We are used to the Red Sox prices being out-of-sight at Fenway, but our visit to City of Palms Park was bitterly disappointing.

Gone are the days when kids, or adults, can watch a practice and get an autograph.

The team’s cavalier attitude and greed towards its fans is disgusting. Shame on the Sox.

Sincerely,
Teri Dunn

Yeah , hey Rob big fan. Can you tell me how I can adopt one of those cute kitty cats that are homeless?

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Teri,

The Sox are becoming what everyone around here hates…the Yankees. It is all about money now. The Sox care about their bottom line. They are going to bleed the money out of us until the obtain enough money to pay for Dice-K. Baseball isn’t baseball anymore. It is all about money. But they won’t tell you this. They pump this “David Ortiz is God,” “Dice-K is the best pitcher” due to the fact that they want to suck you in. The Red Sox have been a joke since winning the World Series, but nobody will ever dare go against John Henry like they go George Steinbrenner. It would be sacralige to do againt the pale money hungry old man. I wish more people would see this!

THANK YOU, Anonymous, for validating my feelings about the Sox.

My baseball money is going to Portland, Maine (Hadlock Field) and Pawtucket (McCoy), where the seats are good and cheap, and the baseball is played like the game matters.

I wonder if our man Rob, or any other sportswriter, will dare address what is happening.

Sincerely,
Teri, A Disgruntled Fan

Teri,

I wish they would, but they won’t. If a writer has something bad to say about the Sox then the risk losing their media credential for the year. It’s a sad truth. But your telling me there isn’t one writer unhappy with what they do? But Luchino, Henry and Werner own with fear, so these guys have to pretend it is the Good Ship Lollipop each day. So sad. I’m a Met’s fan from Queens who used to live in Boston and can tell you I’m much happy now reading the NY papers than I was reading the Boston newspapers. They tell it like it is, not like how they are told it has to be. It is refreshing!

Baseball is played like the game matters? Like MLB players don’t play that way? Give me a break.

//Gone are the days when kids, or adults, can watch a practice and get an autograph.//

Then who are all those people at spring training cheering the players and getting autographs? Friends and relations?

//It is all about money now.//

The first time that line was uttered was in 1869, when the Cincinnati Redlegs had the gall to pay their players. The demise of “true” baseball was widely predicted.

//The Sox care about their bottom line.//

If you want the Sox to win, they’ve got to spend money. If you don’t want to pay guys like Schilling, Ortiz and Beckett, somebody else will.

Perhaps in some dream world, baseball games are free and ballplayers pass the hat at ballgames to cover travel expenses. But we live in the real world. You’d better get used to it, or you’re going to go through life consistently pissed off.

Hi Rob-

Looks like the main concern will continue to be the closer situation since Pineiro hasn’t done anything to prove that he is any different a pitcher than what we saw in Seattle. I’m wondering, how come no one is talking about Lester as a viable option? Have you heard his name tossed around at all? Now THAT would be an incredible story. Enjoying the blog.

-Ian

Just a comment on Lester – the kid’s been a starter his entire baseball life. He has worked in relief a handful of times in the minors and in spring training, and he was worse than terrible. He was AWFUL. Even in ST, when he knew he was coming in for a couple of innings well before the fact.

Sorry I haven’t got the stats to hand (Rob could probably look them up), but I recall seeing that info last year when somebody else asked that very same question on another site.

“Luchino, Henry and Werner own with fear”

What on earth does that even mean? Have you heard of one employee being fired for crossing the organization? There were plenty of columns critical of the team and the ownership when Theo left. THe CHB writes a piece slamming the team or an owner or a player every other week when the wind direction shifts.

If you don’t want to pay the crazy prices at Fenway, that’s your prerogative. But don’t pretend that John Henry is really Snidely Whiplash, stroking his handlebar mustache and muttering, “The fools! The fools!” ever time the turnstiles click.

I guess we now know the answer to, “What will Sox fans have to complain about when they win the World Series?”

All I’m saying is we should not jump on the Yankees everytime they buy someone. The Red Sox do the same thing. They are No. 2 in payroll this season and overspent for Dice-K. People always say “Thank God we are not the Yankees” but the Sox are becoming the Yankees more and more each year. They will always be a good club due to the fact they have money to spend. That is why the Royals and Devil Rays will never be good teams. They don’t have the cash. Also, I can tell you first hand that it is cheaper to take your family to a Mets or Yankees game now than it is a Red Sox game. The parking is on the cheap, you can get decent seats (especially for the Mets) at lower rates and the food prices are on the same level (Yankee Stadium is a bit over priced)
All these scribes love to write about what they see on the field (It’s their job right?) but I just wish someone would give us a cost break down in the paper and would admit that the Red Sox now fall into the same category as the Mets and Yankees. Let the truth be told!

– Guy from Queens

It isn’t very surprising that the seats and parking are cheaper in NYC for a number of reasons, and shouldn’t be held against the sox.

1) Fenway can hold about 17,000 less people than Shea Stadium, and about 20,000 less than Yankee Stadium.

2) Unlike Yankee StaDium and Shea Stadium where there is ample parking surrounding the stadiums, Fenway is in the center of a city built long before parking would be an issue making it very expensive.

I for one would rather pay a little extra and go to less games than have the sox play anywhere else. So before you go around claiming the sox are a bunch of money grubbing theives, think about why things are the way they are.

In addition, I’d like to say that at times its hard to find an article that doesn’t criticize the sox brass. Granted its usually when tings aren’t going well for the team, but it isn’t fair to compare the front office to a fascist dictatorship.

To the grumbling fans: These cost/money issues have been addressed in the media. This is nothing new. The Red Sox have been oft criticized for trying to get a buck any way they can. (They sold pieces of Fenway turf, for God’s sake, and they were well-beaten up for it.) Why do you think Henry bought into a NASCAR team? why do you think they put seats on the Monster on the right field roof?

The burgeoning payroll also has been addressed. I think the front office has decided that the Sox cannot compete with the Yankees unless they spend like the Yankees. And this ownership group said when it purchaed the team that it would not be bullied by the Yankees’ fat wallet.
And here’s my take — While I for years have complained about the Yankees payroll, and now cover my eyes at the Red Sox payroll (yes, I am embarrassed by it), there is one fact that must be acknowledged: The Yankees spent the money because they could, and I agree with them. It’s GS’s money, and if he wants to have a big payroll, then he can have a big payroll. The rules allow him to do so.
Is it unfair? Yes. Because not all owners have that much money and revenue sources (MSG Network). But it is just as unfair to tell an owner with a fat wallet that he cannot spend his money on his team as he chooses.
Want to know what’s less fair? The fact that owners in the so-called smaller markets have been receiving payments in the revenue-sharing plan and have NOT spent that money on the team. They have pocketed it instead. (Royals, anyone?) Now THAT’s worse than the bloated payroll.
If this payroll issue is going to change, it is up to the players union to agree to a salary cap. MLB is the only pro sport that does not have a salary cap.

To Teri:
The game was priced out of the common man’s pocketbook years ago. The Red Sox are not the only team that does this. That’s baseball now. In fact, that’s all sports: NHL, NFL, NBA, NASCAR. I don’t like it either, but don’t single out one specific team.
Thanks for letting me vent.

Rob, I know it’s spring training, and early in spring training at that, but how concerned should I be about the bullpen?
I’ll again ask a question I asked earlier that was not answered:
how likely are the Red Sox to return to the closer-by-committee plan they tried in 2003?
I, for one, think it might be worth a revisit. I believe the reason it failed that year was because of the quality of pitcher they were trotting out, not the plan.

“If a writer has something bad to say about the Sox then the risk losing their media credential for the year.”

This is utter BS. Read Shaugnessy or Buckley; listen to the radio guys. There’s plenty of criticism, and nobody loses their credentials.

Really, stick to something you know about.