Red Sox fans in Ireland brace for game six of the World Series

Ireland is home to a surprising number of baseball fans, many of whom root for the Boston Red Sox. We caught up with a few of them ahead of game 6 of the World Series between Boston and St Louis.

The Boston Red Sox in action

People outside of the Unites States often scoff at the title ‘World Series’. Their sarcastic bluster is based on a perception that seeing as it is only North American teams participating, it shouldn’t be called the ‘World’ series. These contrarians are missing a couple of simple, subtle points. First of all, the players that take part in the games are genuinely from all over the World. Major League Baseball today is a multicolored collage of players from all around the World. Secondly, the appeal of the Series, and the game of baseball, is now strong all around the World. Yes, even in Europe.

The Irish national baseball team, for example, has played in stadiums all across Europe, from Hull in the UK, to Karlovac in Croatia, to Stockerau in Austria and Regensberg in Germany. If you are not familiar with it, the strength of the game of baseball in Europe would surprise you.

The World Series obviously holds a particular allure, and tonight’s game 6 is no different. Ireland, with its close ties to Boston, is home to a surprisingly large group of Red Sox fans, all of whom are waiting nervously for tonight’s first pitch. Yes, despite the 12:30 am GMT starting time over here in Dublin!

We caught up with a few of these Red Sox fans ahead of tonight’s showdown.

Mark Treacy, a 17 year old student from Wicklow town, in county Dublin, follows the games on MLB TV, the MLB website itself and occasionally on Boston.com. he has managed to watch every single World Series game, and a few of the playoff games before that, particularly the day time games US time, which are at a very reasonable time here in the GMT zone!

Mark thinks the latest he was up (to watch a 2013 playoff games) was 5 am, although he was so tired he didn’t remember fully. The reason he’s able to watch all the World Series games? He’s on a school vacation!

His answer to Red Sox playoff related exhausting syndrome (RSPRES), simply sleep it off (oh to be a student again)!

His favourite moments of the World Series so far have been the big Gomes home run and the Uehara game ending pickoff.

Garret Pearse, a  42 year old Information Technology executive from Wicklow, has been a Red Sox fan all his life, and has been to many games at Fenway Park. He is also a pitcher on the Irish B League Championship winning Dublin Hurricanes. He uses MLB.TV for all the games, usually on his iPhone with the headphones in and the duvet over his head, like a bold child trying not to be caught. Garret is a die-hard Sox fan and has only missed one or two of the 2013 playoff games, and those he followed on his phone. He figures the latest he was up was probably last Saturday’s game 4, which ended somewhere around the 5 am mark! As he said himself; ‘’I still haven't figured out what time I really got to bed!’’. When asked how he manages work the next day, he answered; ‘’ Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.’’ His favourite moments of the World Series so far? Shane Victorino’s and  Big Papi’s grand slams and Jon Lester’s big game 5 win.

Peter Kavanagh, 29, the Information & Networking Officer at Active Retirement Ireland is from Clondalkin in Dublin. He has a tried and tested method for following the Sox; ‘’ I listen in to WEEI until my mind and body shut down and tell my heart to go to sleep. The next morning I watch the condensed game on mlb.com’’

A busy man with a schedule that would make President Obama blush, Peter is doing his best this playoff run; ‘’ I'm not catching them all live, but I'm devouring everything about them the morning after. Highlights, interviews, analysis, you name it.’’ Peter is not finding it easy to last the whole way through the games this time round; ‘’ During the '04 World Series, I was in college, so it was a regular occurrence to watch the entire game, then make some tea and head straight to class. I can't sleep in work as easily as I slept in German Lit. 201, so I call it a night about 4amthis time round.’’

Of course the flip side of this is, unlike many other Irish Red Sox fans, Peter is a fully functional cog in work the next day. How is he combating Red Sox playoff related exhausting syndrome (RSPRES)? ‘’ I have spent the guts of a World Series ticket on coffee in a wonderful little café on Capel St in Dublin. It's called Brother Hubbard and their excellent caffeine and friendly staff are possibly the only reason I haven't gone postal on all my colleagues.’’ An avid baseball fan and super intelligent human being, Peter naturally has an interesting take on the best moments of the 2013 World Series thus far; "

It's all about Papi, but it's not about him having the best World Series of any first baseman or DH ever, or his token effort to join the Beard Gang. It's the singles he legged out in games four and five. When Ortiz is hustling along the basepaths, you know this is a team that will fight to the last out.’’

Adam Murray, aged 30, from Stoneybatter in Dublin, is another disciple of the Church of MLB.TV. He watches is either on apple TV or on his laptop. In terms of this playoff run, Adam describes his viewership as such; ‘’ I've watched the start of all the games at least. The Spirit has been willing, but the body has been weak,’’. In fairness to Adam, he has put in the long hours before. He remembers going to bed at 6 am after the Red Sox bitter loss to Baltimore at season’s end. The Sox clearly owe him one this time around! Adam is another coffee addict, at least during the Sox playoff journeys. His answer to RSPRES? ‘’ Fresh air, water, adrenaline and smugness.’’. Adam’s favourite moments of the 2013 World Series thus far? ‘’ Everytime Big Papi swings his bat, and Koji's game ending pick off in Game 4’’

The above is just a small sample, you would probably be shocked at the depth, intensity and also baseball-intelligence of the fans over here in Ireland.

Now we just have to root out a Cardinals fan or two to tell their side of the story….

Rarefied atmosphere: Jon Lester’s dominant World Series run continues

The Red Sox ace leads his team to a 3-1 win over the Cardinals with as dominant a World Series outing as you are likely to see. Lester’s career World Series, and indeed playoff, statistics are out of this world.

Red Sox ace Jon Lester

There is still plenty of baseball yet to play in this 2013 World Series. We have seen pretty much everything and anything the wonderfully unpredictable sport of baseball can throw at us at this juncture. Game-ending pick-offs and game-ending pedantic rule-book type calls. A couple of juicy plays in the field, a couple of big bombs and some dynamic, overpowering pitching. St Louis sends their nominal ace, Michael Wacha, to the mound tomorrow night in Boston and he alone is very capable of keeping the series alive. The bookies might be calling Boston the prohibitive betting favorite, however those who have seen enough of the 2013 playoffs know, this one is not over by a long shot.

The teams are traveling to Boston today, and this gives us a chance to pause and recognize what is fast becoming the absolutely glowing playoff resume of Boston’s combative, regal ace, Jon Lester.

Last night the Cardinals as if played game six as was their remit, what Dennis Eckersley might call a have-to-have-it type game. With Adam Wainwright on the hill and their red-clad, white towel waving fans behind them, they wanted game 5 bad, and it showed. Standing in front of them, a thin grey road jersey line called Jon Lester. Red Sox fans know when Lester is on, and indeed when he is off. He has had some issues the last couple of seasons, not enough to derail what has been a truly splendid career to date, but enough to get the knuckle heads on Twitter vomiting out garbage like ‘Lester, ace? Give me a break!’ after a poor start.

During a handful of admittedly poor starts, by his lofty standards, Lester ‘nibbled’ like Daisuke Matsuzaka at his worst. His body language was at best, poor, and his strikes-to-balls ratio was awful. There’s no doubt Lester would admit there were a few starts that would have had Red Sox fans wincing, as fastball after fastball was overthrown perhaps, and dragged out of the strike zone.

Lester is a terrifically hard worker, however, and anyone who has followed his career to date noticed his much improved performances as the playoffs came close. The competitive monster dwelling deep inside Lester’s heart was obviously roused, and eager to show baseball what it could do on the big stage.

The fact is, historically, there are very few Major League Baseball pitchers who have achieved what Lester has done under the brightest lights of all.

Last night was no exception.

Lester absolutely pounded the strike zone all night long, not letting up at all, driving the Red Sox past the Cardinals, completely abusing the lower half of the Cardinals order in particular. The big lefty gave up just the one run (on a lazy fastball that the Cardinal’s Holliday knew exactly what to do with) and a stingy 4 hits, along with seven, often emphatic, strikeouts.

In two World Series games against Lester, over 15.1 innings total, the Cardinals have managed a grand total of one run.

This means that Lester has now started 3 World Series games, winning all of them, and he has allowed 1 solitary run over 21 innings total.

1 run in 21 World Series Innings.

As ‘The Stranger’ in The Big Lebowski says;

"..sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there."

Get your World Series tickets! Only $96,000 each!

Tickets to Game one of the World Series at Fenway Park, between the Boston Red Sox and the St Louis Cardinals are available at $96,000. Please note you are currently limited to a maximum of 24. If you could have your $2.3 million ready before you click 'Buy', that would be great.

The Red Sox are contesting the World Series
starting Wednesday night

The World Series starts Wednesday in Boston, and the home town Red Sox are marginal favorites to take their third title since 2004. Should a body fancy attending this potentially momentous event, the super great news is that there are approximately 2,000 tickets available for the game, mostly through re-sellers such as StubHub.

Plenty of World Series tickets available

The slightly less great news is that the tickets are selling for around the $96,000 mark.

Let's let that sink in for a second.

$96,000.

$96,000 tickets

We have contacted StubHub to ask if anyone actually purchases tickets that cost just a shade below $100,000, we will update this post when and if they reply.

In the meantime, brother, can you spare a dime, or $96,000?


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Will Ferrell presents Dodgers Lineup before NLCS Game 5

Saturday Night Live comedian turned movie superstar gives his take on the Dodgers lineup. Spoiler alert: It's hilarious.

Will Ferrell yucks it up with the Dodgers pre game

The Dodgers might want to make this 'a thing'. Prior to their crucial, win-or-go-home National League Championship game 5 last night against the Cardinals, comedian Will Ferrell presented the Dodgers lineup.

Needless to say, it was pretty funny.




Obviously, having the big guy read the lineups out worked from a sports karma perspective, with the Dodgers scoring a crucial win in the series. Game 6 is Friday night in St Louis, and the Dodgers have Clayton Kershaw and his .047 post season era on the hill.

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Is President Obama preventing Rob Gronkowski from playing for Patriots?

Group releases documentation they say proves the President is the force keeping the Patriots star off the field of play.

Is Obama behind Gronk's inactivity?

The New England Patriots dramatic comeback win over the Saints on Sunday last has been overshadowed somewhat by the drama surrounding the return to action of Tight End Robert Gronkowski. ‘Gronk’ missed his sixth straight game on Sunday, resulting in thousands of calls to sports talk radio from irate Boston area callers, demanding to know what the hold-up was.

A shroud of mystery has hovered over Gronkowski’s inability to play so far this season, while he recovers from offseason arm and back surgeries. The main problem would appear to be that everyone linked to the big Tight End would appear to be indicating that either he is ready to play, or they are okay with him waiting until he is ready. Thus the question, where’s this ‘problem’ that the sporting media are referring to?

Starting with the team itself, Tom Brady has gone on record to say ‘I don’t think there’s any resentment’ in regards Gronk not taking the field as yet. Patriots owner Robert Kraft has sternly insisted that he is 'completely behind' Rob Gronkowski’s rehab. No problem there, right?

In terms of his own family, Gronkowski’s mother, Diane, told The Boston Herald that her son is “dying to play.” She went on to say; "All I can say is Robbie is dying to play. He wants to get out there. He's doing what he has to do to get back playing. He doesn't like it. He wants to play. It really bothers him that he's not playing." Initial reports tried to link his father, Gordy, to the fact he hasn’t played as yet, however those reports have been strongly rejected by both family and team.

Finally, the doctor involved in the surgery, Dr. James Andrews, is reported to have given the player the all-clear to ‘suit up’.

So where exactly is the blockage?

Republican think-tank group ‘America for Americans’ has released a report that links clearly the current President of The United States to the Patriots superstar Tight End not being on the field of play, despite being healthy. The 350 page document holds ‘damning evidence’ that President Obama is the mysterious, nefarious force keeping the Patriots best offensive weapon off the gridiron. The group, funded by the infamous Koch brothers, is perhaps best known before now for sending 5,000 ‘Obama did it!’ t-shirts to American troops in the Middle East.

Noted Republican thinker Michele Bachmann said of the report; ‘’This is just another clear set of evidence that Obama is tearing the very fabric of American society down, brick by brick. Would ‘Gronk’ be stopped from playing if he was black? If ‘Gronk’ was Muslim, would he have been allowed play by Obama? I am just asking questions.’’


When pressed on the subject Bachmann shouted 'How can we know Obama is NOT behind Gronk's inactivity?!'

Patriots team officials have refused to comment on the report, and the player himself has refuted all allegations that the President is stopping him from playing. However, Gronkowski was seen talking to men in black suits after the game last weekend. These men may have been reporters, or they may have been Secret Service agents informing Gronk that the President is still not allowing him play.

We’re just asking questions.

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Strikeback Sunday: Big Papi drives the Red Sox back from the brink

On a spectacular sports Sunday for Boston fans, perhaps the biggest moment of all came with one swing of David Ortiz's bat.

Big Papi loses one in the bleachers

It will go down with the great, iconic Boston Red Sox moments of years gone by. Essentially no matter what happens through the rest of this Boston and Detroit series, the home run that David Ortiz hit last night will be remembered for a long, long time.

No point in teasing you, if you haven't seen it as yet, here it is.




Incredibly, this was the fifth time Big Papi tied or gave the Sox the lead in the eighth inning or later in the postseason. Most players would be happy to do that once in their career. For David Ortiz, it's beccoming something of a habit. "It seemed like old hat for Dave," catcher David Ross said. "I would have been like a little school girl running around the bases if I had would have done that. And he trotted around like it was nothing."

The Big Papi home-run trot

For the Tigers, it was a perfect storm that unravelled on them in the 8th inning. Many in Detroit will be second guessing manager Jim Leyland’s decision to remove Max Scherzer before the inning even started, despite the fact he was on 108 pitches. The relief pitchers who followed all failed in some form or another: Veras, Smyly, Alburquerque, Benoit and then finally Rick Porcello in the 9th. Their failure burst the balloon that was Detroit's bullpen superiority for the series. Every single one of those guys will be pitching with doubt in his mind after last night, particularly Benoit.

Finally, former Boston defensive whizz Jose Iglesias gave his former team a hand by attempting a tricky throw, trying to get Gomes at first when he should have put the ball in his pocket, as they say. Fielder’s pathetic attempt was lazy, sure, but ‘Iggy’, as they called him in Boston, should never have made that throw.

It is amazing how the overall picture of a series can change, with a couple of pitches, a couple of swings and a bad throw. Just like that Boston are going to Detroit with a huge swing of momentum to ride on, while the Tigers have to pick up the pieces and see what they have in terms of fortitude.

What a night of sporting moments in Boston, none bigger than the blast off of Papi's bat.

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Rays manager Joe Maddon uses big word, confuses reporters.

The Tampa Bay Rays may have been dumped out of the MLB playoffs last night by the Boston Red Sox, however not before their stupefyingly intelligent and ruggedly handsome manager, Joe Maddon, made 9 pitching changes and confused reporters after the game with a gigantic word.

Joe Maddon makes one of 9 pitching changes on the night.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays' playoff run came to a jarring halt last night, as they were dumped out of the playoffs by the Boston Red Sox. Their 1-3 defeat was of course entirely the fault of the playing staff and absolutely nothing to do with Super Genius Manager Joe Maddon. The latter pulled out all the stops in trying to lift his over-matched team past the financially superior Red Stockings.

There is literally nothing Joe 'Genius' Maddon could have done above and beyond the incredible measures he went to in trying to force a game 5 in the playoff series. Maddon turned what should have been a 3 hour game into a 5 hour marathon with an incredible 9 pitching changes. He did this because he knows better than you. He also made other shift, lineup and defensive positioning changes that we would get into but they would be too hard to explain, because, as we know, Joe Maddon is a genius.

You could try to understand the moves he makes, however, you just wouldn't be able to comprehend the sheer depth of his thinking.

It is not only the common fan that is left feeling like an idiot in the enormous wake of Joe Maddon's giant intellect.

After the game last night Maddon held court, eulogising at length about the variety of great, nay, brilliant moves he made in an attempt to win the game. During the course of the questions from the assorted press, Maddon said;

''But the way it was going in the beginning there, you could see it was not going to work. We had to do something a little bit differently. Then we became a little bit more extemporaneous at that point.''

A low, awed gasp went up among the assembled scribes, as they looked at each other, many with mouths agape. 

Maddon noticed the reaction and sat back in his chair, waving his hand regally, he sighed, 'do you need me to explain that word?' to which a couple of the press confirmed in the affirmative.

Maddon explained slowly that extemporaneousis means something that is made up or done without special preparation. ''You people might describe it as, say, 'ad-libbed', in lay mans terms''

Joe Maddon ladies and gents.

Manager.

Teacher of minds.

Genius.

Genius at work

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Tampa Bay Rays announce measures to improve attendance

The Tampa Bay Rays will finish dead last in attendance figures in Major League Baseball yet again this season. Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has announced dramatic measures that he hopes will change the teams horrific attendance figures around next year.

Yet another pathetic crowd at a Rays game

Despite making the playoff, The Tampa Bay Rays are dead last in MLB attendance figures yet again, having drawn an average of 18,646 fans per game. Every single other MLB team, even Houston and Miami, drew better than the Rays. Their inability to 'draw' has become an institutional failure of a magnitude previously only seen in comedic sports movies.

In an effort to counter this, Rays owner Stuart Sternberg is introducing sweeping measures he hopes will invigorate the Rays fan-base, and get the turnstiles clicking.

We're delighted to bring you an exclusive first-look at those same measures.

• First and foremost, all games will start at 4:30 pm. The hope is that this will 'speak-to' the timeframes that suit the Rays fan-base the most.
• Next season all Rays tickets are now going to be advertised as being 20% off.
• Further to the above point, all Rays games will all be advertised as 'The early bird Rays special'
• Ethnic food concession stands will be replaced with Country Kitchen Buffet throughout the stadium
• Each game ticket will also have a coupon attached for 'half off' a hot chocolate at the next game
• The 7th inning stretch will be replaced with the 7th inning 'quiet time'. Fans will be encouraged to close their eyes and nap for a short period, before the start of the next inning.
• Finally, the team will also formally change their name from the 'Tampa Rays' to the 'Tampa Red Yankees Sox'.

Rays baseball - get pumped!

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