Baseball spring training opens this week! is anybody excited about it?
tommyrusty7
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I sure am as between Nascar and baseball there will be something to watch on TV now and I love both of those sports.
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It's been long time since I put a lot of time into watching regular season baseball. And I used to feel like watching all those games kind of got me more invested in the season.
I root for the Red Sox, but living here near Dallas Fort Worth I usually know a lot more about the Rangers than I do the Sox. None of this has much to do with your question I guess. 😂
I will say it again, I was more than a little disappointed when the Red Sox rehired Cora. It left a bad taste in my mouth that might just pretty much keep me away this year. I don't know.
I hear you on Cora but we shall see what happens. Today is Datona and I will go from there.
I am rooting for Chase Elliot to make it 2 championships in a row. Go Chase!
About as excited as getting my second Moderna injection today.
If the Phillies win the World Series, then i'll be excited about it.
I also have the Daytona 500 on the TV. I live in North Carolina and racing is pretty big down here, so I always tune in to check it out, after all, it is the Super Bowl of racing!
During the rain delay, they showed a little documentary about how the movie "Days of Thunder" was made back in 1990. That was awesome. I loved that movie, it's a classic.
Still waiting for them to finish the are
Unless the Red Sox make the World Series I won’t bother watching
My interest level is close to ZERO and sinking.
I can't get into, nor appreciate all this sabermetric crap. All this mumbo jumbo stuff with decimal points and a thing called W.A.R. and a litany of other numbers that have become so critical to make decisions is just nonsense to me. Just some made up baloney that may make mathematical sense to some, but not me. None of it fields a ball, picks up a bat, runs the bases or anything else between the lines. There is no way that a mathematical formula can accurately predict, ensure or imply the performance of an athlete. The upper tier players are already expected to perform well, its called talent, some simply have more than others.
As for being a life-long Red Sox fan, it just isn't the game it once was. FAR, FAR too much money involved and the fans take it in the shorts with increased tickets prices, parking fees (have you parked near Fenway in the past few years??), concession prices, etc, etc. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how much a star starting pitcher makes throwing a baseball every 5 days for 6 innings. INSANE. Try getting a couple of Monster Seats for a Yankees-Red Sox game! Stub Hub will send a limo to pick you up, once you have parted with substantial cash.
I think for me, the broken straw was rehiring Cora. He is a proven cheater...so he went to Puerto Rico for a year, lived like a king and laughed all the way to the bank. No doubt they read him the riot act and he promised 20 ways from Sunday that he'd never do it again...ok Alex, welcome back. I hope his a$$ gets booed without mercy at Fenway and every other venue he goes to. He is a disgrace to the game. It sends the wrong message to young kids and others...if they can condone what he did, I say let Pete in the HOF...I have been a past STRONG opponent of this, but, what the hell, let in Roger, any pot head, druggie, anybody that has violated any rule...come on down. TOTAL FARCE
Then we have one Chaim Bloom, the 38 year old master wizard of baseball as the Red Sox GM. He's so smart he let Mookie go and traded Benny. Oh, he did say that he "knew how painful it was for Red Sox fans"...really?? MORON They will of course show this genius periodically during games, perched in his neat little box of seats, laptop at the ready, pens and pencils among some papers, looking intense like one DUMBrowski used to do. He'll be laughing like hell inside, glowing like a thousand watt bulb at his position and the power he has, and being paid a fortune to sit there and watch the games. Time will prove him to be yet another Red Sox failure. I don't necessarily wish the Red Sox team bad fortune, but, the spark is long gone.
I focus on happy stuff. My occasional trip to Cherokee, NC casino and play blackjack, cruises, road trips...positive stuff that makes me and my family happy. I don't have time, nor the inclination to rah rah anymore for the Red Sox. I really don't care if they win it all, or tank.
I guess my answer to the OP is NO!!
I understand how you feel but for us that can't travel anymore we need something to do with all our time and for me its watch sports on tv. I did all hose things you talk about when I was able but my time for that ran out a few years ago. I watched the whole Datona race last night and my boy came in 2nd so I was quite happy and am looking forward to next weeks race.
I understand, enjoy the season. I'm really disgusted they took a cheater back, no matter who it was. Cora should be banned.
He knew what he was doing was wrong. If you can't play fair and square, get another job.
I had major reconstructive ankle surgery last July and I'm still recovering, got 3 screws in there...the x ray was an eye opener.
I'm certainly not gonna be running any marathons. I'm doing well to be able to walk, albeit more slowly.
And, I'm facing a complete knee replacement in April. I'll be the bionic man when all this is done.
As for Daytona...kinda looked to me like they were lucky anybody finished that thing. I used to be an Air Traffic Controller there. After the race it was a zoo with all those private jets trying to get out as fast as they could. I'm not sure all those pilots were sober, I listened to what sounded to me like slurred speech. They all wanted to be first.
Take care in NM.
Al
Spring training does nothing for me. Give me the Braves for a regular season day game to play hookey and watch or some hot streak or something to keep up with. Otherwise I keep up enough to know where we are in the standings and will pay attention to playoffs.
I will glance at some Tigers stuff here and there to see how they stand.
Probably another painful year but the future looks a little brighter
Second rated Farm system according to MLB.com as of today:
Top 100 Prospects: Spencer Torkelson, 3B/1B (No. 7), Casey Mize, RHP (No. 8), Matt Manning, RHP (No. 25), Riley Greene, OF (No. 31), Tarik Skubal, LHP (No. 49)
Four of Detroit’s five Top 100 prospects are former first-round picks after the team selected Torkelson with the No. 1 overall pick in June. What’s more, all six hitters drafted by the Tigers this past June now rank among the club’s Top 30 prospects, giving the formerly pitching-heavy system balance it had previously lacked.
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Steve
Pumped
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I will still follow the Sox, but it will be different this year for me. i have youtube tv and they dropped NESN so I wont be able to watch all the games like before.
I am also really disappointed they took cora back. terrible decision. why bother firing him in the first place? just a pr move. I also hate that they got rid of mookie and Andrew b. disappointing all around
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
If Cora works out I guess I can get over the Sox hiring him back even though I did not think they should have. After all these years I am kind of numb to some of the moves they make and just want them to win a decent amount of their games. I just hope they don't make any more dumb high dollar moves for washed up players.
While I'm not much of a baseball fan these days, I typically enjoy spring training being in AZ. They've pretty much taken any fun out of that though with no player interaction, autographs, etc. so I won't even be going to a game this year.
I have not been to a game in 30 years as I moved fro Massachusetts the long ago. I remember as a kid though sitting in the bleachers t Fenway park back in the late 40's. Still watch the games here in Albuquerque though.
I finally found a way to watch sports without cable or satellite, so I'm enjoying hockey for the first time in a few years.
Not that excited about baseball as it has become practically unwatchable. Definitely need a clock for the pitchers, and tell the hitters to "Get in there and HIT"!
I just don't understand why MLB just doesn't tell the umpires to speed up the game. Watching a pitcher with two pitches "shake off" the catchers signal 8 or 9 times is just too irritating.
Of course then the batter steps out, and we go through it again.
Call a "ball" if the pitcher won't throw and a "strike" if the batter refuses to stay in there!
LET'S GO!!!!!!!
I want to. I really want to be excited....but it's just not happening. It's the same with basketball. Been losing interest with that for the last few years.
I would rather reread the entire Brett/Schmidt debate thread backwards then watch a single inning of regular season baseball
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Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
No, I'm not excited. My Tigers hired AJ Hinch, which just disgusts me. He should have been banned for life.
In a normal year, I actually look forward to Father's Day weekend because that's when the Spokane Indians start.
Except that's no longer true. Thanks to MLB messing with the minors, short season A is now gone. Spokane is now high-A, which means 132 games instead of 76 and starting in May. That's bad for me, a season ticket holder. It's bitter cold at night in Spokane in May and I don't want 66 games. The whole thing, on top of not having a season last year, just has me disgusted and turned off.
After my first post, mentioning my dislike for the Cora re-hire, others of you have seconded that opinion.
Baseball has never really been my go to sport for viewing. But I certainly used to watch a lot more when I was younger.
My grandfather (RIP) would watch every game every night. He was legally blind for maybe the last ten or fifteen years of his life. He died in the nineties, so the TVs weren't as good. He would sit literally one inch from the TV. But he never missed a game. I have an uncle, and my step father, who watch every Red Sox game every night. And I get it. Great sport. My step father coached little league and then ran the league forever. He's a lifer. I couldn't get up to Massachusetts this past summer, for covid reasons, but the last few years before that I've been going up there for a few weeks each year. And when I am there I watch all the games pretty much. And I definitely notice that watching every day gets me digging into the lineups and sports section, I get more invested, I enjoy it more, and by the end of my visit I can enjoy the games a lot more.
I have lived in Dallas/Fort Worth for over fifteen years. So just by constantly listening to sports radio, etc I know more about the Rangers every year than the Sox. Which is frustrating. I am disgusted at the Cora re-hiring. When this whole thing went down, living in Texas, in an area where the fans hate the Astros, it was non-stop talk and bashing of the cheaters. But of course that tied into Cora. And then they are asking, what about the Sox? So I was happy with him gone. Because he should be gone. I am not in Massachusetts, so I miss out on the talk about this. I am sure there are people who feel like me. And there are people who justify it.
I will say this......World Series baseball is great. 100% effort given on every play. Reminds me of the Stanley Cup in that way.
i've been to an untold number of MLB tilts in my lifetime. upwards of 10 world series games. hell i was sitting a few rows behind the St. Louis dugout when McGwire tied Maris. i used to be deeply, deeply invested. now i can promise you that i would come up woefully short if forced to name two players on any team outside of the Astros.
when Montreal got hosed in 1994, a large chunk of my affinity with baseball died. then years later when it was revealed that what sucked me back in was in actuality a ruse, an even larger chunk was obliterated. only remnants remain. i recognize some of the biggest names, but for the most part i'm like nuke laloosh strapped to the bed when annie savoy asks him if he has ever heard of walt whitman....................."who does he play for?"
my old man has been a Cardinals fan his entire life, dating back to the Musial days. just short of him passing or Jupiter sucking in Earth thru that great red spot, i can think of very few scenarios that would prevent him from watching every.......single.......STL game. he gets the MLB package each season without fail. when opening day hits, he morphs into a pig and rolls around in slop for about 7 months.
recent text exchange:
dad: "Nolan Arenado...........World Series."
me: "huh?"
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
this. you are 100% right. i just don't understand why they cant speed up the game this way. it would take a few weeks for the players to get used to it and then it would be normal.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
It sure is a different world today than it was even 5 years ago and I understand everyones feelings on baseball but I can still hardly wait for it to start up. Cora and Hinch are not my favorite managers by any means and baseball needs to make some changes as pitchers and hitters slow the game down too much for sure but I have nothing else to do with my time anyway so will continue rooting for my Red Sox. With tv today I can switch back and forth between two games and hardly miss a pitch.
Longer games = more commercials?
I switch channels to other games when commercials come on. Lots of games to watch.
I am going to get behind Cora. Everybody deserves a 2nd chance in life. Who here has not screwed up in the past? I know I have.
Slow play doesn't change the number of commercials though. Pitching changes and the completion of half-innings are where you get commercials. But an AB taking 10 minutes doesn't get you more commercials unless the channel decides to do those annoying "in-game" ones.
You are right. I really would like to see them speed up the pitches as it does get very boring watching pitchers and hitters delay the game big time.
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It looks like the Red Sox have put a decent team together this year. Time will tell but I can hardly wait. Already signed up for the baseball package and the NESN network.
No.
My baseball viewing is, at best, limited to a few of the last 2 innings in close out games in the World Series.
Did not grow up in a town with MLB; and I was terrible at playing the game as a kid. Thus never developed an interest in the game.
I grew up in Walpole, Mass and loved going to games when I could. Bleacher seats were only a dollar if I remember correctly but that was 60 or so years ago.
You are right about that, and you make me feel a bit differently. Maybe this is what I needed to hear. To be honest, the primary reason I dislike his rehire so much is the shame that I feel it brings on my favorite baseball team.
Not to excited I know my Mariners will be at the bottom again for what, about their 19th consecutive year, I never thought after their start from 77 to 94 they would ever have a stretch worse then that but I was wrong as usual lol.
I watch the Reds and Indians occasionally. I couldn't tell you two members of any other teams lineup. My wish is to see the Indians win a World Series during my lifetime. Wait a minute..........I Did.
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Ralph
Most players do not stay with one team anymore and the Red Sox I hardly recognize from last year are no exception. Its just a case of follow the money.
I can’t wait for Yankees baseball.
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