And another thing, I really hate that they're referred to as the "Rox".

America, that's reason enough to root for the Red Sox.

That's hilarious. :)

Seriously, they've botched to the nth degree.

It's hilarious how badly they've done this and yet, I'm not surprised given the other silly things this team does to screen talent that comes into the ballclub.

I don't mind that part. I do hate the towels though.

And I love Boston a lot more than I love Denver. It's too bad they're part of the evil empire that controls baseball and were responsible for allowing Jeffrey Loria to control another baseball team and the demise of the Montreal Expos.

I mean, other than that..they're just the apple pie of my baseball eye.

Oh and they're the reason the Blue Jays get no headway in the AL East.

But I hate them less the Yankees. That has to count for something.

I'll root for history to play out and the Rockies to take it all. I just don't feel like this series has enough personalities to last as an epic. I feel like it'll be a lot like '03 was. And we'll see some of these kids in purple suiting up in pinstripes in the near future. And I don't mean the Rockies pinstripes, either.

No wakefield for the Sox in the World Series, he was left off the roster due to shoulder issues. Sad to see.

Probably going to be either Lester or Beckett on short rest in game 4.

I think hitting into the inning-ending double-play with the bases loaded in game 7 brought that opinion back down to earth.

But he couldn't have pitched in Colorado anyway. That knuckleball would get clobbered at Coors.

I like Schilling and respect Beckett. But it would be nice to see a new team win. I also don't like the Yankees and Red Sox because the Jays compete with them, but I hate the Red Sox less.

The Rockies winning would be a nice story.

I thought his description of Manny in the outfield earlier in the column was actually funnier.

My friend in Denver actually scored a bunch of WS tickets this afternoon on the online system.

The funny thing is, once he got in, he was allowed to just buy tickets for all three games, at a leisurely pace. He got 8 tickets scattered across the 3 games.

Funny! Good for him, though.

Of course now he's playing around on stubhub, and says he's tempted to just unload them because they're going for $1,000+ in the section he got.

I emailed back, no guilt from me, but you're buying the beer from now on if you cash in $8k or whatever.

I don't blame people for taking advantage of the system, I blame the team for letting it get that way. The buzz around the web is there are a lot of pissed off people.

This team isn't the Red Sox or the Broncos, they can't afford the ill will. Not that they're going anyplace. Just saying.

could they start the world series games any f-ing later?

Yes. Quite easily.

Sadly, I think the Red Sox are going roll over the Rockies. I know the Rockies were the hottest team in baseball in the last month, going an incredible 21-22(?) or something like that. I have a feeling the 9 day layoff will have totally stopped whatever roll they were on.

Between that and the fact that the Red Sox have more talent, I think we are looking at a sweep here.

I guess they could.


I'm just asking for a 7-7:30 first pitch. I don't ask for much.

It's starting earlier than primetime in the Mountain Time Zone (listed as 6:00, first pitch closer to 6:30 or so).

No, you really don't. That's a very reasonably request.

I guess you could always look to move west into the Central or Mountain time zones.

la dee freaking da

East Coast bias.

You know there's two teams in the World Series, right?

Red Sox fans are more likely to stay up past midnight anyway.

like I care


that arguement is balooney anyway. clev/boston was the same stupid start time.

represent

What's a reasonable start time?

6 PM East Coast? You really think it makes sense to start games at 3PM west coast time?

The games in Colorado this weekend are starting 6PM local time, just to conform to the East Coast needs.

I don't really have a rooting interest in this one, hopefully both teams play well and it goes six or seven games, as a neutral the last three World Series have all kinda sucked.

as well they should

I already said 7-730 first pitch.

My friend decided to sell all the extra tickets he scammed out of the Rockies online system, which will pay for me and him to go to games 3 and 4, with enough left over to blow on pre-game festivities.

He sold the extras for a total of about $4,500. I think it's insane to actually go to any of the games when he could have cleared close to $10k if he sold them all. But he's a little loopy in the head (He flew to Boston for the '04 World Series just be around the stadium when they won game 4 in St. Louis.).

congrats on making all that money but this stuff really should be illegal.

think about how insane it is to only want tickets so that you can make a ton of money on them.

i guess if the demand is there then who is the idiot but something about the whole thing seems way out of whack.

Communist.

QFT. It just makes it more expensive for those who actually want to attend the event.

First they start the games too late and now they price you right out of them.


I'm subscribing to the Daily Worker.

Agreed, there needs to be a better way.

My friend was definitely buying tickets for the purpose of going, and he is (he's a New England transplant in Denver and is a huge Red Sox fan), he just didn't expect that once he broke through the virtual waiting room, they'd let him buy seats for all three games. So he did.

Patriots are the only team trying to crack down on this. They got something like 10,000 names from Stubhub and are trying revoke those people's season tickets if they sold on there. Said there are thousands of people waiting for season tickets so they should get them instead of people just having them to sell at a huge mark up. Technically the rule is supposed to be (at least in MA) that you can't sell tickets for more than 2 dollars above face value. And the Pats expressly state that you can only resell their tickets via the Pats designated website which limits the markup.

All kinds of court fighting going on but I hope the Pats win this one.

That's the thing about it that bothered me. One of my friends was saying the same thing, that the team didn't know and it's their first time in the World Series blah blah blah..and I'm just like they're part of MLB and they could've gotten help, if they needed guidance or could've asked the other teams what they did.

It's not rocket science.

I don't think you can stop scalpers and I'd rather not have government enforcing laws like that. If people want to pay, let them. The team has a responsibility to understand how to put tickets out there in ways to ensure that ordinary people can get tickets and those lotteries the other teams did seemed to be effective.

To me, the fact that no one team had this sort of ridiculous debacle makes it all the more glaring and so, I dunno...they need all of the goodwill they can get and it seems to me that they've pissed enough people off that winning it all might not even make the wound hurt less for people who are irate. But who knows.

And the fact is, those tickets belong to the team and they provide the inherent value. So for someone else to try to benefit off of a scarce resource by trying to create secondary value, for the sole purpose of their gain injures consumers AND the originator of the scarce resource.

The lottery is not effective at all. I know a couple people that won the lottery and were pleased as punch since it meant they could turn around and make a tidy profit. All that does is insanely increase the price of tickets across the board.

Most teams only care to a point...if at all. I mean think about it. The wealthier the people buying the tickets the more they are likely to spend at the ballpark.

Longterm thinking is probably not a strongsuit of most ownership.

+1

But only selling online isn't close to be the fairest method. Like I said, you're never going to be able to shut out resellers of tickets.

Maybe it's just the years I've spent around the 'average' computer user lets me know that doing it ONLY online is silliness.

I did have one friend try to convince me that the fans in South Dakota who root for the Rockies wouldn't benefit from the tickets being sold at Coors. He seriously overvalues the "regional" support of the team outside of Colorado.

http://tickets.listings.ebay.com/Eve...istingItemList
http://denver.craigslist.org/tix/
http://www.stubhub.com/world-series-...ries-billboard

Lots of folks are making a killing. I wonder if they'll sell all of 'em or not. You'd imagine they will...but...it'll be interesting to see how many empty seats are at Coors this weekend.

team should just mark them up and sell them at those prices themselves

oddly there would be a huge outcry if they did yet people have no problem paying it to other "fans"

strange

+1

And even better, wait until game day and sell all of the ones left over at the "normal" value at the stadium just before the game.

But MLB sets the prices for World Series tickets. That's the problem. And now they're in bed with stubhub.

have all the tickets be walk up

now that would be interesting

There should be some sold online-only, some at the stadium, some for a lottery, etc. People can choose which method they wanna try their luck with.

I think there's only one way, and it has it's own drawbacks.

Tie every ticket to a specific person, like an airline does. Your ticket has your name on it, and you have to show ID at the gate.

I know this would cause a ton of issues (when someone legitmately wants to give up their ticket to a friend, etc).

The team would charge somewhat more for the tickets, to get closer to "market" value, and to cover the added expenses.

A team could double it's ticket prices and still be considered "fan friendly" for doing this.

That's a huge way to start the World Series, Beckett striking out the side. :)

Wow that was impressive three stikeouts. I feel alittle sorry for the Rockies at least for the time being. I hope that they make a series of it.

Wow. They're getting rocked, but it's really early. I think they're just rusty and that they're not going to be shook by this. I think this is good for them, because they just have to get into a rhythm of some sort.

That being said, they need more production out of the middle of the order if they want to win it all. The Rockies, I mean.

Beckett's ridiculous right now.

No real pressure on the Rockies in game 1 though - they're huge underdogs for a variety of reason. The rest of the Sox staff can be had, but you have to keep the Sox from scoring in bunches.

I hate that fucking wall.

Well back to reality finally we got a game.

I think it turned that fly-out into a double.

It kind of creates an illusion about how far balls are hit, because that's a very short wall in terms of distance.

Tulo is clutch.

He's throwing Heat and daring them to hit it. when they do hit it, it's hard hit.

I didn't think about it that way.

I saw the Jays there back in '03. The sight lines suck, but I guess how high that ball went up, it looks like it would've carried out of any other park.

That game sucked. I seen them (the Jays) beat the Twins on my birthday in the last at-bat and even got a player in the bullpen to give me a ball. But in the game against the Sox, some doofus thought it'd be a good idea to let John Wasdin start for the Jays and the Sox countered with Pedro.

Needless to say, I left early on in the game. It was too painful. But the fans were great. And knowledgable and all of that. So that part was nice. And of course, it was a packed house in the middle of June.

I think the Rockies are probably just happy to get some cuts and catching against real life major leaguers that aren't on their own team.

Does anyone care about their player's favourite food? Or is this the whole, "OMG?! No one knows the Rockies 'cuz of eaast coast Bias?!"

I'm guessing they must've gotten free food from that burger place today. These guys are so bad. That TBS telecast was so much more pleasant to listen to.

"The third base coach is so involved in this play, because the next stop after that is home."

Youk is the little engine that could...

"I Think I Can.. I Think I Can.. I Think I can..."

He was laboring near the end :)

My favorite Tim McCarver quote so far:

"After you reach 3rd base, the next stop is home"

Gotcha.

Though he actually made a decent point about Holliday not getting to that ball, forcing the weaker armed guy to make the play, and the 3rd base coach picking that up quickly.

BTW, it just picked up in raining here about a half hour from Boston. I expect some kinda rain delay soon.

Wow, was that you talking to the ump just now?

Manny Being..well.. you know.

*chuckles* Nope, just a guy listening to the rain on the sun room roof.

sheesh. just when you think he's not going to throw any more curveballs, he throws about five beauties. Seven K's through 4 innings.

6-1 Sox ;)

Rocktober!

Geez. It's a real beatdown for Game 1.

Sheesh. Making Colorado wait 8 days is criminal. Play game 1 48 hours after the conclusion of the previous series next time.

The NL is as bad as the NFC

Sox have tied the record for extra base hits in a world series game. and it's only the 5th inning.

I love this game.

This series is FAR from over, but has a city had a better sports run than Boston in the last 5 years? Even the Celtics and BC Football are relevant again.

Things were so god-awful there in my childhood after '86 until the the Pats 1st Super Bowl 15 years later.

It doesn't even feel like the World Series. I'm almost inclined to say the baseball playoffs go on too long. By the time you get to the World Series it's almost anticlimatic.

There hasn't been a really competitive World Series in a while, that might be part of it. I'd rather have the playoffs go even longer - I'd go as far as a best-of-7 divisional round and a best-of-9 World Series.

162 games to a 5 game series is absolutely retarded in a game like baseball. Shorten the regular season, give us more playoffs.

I think shortening the season to 146 games would be great. That way, you can get rid of all of the records of the steroid era by simply closing that record book and starting a new one based on the 146-game schedule.

I do think a best-of-five in the first round is silly, when even basketball went to best-of-seven. But you can't have games all on cable and that'd be the only way we'd get it.

I'd prefer a system that allowed more teams to get a shot, because in a regional sport like baseball, it's the only way to get people interested is to keep teams in the race for longer and right now, that simply doesn't happen.

That has got to be the worst pitching performance I had ever seen by a relief pitcher in a WS.

I agree they shouldn't be penalized anymore than they are by the long layover. The Red Sox should of started up on Tuesday again. Though to be honest I don't know how much dfifernce it would make. The AL and NL is a bit differnt in something that is for sure. The Cards won the series last year mainly due to the fact they were a veternan team playing a fairly young and playoff green team.

Umm, so you think waiting 7 days instead of 8 makes a difference??? How about they just mandate to play all 7 games of CS instead of having a team sweep?

Okay,
that was frigging hilarious. Royce Clayton is funny as all hell.

I waslooking in the game's box score and this ERA caught my eye since I can't ever remember seeing an ERA that high.

F. Morales 0.2 6 7 7 1 0 0 94.50

there's about 30,000 Sox fans who get a bunch of free furniture if the Sox win the Series.. (They had a deal at this place earlier in the summer where if you purchased your furniture then, and the Sox won the World Series, they refunded your money (I wonder how much the insurance cost)

What does being a veteran team have to do with winning games?

The whole idea of "having been there before" and "not cracking under pressure."

And when the young team wins its because they're "oblivious to the pressure around them".

Are you kidding? Have you ever played any kind of organized team sports before?

Are you Joe Morgan? Played basketball through my freshman year of college, not that it makes any difference whatsoever.

Have you seen anything to prove that this is actually the case?

Any studies done on the effects of experience in postseason play have shown it makes zero difference.

Its just cliche bullshit. If the experienced team wins its because they could handle the pressure. If the young team wins its because were oblivious to the pressure. Its shit sportswriters come up with to explain unexpected outcomes.

Experience matters in every other part of life, not sure why sports would be an exception to that.

It matters. Not in a "gee, look at his intangibles" sort of way and it won't necessarily break a game or be the difference between an awful team and a great one.

But in a close game, it can be all the difference. Learning how to adapt to an opponent, relying on your past experience to be able to defeat an opponent and when you have chemistry with a group? Shoot, it's like clockwork.

I'm not saying that it's the difference in a series like this one where the one team is clearly better than the other, no matter what the outcome is. But...it doesn't hurt either.

I even see that as a stretch in baseball. However, it was said that the Cardinals won because they were experienced. It was a 5 game series. They Cardinals simply beat the Tigers in 4 games.

Human nature is to find a reason for something unexpected. In sports when something like the Cardinals beating the Tigers in 5 games after winning just 83 regular season games happens, we tend to fall back on the intangibles to explain it.

That is part of my point that experience matters especially as it pertains to handling the pressure. I'm not really sure why you got such a hair across your ass about what I said but fuck it.

And yes it does and it does here as well regardless.;)

I didn't "get a hair up my ass" until you pulled the "have you even played organized team sports?" card.

I asked how it makes a difference because I've read studies done for both baseball and football that show that postseason experience has no impact on play. The particular series you mentioned also wasn't even close, it was decided in 5 games.

I guess I miss spoke on the Cards series. I was actually trying not to insult any Crds fans with the truth. The Cards won because they got lucky and the fact the Tigers sucked.

I prefer to use the terms hot and cold to avoid defensive fans. :)

I also have the flu and I'm doped up on Nyquil, so I'm probably a tad irritable. At least more so than usual.

That is a good rule I suppose I shall keep that one in mind and I apologize for the A-hole comment about did you ever play organized sports.:)

I am dissapointed that no one stole a base last night in the game. Someone needs to get on that so the rest of America can have a free taco!

What perplexed me most about this was the timing of it. You were to redeem the taco between 2pm and 5pm. Not to turn this into a "ways to maximize your revenue" thread, but I would think the better idea would be to have people come in during lunchtime hours (say 11am to 2pm) so they pick up their free taco, and then buy the second taco, a chalupa, a drink, and maybe some chips. At those hours, it's "let's walk by the Taco Bell on 45th and 3rd, get our taco and come back."

Just my opinion.