A visit to SunTrust Parek in Atlanta. Bucket List Once Again Complete

I had to top it off in Atlanta.

I started my Bucket List of seeing games at every Major League Ballpark back in 1989 when I read Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks by Bob Wood. He mostly was rating the ballparks of the time based on the food. Dodger Stadium came in first, Fenway Park came in last. As he said about Fenway, "How could such a great place have such awful food?" This embarrassed the Sox ownership, still the Yawkey family then. As a result, Colonial Provisions lost the contract for Fenway food and Aramark has had it since then.

My ranking is based on the ballpark experience.

In 1989 I had already been to four parks: Fenway and DC's Griffith Stadium back in the 50's, plus Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and Angels Stadium in Anaheim in the late 80's.

I knocked off six more in the 90's (including the brand new Turner Field in Atlanta during the Inaugural Season), 5 more in 2000 alone, and by 2005 I had my daughter Kara as my Ballpark Buddy going on road trips with me. By 2010 I was up to 35, and in 2014 we went to Busch Stadium in St. Louis and Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. At that point I had been to games at 41 ballparks: all 30 of the current ones and 11 more that are gone or no longer used for baseball. That completed the Bucket List. For a while.

Atlanta decided to get rid of Turner Field, only 20 years old.

That seems like a pretty quick turnaround, but the majority of ballparks - 16 of other 29 - are actually newer than Turner. Only 13 are older. Only 6 were opened before 1990.

In Atlanta they remember where the team came from.

The Braves are the longest-running franchise in all of baseball. The team has been in Atlanta since 1966, but began play in Boston in 1871 and spent 82 seasons there.

Many of the food concession stands are named 1871 Grille in honor of that.

Why'd they leave?

In the final week of spring training in 1953 owner Lou Perini of Framingham got tired of the Braves being badly outdrawn by the Red Sox every year since 1901 and decided to blow town and go Milwaukee where his AAA team played. The Braves stayed there for only 13 years, so Turner Field outlived the Milwaukee Braves.

It's the only MLB franchise to win the World Series playing in three different cities.

Warren Spahn was a pitcher for the Boston Braves from 1942-1952 and the Milwaukee Braves from 1953-1964. Spahn and Johnny Sain were the star pitchers for the Boston Braves in the 1948 World Series. The popular slogan was "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." SunTrust Park has this statute of Warren Spahn with his famous high leg kick at the entrance even though he retired before the Braves moved to Atlanta.

Okay, tell me about Atlanta today.

The new ballpark is about 10 miles north of downtown, where the last two ballparks were located. If there's any public transportation heading that way I didn't see any evidence of it. But there's a lot of parking. Lots.

The Opening Day flag was held horizontally across the outfield. Only Fenway has a wall big enough to hang a huge flag.

How's the park itself?

Really nice. They all are, except for Oakland and Tampa Bay. But seeing a game at those places is still fun. With the Raiders getting out of Dodge for a second time, Oakland will either get a new ballpark or lose the A's as well.

RA Dickey strikes out the first batter.

They put some little Christmas trees in the batter's eye in center field, but they weren't spaced that well.

In case you were looking at your phone and missed a hit, the jumbotron reminds you.

A Braves home run gets fireworks. I saw this happen indoors once at Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

What's unique?

Well, the Tomahawk Chop, of course. There's no PC issue about it there at all. It's the "Sweet Caroline" of Atlanta. Ludacris lead the crowd for the first chop.

Tomahawk Chop lead by Ludacris from Don Kelley.

Do they do a stupid 5th inning race?

Sure. Everywhere but Fenway does that. Milwaukee has a sausage, a brat and a hot dog racing. In DC it's George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy always loses. At SunTrust it's sponsored by Home Depot and they have a hammer, an orange bucket and a paint brush racing. I won't bore you with a picture. A couple of musical tidbits: RA Dickey's walkup music is "Game of Thrones"...and you know how every park (except Fenway) has an organ playing "If You're Happy and You Know It" or "Charge" or that sort of thing between batters? They had the organ play "Battle Hymn of the Republic." In Atlanta? Surprised me.

Who won?

The Braves beat the San Diego Padres, 4-2. Both teams hit back-to-back HR's. The leadoff guy for San Diego was Manuel Margot, traded by the Red Sox to get Craig Kimbrel.

But my Bucket List is once again complete.

Back From Spring Training. How Do The Sox Really look?

Only a few days till Opening Day on Monday. Today, mostly sunny but only around 45. Clam Chowda, anyone?

The chowder at Fenway is actually very good, by the way. But how will they look? This is the 6th straight year I've gone to spring training in Ft. Myers. I've seen games at jetBlue Park, which is a fabulous place for a spring training game. Great weather, relaxed atmosphere, you get a look at some of the rising stars. The field, of course, looks 98% like Fenway with all the nooks and crannies, the faux Monster with the hand-operated scoreboard.

This, by the way, is the actual scoreboard that was in the Fenway Wall from 1969 to 2003. It was replaced by a look-alike that also includes National League scores when the net was removed and the Monster Seats were added. I've also been to the Twins ballpark, Century Link Sports Complex, also in Ft. Myers, Ed Smith Stadium, the Orioles park in Sarasota, Charlotte Sports Park, the Rays park in Port Charlotte and the Blue Jays park in Dunedin, Florida Auto Exchange Stadium. Couldn't they come up with someone better for the naming rights? Maybe Waffle House Park??

jetBlue is easily the best, but it sells out every game so you see a fair number of snowbird Red Sox fans at all the parks. It's especially fun on St. Patrick's Day when they wear green unis.

After 6 trips, you understand things better.

Early on, like when Daniel Bard was supposed to be the new closer, or the next year when Andrew Bailey was supposed to be the new closer, or Koji the last few years, I'd wonder why John Farrell would bring them in for the 5th or 6th inning? Try scoring a game by hand (which I do all the time) and you'll figure that one out. By the 6th or 7th inning almost no starters are still in the game. It's the "scrubs" wearing #80 with no name on the back who are getting some playing time but have no hope of going north with the big club. Why waste an outing by your closer by having him pitch to Single A guys?

The old pitching excuse.

Every year you see one of the five projected starters have a bad 3-inning outing and after the game they say, "I wasn't really trying to get anyone out...I was just working on my mechanics." Oh, so that's why you were horrible. Got it.

But the established starters are actually doing that. David Price was shut down so I didn't see him, but I saw Eduardo Rodriguez (I refuse to call him E Rod, just on principle) look very good for two or three innings, then lose his way a little. Chis Sale had a dicey first inning, then was excellent.

Ft. Myers from Don Kelley on Vimeo.

Steven Wright looked very good. Gave up no runs in his first four appearances. Drew Pomeranz was a B-minus. Rick Porcello was also shaky at first (ERA over 7), then settled down and looked more like the reigning Cy Young winner. After two straight years of signing 8th inning setup guys who are on the DL (Carson Smith last year and Tyler Thornburg this year) it looks like Joe Kelly can handle it just fine.

Not so for the guys on the bubble.

Three guys competing for the final two starting slots, or several middle relievers really fighting to make the club. You feel badly for them when they have a couple bad outings in a row. That's what happened to Henry Owens and Brian Johnson. They've both been up a time or two and have a lot of potential, but don't do themselves any favors when they can't find the plate. Both were sent to Pawtucket to start the season. Noe Ramirez is another one. I don't trust him at all on the mound. When he was up with the big club last year he'd give up four straight hits and I'd ask myself why Farrell is leaving him in? He must see something I don't. He pitched 1/3 of an inning on St. Patrick's Day and gave up 5 hits and a walk leading to 4 runs, an ERA of 6.14 and a bus trip down I-95 to Pawtucket. Kyle Kendrick was one of the more effective pitchers in camp, but the Sox already have six starters for five slots so he's been sent to Pawtucket as well.

The Killer B's.

Well, two of them are on fire.

Ft. Myers from Don Kelley on Vimeo.

Andrew Benintndi, the #1 prospect in all of baseball, looks like he'll live up to that. Hitting over .300 with power, great baserunner. Mookie, last year's runner-up for MVP, looks great and is well over .300. Jackie Bradley shows his excellent D, but has had a slow start at the plate. In 2013 he crushed it in spring training but couldn't get up to the Mendoza Line during the regular season and was sent down. Maybe this year will be the reverse. He does have his hot spells, like last year's 29-game hitting streak and he's picking it up more toward the end of spring training. Add Chris Young as the fourth guy and you have an outfield that projects to be as good as Williams-Piersall-Jensen or Rice-Lynn-Evans. Didn't get to see Bogaerts as he was off playing for The Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic.

.The other hitters?

The Pedey laser show is in high-wattage. Panda, while still a rotund guy, is in much better shape than when we last saw him pop his belt on a swing-and-miss. Lighter, much more agile, and hitting .350 with homers from both sides of the plate. Hanley has yet to pick up his firstie's mitt, but he's hitting .310 as DH. Mich Moreland, the new supposedly part-time 1st baseman, is hitting .317. The lineup sure looks like it can repeat scoring the most runs in baseball.

Catchers.Three guys looking for two spots. Sandy Leon projected as the starter, as he hit .310 as the starter last year from June on. That was mostly fueled by his .467 in June and his .355 in July. By September he was down to .280, but that's still way higher than Christian Vasquez has ever hit. But Vazquez is an excellent defender. Calls a great game and has a cannon. Threw out runners at 2nd, 3rd and home a couple of days ago. Then there's Blake Swihart, the best athlete of the three and easily the best hitter (.325), but he lost almost all of 2016 and needs to work on blocking pitches in the dirt. Plus (big plus) he has minor league options and the other two guys don't. So Farrell opted for defense over offense behind the plate and Blake is on that bus down I-95. I think he'll be back by summer. I'm also hoping to see Josh Rutledge and Brian Johnson on the big club along with Joe Kelly and Chris Sale, as all of them played for my local Cape Cod League team, the 3-time champion Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox.

I'm excited and very optimistic.

Of course, I always am when it comes to Opening Day. One of my top 5 favorite days of the year. Now if we can get a forecast that says "Sunny and 68"...

Roger That!

One of the funnier moments after the Patriots'unbelievable comeback in Super Bowl LVI...

...was when the Shields MRI TV spot ran. It was moments after we saw the much maligned Roger Goodell hand the Super Bowl MVP trophy to Tom Brady.

Shields had been running a spot for a month or two where TB12 is in the waiting room in a Shields MRI office and the greeter asks Tom to put his jewelry in a locker. He takes a Super Bowl Championship ring off each finger and hands them to her. After he hands her the fourth one she asks him, "Is that all?" Tom smiles and says, "For now."

Back to the post-win celebration.

Fox goes to the first break following the win and we see the same Shields MRI spot. I'm watching it wondering if they thought of doing an update. Even if they had, would it be ready to roll this quickly? The Pats were down by 25 points in the 3rd quarter and 19 in the 4th. No one had ever come back from a deficit like that.

The Shields spot plays.

.

.Exact same thing we've been seeing for a couple of months...but...at about 24 seconds into the spot, where the woman asks, "Is that all?"...cut to Tom who says, "Oh, wait...there also this one. It's kinda new." as he pulls #5 out of his pocket. In the updated version the woman then says, "We might need to get you a bigger locker" and TB12 responds, "Roger that!"

Roger That! A great line, perfectly timed.

That's why The Boston Globe chose it as the name for their special commemorative coffee table book about the historic season.

They walk you through it.

A quick look at the previous four Super Bowl wins, all of which were won in the final seconds. Then each game in the regular season, and on to the playoffs and the Big Game. Just enough text and fun facts about Brady, Bill Belichick, Julian Edelman, Gronk, James White and the whole gang. They also to refresh your memory on previous Pats Super Bowl appearances. But wait, there's more. It's loaded with fabulous closeup Getty-quality photos.

Priced for a Yankee swap or Secret Santa.

The typical budget attached to a holiday or office gift swap is $20-or-under...which buys you very little. Maybe a couple Venti Skinny Lattes. But this book retails for only $14.95 so you can also throw in a $5 Dunkin gift card. My only complaint is that it's not hard-cover. We ordered three and the soft covers were all bent - but only a little - during shipping. Who ever said you can't buy a gift for next December in March?

Root, Root, Root for the...

...Cubbies!

I was still on the fence at Midnight.

Game 7 was tied, 6-6, and in a rain delay. At Fenway Park, a rain delay means they pull out the tarp, which takes a coordinated effort from about 30 Canvas Alley grounds crew guys (there might be some women on the grounds crew, but I haven't noticed it). Then they wait for the rain to end. When it does, the grounds crew takes about 30 minutes to get the field in playable condition. Why would Wrigley be any different? It was, though. The delay was only 17 minutes.

Some people went to bed.

That includes my older brother Hugh and my younger brother Peter. We had been exchanging Theo or Tito emails for about a week, debating on which drought should end and which set of ex-Red Sox folks to root, root, root for.

We were all leaning toward the Tribe.

One brother gave up when it was 6-3 Cubs with two outs in the bottom of the 8th. My wife Kathy walked into the Man Cave and asked how it was going just as Rajai Davis tied it up with a tater (nod there to the late George Scott) off Aroldis Chapman. My friend Gay Vernon was rooting for the Indians, but that was an easy choice. Her father, Mickey Vernon, was a two-time AL Batting Champion who played for the Indians. Also the Senators and Red Sox.

You really couldn't write a better script.

Seriously, if you wrote a movie script about the Cubs trying to break the 108-year World Series drought and you had them winning 103 games, way more than any team in baseball, knocking off the Giants (3 WS championships in 5 years this decade) but not in a sweep, falling behind the Dodgers then knocking them off back at home, finally getting to the World Series for the first time since the end of World War II, getting shut out in four of their last eight games, finally having a game at Wrigley but losing the first one and the second one, almost getting swept at home and losing the series in front of all those long-suffering fans, having to win both Game 6 and Game 7 on the road, Cubs fans traveling to Cleveland and paying as much as $10,000 for a seat behind the Cubs dugout at Progressive Field, being four outs away from a championship and having your 102-mile-an-hour closer blow a 6-3 lead with two outs in the bottom of the 8th, having a rain delay at midnight with the game tied after 9 innings and possibly not be able to continue until the next night...if you wrote that script, critics would say you're stretching Willing Suspension of Disbelief a little too far.

Red Sox fans know how it feels.

In 2004 people went out after midnight and honked horns. All the neighbors understood. There was a Red Sox banner hanging on the front of the State House below the gold dome. People visited graves of their parents to share the news. In Chicago it will be the same, but the grave visiting will be grandparents or great-grandparents. Maybe even great-great. The UBS building in Chicago is already adorned.

Congrats to the legions of Cubs fans.

And to the Indians fans...as any Cubs fan will remind you...there's always next year.

It's a good thing the Red Sox aren't in the World Series

This year, anyway.

Except for the 5-1/2 New England states, nobody would be rooting for the Sox. But I'm flummoxed. For whom do I root?

Not sure.

The Cubs, as pretty much everyone knows, have gone 108 years without winning, and have not even been to the World Series since 1945. 71 years. Most of us, including yours truly, were not even a twinkle in our father's eye. What you never hear anyone mention is that the Cubs had been in the World Series three straight years, 1906-1908, losing to the crosstown and much less popular White Sox in 6 games in 1906, then they were back-to-back winners in 1907 and 1908, defeating the Tigers both times. A sweep in 1907 and a win in 5 games in 1908. Both wins came at Navin Field, also known as Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium, which opened in 1912, the same year as Fenway Park. The Cubs have never clinched at home. When the Red Sox clinched at Fenway Park in 2013 for the first time in 95 years it was a record that will never be broken.

Then came the Cubs drought.

They lost to the Philadelphia A's in 1910, lost to the Red Sox in 1918, lost to the A's again in 1929, were swept by the Yankees in 1932, lost to the Tigers in 1935, swept by the Yankees again in 1938, lost to the Tigers again in 1945, and that's it until 2016. 2 and 8 in World Series play.

Bad, but not as bad.

I guess. Not as bad in World Series play, but probably worse overall. The Cleveland Indians, meanwhile, beat the Brooklyn Robins, now the LA Dodgers, in a 7-game series in 1920. Flash forward to 1948, when we almost had a Boston vs. Boston World Series. It could have been the Comm Ave Series. The Indians beat the Red Sox in a one-game AL playoff. Braves Field (which is still there, now known as BU's Nickerson Field) was the site of the Indians win in a 6-game Series. Someone at BU dug up a piece of the field on Monday and sent it to Cleveland for spirit.

They won 111 games in 1954.

Then they were swept in the World Series by the New York Giants. This was the winningest team ever to wind up not winning the World Series.

Cleveland then went about 40 years without finishing within 14 games of 1st place. They made the movie "Major League" about moving the Indians out of Cleveland. Their old ballpark held 70,000 but only about 7,000 would show up. You'd see a home run shot and there was nobody in the bleachers except some guy reading a newspaper and the guy at the back row in center field pounding the drum.

Then suddenly it was 1995.

They had a brand new ballpark, "The Jake" (Jacobs Field, now known as Progressive Field), and a sellout crowd (a requirement by the city for funding "The Jake") for four years. 1995 was a rematch of the Indians-Braves 1948 series. Competing Native American mascots. This time the Braves won, Atlanta's only win ever.

Two years later...

...the Indians lost again, when Jose Mesa blew it in Game 7 and the Florida Marlins, in only their 5th season, won it all. Cleveland is 2 and 3 in World Series play.

So here we are in 2016.

Lots of Boston alum involved. Are we rooting for...Theo or Tito? Theo hired Tito for the 2004 season. Plus points for both. Theo signed Curt Schilling. He was the biggest difference in the 2004 win. Plus point for Theo, but also for Tito, because Schilling really liked working for Tito in Philly and that was a factor in signing him.

Theo traded for Mike Lowell, MVP of the 2007 Series win. Plus point. He signed Lugo. Minus point. Tito talked Theo into that, so he gets a minus point as well. He signed JD Drew, who failed the toothpick test. (Go ahead, ask.) Minus point. He traded highly-rated minor-leaguer Anthony Rizzo, now a Cubs star, for Adrian Gonzalez. Minus point. He signed Carl Crawford for way too much money. Another minus point.

Beer and chicken.

The Red Sox were in 1st place on September 1st, 2011 and failed to make the playoffs. Theo fled to Chicago, but Tito was pushed out. I give a plus point to Tito on that. Ben Cherington was a Theo guy, and he signed Bobby Valentine, Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez. Not sure whom you blame for those bad signings, but it's not Tito.

The Curse?

Dan Shaughnessey's "Curse of the Bambino" made a lot of sense, and it was a big deal when it was finally broken in 2004. But the billygoat curse at Wrigley? A lame attempt at copying the Babe Ruth curse. Not even in the same ballpark.

So, as I watched Game 1 and start to watch Game 2, I'm still undecided. On one side you've got Theo, Lester, Lackey, Ross and Rizzo. On the other you have Tito, Napoli, Miller and Coco. It's a good thing the Red Sox are not in the Series this year.

Either way, a long drought for someone ends.

My week at Red Sox Spring Training. The highs, the lows, the maybes.

Just got back from a week in Ft. Myers.

Great weather, fun time, very relaxing.

Good for you, but how do they look?

Many pundits have predicted a real bounce-back year. USA Today predicts the Red Sox to win 88 games and finish 1st in the AL East. Didn't they predict that last year as well? Or maybe that was in 2014.

Who looked bad?

In a bad news-good news scenario I always prefer the bad news first so we get a nice finish. The pitching rotation was supposedly already set, with ace David Price, Clay Buchholz, Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez (please stop calling him E-Rod-he may like it, but Boston fans do not) and Henry Owens. Or maybe Steven Wright. Eduardo subfluxated his knee and hash't pitched, so there's a competition for a starting spot.

The pitching:

Sunday was not a quality start for Rick Porcello. 10 hits and 8 earned runs over three innings. On Monday Brian Johnson came in to face the Pirates with a 1-0 lead in the 6th and gave up four straight hits and got nobody out before being pulled. Thee runs across and he got the loss. I was rooting for Brian, because, like Joe Kelly, he's an alum of the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox of the Cape Cod League, but that was a D performance.

On Tuesday Robbie Ross Jr. did himself no favors. He started the 8th inning against the Yankees. It was a 1-1 tie. He hit the first batter, got a K, then gave up a double, a single, one out later a guy reached on an error (by Ross), followed by a walk, a double, a single and another hit batter. Seven batters reached, five scored. He took the loss. And it was the 8th, so he wasn't even facing any Yankee starters.

On Wednesday Clay started an away game. He wasn't horrible but was shaky. Gave up 3 runs over 4 innings on 3 hits, 3 walks and 2 K's. A C+ outing. Clay likes to say that in spring training he's working on mechanics, not really trying to get guys out. Maybe. Trailing 3-1, Koji came in to pitch the 5th. Why so early, you ask? Because in spring training games the regulars are all replaced by wannabes by the 7th inning and they want to see him face real Major League hitters. Like Johnson and Ross, he didn't do himself any favors either. Koji got a quick out. Twins fans sitting behind me were asking how can do that when he's only throwing 82? I told them it was his very high spin rate. But wait. Uehara then gave up a single and a home run. One out later there was another single, a walk and a double. At this point the Sox were down 7-1. Out comes Koji. 2/3 of an inning, 4 hits, 4 runs, one walk, no strikeouts. ERA of 27.00. He was great in 2013, but this was a D.

Henry Owens, vying for that 5th starter's spot, faced the Orioles and didn't get through the 3rd inning. A leadoff single erased by a double-play in the 1st. A two-out single followed by a double then a 3-run homer in the second. It was his second straight bad outing.

Looking good:

At this point in spring training they like to see a starter get through four innings. On Monday Joe Kelly faced the Pirates and gave up a one-out single. The next batter hit a routine 4-6-3 double-play ball, but Xander bobbled it on the transfer. The out was recorded but the batter reached on a fielder's choice because you cannot assume a double-play. No no error and no hit. A walk and two singles in the 2nd produced nothing, the 3rd was 1-2-3, and the 4th saw a hit batter and an error by guess who? (we'll get to that) but nothing across. Four innings, 3 hits, no runs, 1 walk, 3 K's. An A outing.

In his first two appearances Price gave up four home runs: one on his very first pitch, then back-to-back in the 3rd. By his second start, on Tuesday night facing the Yankees, he scattered three hits over four innings. A leadoff home run by Aaron Hicks in the 3rd inning was the only damage. No walks, two strikeouts. I give him an A-.

New closer Craig Kimbrel had a 1-2-3 inning. Carson Smith and Tazawa did as well. So the pitching looks better than last year, but there are some pretty big question marks.

Defense. Really only two people worth mentioning here: Pablo and Hanley. Pablo has been charged with 4 errors, but official scorers are very generous in spring training and you could make a case for several more. The first shocker for me was when this guy on the Pirates hits a shot down the 3rd base line. Pablo dives to his right, picks it, then drops it, then picks it up and makes a low throw in the dirt to 1st. And woah...Hanley scoops it and the guy is out on a bang-bang. This sort of thing happened several times. A grounder to 3rd, Pablo bobbles it, makes a bad throw and Hanley pulls it in. There were several other "hits" toward 3rd that a nimbler guy than Pablo...like Youk, or Mike Lowell, or Bill Mueller or John Valentin or Wade Boggs or Frank Malzone or...Travis Shaw...would have likely handled. Hanley, though, is a surprise. The worst outfielder in the history of the Red Sox looks like he's a pretty good 1st baseman. Go figure. I should also mention Christian Vasquez. He says he is fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, but on the first attempted steal he threw high and wide to second. Dustin Pedroia had to leap to catch it. He also made several poor "comin' down" throws at the end of between-innings warmups so he's probably not quite all the way back.

Hitting.

Mookie Betts is looking great. So is Pedey. Xander is off to a slow start. So is JBJ. Travis Shaw is on fire. He's great at bat and defensively. So is Sam Travis. Travis S. and S. Travis. #47 and #74. Easily confused. A word of caution: hitters can light it up in spring training and then fall flat in April. Think Jackie Bradley Jr. in 2013, Grady Sizemore in 2014 and Mike Napoli in 2015. Maybe it's the pitchers not trying that hard in March. But the game is more fun when Travis and Travis are on the field. And Chris Young. I'm also rooting for David Murphy to make the team. A good guy they never should have traded.

Ortiz is going through the motions. Two at-bats in every other game. At the game against the Yankees a typical loud-mouth Yankee fan yells, "Come on, strike him out!" I'm thinking that will not happen. He'll swing at the 1st or second pitch and pop it up or whatever. Unlike Pablo, Papi has nothing to prove. He's the DH, and no one is challenging him.

One more thing.

This may sound trivial, but I think it's important. Many of the Red Sox were featuring red socks. In the game against the Yankees, the pitcher (Price), all the infielders (Hanley, Pedey, Xander and Pablo), all the outfielders (Rusney, David Murphy and Chris Young) and the catcher (Blake Swihart) all wore their socks high. It looked great. Like they're all ready to play, dammit. If these were the Arizona Diamondbacks I wouldn't even mention it, but there are the red Sox. Let's see those red socks!

The Great Northeast Power Blackout. Knew it in a minute.

It was 50 years ago today

At 5:17PM on November 9, 1965 the lights went out all over New England, New York and Ontario. A lot of people suspecred the Russians were behind it. A story in today's Boston Globe says that hardly anyone knew how widespread it was until the next morning.

But I knew within a minute

Because of the radio. My aunt was having a glaucoma procedure done at Mass Eye & Ear (pronounced "the Eye-uh-Knee-uh") and was staying with us. We needed to pick up her prescription. Just after 5 my mother drove to Wellesley Square and parked at a meter in front of Clement Drug. I hopped out of the passenger seat and went in to buy it.

As the pharmacist was in the middle of ringing it up on one of those newfangled Monroe-Sweda registers that had spinning numbers - they replaced the old school National Cash Register ones that actually made the ca-ching sound - the lights went out and the numbers stopped spinning. The pharmacist said, "Ooh. I guess I didn't pay the electric bill" and took out his wallet to make change.

Then we both looked out the window and saw that all of the lights in Wellesley Square were out. "Ooh. Guess it's not just me." Being a polite teenager, I thanked him, walked out and hopped in the passenger seat of my mother's car.

What's the first thing a teenager in 1965 would do getting into a car? Turn on the radio. Our 1960 red Ford Galaxie 500 had, like most cars at the time, an AM radio with 5 buttons. The middle one was set to my favorite station, WBZ, "W-Beatle-Z, The Boss Sound of Boss-Town" and the first thing I heard was Jefferson Kaye saying that due to the power outage in Boston they were operating on an emergency generator. So this goes all the way into town.

My second favorite station was WMEX, 1510, The Home of the Good Guys. Being a radio nut even then, I guessed that Wimmex was too cheap to have an emergency generator, so I hit the 5th button and I was right. WMEX was off the air. AM radio bounces off the ionosphere, so in a situation like this an adjacent channel would come in. Which is what happened. WKBW, 1520 in Buffalo, came in clearly. Right away I heard the announcer, Dan Neavreth, say that because of the power outage across the city of Buffalo they were operating on an emergency generator. All of this happened in less than a minute.

It lasted until mid-morning

No power all night, no power when we woke up. But school wasn't canceled. With no power they had no way to cancel it. Power finally came back on around 10:30AM.

And for years to come people would ask...

where were you when the lights went out? But it's hard to beat my knew-it-in-a-minute story...thanks to the radio.

A Big Redemption for Spenser's Ace

Three years ago Ace Atkins got a D.

But he pulled his grade up to at least an A-. Some background: In the summer of 1981 I started reading Spenser mysteries by Robert B. Parker. I read all 39 of them, as well as all of Parker's Jesse Stone series (the Paradise, MA Police Chief character played on TV by Tom Selleck), all of the Sunny Randall series and a few other Parker novels. That comes to about two a year for over 30 years. Safe to say I was a fan of his work.

When Parker died in 2010 I thought that would be it.

But no. There was another Spenser book all set for release that summer, and another one posthumously released the next year. And Then Parker's wife Joan Parker wanted to keep the Spenser series going, so she sold the rights to Ace Atkins, a writer from Troy, Alabama who was a big Spenser fan. It probably didn't hurt that "Ace" was also Joan's nickname for Robert B.

I read the first one, Lullaby, and gave it a scathing review.

Which it deserved. Click here if you missed it. The story itself was pretty good, but his Boston stuff was absolutely horrible. I wasn't looking for mistakes, I was just trying to enjoy a new Spenser book. But the mistakes kept jumping off the pages and I started keeping track. I wound up with about 80 of them without breaking a sweat. Going the wrong way on well-known one-way streets, incorrect location references, screwing up characters that any Spenser fan would know, talking like a southerner, not a Bostonian. You name it. I was so disappointed I gave him one star on amazon.com and a D in my blog and decided to give up on Spenser.

Then he wrote a second one, Wonderland.

You can go on amazon.com and get a free preview of the first 25 pages or so. So I decided to at least give it a try and see if he'd learned anything. How far would I get before running into a screwup that screamed Alabama and not Boston? Not very far. I got to page one, paragraph two, when Spenser, who is in Revere chatting with Henry Cimoli and getting some fried clams from the takeout window at Kelly's. Okay so far. But as Spenser and Henry talk, he reaches into his bucket of fried clams to eat one. Bucket? You don't get fried clams in a bucket, but people from Troy, Alabama probably don't know that. In the interest of due diligence I went to the Kelly's web site, clicked on menu, then seafood, and read the choices for fried clams. Just what I expected. You can get a clam roll or a clam plate. No buckets. Kelly's is not a KFC. Ace had clearly not learned anything about Boston, so I logged out, didn't buy the book, and swore off of Spenser.

Then he wrote a third one, Cheap Shot.

My dentist and long-time friend Kevin Toomey saved the day for Ace. He had just returned from a trip to Italy and mentioned that on the flight he had just finished the latest Spenser and enjoyed it. He added that he knew I'd been greatly disappointed in the first Ace Atkins attempt at Spenser but thought I should give it a shot. It was late summer and I was missing my former summer ritual of reading a Spenser book on the beach, and I have always respected Kevin's opinion, so I downloaded both book #2 and #3.

Major improvement.

I have no delusions about Ace Atkins having read my scathing review and taken it to heart, but in book #2, Wonderland, he still made mistakes: "I drove down Tremont and under the Mass Pike" (No, Ace - Tremont Street passes over the Pike. You should try it sometime. Or look at Google Earth.) "I reached into the sack of muffins from Dunkin' Donuts" (No, Ace - we don't have "sacks" here. We have paper bags.) "I was listening to jazz on WICN." (No you weren't. You're at home in Boston, and WICN is a low-power station from Worcester that doesn't even show up in the Boston Nielsen ratings. This is a repeated mistake from book #1.) But...the error count was way down...from 80-something to about 10. And the story line about the fight for the Boston casino license is very timely.

In Cheap Shot it was down to maybe two.

And again, very timely. The son of a Patriots player is kidnapped and Spenser is on the case, helped by Hawk and Zebulon Sixkill, the new sidekick introduced in the last book written by Parker. Very timely given the Aaron Hernandez and you-know-what-gate stories. And hardly any Boston mistakes. Yeah, he did say "sack" instead of "paper bag" again, but only once, and he does a ton of spot-on local references. The story line is really good. And an associate of mine, Jordan Rich, does a talk show on WBZ and had Ace on with him for an in-studio interview so we now know that Ace has actually seen some of the places he's writing about.

Just finished Cheap Shot, started to write this review...

...and realized that there's already a fourth one called Kickback that came out in May. Now I'm remembering that there was a review in the Boston Globe by Thomas Farragher and he said the book was very good, but ended by saying that Ace made some mistakes, like referring to a Bruins match. Match? Does he think that the Bruins play soccer, or just not know anything about hockey? I forwarded Thomas a copy of my 2012 review and he responded that I paid closer attention to details than he did.

And there's a fifth one coming out next May.

It's called Slow Burn, which is perhaps what Ace Atkins did when he got slammed for completely whiffing on Boston in his first attempt. He wound up getting it 98% right, so kudos to Ace.

World Series is Underway. For Whom Am I Rooting?

Still Not sure.

My #1 choice - Red Sox win - faded sometime in July. On the very first night of the playoffs, the AL Wild Card, my #2 choice - #AnybodybuttheYankees (I didn't even invent that hashtag) went away. Thanks Astros. My next choice was the Cubs proving Back to the Future II to be partially correct. But no. So here we are and it's the Mets and Royals.

Still a little annoyed.

1986 still bugs me a bit, but really it was more the Red Sox losing that series than the Mets winning it. My daughter Caitlin lives in Manhattan, and she assures me that anyone in NYC wearing a Mets cap is by definition not a Yankee fan. So that's a point in their favor.

They've also got Daniel Murphy.

Murphy isn't Kelley, but it's in the same ballpark, so to speak. And he might set a playoff home run record. They have four excellent young starters. They have Yoenis Cespedes mostly doing a great job in center field. As Bob Lobel used to say, why can't we get players like that? More on that coming up.

Inside the Park.

Has that ever happened before? The leadoff guy for the home team gets an inside-the-park home run? Alcides Escobar hit one off Matt Harvey and motored all the way around. It actually happened once before...Game 2 of the 1903 World Series between Boston and Pittsburg (no h at the end of the name back then). Left fielder Pasty Dougherty (perfect Boston name) lead off with an inside-the-park home run off Sam Lever at the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds, where the Red Sox played from 1901-1911 prior to moving to Fenway Park in 1912.

But Yoenis cost the Mets the game.

That first inning inside-the-park home run should have been caught by Yoenis. He sort of went for it, but didn't use his glove. The ball bounced off his leg and rolled away. If he'd caught it then that the 9th inning homer by Alex Gordon would have brought KC to within a run, but wouldn't have tied the game. Instead of 14 innings it would have ended as a 4-3 Mets win in the 9th.

So what about Kansas City?

It's sort of noplace. Everyone is midwest nice. Almost as nice as in St. Louis, but that's hard to match. Kansas City isn't even in Kansas. Kauffman Stadium isn't even in Kansas City. It's in Independence, MO, which is Harry S Truman's hometown. The nearby highway is the Harry S. Truman Expressway, which right there in his hometown spells his name incorrectly. The S doesn't stand for anything, so there should be no period. In the Army they'd put (IO) after the S, meaning Initial Only. Whatever. But I've heard that they have some crazy little women there.

Tonight, I guess tonight I'm with KC.

Game One should always go to the hometown team.

Tonight's the last chance

It's Back to the Future Day.

If the Cubs are going to win the World Series as predicted in B2TF2 they have to start tonight by beating New York four straight times after being down 3 games to none, then sweeping the World Series opponent. (It obviously won't be Miami.)

Sound familiar?

If Theo can actually pull that off he can write his ticket to Cooperstown.