April

By Eric Wilbur

2 minutes to read

They felt like family after a while, albeit the kind you never again want to see cross your doorstep any time soon.

“We’ve got a whole new lineup. Who isn’t excited about this team?

“They have so many options: Loretta, Lowell, Youkilis.

I just love this pitching staff.

Papelbon, he is so intense on the mound.

Shilling and Beckett in the same rotation? Come on.


Throw Wakefield in there and they’re unstoppable.
I mean I just love Coco Crisp.
Did you see that catch Coco made?
Oh, Loretta and Gonzalez, great double play combination.
And you just got Manny being Manny.”
I wish we had the numbers, but unofficially, I’d predict this commercial played 36,000 times on NESN in April alone, and peeved off about three times as many viewers. If given the choice between watching it for just one more week, or witnessing a loop of Mellencamp’s “My Country,” I can only guarantee a majority would choose the latter. No word on where the actors – sorry, “actors” – in this spot ended up (unless you really believed that your average yahoo at Game On or in the barber’s chair speaks for the majority of the Red Sox fan base) but let’s just say nobody is pining for a 2007 edition anytime soon.
In other news:

  • On her way to world domination, Rachael Ray was nice enough to make a stop in David Ortiz’s kitchen.
  • Baseball Prospectus releases “Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong,” which spouts such claims such as Toby Harrah is a clutch batter while David Ortiz is overrated in that category. Scott Fletcher was also the seventh-best clutch hitter since 1972 according to the book, a desperate attempt at a theory gone wrong with counterproductive results.
  • Bud Selig launches an intense steroid investigation, tabbing George Mitchell to clean up baseball. If anyone has seen Mr. Mitchell since April, please contact Major League Baseball at once.
  • The Orioles won their first game of the season, prompting Kevin Millar to exclaim, “We can shock the world this season.” Baltimore finished fourth.
  • Keith Foulke threw his hat into the ring of the 4,567 rightful owners of the Red Sox World Series ball.
  • Manny Ramirez starts the year off slow. All’s quiet on whether he likes it in Boston or not.