There are a few things you can count on in this life: death, taxes, and me posting this same exact story every year on Fenway Opening Day. Any why not? It’s a tradition that runs deep, like dressing up as a wolf to scare the mailman, drying your laundry on the roof, or filling your neighbor’s socks with pudding to mark the anniversary of the first episode of “Bob Hearts Abishola.” We can’t fight it. Instead, we must embrace it. Give in to its gentle pull. And enjoy, once again, this story of what I consider the greatest Opening Day of my lifetime, which was originally posted on this here blog ..read more

No way to put it other than this: I’ve been slacking. Since Denton and I launched this blog in April of 2004 — back before people even really knew what the hell a blog was (and podcasts were basically science fiction) — our goal was simple: to chronicle every day as a Red Sox fan. As it turns out, we couldn’t have picked a better year to start a Red Sox blog (the full story can be found here), and before we knew it, Denton and I were showered with book deals (at least one), TV appearances (at least three), endless SWAG (a fellow blogger sent me a t-shirt) and, of course, the ladies. It turned ..read more

Anyone who’s read even a few measly posts on this site knows that I’m not a professional blogger. Nor am I a professional “sports writer” in any sense of the word. And over the last few months, ever since online sports gambling became legal in Massachusetts, it’s become painfully obvious that I am the furthest thing from a professional sports bettor. The problem? That’s easy. I bet with my heart, not my head. Which is why pretty much every time he’s been in the line-up since the start of the season, I’ve bet cash money on Triston Casas coming up big. And I mean big. Like home runs and multipl ..read more

So the Cincinnati Reds are in town tonight, with the Sox finally back home at Fenway after a long and mostly painful west coast swing. All I can say is I hope the Reds don’t pull any of that “Reds shit.” Not on my watch, anyway. And what do I mean by “Reds Shit”? I’m not really sure. I mean, maybe that interference thing they rolled with in game three of the 1975 World Series which I never saw but read a lot about. Actually, a more recent page from the storied Red Sox/Reds rivalry comes from 2014, when Grady Sizemore (not the person for whom this blog is named, I must add, as I’ve been asked ..read more

Look, these guys are pals. We know that. They were buds when they were both on the Red Sox, they remain buds even though X is in San D. NESN played a clip of Xander talking about the two of them having dinner together the night before the series started ad infinitum. And they even got the photo op of the month when they played grab-ass while exchanging line-up cards: Devers and Bogaerts exchange lineup cards Game 1 is underway! Tune in now #BringTheGold : Bally Sports SD : https://t.co/2qHT5jixUS pic.twitter.com/QOp8BWOpvX — Bally Sports San Diego (@BallySportsSD) May 20, 2023 Fact is thes ..read more

Men and women rugby sevens team will once more share the stage in HSBC London 7S rugby at Twickenham Stadium from 20 and 21st May, 2023, with the stakes raised by Olympic qualifying spots for the Paris 2024 games. The final two men’s Paris 2024 Olympic spots, accessible through the World Rugby Sevens Series qualification pathway, will be at stake on the London line. Currently, there are four teams—Fiji, Australia, Samoa, and South Africa—who are still technically in contention for these coveted spots. Click here to get access to all matches of London 7s rugby! As the 2022/23 World Rugby Seven ..read more

As the Red Sox get set to play a weekend series against the San Diego Padres, you’re gonna hear a lot of Sox fans talking about Xander Bogaerts. Some will say how much they wish he was still part of our team. Others will say how the Red Sox made the right move by not locking him up for as long as the Padres were willing to. And the pro- and anti-X-Man rhetoric will fly. But one thing I’m not gonna do is feel bad about missing Xander Bogaerts. Ever since he ascended from Pawtucket into the Red Sox’ starting lineup and hung tight in the 2013 postseason, becoming one of the more reliable bats as ..read more

At this point, we’ve all, sadly, come to expect very little from Chris Sale. The man was freakin Godzilla in 2018, and the images of him yelling at his teammates and then striking out Manny Machado to end the World Series have been burned into my brain forever (along with that time in tenth grade when Mrs. Harris from the local convenience store showed me and my pals her tattoos). Since then, however, he’s been more fragile than Mr. Glass. Breaking bones left and right, and capping off last year’s lost season by falling off a bicycle and requiring surgery. Unfortunately, the most notorious as ..read more

There are a few things you can count on in this life: death, taxes, and me posting this same exact story every year on Red Sox Opening Day. Any why not? It’s a tradition that runs deep, like dressing up as a wolf to scare the mailman, drying your laundry on the roof, or filling your neighbor’s socks with pudding to mark the anniversary of the first episode of “Bob Hearts Abishola.” We can’t fight it. Instead, we must embrace it. Give in to its gentle pull. And enjoy, once again, this story of what I consider the greatest Opening Day of my lifetime, which was originally posted on this here blo ..read more

I always get sentimental around mid-October. Not because it was around this time in the 90s that my Uncle Thad, last seen walking down route 128 eating from a sack of onions, was declared missing and never to be seen again. But because my mind instantly teleports me back to the 2004 ALCS. Specifically, the four days between games four and seven. These are days I consider the best of my life, even though I spent most of them bleary-eyed, disheveled, unshowered, undernourished, bleeding internally (probably), hungover, shaking, frightened, paranoid, and quaking in the corner of a dark room betw ..read more