AND SO IT BEGINS...

And that's exactly what Bruce Springsteen said on the opening night of his 2007-2008 MAGIC tour last October 2nd, right here in Hartford. The second leg of that tour begins tonight, again right here in Hartford. How lucky am I? And that's what the the members of Red Sox Nation and Red Sox International are saying right now. The spring training schedule of REAL baseball starts today with a doubleheader for the world champions. There will be no TV...the Sox are playing college teams. But it IS major league baseball. FOR REAL!

I came across an article in today's Boston Herald that was all about our captain, Jason Varitek. My goodness, what would we ever do without him? His off-season work had him busy trying to even out his right handed and left handed approaches to hitting the baseball. Here's a little bit of it...

"For his (Tek's) career he is 24 points better from the right side. ’Tek has worked really hard on mirroring his right side because he feels so much more comfortable on that side,” said Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan. “He’s done a really good job. He has looked as good as I’ve ever seen.
“It’s something we talked about last season, and he’s got the set-up at his house where he can work on it. He must have done it all winter because when he showed up at spring training it was very noticeable right away. His swing from both sides is almost identical. He has always been very different before.”
“(Carl Yastrzemski) said to me last spring, ‘What’s wrong with your swing, you look like a robot?’ ” Varitek said. “There’s not much more of a keener eye than Yaz, so there must have been something.
“Once I came to the realization that they weren’t going to be the same (from both sides) I stopped trying to make the perfect swing. There are all different parts and every year there’s something else to work on.”

Peter here, and we might very well see a different Jason Varitek this year, not behind the plate, with his constant superb command of his pitcher, but at the plate, from the right side OR the left. And that bodes well for the Red Sox.

I'm sorry for the late start this morning...I had an important doctor's appointment. And I hereby declare (well, at least my doctor did) that I am well and that you'll be seeing me often, every day in fact, right here at my favorite place doing my favorite thing...writing about my team. And I couldn't be happier! Click on the title of this post for the entire Herald article about our Jason. And as always, BE WELL.