As we enter the month of February, baseball season is nearly upon us. For those who have exhausted their off-season rituals, here are nine options to keep your mind occupied while patiently waiting the return of baseball.
9 Ways to Get Your Boston Red Sox Fix Before Baseball Returns
The below list includes games, videos, articles, books, forum posts, and podcasts which any baseball fan would greatly enjoy. All of these are free to access immediately or at your local library.
Watch this:
Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. This iconic game is available in full for free on YouTube. Watching it is a great way to start off every Red Sox season. The entire 12-inning, four-hour matchup between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees is filled with all the magic of the rivalry. After being behind nearly the whole game, as well as down in the series 3-0, the Red Sox tied it up in the ninth and David Ortiz comes up to bat in the 12th to hit a walk-off against Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera.
4 Days in October. This is required viewing for anyone who calls themselves a Red Sox fan. The video covers the aforementioned 2004 ALCS but only the good four games. It includes plenty of footage and lots of commentary including a “conversation” style at a bar with Bill Simmons and Lenny Clarke. This is an episode of ESPN’s documentary series 30 for 30.
Reverse the Curse of the Bambino. The original “The Curse of the Bambino” was an HBO documentary published in 2003. Reverse is the 2005 follow-up with a much better ending. As with everything HBO does, this documentary is very high quality and features interviews with former Red Sox players and highlights from all eras.
Read this (short):
The Toast and The Roast of the Boston Red Sox. Every year, r/baseball, a “subreddit” of Reddit, a widely used forum-based site, holds a toast and roast of a team. The site is always home to great discussion and this is encapsulated in the team’s pinnacle Toast Post. The Toast Post is complete with amazing analysis complete with lots of highlight videos to help relive the moment. There is also a complimentary Roast Post which always features some good-humored ribbing.
The inside story of how the Red Sox beat baseball’s best pitching staff. Any Red Sox fan from Boston should be familiar with Alex Speier, the Boston Globe’s Red Sox beat reporter. Speier’s position allows him plenty of behind-the-scenes access to tell stories with different spins. This article recaps the 2018 ALCS Red Sox win over the Houston Astros.
Boston Red Sox: Greatest Season of All Time? Jared Diamond is very active in the sports journalism community and is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. A true fan, Diamond’s analysis of the 2018 Red Sox among other teams with the large single-season win total provides very interesting comparisons.
Read this (long):
Now I Can Die In Peace. Returning to Bill Simmons, this is a book containing a collection of articles he wrote while covering Boston’s 2004 season. Simmons needs no introduction to any sports fan. As a longtime online contributor to ESPN, he has done a myriad of things including podcasts.
Faithful: Two Diehard Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season. Baseball is a game about stories. Here, two of New England’s greatest storytellers Stephen King and Stewart O’nan tell the tale of the entire 2004 season. Adding another piece covering the 2004 season was a difficult decision, but both of these books are worth reading and re-reading. Famed suspense/horror author Stephen King needs no introduction. Fellow author and longtime Red Sox fan Stewart O’nan helps King get across his conversational style. In some ways, it is like reading a diary of the curse-ending season.
What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? A very long read in an unexpected place, Richard Ben Cramer’s 1986 Esquire article on every single aspect of Ted Williams‘ life is a worthwhile read for anyone who can appreciate an American hero. Highly acclaimed, this piece has stood the test of time as one of the greatest work’s on one of the game’s greatest players ever.
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