I watched an inning over the weekend. I won’t watch another. I think it’s insane that we’re pushing forward with MLB and NFL. Huge mistake for everyone involved.
How much have you watched so far?
- Thread starter tims4wins
- Start date
Ditto and that applies to you as well, don't sell yourself short.
The game threads prove that misery does love company, but at least we can laugh about it; 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018 helped in that regard.
What a treat it's going to be watching this team circle the drain while the gashouse gorillas stampede their way to a WS title.
So heartwarming.
I don't think I can even really say a few innings. I turned it on during the top of the 4th and was putting the kids to bed before the 5th was over. Granted they scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 4th so I was watching for something like 45 minutes. But when I got back downstairs I watched something else instead of going back to the game. A lot of that had to do with the lopsided score.
An additional thought... I've certainly watched a lot of Sox games when the team was bad. I recall watching a ton in the late summer of 2015, when Luvullo took over managing, because I was riveted to see how the young guys developed. The difference now is that, not only do the Sox look to be awful, but there are a lot of guys playing who won't be part of any future turn-around. So watching a bunch of pitchers get lit up, who will be jettisoned in the next 12-24 months, doesn't hold a lot of appeal.
It's baseball...after a good long stretch without it. Of course I'm watching just as much as previous years. Just not as invested in W/L...I love that my soundtrack to summer has returned. This years team goals are 1) get to 1SEP for a reset; 2) Get a high draft pick.
I've watched a lot less, for a few reasons: (1) I was less excited about this season because I wasn't hopeful about the team, (2) I was less excited about this season because of covid and my expectation that the season won't even last, (3) I'm down on how the owners and players dealt with all this, and (3) I discovered, amazingly enough, that during covid, I missed live sports less than I thought I would. I realized...hey, there's lots of great stuff to do besides watching sports. I still miss it and am still watching some, but less than before.
Oh, and the fact that they suck isn't helping.
Oh, and the fact that they suck isn't helping.
Nearly every pitch for me so far. Outside of the obvious frustrations, I'm enjoying seeing Jackie do Jackie things in CF and having a good start at the plate and I love watching Pillar and Verdugo hit.
The on-field game is the on-field game to me regardless of personal thoughts about the wisdom being employed. Plus the prospect of not having it until next spring if/when positive cases continue has me watching as much as humanly possible.
The on-field game is the on-field game to me regardless of personal thoughts about the wisdom being employed. Plus the prospect of not having it until next spring if/when positive cases continue has me watching as much as humanly possible.
I tuned out of the 9th last night. DIdn't really watch the 3rd game in a lot of spots.
Otherwise, I'm all in for pain, except when it's a blowout loss very late.
Otherwise, I'm all in for pain, except when it's a blowout loss very late.
I never intended on watching this year after the trade. I'm pretty frustrated with the overall state of baseball, from the trade, to Manfred being a putz, to the Astros cheating. I've never been this blah about the game. The fact that they're trying to get a 60 game pandemic season in really just ramps up the concerns I otherwise had. What's the point ?
I doubt I'll be back for a couple years, though my love for the sport hasn't changed, my love for the current team and the league has. What a difference a year makes.
I doubt I'll be back for a couple years, though my love for the sport hasn't changed, my love for the current team and the league has. What a difference a year makes.
This well summarizes my view. So far, the Sox are getting the Olympics treatment. I suppose if the Yankees suffer a horrendous defeat, I will find a way to watch the highlights.
Even before Covid, I've been morphing more to live music than sports for my entertainment bucks. I never have a bad time at a show. Clearly, that's gone for now save drive in shows. But there are plenty of streams, etc.
For me, the Covid mind shift, the fact that off field BS tends to never fade away (cheating, labor nonsense, Bob Kraft hummers), and the bitter or sad taste around Betts and Brady have all changed how I think.
And, yeah, it was obvious several months ago that the Sox pitching was going to be horrific.
When you add that there are no fans and the season could be shut down at any moment...I probably will not watch baseball until the WS, and even then I may not.
Watched almost all of game one. Since then I’ve been tuning in after they’re already down big and quickly tuning out.
I tried, but this ain't a major league product right now. I'm fine with that--the Sox are better off tanking this "season" as far as I'm concerned. It's just not compelling viewing. I'll check the highlights.
I don't know--is there really that much difference between the two seasons?
2015 had:
Bogaerts in 2nd full season
Betts in first full season
JBJ get 160 fewer PAs than season before
ERod in first season
Barnes
I see no one else on that roster that was a "young guy" to watch develop.
2020 has the following guys that could plausibly be part of turnaround:
Bogaerts
Chavis
Devers
Benintendi
Verdugo
Erod (potentially)
Downs (maybe)
Not sure how different that really is--there's definitely more young offensive guys now but there's just NO pitching. And that makes half of each game a horror show.
Ha! Thanks. The damned gamethreads are for better or worse one of the most significant signs of normalcy in this whole stupid thing.
Bingo. I decided that I'll be fine catching a national game here and there and just watching the A's or Giants when I want to watch baseball. Also, while I am a big "root for the laundry" guy, seeing Mookie in a Dodgers uniform definitely impacted my enthusiasm for the season.
Going by this metric, the answer is "the same." Baseball has never been a "need to watch every second" game for me even in a normal season when the Red Sox are good. But my viewing habits haven't changed from prior years - I watched a good chunk of opening day, didn't watch any of the weekend games because I was doing other stuff (but did catch a few inning on the radio on Saturday), watched a few innings on Monday and didn't watch any part of the game yesterday because they were down big before I even had a chance to turn on the TV.
But I always get score alerts on my phone and will follow the gamethreads if I'm watching something else on TV or whatever.
I've watched a "tiny bit" but that definitely would have been up one or two slots with Mookie still on the team (obviously Price would likely have still opted out regardless). Besides the items covered already, another issue that cooled things for me was the relatively lack of unity by the players for the pregame BLM message. Not that it matters much in the grand scheme of things since sports fans have rooted for teams we know are tight just the same as teams we know are "25 cabs" collectives, but it was just a bad taste to get right before the first pitch. For the Sox management to go the distance they have since Floyd with public statements about racism at Fenway, the BLM billboard, and then JBJ to be involved with that moving pregame video tribute, then to see the Orioles all kneel as one with only a handful of Sox joining JBJ felt like a collective shrug towards the team unit. Geez even if you don't fully buy into the message, for camaraderie sake everyone does stuff they may not feel 100% about with their teammates/co-workers to keep a strong workplace environment.
I've caught at least a bit of each game so far. I'd have watched more except I'm still at work when the games start and I'm unlikely to pay for MLB.tv at the current rate. I'm at the mercy of MLBNetwork and ESPN/ESPN+ for what I can watch.
Zero.
I normally follow mostly via the radio app, and was considering getting MLBTV, but when they jacked the price I decided not to bother (and that was before the quality of the pitching showed itself). When I went to get the radio ap, it looked like more or less the regular full season cost ($20), and I just can't bring myself to give MLB any money whatsoever. When I head to NH for vacation they'll be on TV, I'll check the team out then, if the season gets that far.
I normally follow mostly via the radio app, and was considering getting MLBTV, but when they jacked the price I decided not to bother (and that was before the quality of the pitching showed itself). When I went to get the radio ap, it looked like more or less the regular full season cost ($20), and I just can't bring myself to give MLB any money whatsoever. When I head to NH for vacation they'll be on TV, I'll check the team out then, if the season gets that far.
I have watched far too much of it. I was going to cancel my extra innings subscription when I saw the price, but DirecTV gave it to me for free. Based on their current performance, I overpaid.
I watched all of the game on opening day, but since I don't like to see the Sox lose ever, I have only tuned in when the game was relatively close and they looked to be having a rally. Otherwise I just wait for the notifications on my phone for the updated score.
After Opening Day, I have watched only when there is no competitive baseball game being simultaneously broadcast. I love the Red Sox but still cannot feign interest in a team that seems to believe giving prominent roles to Heath Hembree and Kevin Pillar somehow contributes to the next good Red Sox team.
I'm basically only watching for the novelty factor at this point. The already-fake season could be canceled at any moment, and that's exciting! The pitching staff is so bizarre that I'm guessing we look back on it in a few years with bemusement. Study up now for some great future trivia questions.
Your screen name always reminds me of the Summer of 75, the Red Sox got Denny Doyle in mid June, he soon ripped off a 17 game hitting streak as that team marched towards a WS match up with the Reds...…………..and I'll never forget him getting thrown out at third in game 6, bases loaded, no outs, on a fly ball to left, Zimmer the third base coach was yelling no, no, no, Denny thought he said go, go, go, he was thrown out by a mile...........good job Zim. I was a fan of the team growing up in the late 1960's, but that Summer, I started a lifelong love affair with this team........right now, I feel like filing for a divorce, but 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018 say hello.
If this year is considered a bridge year, I think Remagen sums it up.
This is a good point. While I have been watching, I am basically just rooting for the right guys to perform enough to have some trade value...in a year when teams will probably not be willing to give up much. So...yeah. There are a few young guys on the 60-man that I hope to see as the season progresses.
I'm in this boat. Did catch the free game of the day though. If MLB pro-rated the cost, I'd probably have paid for it.
But they didn't, and that makes this season seem all the more like a doomed money-grab that's sending exactly the wrong message to a country in peril. . .so, like, fuck them. They don't get a dime.
I know this doesn't really affect your point, but if Kevin Pillar and Heath Hembree were the two biggest problems on this team that would be a massive step up from where they are now. At this point Hembree is probably like our 4th or 5th best pitcher, and Kevin Pillar is currently sporting an OPS of over 1.500.
I haven’t watched any since I cut the cord in spring of 2019. But that said, I don’t think anyone would be like “psh whatever it’s a fake season” if the Red Sox weren’t hot garbage. I actually think they should play fewer games every year from now on, the 162-game grind is not a good thing.
Kein, nichts, none. Listened to Opening Day and a bit of the remainder of the Baltimore series on SiriusXM. Sounds like the perfect season to spend more time on my hobbies.
Watched a little more than half the innings, including the entirety of Sunday’s game and good-sized chunks of each of the other three. This is in line with past early-season viewing habits. Unless they start playing a whole lot better, I won’t maintain this clip when the NBA restarts.
Watched most of the Opener and loved it. Seeing baseball back and hearing Eck and Remy and Castig -- even in this unwise and bizarre "season" -- was thrilling. Only caught ~2 innings of most of the rest, mostly because I've got a ton going these days, and also because the hot dog vendors are often pitching when I tune in. I will say I'll try to keep it on the radio in the car, because I'd happily listen to Castig narrate a 30-0 blowout either way.
The Red Sox have brought me more joy over the past 16 years than I would have thought possible, and baseball's my far and away #1, so they've earned a few down years. When possible I'll try to keep it on the TV and radio as background (except when it conflicts with Celtics and Bruins playoff games), especially because I'm not sure how many games they'll actually be able to play.
I'm not watching as much as I would have, but basically this:
The Red Sox have brought me more joy over the past 16 years than I would have thought possible, and baseball's my far and away #1, so they've earned a few down years. When possible I'll try to keep it on the TV and radio as background (except when it conflicts with Celtics and Bruins playoff games), especially because I'm not sure how many games they'll actually be able to play.
I'm not watching as much as I would have, but basically this:
This is also a good point:
Agree with this. It's rare that a Red Sox team has been hopeless since Game Two -- in recent decades, they've only been truly hopeless after some fire sale trade deadlines in 2012, 2014 (that team was basically done after the 11? game losing streak in May), 2015. It is a shame that there aren't a ton of young developing players to root for and watch beyond Verdugo and Chavis. I'm interested to see if 10D can turn it around and whether Devers keeps developing. But the pitching is... yeah.
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Yes, to me, there is a vast difference. Xander and Betts were among the guys I was watching intently in 2015. Plus just the vibe of the season changed dramatically when Lovullo took over and the team responded with wins. Who am I watching intently now? Everyone you listed, aside from Verdugo, and maybe Chavis, is a known commodity. Obviously people can disagree, but is there a real sense that we're watching a young team develop in 2020?
This is where I'm at too. 2015 was fun because it was...different. You could root for guys to do well because they were young and starting out, and that kind of carried to the team collectively. It was nice because for once it wasn't World Series or they suck.
I was really hoping for this kind of vibe and made a conscious effort to get into a habit of watching after a few years of only tuning in to playoff games mostly. It's really hard with the product on the field. I do listen to the radio a lot though because that's like a childhood binky kind of thing.
Denny Doyle was my first sports autograph and probably my first interaction with anyone famous. It was my first Fenway game, and the two things I recall are walking out on the first base side and seeing the beautiful green bathed in light, and then after the game Denny Doyle signing the envelope that our tickets came in, when we passed it through the chain link fence you could stand near to try to see the players.
My dad has some amazing autographs. Probably the most amazing is a souvenir training card that they handed out when he watched Muhammad Ali in a public session before the Liston fight. The card has a tale of the tape on both sides for the two fighters and identifies Ali as "Cassius Clay." This would have been in very early 1964, but he signed it Muhammad Ali. It's a real neat piece of history, because he hadn't changed his name yet and was facing serious pressure from the fight promoter not to identify as Muhammad Ali, so the signature on the card is an early symbol of his defiance. It's a pretty cool thing to have.
So, what does that have to do with anything? The point is that even with that training card and some other amazing stuff (an RFK autograph, for example), nothing comes close to that Denny Doyle autograph. We have it in plastic. It's not quite my Rosebud, but it's close. I wish we had kept the tickets, because I don't know if is from 1975 or 1976. I would like to hope it was 1975, but I've tried a lot of different ways to figure it out and I'm just not sure. I remember 1975 vividly, and I would think that visit to Fenway, if it was 1976, would have been memorable to me for being the year after the world series, and since it wasn't, I think it must have been just after the trade for Doyle. But I'm just guessing.
I don't know--Devers is 22. Verdugo is 24. Benintendi was the age of JBJ in 2015. But I was leaning more on the side of there being a number of guys that will be a part of the next 90+ win Sox team.
I get you though, there *is* a difference.
In the end, I love baseball. I'm going to watch as much as feasible, but yeah, if I get home late and it's 9-1 in the 7th, I'm likely not tuning in. In fairness, if the Sox were up 9-1 I likely wouldn't either at that point, unless sometime fun is going on--X has 4 hits or someone has 3 dingers and will get another AB.
If it's 6-1 I'm probably following on the app and if they get a couple on base I'll flip over.
I think my calculus would be different if the NBA and NHL weren't about to return. There's only so many hours in the day to devote to watching sports. In the 2015 example I cited, there was nothing else going on that August, so spending a couple hours a day watching that team was a fine way to pass the time. This August I'm choosing between two teams that have championship aspirations, and what looks to be a dreadful Sox team. And if the NFL and college football come back in September, the Sox will slide even further down my list of priorities.
I agree that seeing the team constantly down 4-5 runs by the 2nd inning really kills my mood to watch.
Thanks for sharing both of those stories.
The 1970 Bruins, 1975 Red Sox and the 1985 Patriots are my three favorite Boston sports teams ever; understood, neither won a championship, but I'll never forget 1975, nor will I forget 1985.
My Dad took me to a number of Bruins games in 1970, we had great seats, he got the tickets from his cousin, who was the head of security at the old garden.
In 1975 my Uncle Peter came to visit from Arizona, he drove cross country that year in a camper and was here for two months, July and August, he scored several pairs of tickets for games that summer and took me along, my first bigtime exposure to Fenway and the Red Sox. He was a huge Red Sox fan and didn't live long enough to see them win it all in 2004, that still bothers me to this day.
In 1985, I had seasons tickets for the Patriots, myself and about 10 of my friends flew to Miami to see the Squish the fish game at the Orange Bowl, it was up until that time my second greatest sports memory, Bobby Orr scoring his iconic goal in the 1970 SC finals vs the Blues was number one and still is.
Not to derail this thread, but even though they stink this year, having sports back in whatever form it's in for as long as it lasts is helping me get through the current shitshow we are all dealing with.
why on earth did Directv give you extra innings for free? how can that happen to me? (want to watch the Oakland games)
Honestly, for me it's just nice to hear RemDawg and Eck's voices in the background of whatever I'm doing, with a cameo from Guerin every now and then.
The team itself has not been fun to watch, but at least if there were ever a year for us to suck, this one came at a good time.
The team itself has not been fun to watch, but at least if there were ever a year for us to suck, this one came at a good time.
Wow -- great stuff. There are probably a million people who say that were at the Bobby Orr game, and so it must be cool to be one of the ones who really was.
Your post made me realize that I have no idea who won the Denny Doyle game. We live far away from Fenway now, but I've taken DDB Jr. to his share of games there too, and I really don't remember who won those games either. I don't think it's a thread derail at all, actually, because isn't that really the point of the whole thread? Maybe they'll go 1-59 this year. I hope the next time we are at Fenway we remember what it was like to watch the team during the pandemic, and I hope that when we have that memory it will be more than just remembering that they stunk. I think it will be more.
I’m definitely checking the scores every day, but other than one or two very targeted tune ins, I haven’t watched.
I have watched almost all of it and will continue to do so. Maybe when the Bruins are on I won't. But it's like watching a car accident at this point; it's hard to look away.
Watched Friday's and Sunday's games in their entirety. Saw a few innings Monday. Missed everything else.
It just doesn't feel right to me. It looks and sounds wrong, I don't think they should be playing, and it's a shortened season with funky rosters. I'm a zero percent.
Watched all of opening day game. W
Partial viewings of next four LLLL
watched all of tonight’s game W
guess I need to strap in for whole games now
Partial viewings of next four LLLL
watched all of tonight’s game W
guess I need to strap in for whole games now
Have watched zero innings, don’t intend to and expect it’ll be done in a week or two. This strikes me as seriously FUBAR and goes to show how inane MLB is about how they handle things. This is entirely on the owners and Manfred, but that’s all imho.
I will say it’s the first time I don’t miss having NESN. When I lived out of area I paid for Extra Innings or the online feed. I think the production value has gone to shit, the announcers suck, Remy included since Orsillo left (and if I want nostalgia I’ll put on the radio and listen to Joe).
All that said, I don’t expect anyone to agree, I’m just not in the boat that watching sports would offer me some piece of normalcy. I can find other things to do with my time than get invested in a joke of a season that’s quickly turning into a debacle.
Given the tweet in another thread, does anyone still want to argue that the season is legit and shouldn’t get some kind of asterisk? Teams are just beginning to get wiped out and they’re actively talking about 7 inning double headers. I assume next stop is anyone left standing is in a HR derby to decide the World Series.
I will say it’s the first time I don’t miss having NESN. When I lived out of area I paid for Extra Innings or the online feed. I think the production value has gone to shit, the announcers suck, Remy included since Orsillo left (and if I want nostalgia I’ll put on the radio and listen to Joe).
All that said, I don’t expect anyone to agree, I’m just not in the boat that watching sports would offer me some piece of normalcy. I can find other things to do with my time than get invested in a joke of a season that’s quickly turning into a debacle.
Given the tweet in another thread, does anyone still want to argue that the season is legit and shouldn’t get some kind of asterisk? Teams are just beginning to get wiped out and they’re actively talking about 7 inning double headers. I assume next stop is anyone left standing is in a HR derby to decide the World Series.
