Kiss Today Goodbye.

After the shock of 2011 and the allegations of laziness and drug abuse and the team being composed of nasty, horrible people, I really thought that 2012 was going to be a banner year for the Boston Red Sox.

I thought that they were going to be a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, grow-a-chip-on-your-shoulder kind of group. I thought that they were going to band together and put the past in the past. I was even prepared to like Bobby Valentine. But they were horrible. They were fractious and petty and just bad at baseball. By they end of the year, the only likeable people left on the team were David, Clay, and Vicente Padilla-made likeable by the fact that they showed up at Johnny Pesky's funeral. They rest of them were selfish, whiny, overgrown children.

I wasn't prepared to like the 2013 team.  I was, in fact, ready to step back from the whole thing. They weren't much to look at and I really didn't think that they were going to do much. If they finished above five hundred, it would have been a miracle. But they came in like a breath of fresh air. They seemed to enjoy the game and their enthusiasm was infectious. Granted, it took me awhile to trust them but they made baseball fun again. And I'm grateful.

There's hope in baseball again and you've gotta have hope. As much as I hate hope because hope is behind so many broken hearts, it's a beautiful thing.

Tomorrow is 2014 and with it six-ish weeks until baseball starts again. Can they do it again? Is that magical year a once in a lifetime sort of occurrence? (Can everything go wrong for the Yankees again? Please?) It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility for them to be successful. To this point, nobody in the division has improved by leaps and bounds.  Only one way to find out.

World Famous.

When a certain large Dominican man makes a list of the top 100 sports people of the year in North America it hardly seems noteworthy. But when that same man appears at number 80 on a list published in a London newspaper, it seems rather impressive. When one little speech can make such a strong impression on people who, by and large, don't follow your sport, you must be doing something right.

Fisheye Lens.

Before Boston won the World Series, Shane Victorino handed his GoPro camera over to Mike Carp. The footage is a lot of fun.

Konichiwa.

Kevin Youkilis has agreed to play baseball for the Rakuten Golden Eagles next season. While he was never my favorite guy, the fact that he never made it to Fenway in pinstripes while bilking the Yankees out of $12 million makes me gleeful. And I really do hope that he can be successful over there.

Honorary Bostonians.

There are lots of people who are from Boston but unless you were conceived within city limits, you're not a Bostonian.  Sometimes the rules can be stretched a little bit.

Yesterday Ryan Kalish went and signed up with the Cubs. And while I don't begrudge him the opportunity, it makes me sad because, unlike Ellsbury, it felt like Kalish was ours. He really embraced the idea of Boston and he seemed like a wonderfully sweet young man. Perhaps he was just sick of Florida (it seems like a natural progression after so many months there) and decided to go spend the bulk of his time in Arizona. (I kid because I love.)

Mike Napoli expressed his undying love for all things Boston during a conference call to announce his signing. I wouldn't have thought it but he turned out to be an extraordinarily likeable person. So more power to him.

And David Ortiz wants to stay forever and ever. They should put him on the Wakefield plan.

Hell's Bells, Ells.

Jacoby Ellsbury has decided to spend the next seven years in the Bronx. I wouldn't have called myself an Ellsbury fan but jeez, man. The Yankees?

He's shown himself to be the cold, soulless monster we've always suspected that he was.

Mr. Unpronounceable.

If I were to go to Poland and try to get by on the Polish that my grandmother taught me, I would likely attract the wrong sort of people. I know 'excuse me', 'come here', and 'give me a kiss.' [This is where the joke falls apart because it turns out that prostitution is legal in Poland but I can't think of another way to start this piece, so we'll all just pretend that it's still amusing.]

Boston has agreed to sign AJ Pierzynski, and his nasty attitude, to a one year deal. Maybe it'll all work out. Fingers crossed.