Love the blog. Just a couple of quick questions, off the topic of baseball. Do you, with your busy schedule, ever find the time to play ASL anymore? Once retirement arrives for you, do you think you will get back into that aspect of your life a bit more? If you do remain with the Sox, and God in heaven I hope you do, if you want to pick up an ASL game at some point, let me know. New Bedford isn’t all that far from Medfield.

As for baseball content. As a life long die-hard Sox fan, I never truely thought I would live to see the day when we won it all. Thanks for being a huge part of that. My aunt, 80 years young at the time, and a life-long Sox devotee was moved to tears when you guys won, because she really never thought it would happen. I don’t know if you will ever get the full impact of what that meant for this region, but you were so much a part of that. I know we are a pretty intense bunch around here, but as far as I am concerned, you would have to axe murder a family of eight to get booed at Fenway. Keep on truckin, and know that the Sox fans love ya man. Hope you can find a way to finish your carreer here.

ASL player, and Sox fan,

Carl Nogueira

Many years ago, Andre Dawson when he played for the CUBS was having a bad year ( after he signed a great contract ), requested that the Cubs either cut his salary or donate it to charity ( he felt he let the team and ownership down )That’s a professional ball player !

Your an honarable person, show the sports world how it should be done. The Red Sox management would never purposely hurt you.

Dback fan here, thought I’d just make a quick correction.

By the way, this has been great so far, and I love to hear that you plan on posting at least a bit after each game. I hope more pro athletes catch on to this whole internet thing.

Love your Scott Rolen choice and Arod and Santana also - talking in non RS terms (and Foulke in the other thread talking in RS terms).

Anyway, enjoy your season. Let it be another 2004 and 2001 for you (and us).

Another great blog out of you.. I love how i can get inside your head and get the straight deal from the horses mouth and not 2nd 3rd.. 7th hand from know-it-all columnists who claim to know what you’re thinking and going on with you.

My question is simply this:

Did you ever have a big problem with Petey being the #1 pitcher or yourself? I remember much was made about that.. it was said that pedro wanted to remain the #1 starter for the team when you originally came on board with the sox.. and some columnist floated the idea that you were insistent on being the opening day starter… You never really know how much of that is true when you read some columnists who think they know the answer in articles on an opinionated question like that..

Thanks for keeping your fans in the loop!

God bless,

Matt

I hope all is well in FL. Just a question about the plunks that were exchanged yesterday. I know that in a season these incidents can take on a life of their own and snowball over time. One example would be the craziness between Piniella’s Devil Rays and the Red Sox that seemed to get worse each year until his departure last year. (”Mysteriously” things seem to have now settled down between the Rays and Sox.)

I never like too see our pitchers hit an opposing player unless the other team’s pitcher is being totally reckless and then of course there’s a right way to handle things like that. I’m not saying you did anything intentionally of course, but I remember seeing you pitch a day game in Anaheim in July 2004 where one or two off our guys got plunked, then late in the game you had a pitch “get-away” from you that dinked Bengie Molina (I think) in the side. I think the strangest/funniest part was that the Umps didn’t toss you, then Scoscia got steamed about it and he got tossed instead. We ended up winning the game and that was one of your 21 wins that year, among other memorable things that happened in 2004.

So my question is, did seeing Maggs on the ground after the hit in the head/hair (depending on the replay you see) freak anybody out in the Sox dugout? I’m glad that he’s going to be okay and was just a bit groggy afterwards. (Because of a defect in my character I can’t briing myself to worry about Gary Sheffield getting hit. Too much water under the bridge from his time in LA and NY.)

The other question about this would be: Is this a normal part of Spring Training since pitchers do need to regain the feel of their pitches? I don’t expect that Josh was trying to do anything intentional as the emotions between Tigers and Red Sox organizations don’t usually run that high. Just curious on your take on this since the media coverage on this, of course, didn’t make the Red Sox look too good.

Thanks again for everything Curt. Best of luck to you in your next start!

Your biggeest fan,

Deane

From, Jeff Riley