I am a lifelong Red Sox fan, and I am appreciative of all you have brought to our team. A dear friend of mine passed on Sunday…I believe you may have had the pleasure of meeting him. Al Hendsbee of Fairfield, Maine was a coach, mentor, and, most importantly, a friend. Al lost his fight, but he never lost his determination or “happy-go-lucky” attitude. I know you are a businessman on top of all of your major league responsibilities and extremely busy at that; however, I was hoping you could find it in your heart to post a good word or possibly contact the grieving family as I know they held you in the highest regard for all your selfless work with ALS. One of my best friends and his mother (along with half the state of Maine) are mourning the loss of gentleman and kindhearted man. They are holding a wake on Thursday the 20th with the funeral on the 21st. I realize that it is not realistic for you to attend, but any kind words you could offer would be a genuine blessing for this family. I will leave it at that. I truly admire the way you handle your public affairs as well as your charity contributions. Please forgive the length of my request.

Sincerely,

KJ

Good comment. It brought light to an old idea I had.

Enjoy the nice rest with your families this week, and we’ll see you guys on Friday ;p

Good luck in the ALCS, and grats on another pummelling on the California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Which is Near Disneyland But No Longer a Subsidiary Thereof(tm).

The beauty of YOUR blog is you can talk about whatever YOU want.

See you Sunday and *maybe* Monday at Angel Stadium, Curt!

I do not understand this decision one bit. Sad.

I had a nice little Brady –> Moss thing going on.

Sincerely,

Dumfounded in Newton

Just heard the pitching matchups for the ALDS, and I hope you see it as I do - that by giving you the always-critical Game 3 start, Tito is showing that in what is usually the pivotal situation in the first round for a team with home-field advantage, there’s only one person he wants on the mound. You.

Obviously, there are three ways we could go into that game: 2-0, 1-1, or 0-2. In the first instance, a solid start from you puts us in position to sweep the series. In the second, a solid start gives us a shot at the huge advantage of a 2-1 lead. Under the third scenario, a solid start could well save our postseason.

I also note that if he goes with the same rotation in the serieses to (hopefully) follow, with the addition of Wake as the fourth starter, you’d get the first road start in each of them also, as well as being in line to be our starter should either of them go to seven games. Right guy, right places, right times in my book. Go get ‘em!

As for the recent whines by some commenters here about your fantasy football posts, frankly, I think they’re being a little silly; you are a man of many enthusiasms, and your stated purpose with this blog is to share several of them with the public, You’ve never once said that this space would be baseball-only - in fact, quite to the contrary; you’ve made it very clear that it wouldn’t be. I have no problem at all with the FF posts (even though I’ve never been bitten by the FF bug myself), nor with any of the ALS/SHADE info, nor with the occasional 38 Studios updates. These are all parts of your world, and the blog is essentially a little window into that world through which we can peer. Thanks again for taking the time.

Lastly, I want to comment on all the hullabaloo surrounding the fact that your house is now on the market. People, especially the rumormongers in the local sports media, are reading all sorts of things into this action, everything from “He’s firing a warning shot over Theo’s bow by doing this” to “He’s already decided to leave here, and now he has one foot out the door”. Patently ridiculous, all of it.

Has it occurred to anyone, I wonder, that it’s equally likely - if not more likely - that the reason could be as simple as, “Curt and Shonda have decided that, whether it’s around here or somewhere else, they’d really rather live in a different house”? Have none of these people ever chosen to sell their house and move in their lives, for precisely that reason? Sheesh.

I can’t imagine, in this down market, that even a house with that one’s illustrious ownership history would sell quickly for anything approaching its real value, so it makes sense to me that you’d get it listed as early as possible to maximize your chances of getting the best price for it. Even if you (God forbid) play somewhere else next year, there’s no guarantee that you wouldn’t still find yourselves owning that house well into next season, whether you wanted to or not.

You’ve said in the past that your family enjoys living in this area, the business that is likely to be the primary focus for your energies once your baseballl career ends is located here, and you certainly have the financial means to be able to rent pretty much any house you want to for a year or two in any of the other MLB cities; if we’re going to speculate at all on this topic, I think those three facts combine to make my theory at least as plausible as are any of the other ones that I’ve heard bandied about. Only you and Shonda know the truth of the matter, and said truth is really none of our business, IMHO.

Well, that’s my $0.02USD. Keep up the good work, Curt, and good luck!

PS: If next year doesn’t find both you and Mike Lowell wearing Sox uni’s, I’m going to be very, VERY disappointed in both Theo and Larry. ‘Nuff said.