Red Sox Home Opener at Feway Park

[Updated 4/8/08, 6:01 pm)

photo copyright MLB.com

Daisuke Matsuzaka will pitch the home opener against the Tigers today at Fenway that begins at 2:05 pm. Affectionately known as "Dice K" to Red Sox fans, this is the pitcher's 3rd start of the season and things are looking far better than they did last season.

Bill Littlefield, of NPR Boston and Only a Game, recited the following poem this morning on
Morning Edition (copyrighted)

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If you don't want to listen, the text is here (also copyrighted):

First they traveled to Toyko, went one and one,
Then they played in Los Angeles merely for fun,
'Cause those games didn't count in the standings, you see,
(Although no one was let in to see them for free.)

They next played in Oakland, and twice they prevailed,
But it wouldn't have mattered if there they had failed,
They'd still have been trav'ling come the next day
To the third of the countries in which they would play
Before reaching the park they have long called their home...
And in less than a week, they will once again roam.

I don't mean to suggest you should pity the boys,
For they each can buy plenty of shiny, new toys
With the money they got for agreeing to start
The '08 baseball season so deep in the heart
Of Japan. Nor do I think the travel will matter
Though some may complain, moan and whimper and natter...
About the tough job of adjusting to changes
In time, food, and sleep as the whole ballclub ranges
Around and around and from nation to nation...
Hey, welcome to baseball meets globalization.

But now they've come home, that's the note we should strike,
And that most ancient ball yard beside the Mass Pike
Will once again echo with shouts and with cries
As each fan daily lives or each fan nightly dies
With the team that has taught them both grief and elation,
And taught them as well to exalt Red Sox Nation
And buy all every t-shirt and jersey and jacket...
By heaven, a sports team can sure be a racket...

But that's not the tune to be singing today,
For the home team is home, and it's been far away,
And the spring is upon us, and grass grows as well
And the whole point of baseball, as clear as a bell
Is the lovely illusion, now starting anew
That we all can begin now to do what we do
With the hope and the courage and maybe the luck
To believe that it's true that we'll rise from the muck
Of the fear that the market will crash down to nil
And the dollar, near worthless and tumbling still,
Will continue to fall until one day, it's true,
We'll need hundreds to just buy a Sox cap that's new.

Ah, no matter the problems, no matter the mess
That the greedheads have made of the nation, for, yes,
Though one nation we know is at war and depressed,
There's another big nation by which we're possessed...
And today its brave banner is finally unfurled...
So hooray, Red Sox Nation, who needs the real world?

If you are one of the lucky ones, at work without access to seeing the real game, MLB Gameday offers the game online in the virtual world. It's not Fenway, but it is as close as some can get :) Red Sox take the game, scoring 0-5.