Red Sox half-hearted season preview

Dice-K mania, curt's blog, J.D. Drew and Julio Lugo.Honestly, I can't remember the last time I was this unexcited about a Red Sox season.
It's not all that unusual, for the past couple of years, it's taken longer and longer for me to get hooked on the imminent season, although, there is usually some point during spring training, everything will click, and I'll let out a big Ahhhh, Baseball ... sigh.

One of the big things that comes me more and more from giving myself over every year is the constant change of players from year to year. Like Jerry Seinfeld said, you're not rooting for players, you're rooting for laundry. Since Nomar was traded in the middle of 2004, the Sox have been on a seemingly endless quest to sign every ballplayer who has remotely considered playing shortstop. But, whatever, that's the price you pay for being a modern baseball fan.

Then there's the fact that I don't particularly find this year's edition of the Hometown Team very likeable. As opposed to most of the blowhards who call into sports talk radio (another topic for another day), I like Manny, and not just because he's good at hitting a baseball. I'll take Manny and his mid-inning bathroom breaks and Ebay salesmanship anyday over the boring "hard work and dedication" of Jason Varitek. Seriously, if Manny gets traded away this year, David Ortiz is pretty much all that separates me from being a Mets fan.

As for the non-Dominican players on the roster, well, there's Schilling. As Mrs. Endangered Coffee says everytime she sees him on television, "I don't really like that guy", and rather waxing poetic about the bloody sock and how the curse would have never been reversed had he not bravely sallied forth to the mound that fateful October night, I just go "yeah, he's kind of a blowhard". And there's Jonathan Papelbon, the wonderful young closer who could be the next, well, the next Curt Schilling, I guess. And Josh Beckett, who comes across like an older Jonathan Papelbon, or a younger Curt Schilling.

Finally, there's the way the media treat the Red Sox (especially when the Yankees are in town) like they cured cancer and landed on the moon. Which is fine on the sports pages, but when even the local newspapers use the top of the fold on the front page to do man on the street interviews on why the Yankees suck, it gets to be more than just a bit embarrassing.

And still, there is a certain poetry to the game, the green grass on a summer day, the crack of the bat, etc. that will unfailing draw me in. After all, I've been rooting for the same laundry for 30 years. It's probalby too late to stop now.