The feud between Red Sox ownership and Hank "Spaulding Smails" Steinbrenner is escalating. After Hank moaned, "Red Sox Nation? What a bunch of [expletive] that is.", John Henry responded by sending Hank an honorary RSN membership card. While we've taken our shots at the bloated "Red Sox Nation" phenomenon before - it's jumped the shark the way "Sweet Caroline" did, and Gino is in the process of doing - we recognize the need to circle......

In Boston, a commemorative plaque is mounted on every other building, tree and rock... and we're proud of it, b'gum'! We just checked the historic museum gift shops and the coast is clear of tourists, stoners and field-trippers until February vacation. Here are a few gift ideas for the history buff (or the ignorant). The people at Historic New England do not mess around. We're getting misty about their spectacular historic photos of Boston. Their......

Dare we say things are starting to click at the right time? The Red Sox finished off Oakland with an 11-6 win. Now only a monumental collapse (look upward; no lightning) will keep the Red Sox from celebrating an AL East clinchin' party in the next day or two. The Sox smacked Oakland largely due to the bat of Mike Lowell, who collected five of his 116 RBIs (a Red Sox 3B record) on a......

The bewhiskered gent at right is General William Tecumseh Sherman, who split the South in two during the Civil War with his famous march through Georgia. Last night may not have been as deeply psychologically scarring for residents of the Peach State, but it was a pretty good whuppin' just the same. The Red Sox pounded the Braves 11-0, behind a slew of home runs and another great outing by the astounding Julian Tavarez. J.D.......

Curt Schilling got a hit! After bunting into a strikeout in the second, Schill hit a bleeder in the fourth that rolled right past second base into center field for a single. Maybe we should focus on that, since Curt's pitching was...well...bad. Two starts after his Flirt with Destiny, Schilling got rocked again, by Atlanta's bats, giving up six runs on ten hits in less than five innings. His fastball doesn't seem to be fast......

You play until the late hours against your fiercest rival, then fly six hours cross-country to face one of the toughest pitchers out there. How would you fare? If you're the Red Sox, you'd fare badly for a while, then really well, then disappointed. Oakland starter Danny Haren was fantastic, shutting the Sox down with 9 strikeouts through the eighth. So Boston did what they do best, which is bide their time until the bullpen......

Even though the Devern Hansack experiment went horribly wrong Saturday night, the Sox had no choice but to go to the Pawtucket well again Sunday. So they brought up lefty Kason Gabbard to start Sunday's rain-delayed tilt with the Braves. And it went as well as we possibly could have hoped. Gabbard cooled off the Atlanta bats, which were still steaming from Saturday's 14-run nightcap, to the tune of five innings pitched, six hits, two......

The happiest Red Sox fans around have to be the ones who stopped watching baseball around 7:30 last night. They would have seen Game 1 of the doubleheader, a 13-3 Sox rout/Home Run Derby. They would have seen the Yankees' nightmarish loss to the Mets. But most importantly, they would have been spared Game 2, in which Atlanta demolished the Sox 14-0. A wild day all around. Game One was a laugher thanks in part......

It seems that Mother Nature didn't think the Red Sox's doubleheader sweep of the Tigers on Thursday was impressive enough - the first games after that two-fer will be tidily bundled in another dual-game gameday. The Sox called Friday's scheduled game against their Interleague Play Atlanta visitors pretty early, deciding instead to go the route of a 1 p.m./7:35 p.m. Saturday schedule. The pitching breakdown: Dice-K vs. Braves pitcher Anthony Lerew in the afternoon game,......

Any time you can sweep a doubleheader against the defending AL Champs and the second-best team in the league, you have to view that as a pretty good sign. So plenty of smiles all around at Fenway yesterday. The first game was all about the pitching; Julian Tavarez went seven innings, giving up one run on four hits, and then Okajima and Papelbon sealed the deal, vaporizing the Tigers for an inning apiece as the......

The complete game is a dying art in the States. In the age of relief specialists, managers tied to pitch counts, and Papelbon, there aren't a lot of occasions when a manager wants to leave his starter in any longer than necessary. And last night, in fact, Papelbon was warming up when the Sox blew the game open in the 8th, taking a 7-1 lead and giving Terry Francona an excuse to leave Daisuke in......

We could go into all sorts of philosophical and historical stories to draw some sort of analogy between the Red Sox and the Braves – from Thanksgiving to the Trail of Tear, but we won't go there. It's Monday and it's warm. The Sox won the last three games, all of them that they played against the Braves on their home turf in Hot-lanta. After falling to the Twins in Minnesota we'll take them –......

Well, don't you all feel better? The centerfield and shortstop holes have been filled, and the Olde Towne Team is shaping up. After an arduous and sketchy month or so, the Sox finally came to terms with the Cleveland Indians, acquiring highly touted Coco Crisp, relief pitcher David Riske, and backup Catcher Josh Bard. The Sox sent the Indians 3rd base prospect Andy Marte, catcher Kelly Shoppach, relief pitcher Guillermo Mota, a player to......

It’s been an eventful week for the Sox at baseball’s winter meetings. Already, 2 deals have been made by the Sox as the 2006 squad starts to shape up. Earlier in the week, the Sox sent backup catcher and fan favorite Doug "The Belly" Mirabelli to the San Diego Padres in exchange for second baseman and former All-Star Mark Loretta. Loretta is a career .301 hitter over 11 major league seasons and is expected to......

The initials "GM" have taken on an entirely new meaning for the Red Sox of late. "Gigantic Mess" seems appropriate. It's been two weeks since the press conference where we saw Theo Epstein depart the position everyone assumed he'd hold until at least his twenty-year reunion at Yale. It's been two weeks since we saw principal owner John Henry, at the very same press conference, speak in a manner of disbelief usually reserved for those......

No doubt glad to be back home, at least for a little while, the Red Sox licked their collective wounds and returned to Boston last night after a pretty abysmal performance by Grimace, errr ... David Wells, after his stint on the DL. Two innings, 7 runs? Sure, not a problem! Today armchair managers across New England put on their 20/20 "hindsight goggles" and wondered whether or not Boomer should have taken the mound in......