Six AM Shenanigans: I missed the game too, folks, but the Red Sox beat the Giants 9-2. Wakefield looked very good, Jed Lowrie(whose now wearing the number 12(change your scorecard folks)) homered, but the big story was more of JD Drew. JD Drew is somehow become, as one reporter put it, Mr. Japan. He hit a grand slam in the game. Hope he can keep it up in the states. :)

Viewpoints and Opinions of the Boycott: The majority of people still don't understand what exactly the point of the matter is over the near boycott. First off, the Red Sox were refusing to take the field because of the fact that the COACHES weren't going to be paid. These guys are making it sound like that they were being refused paying. This was for their coaches who don't get much love. And about the Charlotte article, they were going to end up doing that if worst came to worst and they were absolutely forced to do so. People forget this. However, hat tip to Jim Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer who got it right.

Coaches and support staff weren't going to receive appearance stipends until members of the defending World Series champion Red Sox proved to be as classy as they are talented and threatened to boycott Wednesday's spring-training game if everyone didn't get a slice of the pie.

Eventually, a resolution was reached, coaches and staffers were shown the appreciation they deserve and the Red Sox and A's went to Japan.

This isn't so much about the myopia of coaches and staffers not getting their due in an industry that had revenues of more than $6 billion last year. It's about how important and valuable coaches and staffers are to a team and how Red Sox players helped bring all that to light.

THAT is what it was all about. They're a part of the team, they deserve an equal stipend. Let's leave it at that and move on, okay?

All About Managers: The Boston Globe seemed to have a very lengthy and interesting feature on managers past and present and a lot of Tito related stuff today. One of the most prevalent articles was from Gordon Edes who asks Why doesn't Tito get much appreciation? which opens up with a hilarious bit of a phone call that Tito received:

Sitting in the shade of the third base dugout on a recent sunny morning here, Red Sox manager Terry Francona began his daily session with the media by pulling out his cellphone and replaying a voicemail he'd received in the aftermath of signing a three-year contract extension.

The caller was clearly agitated.

"I just found out from a doctor friend who lives up there that those people have lost their [expletive] minds," the message began. "Theo Epstein and your good friend, the very personable Larry Lucchino, gave your ass a three-year contract with two option years? They've lost their friggin' minds. Do they want to win? You stunk as a player and anybody who knows anything about this game knows you're not a very good manager. Why would they make a mistake like that?

"You tell Brad Mills and all those guys that I think it's good somebody is that stupid enough to give you a contract extension, so they can keep their jobs."

Had Francona's cellphone number popped up on one of those Internet message boards where he is routinely referred to as "Francoma?"

Nah. This was an inside job. The man who left the message was Marty Brennaman, the longtime Reds broadcaster who has been friends with Francona since he played for Pete Rose's teams in Cincinnati in the late '80s.

I believe this is the same guy I joked during a Fox Broadcast of having an insane mancrush on Tito...now this explains everything. But I thought this was a pretty good article. Joe Torre has an interesting line in here too.

When Pat Riley was winning back-to-back championships with the NBA's Lakers in the 1980s, his role was frequently diminished in public, people saying that with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy, all Riley had to do was roll the ball onto the floor and the Lakers would win. Francona, who can write the names of David Ortiz and Manny Ramírez on his lineup card on a daily basis, hears some of the same stuff.

It's nonsense, Torre says.

"We've talked so often about the personalities of the Red Sox - they're all over the place," Torre said. "But Don Mattingly and I have talked about this: When they get between the lines, they're united.

That's really true. But I think also the good leadership in the clubhouse helps out with that and while I am here, I'm gonna just point out this CHB article(yes I know he's a miserable sonofabitch) just naming off all 44 managers in history which Kind of reads off like "We Didn't Start the Fire" to me

Ride the Youth Movement: This was a really good article from Jon Couture from South Coast Today which is a local paper from New Bedford, MA. I've read some of his stuff and it's pretty good stuff. I really liked this recent article about the youth and vets on the Red Sox and the fit they make. He compares it so well to the LA Dodgers because they were both similar teams in terms of vets and youths but then it kind of diverged with differing opinions. He talks about how well the vets and rooks get along. This one excerpt is a personal favorite of mine:

"These guys are on our team. Making maybe one of the young guys carry the beer on the team bus, something like that, can be in fun, but I think when you're in the clubhouse, you're on the field, they're our guys," he said. "I don't think you start measuring, when you're trying to win games, how many years guys have in the big leagues. They're our guys."

And it didn't take clubhouse access to see the personality of Pedroia — measured, teammates say, until he began performing — the success of Buchholz and the blinding speed of Ellsbury has injected some needed life into the Sox' veteran core.

"Look at how many times last year things could have maybe broken down. Cora's hitting about .400. Petey's (Pedroia) scuffling. Who helped Petey more than anybody? AC," Francona said, beaming. "If somebody was taking a shot at Petey, who was the first one to be there with his arm around him? Mikey Lowell. That's two of the more veteran guys we have on our team. I think that's the way it's supposed to be."

I thought that was pretty awesome to hear(mostly due to a random running joke of mine).

Well that's all I got for newsages, I should be spamming in a while, I need to collect a little more and then I'm good to go. :)