Fan friendly

More reasons why the Red Sox-Sea Dogs affiliation is great news

By Sam Pfeifle

Okay, so the news about the Sea Dogs becoming a Red Sox AA affiliate is hardly breaking at this point. On Wednesday, September 18, a small crowd of journalist-types and invited guests sat between home plate and the back stop — and 50 or so regular fans sat in the seats behind the screen — to hear Red Sox interim general manager Mike Port make the announcement. (I wouldn’t have called him “interim,” but that’s the way he was announced by Sea Dogs radio announcer Todd Jamison, and it didn’t seem to bother him.) There were cheers and good feelings all around, and we on the field went away with a feel-good story and a free T-shirt with the new red-and-blue logo on it. (Taking free stuff may be a breach of some kind of journalistic ethics, but I didn’t care. I wanted the free T-shirt.)

There was other free stuff, too. We all got to have lunch at tables set up right along the first baseline. I’m a vegetarian, so I wasn’t all that excited, but the guys I was sitting with raved about the lobster rolls. Some of them went back for thirds.

But lunch was the best part of the day — other than maybe City Councilor Jill Duson’s mimicry of a fog horn — for reasons other than the food. Just as I was finishing up my pasta salad, who comes over to sit with me but Red Sox interim general manager Mike Port! A pretty reserved guy, he actually asked if it would be alright for him to sit down.

Well, I tell ya, some of these big-time sports writers used to using Dan Duquette for a punching bag these last few years might not have been impressed, but I was just about star struck. This is the man with the power to trade Nomar, fine Manny, and clean the dirt out of Pedro’s cleats. (He apparently doesn’t have the power to get Pedro to make one more start, however. What if I had tickets to that game on Thursday he was scheduled to start? Whom would I rather see play for $25, Pedro or Anastacio Martinez? I’ve already been burned once this season, when Pedro decided he’d pitch the day game a few Mondays ago and my ticket became one for a Frankie Castillo-started, B-player crap-fest that featured a three-four-five lineup of Bennie “Waiver Wire” Agbayani, Carlos “Blow-up Doll” Baerga, and Shane “Who?” Andrews.)

Anyway, like I said, I was star struck, and so we chatted about the weather (it was really nice out), while he got lobster and mayo all over himself. Port’s co-worker, Kent Qualls, Red Sox director of player operations, sat down, too. He pointed over at Hadlock Field’s left field wall. “I was here one night,” he said, “and [a certain Red Sox prospect] hit one so far over that wall it nearly made the highway behind it.”

“Yeah,” commented Port, “distance was never his problem. It’s the frequency with which he hits them.”

Now, Port has made a reputation for himself as one of the driest guys around for his radio appearances with Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano that precede every Red Sox game on WEEI’s Red Sox Radio Network. But he was dropping some gems here in a casual setting. I didn’t have my notebook out, however. And though I identified myself as being the editor of the Phoenix, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what that was. So I’m not going to hang him out to dry with any quotes that might be misconstrued. Let’s just say they were all good-natured and spoken from the point of view of a fan, similar to the jabs I take at players three beers deep into an average Red Sox game.

Which is the point I’m getting around to here. I’m excited about the Sea Dogs becoming a Red Sox affiliate not just because I won’t have to be rooting for the Marlins anymore. (Okay, I never actually rooted for the Marlins.) I’m excited because everybody involved with the venture — from John Henry to George Mitchell to the Alfond family to Dan Burke and Charlie Eshbach — seems to be a genuinely excited fan, too.

I mean, these guys have some serious bank accounts, so, while this pairing and the Red Sox in general are obviously business ventures meant to turn a profit, I think that’s just out of habit. I think Harold Alfond threw in some cash to be minority partner because he’d rather support the effort toward a Red Sox championship than build another arena somewhere in Maine (though he’ll probably do that, too). I think George Mitchell would rather buy a piece of a Red Sox championship than negotiate some world-changing peace agreement in the Middle East (though he’ll probably . . . never mind).

I think these guys are purely irrational Red Sox fans just like me, and that’s who I like seeing at the helm of the Red Sox flagship, and all the other boats on down the line. That’s why I never took a swing at Dan Duquette, however impersonal and wooden he may have seemed. He seemed like a fan, probably would have been interesting to have lunch with, and I bet he still watches every agonizing game along with the rest of us.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com. “Game On” tackles all manner of marginal sports and runs once a month.