Tony Massarotti of the Boston Herald writes that the upcoming trip to Japan is starting to severely interfere with the Red Sox’s quest for back-to-back championships.
Beyond that, here is something to consider: To play roughly 6-7 hours of regular season baseball, the Sox will spend nearly five times as many hours (34) in the air.
The moon isn’t in the sky that long.
On the surface, this does not look like an enormous sacrifice. Spring training is far too long to begin with and the Sox open their schedule only a week earlier than most everyone else. One week certainly isn’t too much to promote major league baseball and brand the Sox logo on the side of a pagoda. Who cares about Benny Agbayani when you can have Benihana?
In reality, the Red Sox aren’t giving up one week so much as they are two, maybe three. Last year, nobody would have batted an eye if Josh Beckett [stats] walked off the mound with back spasms prior to a scheduled start on March 8. This year, Beckett immediately became a candidate to miss a March 25 opener because the Red Sox need to be on a plane on March 19.
While the trip overseas is good for baseball from a marketing standpoint, I agree with Massarotti in that the Sox don’t need this. Contenders like Boston enter the season thinking about one thing: Winning the World Series. Are the Sox more likely to accomplish that goal staying home? I would think so. Or, to play devil’s advocate, would this even be an issue if Beckett weren’t suffering from back spasms?
