It's pretty sad when a persons love and devotion for a sports team gets manifested in violence. It happens quite often with football (soccer!) fans on the rest of the globe but not very often with fans of the "big 4" sports in North America. Unfortunately 'not very often' is still way too often.

Authorities in New Hampshire have charged 43 year-old Ivonne Hernandez with reckless conduct and aggravated drunk-driving over the weekend after she ran over 2 Red Sox fans with her car. The fans were harassing (read: joking around) with the driver over a Yankees bumpersticker plastered to her ride. She didn't find it very funny so she plowed them over. 29 year-old Matthew Beaudoin later died from the injuries he sustained thanks to this psycho-fan.

Say what you want about Coco Crisp and his vocal unhappiness about being a backup outfielder; but don't you ever say that he doesn't have a sense of humor.

When asked about the new speedier Boston team (their 26 stolen bases this season is the same as the amount of homeruns they've hit), Crisp came back with this gem: "But now we do [have speed]; Me, Ellsbury, Lugo, and Manny [Ramírez]. I think when you have the capabilities of stealing a base on a baseball team, it gives a different dynamic to your baseball team as well as having power."

That is pure gold how he just slipped Manny's name in there. I'm sure it's no coincidence that a couple of days ago Ramirez stole his first base in 3 years.

Red Sox spokesman John Blake admitted today that the team has spoken with officials in Sarasota, FL about possibly moving there in 2 years. The Reds will leave the facility empty after they move to Arizona and the Sox are looking into taking over where Cincinnati left off.

Second baseman Dustin Pedroia jammed his shoulder in tonight's game versus the Blue Jays. He dove for a ground ball and landed hard on his right side. He also made the stop, the throw, and stopped Toronto from scoring. The Red Sox won on a walk-off in the next inning.

Pitcher Justin Masterson was called up from the Portland Sea Dogs today to make a spot-start against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Craig Hansen was sent back down to make room for him.

With Beckett and Daisuke both missing starts due to the flu and post-flu symptoms (Josh's stiff neck), the Red Sox were forced to bring up Masterson A LOT earlier than they had hoped we would see him.

The team didn't want to have Wakefield pitch a day earlier than he was scheduled for two reasons. The first being that Wake is getting up there in years so forcing him to get out of his rhythm and pitch a day earlier than he is supposed to, can't possibly be a good thing. The second is that Wakefield usually dominates the Devil Rays and he's the penciled in starter against them tomorrow. Why mess with a good thing?!

Masterson has a nasty 0.95 ERA in 4 starts (19 innings) for Double-A Portland thus far. I'm personally shocked that he is getting called up this early but I'd be even more shocked if he stayed around after tonight's game.

Manny was named the 'Co-AL-Player Of The Week' (for the week of April 13th) by the MLB today. He shared the honors with Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers. This is the 16th time in his career that Ramirez has been honored by the POTW award.

Manny's line for the last 7 days looks like this: .417 BA, .517 OBP, 1.475 OPS, 4HR, 8RBI.

One heck of a week.

AA Portland right-hander Justin Masterson has been named the 'Eastern League Pitcher of the Week' for the week ending on April 13th. He pitched 5 innings, only giving up 2 hits while striking out an impressive 7 hitters.

In the middle of a 3-for-43 slump (.070 BA), David Ortiz is going to sit out tonight's game against the New York Yankees. He'll get some work in with hitting coach Dave Magadan instead. Manny Ramirez will take over Papi's spot at DH and Jacoby Ellsbury will play in left field.

A rough outing (0.1IP 2BB 2ER today) turns into a rough start to the season as pitcher Kyle Snyder has officially been designated for assignment. The move isn't official yet but Kyle himself has just confirmed it in a post-game interview.

For those of you not schooled on the knowledge of being DFA'ed, this gives the Red Sox 10 days to make a move on a player. The move can either be to trade him, release him, or put him on waivers.

Bartolo Colon started the season opener for the Pawtucket Red Sox last night and I'll be honest when I say I was shocked at how good he looked. Sure, it was against minor league hitters BUT his fastball topped out at 96mph and he routinely hit 93-95 on the radar gun. Not only that but he located his pitches where he needed to, throwing 74 pitches with 45 going for strikes.

His final line was: 5IP 0ER 1H 1BB 5K. Looks good so far for a no-risk, high-reward situation.

Since 2002, a red-tailed hawk has been building its nest at Fenway. It is always chased away before opening day and there has never been an issue with it.. until now.

The hawk swooped in on and attacked a 13-yr old girl yesterday. The girl, from my hometown of Bristol CT, was on a class field trip/tour of the park. She was brought to a hospital and treated for a few small scratches on her scalp.

Here's the kicker.. the girls name? Alexa Rodriguez, known to her friends as A-Rod.

Watch out number 13; we've got mother nature on our side.

Wait.. what?

Yep, that's right. ESPN has late New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle listed as being activated from the Toronto Blue Jays 15-day disabled list. Cory Lidle, if you don't remember, died in 2006 when he flew his private plane into the side of a NYC building.

"TOKYO – Emil Brown was trying to decide what he enjoyed most about the trip here to open Major League Baseball's 2008 season. The people are nice. Nah, too blasé an answer. The food is interesting. Brown might have chosen that had he sampled the delicacies he sees every week on the Travel Channel. He chickened out.

So he went with an old standby, the unexpected pleasant surprise every first-time visitor to Tokyo experiences.

"The toilets are the best," Brown said."

Everyone is doing it and I'm a conformist so here are my predictions for Major League Baseball in 2008. After tomorrow's game I'll give you my thoughts on the upcoming season for the Sox.

March 25th, 2008 - BOS 6 @ OAK 5 F

Winning pitcher: Hideki Okajima (1-0, 0.00 ERA)

Losing pitcher: Huston Street (0-1, 16.20 ERA)

Best performance: Manny Ramirez 2-5, 4 RBI, 2 2B

Worst performance: Daisuke Matsuzaka 5IP 2ER 2H 5BB