The Villa Augustina School in Goffstown, NH is holding a charity raffle for a precious piece of Red Sox history: a bat personally signed by 25 stars of the 2004 World Series champions.The bat is a 34″ Rawlings Big Stick Professional model personally signed by Ortiz, Ramirez, Schilling, Varitek, Damon, Martinez, Foulke, Arroyo, Embree, Wakefield, Roberts, Bellhorn, Williamson, Cabrera, Mientkiewicz, Mueller, Mirabelli, Mendoza, Nixon, Reese, Kapler, Lowell, Meyers, Millar and Francona.

The bat has a retail value of $3,500 and includes a certificate of authenticity. More information and raffle tickets are available at www.redsoxbat.com. Tickets are $10 each; 3 tickets for $20; or 20 tickets for $100.00.

The winner will be drawn on Saturday, March 17. The winner does not have to be present to win. All proceeds benefit Villa Augustina School (a private elementary school) and Crispin’s House, a non-profit Goffstown youth services organization.

Raffle tickets are available at the Penny Sale and online until March 16th at 8:00 pm EST. Raffle tickets are also available via mail—payments must be postmarked by March 13th.

In conjunction with the state of Massachusetts DMV, the Red Sox now have authentic Fenway Park license plates up for bid. The catch. In order to win the bidding, you have to have a car registered in Massachusetts because these are real license plates.

The numbers on the plates honor some of the great Red Sox players, their league championships and world championships. The numbers available are 1-22, 24-99, 406, and 1489. The years that are available are 1946, 1967, 1975, 1986, 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, and 2004.

It is all for a good cause though as the proceeds will benefit Kids Replica Ballpark, Inc. a tax exempt non profit organization that is licensed by The Boston Red Sox and Major League Baseball with a lease from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for twelve acres of land to build a kid-sized version of the historic Fenway Park for youth baseball, softball and t-ball and to promote youth development. Funds from the Fenway Park License Plate will support both capital and operation needs.

Saturday marked the spring debuts of Tim Wakefield and Jonathan Papelbon for the Red Sox as they took on Ryan Howard and the Phillies at City of Palms Park. The Red Sox ended up losing the game 12-9 in 10 innings. But that wasn’t the main story on Saturday.

The main story was the return of the Papelbon to the mound after injuring his shoulder last season on September 1st. I was very impressed with the way that he pitched. He showcased mainly his fastball, which he was throwing consistently around 92 mph with good location. He threw a total of 26 pitches, 18 of which were strikes. He did mix in one curveball. He struck out 4 in 2 innings of work, including a 93 MPH fastball to strike out last season’s NL MVP, Ryan Howard in the 3rd inning.

“I love pitching to Ryan,” said Papelbon. “He’s a great guy. We’ve become friends over the last couple of years, and what he’s done for baseball and for the Phillies has been outstanding. It’s always fun. It makes the game fun when you get matchups like that. I know he’s a great hitter, so hopefully most of the time, I’ll get on the good side of those.”

Wakefield was just ok today, allowing 3 hits and 3 runs over 2 innings. Joel Piñero didn’t help his cause in his bid to become the closer for the Sox as he gave up 4 runs, 4 hits and 2 walks in 1.1 innings on Saturday. Honestly, I think it is a little too early to be handicapping the race for the closer as they really aren’t being used in that situation yet. That being said, Manny Delcarmen didn’t help his chances much either. He gave up 3 hits, 3 runs, and 2 walks in 2/3’s of an inning pitched.

Like I said above, it’s too early to be worrying about the closer’s race. As it gets closer to the season and none of these guys are performing like expected, then it is time to worry. We all know Theo will pull the strings on a deal to help the club because I don’t think he’d like to head into this season without a closer. Maybe just maybe, Jon Lester will pitch above his and the Sox’s expectations and he will be the 5th starter moving Papelbon back into the ‘pen. Think about it for a second, it could happen.

Other notes from around the Fort.

The Red Sox pitchers on Saturday received flashcards with Japanese sayings on them while Matsuzaka and Okajima received ones with English sayings on them. Most of them were baseball related, greetings and other generic sayings.

Julian Tavarez got his hands on one set of flashcards and playfully yelled “Hotteke!”– which roughly translates to “Leave me alone” — to the six photographers who followed Matsuzaka’s game of catch with Hideki Okajima.

Terry Francona said that the Red Sox have not determined who the closer is.

“I’d like to have [a closer] today, [but] it’s not happening,” said Francona. “Some of it is going to depend on health. A guy like Timlin, we don’t want to force the issue and make him go out and pitch, because that would be dumb. We’ll just use common sense.

It’s important to give guys roles. Nobody believes in that more than me. At the same time, you can’t make the roles artificial or it doesn’t do any good. The reason guys have roles is because there’s a dependability there, that’s why you have them. We have to get to that point.”

The Sox head across town on Sunday for game 2 of the Mayor’s Cup against the Twins. Curt Schilling will take the hill for the Sox and Johan Santana will take the ball for the Twinkees.

Roy Hibbert’s double-double led 4 Georgetown Hoyas in double figures as the Hoyas defeated UCONN 59-46 to clinch at least a share of the regular season Big East Championship. Hibbert had 18 points and 11 rebounds to along with 3 blocked shots to lead the Hoyas. Jeff Green added 12 points, Patrick Ewing, Jr. added 12 points and Jonathan Wallace rounded out the Hoyas in double figures with 10 points. For UCONN, they were once again led by Jeff Adrien with 17 points and Jerome Dyson added 9 points.

Notes and Observations:

• The starters were Price, Dyson, Robinson, Thabeet and Adrien.
• Dyson struggled again from the floor shooting only 4 of 13 from the floor.
• Thabeet saw what it was like to against a big man with talent as Hibbert just totally owned him during the game.
• Craig Austrie played 19 minutes but I swear I didn’t see him out there at all. Probably because he really didn’t do anything.
• Price struggled as well from the floor shooting 1 of 6. I really think that next year, he will be much better after having a full season under his belt after missing two years.
• This was Georgetown’s first win against UCONN since February 3, 1997 when they defeated UCONN 52-51, a dtreak that spanned 11 games before this victory.
• UCONN was 7 of 12 from the line. It’s not like those 5 misses really mattered in this game.
• UCONN only had 3 assists in the game versus 15 turnovers. That is atrocious having only 3 assists.

With the loss, UCONN falls to 17-13 (6-10 in the Big East). Next up is a undetermined opponent at an undetermined time on Wednesday in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden. Those games will be on the ESPN family of networks and also available online at ESPN360.

UPDATE 3/4: UCONN will play Syracuse on Wednesday March 7th at 2:00 PM. The game will be televised on ESPN.

The Red Sox played another set of split-squad games on Friday. This time both of the games were at City of Palms in the Fort. The Red Sox split the two games, losing to the Toronto Blue Jays in the opener, 9-6, and they defeated the Boston College Eagles in the nightcap, 9-1.

The opening game marked the spring debuts of Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew and Coco Crisp. Ramirez was 0 for 1 with a walk, Drew was 1 for 3 with two strikeouts, and Crisp was 0 for 2 with a walk. Kyle Snyder pitched well in his 2 innings of work. He gave up 1 hit, walked 2 and struck out 4. Hideki Okajima made his debut as well, pitching a scoreless inning. Brendan Donnelly had another great outing, striking out 2 in his 1 inning of work. Ruenlvys Hernandez didn’t have a good outing today as he gave up 6 runs on 6 hits in an inning.

The nightcap marked the Red Sox debut of Daisuke Matsuzaka. If you’d like to read more about that, click here as I have already wrote about this. David Murphy went 2-for-2, scored three runs and drove in two. Jacoby Ellsbury belted a triple and drove in two runs. Rule 5 draftee Nick Debarr gave up 2 hits and struckout 4 in his 2 innings of work.

Other notes and news out of Red Sox camp.

Craig Hansen was medically cleared to resume pitching again on Friday. He threw a side session down in the bullpen.

Mike Timlin is still experiencing some pain and still hasn’t been cleared to throw off a mound again.

Kyle Synder is out of options and will have to make the team in order to stay a member of the Red Sox. Synder is locked in a battle with Hansen and Manny Delcarmen, among others for the final spot in the bullpen. With Francona saying yesterday he wasn’t going to carry a long man to start the season, it may be difficult for Synder to make the club.

Look for Tim Wakefield and Jonathan Papelbon to make their spring debuts on Saturday as the Red Sox take on the Phillies at City of Palms at 1 PM.

Technorati: Boston Red Sox, Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew

On Friday night in Hartford, the Big East Conference announced the regular season awards for women’s basketball. Even though UCONN finished 16-0 during the regular season they only won one of the 8 awards. Tina Charles was named Big East Freshman of the Year. It marks the second straight year that a UCONN player has won the award. Renee Montgomery won it last year.

Surprisingly enough, UCONN only managed to place one person on the Big East First Team. That was Montgomery. However 3 UCONN players made the Second Team as Charles, Kalana Greene and Charde Houston were picked. Charles and fellow frosh Kaili McLaren made the Big East All Freshman Team.

I really hope Charles brought an extra bag with her as she took home a lot of hardware. The good thing about this team is that they don’t really care about individual awards. Their number one goal is winning the NCAA Championship.

Here is a look at all the winners:

BIG EAST PLAYER OF THE YEAR – Angel McCoughtry, Louisville (So.)

BIG EAST FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR – Tina Charles, Connecticut (Fr.)

BIG EAST COACH OF THE YEAR – Terri Mitchell, Marquette (11th season)

BIG EAST DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR – Essence Carson, Rutgers (Jr.)

BIG EAST MOST IMPROVED PLAYER – Shavonte Zellous, Pittsburgh (So.)

BIG EAST SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD – Jenna Rubino, DePaul (Sr.)

BIG EAST/AÉROPOSTALE SCHOLAR-ATHLETE – Jenna Rubino, DePaul (Sr.)

Continue reading to see the Big East All-Conference Teams.

Continue reading →

If you can remember back to February 15th when Dice-K met the media and had this to say, “I’ll throw a fastball. And to my first batter, if he is listening, please try not to hit it.” Well, the first batter, Johnny Ayers from Boston College, was obviously listening because he lined the first pitch fastball from Matsuzaka down the left field line for a double.

After that, Matsuzaka was flawless. That was the only hit he gave up in his 25 pitches, 19 of which he threw for strikes. I was impressed with him. He was very fluid in his mechanics on the mound. He also didn’t seem to have any issues in the communication with catcher Jason Varitek.

After he left the mound, he talked in the dugout for a few minutes, then went down to the bullpen for some more work. He ended up throwing only 15 fastballs down there, which is customary for Sox pitchers during spring training.

Anyways, a good start for Dice-K. Here is a look at the interview Tina Cervasio did with Dice-K after he was done.

Technorati: Boston Red Sox, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jason Varitek, Boston College