I think we can say that Theo and the Red Sox Management have been VERY good to us this year…:-)

97 days to Opening Day!

Enjoy your Holidays!

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance announced today that Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay was the unanimous selection for the National League Walter Johnson Award, receiving all nineteen first place votes.  In the American League, Seattle’s Felix Hernandez was almost as dominant, garnering all but four of the first place selections from the BBA membership.

Halladay, who came over to Philadelphia in an off-season deal with Toronto, wasted no time getting comfortable in his new league, posting an 2.44 ERA, striking out 219 batters, winning 21 games, and throwing a perfect game to boot.  While only the regular season was considered for voting, he also became only the second player to throw a post-season no-hitter when he faced the Reds in the National League Divisional Series.  Halladay received 133 points, well ahead of the runner up, St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright, who received 66.

Hernandez’s win was statistically more impressive, due to more ballots being cast in the American League and a wider range of pitchers receiving votes.  His 2010 season, where he put up a sparkling 2.27 ERA, a 1.06 WHIP, and struck out 232 in just under 250 innings pitched, led voters to bestow upon him 137 points, with second place being New York’s CC Sabathia, who received three first place votes and 62 points over all.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League
Felix Hernandez, Seattle (18) 137
CC Sabathia, New York (3) 62
David Price, Tampa Bay (1) 57
Cliff Lee, Seattle/Texas 41
Jered Weaver, Los Angeles 22
Jon Lester, Boston 18
Clay Buchholz, Boston 14
Francisco Liriano, Minnesota 13
Trevor Cahill, Oakland 5
Justin Verlander, Detroit 5

National League
Roy Halladay, Philadelphia (19) 133
Adam Wainwright, St. Louis 66
Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado 52
Josh Johnson, Florida 43
Tim Hudson, Atlanta 16
Tim Lincecum, San Francisco 7
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles 2
Mat Latos, San Diego 2
Heath Bell, San Diego 1
Yovani Gallardo, Milwaukee 1

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 233 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot.  Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 7-4-3-2-1 point scale for first through fifth place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis.  Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League
Camden Crazies (Baltimore)*
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Motor City Bengals (Detroit)
Detroit Tigers Scorecard Blog (Detroit)
One Royal Way (Kansas City)*
Twins Target (Minnesota)
Bronx Baseball Daily (New York)*
Contract Year (Oakland)
Sodo Mojo (Seattle)
Tampa Bay Rays News (Tampa Bay)
1 Blue Jays Way (Toronto)
Infield Fly (Toronto)
Misc. Baseball (History)*
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*

National League
Marlin Maniac (Florida)
Marlins Diehards (Florida)
Feeling Dodger Blue (Los Angeles)
The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*
Dugger’s Corner (Philadelphia)
Phighting On (Philadelphia)
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)*
Stan Musial’s Stance (St. Louis)
C70 At The Bat (St. Louis)
Friar Forecast (San Diego)*
22gigantes (San Francisco)*
Misc. Baseball (History)*
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*

Prior Winners:  2009: Zach Greinke, Kansas City; Tim Lincecum, San Francisco

The official website of the BBA is located at www.baseballbloggersalliance.com.  The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba.  Members of the BBA may be heard at Blog Talk Radio every Tuesday night with their call-in show, BBA Baseball Talk, which may also be downloaded as a podcast from iTunes.  For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

I recently had the chance to sit down with Dean Collins, one of the founders, and get all the “news that is fit to print” about Live Chat Concepts and Live Baseball Chat…

Boston Red Thoughts: What is Live Baseball Chat?

Dean Collins: Live Baseball Chat is a free site that allows you to chat real time with other baseball fans live during the MLB 2010 season. A dedicated chat room for each MLB game is started 30 minutes before each game and closes 30 minutes after the game is finished. There is a new unique live chat room for every regular season game, the All Stars game, and each Playoff game.

BRT: How is Live Baseball Chat live chat different from the current team forum setup?

DC: Most of the MLB content I read after the game is in the format of blogs or forums. And while these work great “after the game”, if you are using a forum for chatting during a game you have to keep refreshing your browser or keep jumping around the various posts. It loses that feeling of conversation with friends. In the future, we hope to partner with a lot of MLB fan team forums and blogs because we are actually providing different functionality; and you can even chat on our site once the game is finished.

BRT: So, Live Baseball Chat is alot like Twitter?

DC: I love using Twitter but felt something was missing. I saw a whole heap of people that I followed with my twitter account posting messages with the hash tag #MLB or #NYMets but it felt like we were shouting “past” each other rather than having real conversations. Live Baseball Chat allows you to see all the messages instantly in real time as it’s updated with no need to “search” for specific people or hashtags.

As a matter of fact, one of our new features will allow you to auto log in a post to your Twitter and Facebook accounts each time you log in. You will also be able to publish messages to the chat room, as well as your Twitter and Facebook Accounts…This functionality will allow you to invite your friends into a chat room, which you can also do my sending them a CHurl (Chat Room URL), via e-mail.

BRT: You mentioned some new features; can you tell us about some of them?

DC: You can now get a Buddy Alert email each time someone in your Buddy list joins a Live Chat, so if a friend of yours joins a chat you will get an email with the CHurl for the room they have logged into.

We’ve implemented a Quick Tip box that will load up text about new features. Since we are adding new features all of the time, this will help users keep track of the new features, and how they work.

Another new feature is Team Walls, which is the ability to find users who have the same favorite team as you. When you click on a team name you will launch the Team Wall panel that shows you the avatars for each user who has nominated this as their favorite team.

BRT: Sounds like fun. How do I join a Live Chat room?

DC: Using any browser, go to www.LiveBaseballChat.com and register a username and password. There is no software to download or any executable to click; everything is done in the browser. Once you have confirmed your email address you can log in and view the schedule page with all the chats listed and their start times. Chats can only be entered 30 minutes before the start of the baseball game.

BRT: Definitely something I am going to need to try out. Dean, thanks so much for answering our questions, and Best of Luck with Live Chat Concepts and Live Baseball Chat…We look forward to seeing alot of neat things in the future.

If someone wanted to sum up Daisuke’s tenure with the Red Sox, yesterday’s loss against the Rays would be the perfect example…

112 pitches, 63 for strikes, Daisuke went 4 batters into the 6th inning without recording an out, and gave up 5 runs (4 earned) on 8 hits while walking 4 and striking out 4–he also made a HUGE mental mistake in the 6th inning, where, instead of going for the “sure” out at 1st base, thought he had a play at 3rd–until he realized no one was covering 3rd, so he chocked and held onto the ball, allowing everyone to be safe…Lucky for him, he was saved from his 4th loss of the season by Ramon S, who recorded the loss when he gave up the winning run in the 7th inning…

While none of the Boston Red Sox were named starters to the All-Star game for next week (no surprise there) 6 players were named to AL roster–too bad 1/2 of them are on the DL: That Clay Person (DL), Jon Lester, Victor Martinez (DL), Adrian Beltre, Dustin Pedroia (DL), and David Ortiz…

And in a move that surprised no one, Joe Girardi stocked the team with his own players. Case in point: A-Fraud, who is having a less than stellar year (.272 with 12 homers and 62 RBI’s) and is behind Youk In every category, except Doubles (A-Fraud has 20, Youk has 19) and RBI’s (A-Fraud has 62, Youk has 55)…Yeah, he was more deserving…

And how ’bout That Clay Person’s replacement: Andy Pettite…Guess there was no other decent pitchers in all of the American League huh?

And if you noticed someone is missing from the 6 Sox who made it: Yep, Kevin Youkilis. Fortunately, he is part of the Final Man, which means all of Red Sox Nation can gather together and vote their Youk loving hearts out–they have done it before for Johnny Damon in 2002 and Hideki Okajima in 2007. Unfortunately, right now, freaking Skankee Nick Swisher (Nick Swisher, REALLY? UGH….) is leading the pack of 5 which also includes: Paul Konerko (White Sox), Delmar Young (Twins) and Michael Young (Rangers)…You have until 4:00pm EST, Thursday to vote…

Another weird twist in the Mike Lowell saga: While everyone is in Tampa Bay, Mike Lowell is at his home in Miami–Tito weighs in: “There’s nothing going on or anything…He’s not doing baseball stuff for the next three or four days, so I told him to go home and take a couple of days. He’ll do some stuff at home.’ The party line is that his hip is bothering him…The Sox really need to do something here–this has gone on WAY too long…

But some good news on the Josh Beckett front: He will pitch today, in his 1st actual game since leaving the game at the stadium 6 weeks ago. If all goes well, his next rehab start will be over the weekend, so it’s quite possible he could be activated shortly after the All Star break…

And, Holy Buckets! Jed Lowrie is back to baseball! In his 1st rehab game with Lowell (Single A) he went 1-2 with 2 walks…No timetable for his return to the bigs…

Also progressing is Jeremy Hermida who started taking batting practice again. He has been on the DL since June 11, but hopes to start minor league rehab after the All-Star break…

And yes, Dustin Pedroia is still taking grounders on his knees…

Coming up: With That Clay Person on the DL, Felix Doubront will get another start in the bigs, for game 2 of this series in Tampa Bay, opposed by Jeff Niemann. 1st pitch 7:10pm…

Here’s how it works: Each of the 18 custom made putting holes will be hosted by one of Varitek’s Boston Red Sox teammates or other Boston celebrities. Fans purchase foursomes to play the course and meet the celebrities.

Not a golfer? A limited number of spectator ticket are available, allowing folks to see interviews with Red Sox players, enter raffles, auctions and contests to win some amazing prizes. Tickets can be purchased at Ticket Master, and are $15.00 each.

‘Tek weighs in on his annual event: “I’m very lucky to have passionate fans. They always come out to support me and I can’t wait to see them all at Putt-Putt this year. The event raises money for two amazing organizations through the generosity of the fans.”

About Journey Forward: A 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to bettering the lives of those who have suffered a Spinal Cord Injury through an intense exercise program, Journey Forward was founded by Dan Cummings, who after a diving accident was diagnosed a C6 quadriplegic and was told he would never walk again. After attending a similar program in California, 7 years after his accident, Dan walked out the doors determined to bring the program back to Boston.

About the Celebrities for Charity Foundation: Set up to provide many local charities a way to have celebrities involved in their fundraising efforts, Celebrities for Charity provides celebrity visits to charitable events and autographed memorabilia for charities to use as fundraising tools. Celebrities for Charity has proudly reached the $1,500,000.00 donation mark and looks forward to growing this number.

For more information about the Jason Varitek Celebrity Putt-Putt tournament, you can check out their website or call 978-749-6700.