A large group of Red Sox fans gathered in Barnum Hall Wednesday night to listen to two renowned writers comment about the past, present and future of the team.
The event was sponsored by the Baseball Analysis at Tufts (BAT) group.
Sean McAdam, a sportswriter for ESPN.com as well as the Providence Journal, and Chris Snow, of the Boston Globe, kicked off the event by talking about the strange paths they took to their current positions.
McAdam, who has been working at the Journal for 21 years and has been a Red Sox beat writer for "17 or 18 years," said that he never took a journalism class in college.
Snow added that he was very fortunate to secure an internship at the Boston Globe newspaper when he was only in his sophomore year of college.
"I was fortunate that the Globe let me work right at Fenway in the press box," he said, adding that the first game he covered involved Pedro Martinez uttering some very famous words about Babe Ruth and the Curse of the Bambino.
McAdam and Snow then spent the remainder of the event fielding questions from the audience regarding all types of important issues about the Red Sox.
One audience member inquired about other Red Sox players' attitude toward outspoken pitcher Curt Schilling, especially after he was rated by GQ magazine as one of the top ten most-hated athletes.
McAdam said that Curt is a "magnet for controversy" and that he "isn't shy about much of anything." He added that some in the clubhouse may see him as somebody too publicity-conscious, and that he should just keep his head down and do his job.
"I think that his teammates' ability to tolerate him relates directly to how well he pitches," McAdam said.
McAdam also spoke about former Red Sox slugger Jim Rice's Hall of Fame eligilibity and his likelihood to enter the Hall. Many writers have expressed anger towards Rice's open hatred for the media, and have hinted that their strong feelings against the player may be part of the reason that they will not vote for him to enter the Hall of Fame.
McAdam said that he talked to Rice toward the end of Rice's career, when he was more mellow toward the media, but that he knew him best as a hitting instructor. He said that the two were not close but had a professional relationship.
He said that he did not vote for Rice during the first few years of his Hall of Fame eligibility, but that "it is reprehensible that people would say, 'I won't vote for him, he blew me off.'"
Instead, he continued, they should look at the fact that, roughly between 1975 and 1985, Rice led the league in "almost every offensive category," and that these records are even more significant in this era of steroids in baseball because "we know that [Rice's] numbers are legitimate."
Later, an audience member asked if the Red Sox should have been more aggressive in pursuing star center fielder Johnny Damon, who ended up signing with the New York Yankees because the Red Sox did not offer enough money.
Snow said that he believed that the Red Sox set a market value for how much they thought that Johnny Damon was worth as a player. They decided that they would not go overpay for Damon by going beyond this set value.
At the same time, he said, Johnny Damon's agent Scott Boras has been known to lie to teams bidding on a player in an effort to get the team to raise their bid beyond the value they felt the player was worth.
Snow said that he thought that the Red Sox organization began the whole proceeding incorrectly by giving Damon a low offer, which may have hinted to Damon that the Red Sox were not very interested in having him play in Boston.
If current Red Sox executive vice president/general manager Theo Epstein, who was not the general manager of the Red Sox when Damon signed with the Yankees, were part of the organization, Snow said, Epstein would have started the negotiations earlier and let Damon know that he was an important part of the organization's future.
If he felt that the Red Sox would lose Damon anyway, Snow added, Epstein would have begun looking for a replacement player earlier so that teams would not view the team's lack of an important player as a reason to over-spend for a new one, as many felt happened when the Red Sox traded for center Fielder Coco Crisp.
But, Snow said, "it is all a guessing game."
Erica Popovsky contributed to this article.
