If there is anything that we hold an unhealthy obsession for, it’s the Boston Red Sox. Annually, we make seven or eight trips to Fenway Park to watch the Sox, and Jeff has had the pleasure of attending several playoff games as well as the Home Run Derby during the All-Star festivities in 1999.

Jeff has long been a rabid Sox fan after growing up in eastern Massachusetts and even developed his own fan appreciation site, FenwayFanatics.com . Jeff’s earliest memory is of a trip to Fenway Park as a young Little Leaguer and watching, from the bleachers, the Sox lose to the Milwaukee Brewers on a warm, late spring afternoon. A few years later, his team was in the World Series, but let’s not rehash bad memories, shall we? Tiffany was never a baseball fan until Jeff started to take her to Sox games. What makes it more remarkable is that she is a transplant from upstate New York (i.e., rabid Yankee fan country), but she never before had paid much attention to baseball and we’re all thankful for that! As for the kids, Jakob already knows the word “Red Sox” and always enjoys going to any baseball game that we can attend, whether it’s at Fenway Park or any of the various minor and independent league teams in the area, and Lea looks absolutely great in her pink Red Sox top.

After years of frustration, 2004 was finally THE YEAR for Boston. After coming so close in 2003, the Red Sox were finally able to reach the summit and claim that elusive championship for the first time since 1918, the year before Babe Ruth was sold to the archrival New York Yankees. What made it even sweeter was that, on the way to the top, Boston had to come back from an 0-3 series deficit in the American League Championship Series to the same Yankees to win the pennant, the first time in the history of baseball that a team facing such a challenge had pulled off the unbelieveable. From there, it was four wins in four games against St. Louis, to whom Boston had lost the 1946 and 1967 World Series, and the title was back in Beantown!

Unfortunately, there was no repeat championship in 2005 and 2006 ended with Boston missing the playoffs due to a late-season slide and several key injuries but, with hope anew, the Sox begin another campaign towards the ultimate prize in 2007. So far, the biggest acquisition this off-season has been the signing of Far East phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka, whom the Sox signed in mid-December after submitting the highest-ever bid for the rights to negotiate a contract of a Japanese ball player. Boston has also brought a couple other new players on board, including shortstop Julio Lugo, reliever Brendan Donnelly, and outfielder J.D. Drew, and several familiar players will return, including David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Josh Beckett, and Curt Schilling, who has stated that 2007 will be his final professional season in baseball. With Terry Francona returning for this fourth season as manager, Boston looks to win its first division since 1995 and maybe… just maybe…