The Providence Red Sox

--I said at the beginning of the baseball season (see my baseball blog) that the Sox would finish first or last, depending on their starting pitching.  I wasn't wrong, though I didn't expect the offense to be this bad, too.

--Speaking of which: The PawSox moving to Providence (the ProSox?) isn't unheard of.  Providence used to have a major league team (the Providence Greys, the first team to win a World Series) and a minor league team (also called the Providence Greys; Babe Ruth played for them for a very short time).  The major league Greys had a few Hall of Famers and played in what is now Downtown Olneyville, near Wes's Rib House.  The minor league team played a few blocks up Union Avenue, in what is now a residential neighborhood.  Easy to spot: a side-street becomes a highway ramp that empties onto Route 10.  This side-street is where the minor league park used to be.

--And Providence is a minor league ready city.  Plus, it's a minor league city to big league Boston, if you know what I mean.

--Having said that, Pawtucket's McCoy Stadium is not in danger of falling down, and you can't beat the ease of access and the free parking.  I go there 10-12 times a summer.  A stadium in Providence won't be faster to get to, as Providence is a small city and traffic is terrible.  Plus, the parking won't be free, unless the stadium is built with a free parking lot.  There otherwise is no place to park in Providence, for anything.  It's a park in a garage city, as I guess most cities now are.  What happened to all the parking lots?

--The Pawtucket Red Sox, by the way, are now owned by the guys who own the Boston Red Sox.  I don't know if this is common now, that the owners of the big league team also own the minor league team, but it's a bad situation.  The minors are 100% slaves to the majors already.

--But those guys do know how to make tons of money, and to do so with class.  But...

--And it says something that Fenway still sells out (or comes close) for a team that's been in last place (or close to it) for most of the season.  Many playoff-bound teams don't draw as well as that.  This says something good about what the ownership has done with Fenway.  Whatever it is, let's hope they do the same in Providence.

--Maybe a smaller Fenway for the Providence stadium?