An amazing streak for the Red Sox

Well if you did not hear it on your own news, last night the Red Sox had their 500th consecutive home sell out. That is a streak going back to 2003 and is quite impressive. Granted, those of us who are real Red Sox fans have to deal with the pin heads who sit there with their pink hats and sit behind home plate on their cell phones mugging for the cameras. Still real Red Sox fans know these are great times for the Sox and make us realize how well run the Red Sox for the first time in their history.

There is a great book out now titled "It was Never About the Babe." This is a very well written and researched history of the team and lays most of the blame for the team's failure at the feet of Tom Yawkey and his heirs, right where it belongs. Yawkey bought the Red Sox as a tax shelter and ran them with his drinking buddies for a number of years. The stars could do anything and developing younger players or talent was never a serious chore for him. Worst of all, Yawkey's racism prevented the drafting of black players and shamefully made the Red Sox the last team to field a Black player. Even into the early 1990's the Sox seemed to have a cap on the number of non-white players they would have on the roster. Ironic how they won the Series with a roster mostly Black and Latin.

Last night I had the opportunity to hear Ambassador Ray Flynn speak at Bad Abbott's in Quincy. First off, Bad Abbot's is really quite bad! I was not impressed. Ambassador Flynn how ever was quite impressive. There are two things I respect about Ray Flynn, first, he is a man of his convictions. He is one of the few political commentators who is willing to speak for the poor and working class. Second, he is a self-made man and as a result he speaks his mind. Yes he is a shrewd political but at the same time he makes it clear he can sleep very well at night being criticised for doing what's right than being cheered for doing what's expedient or popular.

I noticed a trend in PR that I find worrisome and concerns me. I think too many PR people are falling in love with social media and seeing it as this perfect solution to whatever problems you may have communicating with your audience. For those of us who can recall the emergence of the web in the mid to late 1990's, the terminology is very similar. While yes it is great to see those brave souls in Iran using Twitter to communicate about their revolution, I can't say that I see Twitter, or Facebook, as universal applications for all businesses. PR people tend to paint a broad brush to impress clients or management and I think this is simply another example. Just like you don't put out a news release every time you sign up a customer, you don't need to tweet every time you are stumped about the name of that Val Kilmer movie from the 1980's where he builds the death laser (Real Genius).

Well to close out on a Red Sox note another great game on the field. Brad Penny pitched well though he got whacked hard in the chest. Big Papi is hitting well by the looks of it and as I said yesterday if only the weather would turn we may think it is summer!