BlueWolf's Howl

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December 03, 2004

Red Sox Tech

When I was young (single digits), I used to be a Red Sox fan. Growing up in Rhode Island, you had a choice - Red Sox or Yankees - as though there were no other baseball teams. I also remember being so disappointed in my teens that I gave up on baseball altogether. My softball team was always winning and the Red Sox were always losing. Baseball bites; softball's better...

After about 20 years of living in the Beltway area, I finally returned to New England 3 years ago. And during this last season... the Red Sox got my interest again. Hey, I've even heard a lot of Yankee fans give them credit for pulling that miracle out of their backsides. They made history. They did what no one else had ever done. And they reversed a curse. It reminded me of that part in The Matrix where Trinity says to Neo, "Now, get UP!" He's dead on the floor against the wall and his eyes open. He stands up and flexes. He whoops the crap out of Agent Smith. He stops bullets in mid-air using the just power of his will...and then, instead of running from the agents, he aggressively runs toward the agents and dives into Agent Smith. He emerges victorious after Smith's cyber body is turned inside out and it explodes around him. The other agents turn and run in fear. That was this year's Red Sox.

And I jumped right back up on that bandwagon. Let me say that it was not without a little trepidation. They did it THIS year. Can they stay good? Anything can happen between now and the first pitch of next season. There will be trades, contracts renewing (or not renewing), and quite a bit of a mental game going on in the heads of the players. It seems like anything could happen.

Then I ran across this article in eWeek: Tech Behind The Trophy

OMG. Someone at Fenway Park GETS IT! I've been writing about this for a very long time. IT is not a "cost to control" - it's a "tool" to use to give your business (whether it's baseball or selling shoes) the competitive edge it needs to succeed. Sure, you could save a few thousand dollars by not upgrading your IT infrastructure. And if you take that "savings" and put it toward player salaries, they won't even notice it. But, if you use that money to create a system that can deliver information quickly to those who need it -- now you've turned baseball players into KNOWLEDGE WORKERS. Yes, it works everywhere - not just with some finance dweeb in a cubicle.

Yes, there will be trades during the off-season. You watch that. I'll keep an eye out to make sure they keep Steve Conley, Billy Broadbent and Galen Carr. No, you've probably never heard of them, but those are the guys that are creating, supporting and maintaining the system that gives the Red Sox the information that they need to use on the field to make miracles happen. Yes, this cements it. I am a Red Sox fan - not for the heck of it, but for the TECH of it...

Posted by BlueWolf on December 3, 2004 10:06 AM