Planes, trains, but please no automobiles

If Melissa Manchester were here, Baby would be crying today (2,000 bonus points to anyone who can tell me what that means — and if you’re under 40, don’t waste your time, because you have no chance). Anyway, the Red Sox are flying here from Fort Myers this morning, then flying back tonight. When the Dodgers went to Fort Myers to play them the other day, the Dodgers went the same way they go to every road game: they bussed the three hours across the state. I remember a couple of years ago when the Sox came, Curt Schilling, who was pitching that day, chartered a small plane and brought a couple of freeloading teammates with him. But this is the first time I have ever heard of a TEAM flying to an in-state spring-training game. This would appear to be just another way of saying to the world (and to the Dodgers and several other big-league clubs) “We’re the Boston Red Sox, and you’re not.” Dice-K is pitching in this game for the second year in a row, but Hong-Chih Kuo pitched yesterday against the Cards, so there is no chance of him walking Dice-K again. But between the unusually large traveling media contingent that covers the Red Sox and the Japanese media contingent that follows Dice-K around, it’s going to be a zoo here today. But on a positive note, this will be easily the Dodgers’ biggest home crowd of the spring — even if the atmosphere will be that of a Red Sox home game, with the crowd overwhelmingly dressed in red and navy blue.