Hey nah, hey nah, my baseball's back!

(Photo from Boston.com)

You have to at least feel a little bit for the BC kids yesterday. They're tasked with being the Red Sox first warm-up in real, live action game time during spring training and they pretty much always take a whooping. Not always to the tune of 24-0 like yesterday but, you know, they're college kids. They have to face David Ortiz and Josh Beckett. Many of them - as evidenced by the picture above - are probably just geeked out to meet these guys, let alone try to beat them. So I give them credit for taking their beating like men. Although Josh Beckett apparently feels no such sympathy.

He didn't actually call the BC players "no respect punks" but you know he was thinking it. Also, am I the only one who finds it a tad bit ironic that Josh Beckett of all people is criticizing college boys for not being on the straight and narrow? Okay, I never knew Josh Beckett in college but I attended my fair share of Dave Matthews Band concerts in the day so I'm pretty sure I knew Josh Beckett in college if you know what I mean. Captain Puka Shell sure feels strongly about this.

But honestly, Beckett is clearly taking happy pills this season as he's appeared charming and funny and downright affable since spring training began. I'm not really sure what's gotten into him. Maybe with Curt injured he finally feels like he's the alpha dog around here and he's stopped trying so hard to be a badass. Maybe he's grown up a little. Or maybe it's all a nefarious plan to lull us into a false sense of security and get the censors to drop their guard enough so that he can let fly with a blue streak of profanity, the likes of which we've never heard. I kind of hope it's that last one. Because crazy Josh Beckett is fun Josh Beckett. And fun Josh Beckett strikes a lot of guys out.

What does seem apparent is that this team remains as fun as ever. What with Ortiz riding in the sidecars (apparently Tito dared him), Tek convincing the Josten's guy that he wanted the 2007 ring sized for his toe, and the Red Sox Dance-Off that's going down tomorrow night (side note: if there's no video footage, NESN is SO FIRED), the 2008 Red Sox seem to be picking up right where the 2007 version left off. It helps that the team is largely the same. Helps the fans too since we don't have to get to know a bunch of new guys. We just get to watch the old guys come back from vacation.

And apparently, lay the smack down on some college boys.