A new season of Boston baseball gets underway Thursday as the Red Sox host the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park.
And this year, new NESN broadcasters are taking a swing at being studio analysts.
Former Red Sox players Mo Vaughn, Kevin Youkilis and Ellis Burks discussed their excitement for Opening Day during their NESN media availability, hosted by Tom Caron. That excitement extends to being around the fans again.
"I've always had a great relationship with the fans when I was here," Vaughn said. "So whenever I get a chance to come back to the area is great. I went up to spring training about a week ago, took my family. It's always nice to come back to the stadium down here and up in Boston."
One thing the players-turned-broadcasters all had in common was the standard Red Sox Nation holds the team to.
It all just matters a little more here in Boston.
"Well, at the beginning of my career I was always told the Red Sox fans are so knowledgable, they understand the game," Ellis complimented. "If you go out and play hard they're gonna respect that. And that's the truth. I was always one of those guys that would run out ground balls, play hard on every play. And they really appreciated that, and they really let me know that. So I was very appreciative."
These days, social media and the internet makes finding statistics and analytics much easier for fans to digest the game, and for better or worse, use those resources to comment on how the team is doing.
But Boston fans always have seemed more knowledgeable to Youkilis.
"The knowledge of the fans was greater in a sense because you had to find it back then. Now it's a lot easier to find the information," he said. "But Red Sox fans, they hold you accountable, and I think that's the key to it all. You go out there, you play hard and you hold yourself accountable, you're not gonna worry about what the fans think and the pressures of the fans because that's what great players who wear the Red Sox jersey do: they hold themselves accountable and go out there and play winning baseball."
That surely won't change this year, with first pitch set for 2:10 p.m. ET on Thursday.
