FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: June 14, 2025
It was a beautiful night here in Brooklyn on Wednesday, and although I couldn’t make it to Citi Field in time for Mets-Nationals, I decided to go for a long walk and then stop at a local sports bar to read and watch some baseball. Naturally, the Mets were on one of the TVs behind the bar, while the other was reserved for the Yankees, who were set to play the Royals a little while later. That was a bummer for the two Red Sox fans sitting next to me, Mike and Kathleen, but they were resourceful. The bar has free wifi, so Mike pulled up Boston’s game against the Rays on his phone. He and Kathleen didn’t know one another, but they recognized each other as fellow Sox fans from the weekend prior, when they were both at the same bar to watch Yankees-Red Sox. He moved over to the stool between Kathleen and I, so that she and her partner Harry could also watch the game. The four of us started talking, and it turns out Harry and I went to the same high school, though he graduated four years ahead of me. Small world!
Anyway, sometime between Marcelo Mayer’s first and second home run of the game, Kathleen said to me, “The best thing about Red Sox fans is we simultaneously love and hate the Sox, and we love to hate them, too.” I bring this up because I thought about her description of Boston fans as I sat down to answer the first question in this week’s mailbag.
We’ll get to that in a moment, but before we do, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for next week’s mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com.
Matt is the associate editor of FanGraphs. Previously, he was the baseball editor at Sports Illustrated. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Men’s Health, Baseball Prospectus, and Lindy’s Sports Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @ByMattMartell and Blue Sky @mattmartell.bsky.social.
My conclusion after living in Boston for a while is that this is how most Bostonians relate to the world in general, it’s just that the Red Sox are the one thing everyone agrees on.
I don’t hate them, they just drive me nuts when they’re underperforming. We already had my other favorite team underperform this year (Bruins).
Coach K: Beer Garden on the Esplanade. Probably a 20-30 min walk from the park. Usually there’s a food truck there too. https://esplanade.org/beergarden/
Trillium is one of the best breweries in MA, and they have a beer garden nearby. Esplanade is pretty neat too, especially if the boats are out.
If you’re taking the T (public transit) plan ahead because they’ll gleefully make you late to the game, and it’s a 10 min walk from the stations to the park. That being said, they’ve started accepting tap pay and are a convenient way to explore nearby areas.
Moreover, while the Trillium beer garden is roughly a 10-minute walk from the park, the new Cisco beer garden is about a 2-minute walk.
But Trillium is good while Cisco sucks…
I was trying to find a good way to say this… well put.
I guess Cisco is fine but few breweries hold a candle to Trillium.
Yeah Cisco is actually ok, but I wouldn’t call it “good”. More “serviceable”.
I guess there is an ambiance tradeoff too, with those fairy lights and such. I’ve had fun when I’ve gone to Cisco even if the beer isn’t as good as Trillium.
Trillium beer garden is brilliant. Best beer around. But the ambiance on the edge of a food court, while nice, doesn’t compare sitting by the river with great but maybe not quite as great beers in Night Shift. Admittedly the Esplanade is definitely further to go.
Thank you for the answer!
Hard to say a connection between one local team doing well and increased interest in another local team, particularly because their fan bases don’t necessarily overlap. Just because I root for the Phillies doesn’t mean I will ever give a crap about the Sixers or Eagles or those sports at all.
I don’t know that Coach K is likely to get a car when he (or she) is specifically asking about walking. But I would go even further than this advice and say that the most important thing to remember when visiting Boston is:
Do
Not
Rent
A
Car
There are worse drivers in the US and more aggressive drivers in the US but when you combine that with the congestion, one-way streets, streets that inexplicably start and stop, and (don’t sleep on this one) the fact that none of the streets run parallel to each other it’s a nightmare to drive in.
And you don’t need it! Boston is a surprisingly small and dense city, even if you start including Cambridge, Brookline, etc. A three mile walk in Boston from Fenway is virtually anywhere you would want to go. If you looked at the distance between Fenway Park and the New England Aquarium (or Harvard Square) you would conclude it is too far to walk, but both of those are under 3 miles from each other.
Not that most people would want to do this instead of taking the T for most of the way, but you can walk from Tufts (in Somerville) to the Arnold Arboretum (in Jamaica Plain) in under 4 hours, or from Boston College (in Newton / Brighton) to Logan Airport (in East Boston). That’s it, you can basically walk clear from one end of what we think of as “Boston” in the span of an afternoon, or in the morning if you don’t like to sleep in on vacation. For reference, it’s probably 2x or 3x as long to do the equivalent walk in Chicago.
Don’t forget the 5+ way intersections where your GPS says go straight but there is no straight, just diagonal left and diagonal right.
I agree with everything you said. Also, Blue Bikes can be a quick, fun way to get from place to place and explore a new city. Just check one out and drop it back off at the location closest to your destination.
There is a street somewhere in Boston, I forget where but I’ll never forget my reaction to it because it was in the pre-smartphone era, that is a normal four-way intersection except the street names bend in both directions.
So if you are walking on Street X and need to stay on it, you have to turn right at Intersection Z or else you will be on Street Y. Similarly, if you’re walking on Street Y in the other direction towards Intersection Z, you have to turn right at the intersection to stay on it, or else you’ll be on Street X. This means that Street X turns into Street Y (or vice-versa) when going north-south, and also that Street X turns into Street Y (or vice-versa) when going east-west.
I’ve seen some weird stuff since then in other cities that rivals that but it feels like Boston has way more of it.
That is nuts, but totally believable. Other places, like the exchange between n beacon st / soldiers field road westbound by the IHOP require a half mile of planning and about 5 lane shifts to stay on rt 20.
I’ve driven in every major city in the US, and Boston is the worst to drive as a visitor.
I’ve had my rental car towed for parking by a No Standing sign. Then the cab driver taking me to the tow lot got lost.
I’ve rented a car and the GPS had me circling my hotel without getting me there. I ended up returning the car to the airport and getting a taxi.
I’ve exited a road to turn around only to discover there was no on ramp going in the other direction.
I’ve asked a local for directions, but she was using terminology which meant nothing to me while earnestly trying to be helpful.
I’ve learned the roads are not laid out in a grid, but rather were paved over the old meandering horse trails.
I’ve learned the same road has two different names depending on which direction you are going.
And then there’s the unwritten “rules of the road” which the locals understand but which I could not figure out.
And yet, Boston is one of my favorite cities to visit.
Just don’t rent a car when visiting.
The detailed explanation about xwOBA’s blindspots was great.
Thanks for answering my question!
Yet *another* one-run win for the Sox tonight! Yes, I am a Red Sox fan, 40 years of it.
Yep, regression to the mean is working in a good way for the BoSox and Orioles, too….
and, sadly, in a bad way for my Nationals….30-40, 7-game losing streak, team-wide allergy to walks, and clueless manager and coaching staff.
It’s going to be a long, painful rebuild and I very much doubt Davey “coaching doesn’t matter” Martinez will not be around when (if?) the club finally reaches respectability again.
Thank you for the advice about my upcoming trip to Fenway, I appreciate you taking the time to assist me. Have a great Father’s Day.
“the White Sox most likely won’t end up with the second-worst winning percentage ever in one-run games”
Since this article has been published, the White Sox have played 2 games and lost them both by one run.