Fenway Red Sox win appeal, will start Sunday game vs. Yankees in second inning

Bobby Valentine hopes his idea works.

(Fenway Fiction We'd Like to Become Fact...)


In an unprecedented move, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has granted a request by the Red Sox to start Sunday's night's game against the Yankees at Fenway Park in the second inning.

"I think it's in the best interests of baseball," said Selig, who made his decision after a late-night discussion with Boston manager Bobby Valentine. "We were getting complaints from FOX and NESN that hundreds of thousands of viewers were switching over to other networks after the top of the first, and if the Red Sox lose their television revenue they won't be able to compete with the Yankees and maintain the economic integrity of their rivalry."

Valentine made his call to Selig from the Boston dugout at 7:15 p.m. Saturday night, just after Felix Doubront allowed a three-run homer to Mark Teixeira in the top of the first. The Red Sox had allowed four runs in the first during the first game of Saturday's doubleheader, and five runs in the initial inning on Friday night -- when the Yankees batted around against Boston starter Josh Beckett.

The Red Sox did rally to win Saturday's second contest, 9-5, but Selig felt that there was enough evidence of a first-inning conspiracy to warrant making the change. Based on how things go Sunday, he may allow the Red Sox to continue starting games in the second after the All-Star break.

Pedro Ciriaco bailed out the Sox Saturday night.  

"The games will still go nine innings, but they will end in the 10th instead of the 9th," explains Selig. "Think of it like Spinal Tap, where the amp volume goes up to "11." We're doing what we think will make the games more enjoyable for baseball fans."

After allowing 12 first-inning runs in the past three games to New York, Valentine says he hopes that the switch will be "just what the doctor ordered" for his struggling starting pitchers. "We have to stop letting the horse out of the corral so fast," he said.

"I'm pumped," says Boston lefty Jon Lester, who is slated to start Sunday night's game at Fenway against New York's Ivan Nova. "We've been feeling real tight in the first inning lately, and once we loosen up we play better. By getting rid of the first, we should be loose from the start."

MLB Historian John Thorn has found no evidence of games started in the second inning in big league history, although he says Satchel Paige claimed to have pitched the first inning of Negro League games with his teammates in the dugout to psych out opponents.