Baseball season in full swing, pardon the pun, and the Red Sox are far ahead in the American League East division.  Since 2004, I’m filled with an ever-present faith in the Sox and am excited for this season’s roster.  The pitchers are doing their jobs, players are coming up with key plays, the bats are coming together.  It looks to be an exciting season and so with that in mind, I’m dedicating this posting to the Boston Red Sox.

Of course, the first stop has to be the great Red Sox web site setup through MLB.  The MLB team sites are packed with information, up to minute scores and updates, stats, rosters, schedules, etc.  The MLB has consistently hosted some of the best corporate web sites from the very early days and embraced a variety of technologies to deliver the best in baseball.  Fans can even subscribe to watch every game of the season through their new MLB.TV.

The Jimmy Fund is a charity for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute “where children and their families find hope”.  Dana-Farber does great work for children with cancer and they’ve held deep ties with the Red Sox organization since its inception in 1948 and the then Boston Braves joined forces to help a 12-year-old cancer patient.  Their site has a great selection of photo galleries.  The 50 Year Anniversery gallery is particularly nice, especially the photo of Mo Vaughn walking 11-year-old Jason Leader back from the mound after the young clinic patient got a chance to throw out the first pitch.

The Boston Public Library has many great sites and an extensive collection of photos including their Boston Cicra 1918 exhibit.  You can see what Boston looked like when Babe Ruth played for the Sox and Calvin Coolidge was governor of Massachusetts.  And when the Red Sox had won the World Series before a long, 86 year drought that finally ended in 2004.

There are lots of great Red Sox blogs available.  Red Sox Connection is a fun site that has a lot for all types of fans.  The Joy of Sox blog is an in-depth blog with frequent updates, analysis, and a long list of links.  Soxaholix is a very interesting site that features a daily comic strip about an office of die-hard Sox fans.  And of course, any discussion of Red Sox baseball has to include reference to the great Yankees Suck blog.

Go Sox!

One of the great things about the internet is its innate ability to allow people to pool their resources.  By providing a simple avenue for like-minded people to seek out one another, combine their efforts, and then produce a product that can be advertised fairly inexpensively, the internet should be heralded as the greatest advance in the industrialized world since the assembly line.  From encyclopedias like Wikipedia to independent films like Star Wars Revelations to bird watching communites like Ebird.org, the internet is chock full of the fruits of combined labor.

MyDavinci.com is another great site that relies on pooled resources.  At MyDavinci, you can upload a photograph and have one of the available artists turn it into an original work of art for a nominal fee.  They offer watercolor and oil paintings, pencil sketches, and photo restoration services to turn your simple photos into something really worthy of hanging on your wall.  The prices range from $50 for an 8x10” pencil sketch to $950 for a 36x48” oil painting.  You get to choose the photo, the style and characteristics of the desired artwork, and approve the design before the final result is produced.  Typical delivery time is 3-6 weeks, but there are options for rush orders.  If you’re interested in art and would like to have a family portrait or original landscape produced, it’s definitely worth trying.

MyDavinci.com

Not to be outdone by Carson Williams, Mike Ziemkowski, has been putting on a Christmas and Halloween spectacular for several years in Sherman Oaks, California.  His site features videos and photos for each display.