Some new hardware

One of the highlights of Saturday evening's Pawtucket Red Sox game actually happened before the first pitch ever crossed the plate.

Four current PawSox players who appeared in at least one game with the Boston Red Sox during last season were presented with their World Series rings. They're shown in the photo (which is from the PawSox, not ours), from left, Jeff Bailey and Brandon Moss (both of whom do double-duty in the infield and outfield) and pitchers Devern Hansack and Kyle Snyder.

Three of the players -- Bailey, Moss and Hansack -- were called up to Boston during the season on a fill-in basis. Kyle Snyder spent all of last season with the major league team but was recently put on waivers and then accepted an assignment with the PawSox. It was exciting to see all four -- especially Bailey, Moss and Hansack, whose excellent play we've enjoyed since they were with the Portland Sea Dogs in recent years -- get their rings during the pre-game ceremony.

Two other former PawSox players also got their World Series rings this week -- David Murphy and Kason Gabbard. Both Murphy, an outfielder with a great arm, and the lefty pitcher Gabbard were in Boston with the Texas Rangers, where they were traded last year as part of the ridiculous, if not disastrous, deal that brought the Red Sox Eric Gagne. We here at DITR don't like to pick on players, but we don't think that anyone who was even halfway paying attention to the Red Sox last season could miss that Gagne could not get it done. (And that's not to mention that Boston already had a closer and a good setup guy before Gagne got here...but we digress...)

We've been fans of both Gabbard and Murphy since they played for the Portland Sea Dogs back in the 2005 and 2006 seasons. We're regulars at Hadlock Field in Portland, Maine every summer and both players, particularly Murphy, were favorites with not only the fans (they voted him Player of the Year in 2005) but also the staff. When Murphy got called up to the PawSox in May 2006 and got off to a hot start (he was International League Player of the Week his first week on the job), one of the Sea Dogs' ushers, Frank (aka Ballpark Frank) lamented after a questionable play in the outfield that he was glad for Murphy, but sad for Portland. Little did he know who would get the call to Portland a few months later: centerfielder/super hero Jacoby Ellsbury.

It was Ellsbury's later call-up to the PawSox that moved Murphy from center field to left field, and ultimately, out of the Red Sox organization. As good as Murphy is (he was a first-round draft pick by the Sox in 2003 and the first ever by manager Theo Epstein), Jacoby is a force to be reckoned with, and that was clear pretty quickly to anyone watching.

While Murphy and Gabbard were in the Red Sox farm system, we had the opportunity to meet them both on a number of occasions. At hot-stove event in the winter of 2006, J was chatting with Murphy and pointed out that he wore No. 18 with the Sea Dogs during the 2005 season and the Red Sox had an opening for a centerfielder wearing No. 18 (Johnny Damon, had just signed with the Yankees). While Murphy got a kick out of that -- "Oh, I hadn't thought about that," he told J -- curiously, he was wearing No. 24 when the '06 baseball season started.

We had a chance to get reacquainted with Gabbard and Murphy at the PawSox Hot Stove Party in the winter of '06. The event, held in the clubhouse and training areas beneath McCoy Stadium that are normally off-limits, featured autograph sessions and panel discussions with several stars of the Sox minor league system. Gabbard and Murphy were among them, and Gabbard got a roar out of the crowd when he told a young fan that he wasn't worried that he wasn't a particularly good student because he had baseball to fall back on. Murphy was always classy and friendly at such events, and we found in a chance meeting with his wife Andrea at a PawSox game during the '07 season, that she was equally so when it came to talking to fans.

The photo at left was shot by J at the January 2007 Red Sox Rookies fan event at the Souvenir Store across Yawkey Way from Fenway Park. Murphy, third from right, is talking to infielder and Sea Dog/Paw Sox teammate Chad Spann, center, and....Jacoby Ellsbury, who hadn't made it out of Double-A ball yet. They were among a dozen top Red Sox prospects who took part in an elite training program designed to groom them for the majors. All 12 at the event were in the minors at this point, but at least seven have gone on to play in the majors: Murphy, Gabbard, Clay Buchholz, David Pauley, Craig Hansen, Brandon Moss and Ellsbury.

For another take on Murphy and Gabbard getting their rings, check out this story from MLB.com: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080418&content_id=2546517&vkey=news_tex&fext=.jsp&c_id=tex