Projo Offbeat Blog

If it's snowing, it must be baseball weather, right?

The winter classic, featuring our own Boston Red Sox, begins later than usual this year, could continue into November and features a team from Denver, where snow this weekend forced the Colorado Rockies to practice indoors.

This series could give new meaning to the old baseball word "slider."

The cold weather and possibility of snow and ice means the Sox have taken some unusual steps to prepare, and these games could look a little different. Here's what you might find:

-- Instead of scouts with radar guns, the Sox will place St. Bernards in the front row behind home plate in case little Dustin Pedroia gets lost in a snow drift and needs to be pulled out.

-- Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka has added a 12th pitch to his repertoire -- a snowball. It dives toward a hitter's hands and splats on his bat if he manages to make contact.

-- The Rockies have warned the Red Sox that celebrating a home run by making a snow angel near home plate will be considered an insult, and the offending player will be subject to some Christmas chin music on his next at-bat.

-- Sox first basemen Kevin Youkilis and manager Terry Francona have placed an emergency call to Dr. Tom Leonard at 1-800-Get-Hair to see if they can get enough cover to stave off frostbite.

-- Realizing that Sox' great Jim Lonborg's career was hampered by an offseason skiing injury, the Sox have told Jonathan Papelbon and Manny Ramirez that they can't go sledding before the games this weekend.

-- Shortstop Julio Lugo will bring a snow shovel to the plate to see if it improves his chances.

-- Always thorough in their preparation, the Sox have called in a research team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to predict how Tim Wakefield's knuckleball would flutter amid flurries.

-- L.L. Bean has been named the team's official outfitters, and the outfielders will wear snowshoes.

-- Oft-injured outfielder J.D. Drew will be outfitted with a mountain-climbing helmet, ice picks and crampons, so he doesn't slip on the ice and dislocate a hip on the way from the hotel to the team bus.

-- Curt Schilling will look a little like Santa Claus as he tries to deliver the ultimate gift to Sox fans for the second time since 2004.

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