Day 23

When you think of Miami-Florida, you may think of hot sandy beaches and beautiful weather. Closing your eyes you can see all the beautiful people and bright sunshine. Luxury hotels lining the beaches and maybe even a certain CSI team racing around in Hummers fighting crime. 

If you think sports teams, probably the Miami Dolphins or Miami Heat come to mind and maybe even Dan Marino or Dwyane Wade.

After this Timeout, you may think of Miami a little differently and remember another person looking to make a name for herself becoming a writing professional with none other than the Boston Red Sox or one of a few major newspapers someday. She’s a Red Sox fan in an outpost of Sox fandom holding the faith and flying the colors in South Florida.

This gal’s name is Elizabeth Dreeson and she’s a 15-year-old sophomore and blogging
extraordinaire writing The Future Blog of The Red Sox. Elizabeth has her heart set on first, getting an internship and secondly someday writing for the Miami Herald or Boston Globe.

Get your autographs while you can if you make Florida for Spring Training, because before long you may have to have your people call her people just to meet this one.

 

 

Your header reads “The Future Blog of theRedSox”. If John Henry wrote you tomorrow and asked what would the future blog of the Red Sox look like, what would you say?

First of all, if John Henry wrote me tomorrow, I might die of shock. Once I recover, I would tell him that ‘The Future Blog of the Red Sox’ would be sort of like the Red Sox Insider Blog– bringing people the latest news on the happenings in the front office and the players, etc. However, since it’s a blog, I would be offering my [professional] analysis and opinions on everything. Then once the regular season starts, it would be bringing fans game reports, as well as analyses on the good parts, the bad parts, and what could have been done better. Pretty much a mix of a ‘beat writer’, and insider, and a blogger.

It’s has to be tough being a Red Sox fan in South Florida. What’s the toughest part?

The toughest part about being a Red Sox fan is South Florida is probably all the Red Sox haters. My school is full of them! Everyday I’m constantly defending the Red Sox! Some of their favorite arguments include the 26 World Series won by the Yankees, the Red Sox’s 86 year drought without one, Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Aaron Boone, and how my former favorite player, Johnny Demon, betrayed Red Sox Nation and went to the Yankees. Anyway, that’s probably the hardest part (even though sometimes it can be amusing). 

 

 I’ve always loved to write, ever since I was little. I would write really lame, generic poetry or really convoluted short stories, but I always loved writing. Then, I finally understood the dynamics of baseball when I was around ten, and I fell in love with the sport. I also happen to be quite the opinionated person as well, so I would always be talking about it, and when people finally begged me to shut up about it, those feelings kind of just got stuck there inside of me. I needed an outlet, and that outlet was writing. I know that for me to be truly happy, that my job needs to be associated with baseball.

It’s kind of been a gradual realization though, I don’t think there was one moment where a light bulb turned on above my head and I thought ‘this is what I want to do’ (although that would be a great story). I want to bring my love for baseball to people who want to listen, who want to read, so I think combining two great passions of mine: writing and baseball, would be the best way to do that.

Do you leave the door open for your heart to follow something else outside of journalism or writing in general?

I think I definitely would keep my mind open to other occupations. I used to want to be an astronaut (until I saw Apollo 13), then a teacher, then a lawyer, then a psychologist, but I have never felt so strongly about writing about baseball. Then again, I wouldn’t mind being a play-by-play person for the Red Sox. I swear they have a microphone wired to my house because they always mention the points I talk about as soon as I finish speaking (yes.. to the television). I think I could also be one of those baseball analysts on the MLB Network, the thing is, I’d want to be at the front desk with all the action, all the time, not on the side interviewing Tom Verducci everyday. I think my calling is definitely something with baseball though.

What do you think is the greatest thing you have learned in blogging on MLBlogs?

With this entire ‘MLBlogosphere’, I’ve definitely learned a lot. Everyone is always so kind to help me out with writing tips, or ideas for my research paper, etc. One of the biggest things I’ve learned though, is that I can co-exist with fans of opposing teams. Sure, I still hate the Yankees, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t nice Yankee fans out there who don’t automatically go to the ‘So how many World Series have the Yankees won?’. The biggest thing I learned is how to civilly incorporate my opinion into my blog. I’ve learned to actually listen to other’s opinions, and how to have an easy going debate with them about the greatest sport in the world.

Recently you blogged on the first autograph you ever got. You referenced myself (thank you) as being an inspiration for that article. What would you say is your biggest inspiration day in and day out, something maybe you reference more than anything else?

Honestly, the thing I reference more than anything else is baseball. The question is, how I got to referencing baseball more than anything. My father is the person to thank for that one. He taught me how to play, but more importantly, he taught me the game. It’s something I can talk about with him for hours, it’s something that connects us. He has told me before: “The greatest gift I’ve ever given you is baseball,”. How true is that?

In high school it’s not unheard of for a smart gal like yourself to have a crush on a hunky young man or vice versa. Would you feel any different if he came to your house to take you to a movie in a Yankee cap?

First of all, the person probably has to be a baseball fan for me to really like him in the first place, or else, he’d get tired of me pretty fast. Anyway, there seems to be a lack of male Red Sox fans in the greater Miami area, so it’s probably more likely that he would come in a Yankee cap anyway. In fact, someone would probably wear a Yankee cap just to spite me. It would definitely be a different experience than going out with a Red Sox fan, but then again, the conversations (maybe arguments is a better word) would be vivid, and I would never be able to know what would happen next. It would be hard work, but I’d probably be willing to try it.

Finally, from everything you have learned about the Boston Red Sox, if you had a time machine what single moment or game would you like to be able to see for your own eyes and report on and why?

The Red Sox are so full of history, it’s so hard to chose one single game or moment to go back to. But being at Game 6 of the 1975 World Series sounds like it would be something out of this world. A tied game in the bottom of the twelfth inning, and Carlton Fisk comes to the plate. I would love to be there with the ‘Fenway Faithful’ willing that ball to stay fair, seeing Fisk willing that ball to stay fair, and then jumping for joy as the ball hits the left field foul ball pole, and the Red Sox win! It would be such an incredible game to write about, and it would be hard to convey emotions after that game. I would just love to write about the look on Fisk’s face, but most importantly, I would want to interview Fisk!

 

And voila, number 6 in the hole. Thanks for coming along to take the trip to South Florida to find out more about Elizabeth. Maybe I could make shirts that say, “I went to Miami and all I got was this crappy Timeout at the plate shirt!”  There’s more interesting people and blogs to touch on so keep coming back for more and I’ll make sure to keep the questions coming.

 

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