Boo's phone is ringing this morning….

The phone rang several times before Boo Ferriss answered this morning. I figured it would, because I knew everybody and his brother would be calling him today after the Boston Red Sox won the World Series last night.
“How you doing Coach?”
“Oh man, I’m fine today,” Ferriss answered. “Oh man, oh man, after last night and what the Red Sox did, I’m mighty fine today.”
Ferriss, the 91-year-old Red Sox and Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer, still follows his old team closely.
“Everybody was talking about how good the Cardinals pitching was,” Ferriss said. “The Red Sox out-pitched them. They beat (Adam) Wainwright twice and then got (Michael) Wacha last night. It’s all about who plays best at the appointed time, and this time it was the Red Sox.”
This was the first time the Red Sox had closed out a World Series in Boston since 1918. Said Ferriss, chuckling, “Even I wasn’t around back then.”
David “Big Papi” Ortiz won MVP honors, as well he should have, but Ferriss says there’s little doubt who the Red Sox’ Most Valuable Person is.
“The biggest difference in the Red Sox this year is the manager,” Ferriss said. “John Ferrell is just what they needed, a solid, solid person and a really good baseball man. They wanted him last year, but couldn’t get him. They went from last place to World Series champion. You’ve got to give him a lot of credit for the way he handled the ballclub and especially that pitching staff.”
Ferriss said the young Boston general manager Ben Cherington deserves credit as well.
“He didn’t go after big name players, but he got good players and good people,” Ferriss said. “He got people who play the game the right way and play together. That guy knows what he is doing.”
So, my last question for Boo Ferriss, winner of 46 games in his first two seasons in the Major Leagues, was this:
Coach, if you had to pitch to Big Papi, how would you do it?
“Ooooh, well, I don’t know, fellow like that, you gotta mix it up, change speeds, throw inside and out and don’t throw anything over the middle of the plate,” Ferriss said. “You throw something over the middle of the plate and he’s going to hurt you. I’d change speeds, I guess. I’d move it around, I guess, and I’d hope and pray a lot, too.”