The Academy Road

The Academy Road

The Academy Road

Recent Recent Stories Stories

Get to Know Jenn Fredrickson Hutchins

January 6, 2024

For the last 25 years, Jenn Fredrickson Hutchins has been an integral part of The Albany Academies. Her tenure started with a paper copy of her resume sent to the address...

The Road to Success of our Middle School Robotics Teams

January 5, 2024

  Both of our middle school robotics teams competed this weekend at the FLL Masterpiece Challenge at Shenendehowa High School. “The Coding Turtles” and “The...

Throwback Thursday

January 4, 2024

Adam Penrose '02, played baseball for The Albany Academies under esteemed Coach Dorwardlt. Now, he follows in his mentor's footsteps as the Varsity baseball head coach, marking...

Snack Shack is Back!

January 3, 2024

Visit the Snack Shack and support the 9th grade's fundraising. Ms. Marchetti's Room (AAG 50-06) E Block Lunch H Block 3:00-3:30

Albany Academy Cadets Suffer Narrow 2-3 Loss to Voorheesville

Albany Academy Cadets Suffer Narrow 2-3 Loss to Voorheesville

September 29, 2023

*Albany, NY* – The Albany Academy Cadets soccer team faced a tough challenge against Voorheesville, resulting in a narrow 2-3 loss. Despite the setback, the team showed...

Not Valentine’s Day

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September, this month is symbolic of a variety of things such as the end to summer and back to school, some people love it and others hate it. Same goes for Major League Baseball Teams and their fans. It is the crunch time of the season where some teams put everything on the line to make it to the playoffs and other teams that have a comfortable lead try to float to the finish. Such was the case of the Red Sox and Rays in arguably the most shocking finish to a MLB regular season there has ever been.

In the beginning of September 2011 the MLB American League East standings appeared to favor the Red Sox taking the Wild Card position as the final weeks of the season wrapped up. As the month proceeded the collapse of the Boston Red Sox began, and they won only seven out of their twenty-seven games in September. Within just the one month time period the nine game lead was blown to the Rays and it all came down to the last game of the season. The Tampa Bay Rays ended up winning a thriller in extra-innings and the Red Sox blew a lead going into the ninth. The Red Sox weren’t going to the postseason and a whole season of work was demolished in one night.

This was the largest lead ever given up in one month and it left the whole Boston organization in bitterness and disbelief. The entire Red Sox Nation was stunned and as predicted were trying to find a scapegoat due to this collapse and they found one in the manager, Terry Francona. The man that led the team to two World Series titles and brought out the team’s absolute potential was ultimately fired for one month of bad baseball. With Terry Francona gone the true downfall of the Organization had just begun.

Later into the 2011-2012 offseason the truth came out of what was going on in the Clubhouse during the September crumble. Many starting pitchers were taking part in drinking beer and eating fried chicken on their off days essentially just being baseball players. This did affect their performance and there do have to be regulations for a major league sport.

With the season coming fast the Red Sox looked to find a manager that would hopefully keep the Clubhouse in line after the previous year’s mishaps. They came to a decision on Bobby Valentine; the guy is known for how healthy he is and had much managerial experience so he apparently was the man for the job. But as the season kicked off the media reported much tension within team caused by Bobby Valentine. With this tension the beginning of the season started slow start going just 1-5. During the course of the season Valentine was even booed by the home crowd. The Red Sox veteran Kevin Youkilis got along the worst with Bobby and not even halfway through the season Kevin was traded to the Chicago White Sox because of his “attitude,” said Bobby Valentine. As this 2012 season developed, the Red Sox’s distance from first place grew larger and larger.

The only significant moment of the season came in August when the Red Sox trade away some of their big player, including Adrian Gonzales, Carl Crawford, Nick Punto, and Josh Beckett. It relieved much of their heavy payroll and this coming off-season they are looking to pick up some big players. All of Boston’s important statistics were negative ones. This had been their first losing season since 1997 and they hadn’t lost over 90 games since 1965. They finished with a final win-loss record of 69-93. To top it all off, on their last series of the season  the Sox had an opportunity to give their bitter rival Yankees playoff trouble, but instead they were swept by them, allowing the Yankees to clinch the AL East Champions.

Just a day after the season ended today on October 4, 2012, the one-year manager Bobby Valentine was fired. Justice was properly served in Boston and now the Boston Red Sox are on the rebound.