Every year the local radio station that carries the Red Sox games (and is owned by author Stephen King) has a "Hot Stove Night" during the winter. They rent a large conference room at a local Civic Center where they provide "ballpark food"- hot dogs, popcorn, chips, and soda - and a couple of the broadcasters are invited. This year it was Joe Castiglione (who has a sister living in the area) and Dave O'Brian. And it's always free.
While tickets are free they usually have to be "won" by playing some lame games where everyone who enters "wins" until the 500 tickets are gone. Then any unclaimed tickets are released to sponsors who make them available to anyone who visits their businesses.
The Emcee, who hosts a daily radio sports talk show, introduces the guests who then talk about the previous year and the upcoming season for about 30 minutes, then it gets turned over to questions from the floor coming from schmucks like you and me. The whole thing including a local comedian who "warms up" the crowd takes about three hours.
Here's the link to the story in the local newspaper this morning about the event.
http://bangordailynews.com/2016/12/1...-after-trades/
There's not much here that we haven't already talked about and for the most part agreed on, but I thought I'd pass it on just as a topic of interest. The most significant thing that wasn't mentioned is that when asked about what DD had done to the farm system there was what could best be described as a "pregnant pause" while Stiggy and O'B had a distinct deer-in-the-headlights look and there was some laughter in the crowd.
This has happened every winter for the past 15 or so years and is the toughest sports ticket in the area in spite of it being free.
Anyway,... enjoy.