Die Allianz T-D-P » them go -- but we feel they

BOSTON -- Hanley Ramirez told his Red Sox teammates in the dugout that he wasnt going to swing for the fences in his final at-bat.It doesnt work for him that way.I dont hit homers when I try to hit homers, he explained to reporters after Bostons 11-7 victory over the San Francisco Giants. They said, `It doesnt matter. Youve got three already.Ramirez homered three times to drive in a career-high six runs and also helped the Red Sox with some nifty fielding on Wednesday night as Boston moved into first place in the AL East. With a chance to tie the major league record of four homers in a game, he grounded out weakly to the pitcher in his last at-bat.Travis Shaw and Sandy Leon also homered for Boston, and Mookie Betts had three of the 15 Boston hits that made up for a poor outing from starter Drew Pomeranz. Acquired last week from San Diego for Bostons top pitching prospect, Pomeranz struggled to protect an eight-run lead and lasted just three innings in his Red Sox debut.Unfortunately it was an early night for him, manager John Farrell said. Hell be back out there in five days.Boston opened an 8-0 lead and held on to win for the eighth time in nine games and move a half-game ahead of the Baltimore Orioles, who lost 5-0 to the Yankees.And Ramirez was the biggest reason why.The converted first baseman made several fine fielding plays, diving to his left and his right and also starting a double play in the sixth with the bases loaded and nobody out after San Francisco had already cut Bostons 8-0 lead to 8-7.Everything went right today, he said.Ramirezs first career three-homer game gave him 11 for the season. He hit two-run shots in the second, third and sixth inning.Ramirez also reached base when he was hit by a pitch in the fourth, glowering at Giants reliever Albert Suarez before the umpire quickly warned both benches. The biggest crowd of the season -- 38,201 -- stood and chanted Ramirezs name for his final at-bat in the eighth.Sixteen times players have hit four homers in a game, most recently by Josh Hamilton for Texas in 2012.Matt Barnes (3-3) was awarded the victory as the first effective Red Sox pitcher, coming on with a one-run lead and the bases loaded in the sixth and pitching out of it, thanks to Ramirezs glove.Barnes added a scoreless seventh, getting Brandon Belt on a check-swing strikeout with two on to end it, and a perfect eighth.Pomeranz lasted just three innings, allowing five runs on eight hits and two walks.Giants starter Matt Cain (1-6) gave up three homers and five runs in 2 1/3 innings.Trevor Brown had three hits for the Giants. Mac Williamson hit a three-run homer, and the San Francisco right fielder also went over the right-field bullpen wall in pursuit of one of Ramirezs homers.I think every kid growing up, playing in Fenway would like to hit a ball over the Green Monster, Williamson said. It was definitely a special feeling rounding the bases. Seeing a ball going out here is kind of a childhood dream.RARE VISITThe game wrapped up a two-game series that was the Giants first visit to Fenway Park since 2007 and just their second since the start of interleague play. They have never beaten the Red Sox at the century-old ballpark, with their last win at Fenway coming as the New York Giants against the Boston Braves in the 1912 World Series.The crowd was boosted by many in Giants orange -- matching the 1978-82 throwback jerseys worn by the team; Boston wore the tops from its 1975 World Series team. The visitors managed to out-shout the home fans often, including in the fourth inning, when San Francisco scored five runs, and the fifth, when they added two more to make it an 8-7 game.LEATHERRamirez dove to his right to stop a line drive in the first inning, and made a play to his right on a hard grounder from Grant Green. Then, with the bases loaded in the sixth, he gloved a sharp grounder, stepped on first and threw home.Leon spun and tagged Belt as he slid home. The umpire signaled out, and the call stood after Giants manager Bruce Bochy challenged it.San Francisco third baseman Ramiro Pena made a nice play of his own, going back to catch Travis Shaws popup in shallow left to end the left inning and save a run.TRAINERS ROOMGiants: Hunter Pence (surgery on right hamstring) isnt ready to resume rehab with Triple-A Sacramento. Bochy said hes got a chance to play on Thursday.Red Sox: Put RHP Koji Uehara on the 15-day disabled list with a strain of his pectoral muscle.UP NEXTGiants: Off Thursday before opening a three-game series in New York against the Yankees.Red Sox: Open four-game series against the Minnesota Twins at Fenway.Dee Ford Womens Jersey . Miikka Kiprusoff had just announced his retirement after a decade-long run in Calgary and it would be up to Berra and Ramo to fill the void. Dee Ford Jersey . Colin Wilson had two goals and an assist, and Mike Fisher scored a goal and helped set up two others in the Predators 6-4 victory over the Red Wings on Monday night. http://www.49ersrookiestore.com/49ers-Matt-Breida-Jersey/ . Tevez, who has had conflicts with coaches in the past, has not been called up since Sabella was named coach in 2011. Argentina boasts Lionel Messi, Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Angel Di Maria. Jimmy Garoppolo Youth Jersey . Ibaka equaled a career high with 20 rebounds, adding four blocked shots and 15 points as the Thunder smothered the Milwaukee Bucks offence in a 92-79 victory Saturday night. Joe Montana Womens Jersey . Clarke was injured while practicing on the Doha Golf Club range after the pro-am on Tuesday. The Northern Irishman arrived at the course on Wednesday hoping to start, but after hitting a few balls on the practice putting green Clarke advised officials he was not fit to play.The NFL has college football, the NBA has the D-League, baseball has the minor leagues and soccer has youth teams and secondary clubs. The list goes on for almost every sport and competition; theres an established path that one can travel, if talented enough, to reach the highest rank in the world.That wasnt always the case for WWE. In the past, developmental territories were used to bring contracted talents up to speed, but there wasnt a defined route for someone whose ultimate dream was to compete at the elite level in the squared circle.Thats where Paul Triple H Levesque comes in.We needed to create the next generation of talent, and the success [and setup] of the WWE had kind of limited where we were getting these athletes from, said Levesque, the WWEs executive vice president of talent, live events and creative -- and a 14-time WWE world champion.People around the world still didnt know how to become a WWE superstar.When Levesque moved into the realm of talent development in 2011, he had the ability to begin implementing his vision for a modern WWE development system. The reality would ultimately exceed his own expectations.The first major step was the shuttering of FCW, the previous development territory in Tampa, Florida. In 2012, operations were moved northeast to Orlando. Those remaining in the WWE development system were brought into the newly christened NXT, which aired on a variety of streaming networks, including YouTube and Hulu, over the next two years and provided a platform for young stars like?Seth Rollins,?Big E?and?Bo Dallas, who became?NXT champions.The creation of the WWE Performance Center in 2013 was another bold step. The multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art facility, also located in Orlando, features seven wrestling rings and specialized setups for different types of training. Theres also a world-class strength and conditioning program and cutting-edge edit and production facilities on-site.I went back and looked at my career and asked, If I was a talent today, what would I need to succeed? Levesque said. And I tried to put that all together in one building.NXT talents now had a home with everything they could possibly need, in direct proximity to the facilities where they filmed their weekly shows. Top-level trainers -- veterans of the WWE and independent organizations from around the world -- were systematically brought in to help mold a growing influx of outside talent into the next generation of stars the business needed.It was a matter of providing every resource imaginable to these WWE hopefuls.You cant read it in a book, Levesque said. There had to be a place to go do it, and do it on a regular basis -- to get reps in our business and do it over and over again in front of live crowds. NXT provided that opportunity, and I knew that the bigger I could make that and the better I could make that, the better that opportunity would be for talent to come in [and learn].As some of the early NXT champions quickly earned their way onto the WWE main roster in prominent roles, more of the pieces that would ultimately lead to the explosion of NXTs popularity started to fall into place.The spark that ultimately helped drive the popularity of NXT was the creation of the WWE Network. The live-streaming service allows subscribers access to all of the companys pay-per-view events and thousands of hours of archived content for $9.99 per month.It was the perfect platform for a budding brand, with its ability to get content out to the kind of audience the WWE Network would ultimately serve -- the most rabid wrestling fans in the world, hungry for something new and exciting.When the opportunity to hold the first major live event on the WWE Network came around in February 2014, the entire landscape of WWE changed in a single night.To me, the turning point is when we did the first TakeOver -- Arrival -- and it was so well-received and so wildly successful, not only for NXT, the brand, but for the WWE Network, Levesque said. It just changed everything for us, because now, in the United States as well as every place else that we were being seen, NXT had a home and had a global base.As it started to become apparent how popular this show was, it became apparent that we could tour outside of Florida and we could go global.NXT and the WWE Network grew together over the next few years. As subscription numbers surged -- reaching as high as 1.82 million subscribers, 1.454 million of which were paid monthly users around the time of WrestleMania 32 in April -- NXT was pulling in more and more fans on a weekly basis. Live NXT events expanded throughout the U.S., with major NXT cards taking place in New York (during SummerSlam weekend), London and Dallas (WrestleMania 32 weekend).Another generation of future stars reached worlddwide prominence in NXT during that time.ddddddddddddNeville,?Sami Zayn,?Kevin Owens?and?Finn Balor?built up impressive résumés in their time at?Full?Sail?University, where NXT is filmed in Orlando. So did a group of women -- Charlotte,?Sasha Banks,?Becky Lynch?and?Bayley -- who would ultimately lead a main roster revolution.NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn was the culmination of a number of different NXT careers. Zayn, Owens, Charlotte, Banks and Lynch had already made main-roster appearances, with Brooklyn serving as a sendoff to the big leagues for most of them.When you look back a year ago, it was kind of a special time, Levesque said. All of a sudden we thought, Lets see if we can sell out Brooklyn for SummerSlam weekend. NXT sold out Barclays [Center] very quickly. If you look at that card, you had Sasha Banks on the top of that card. You had Finn Balor, you had Kevin Owens. Those guys, they all moved on and theyre now big stars.Losing talent is nothing new for NXT. Of the?seven NXT champions who came before current titleholder Samoa Joe, all are part of the Raw or SmackDown Live rosters, three have held multiple titles in the WWE and Balor, the latest former champion to debut, is facing off with another former champion, Rollins, for the new WWE Universal championship in his first pay-per-view main event at SummerSlam. The NXT womens champions have an even better record: Three of the four titleholders before Asuka have held either the womens or Divas championship since moving up to the main roster.Balor was one of seven NXT talents to move up thanks to the recent brand-split draft, along with American Alpha,?Mojo Rawley,?Alexa Bliss,?Nia Jax?and?Carmella -- taking another big chunk out of the established roster.When we did the draft, I got a lot of questions like, Well, doesnt this spell doom for NXT? Isnt this kind of whats wrong, whats inherently flawed in the system, [because] when you create something that is great, [WWE chairman] Vince [McMahon] is going to want to take it, or the company is going to want to take it and put it on the biggest platform possible? Levesque said. I feel the exact opposite way. Thats why Im building talent -- its to make them as successful and popular as possible.Theyre gone from NXT, but were still selling out Brooklyn in the Barclays Center, just with a different crop of people. Were selling out Brooklyn now with Shinsuke Nakamura and Samoa Joe, and Asuka and Bayley. Its totally different.The recruiting process has continued to evolve as those in charge of the process gain more experience and knowledge. By establishing more of a formalized system for bringing talent in and holding tryouts, WWE can now go out and spend the time to scout more promising talent than ever before.When we first started out, we were just bringing in bits and pieces here and there, but it actually started working out better bringing in people in groups, and trying them out in groups, Levesque said. Because then you had a group of people all learning from the same place. The one thing about the Performance Center and NXT is that we have people in there at every level.Long-time performers like Samoa Joe, Nakamura, Bobby Roode and Austin Aries have the ability to work in the ring as on-the-job trainers to younger, more inexperienced talents hoping to make their way. No matter who remains as the veteran guidance of the roster, NXT can continue to grow and change as each new class enters the Performance Center.NXT will constantly be fresh. Its like college football -- you get a new team every few years, Levesque said. There are somewhere between 70 and 100 talents, men and women, down in the Performance Center, that I feel all have the ability to be WWE superstars. If they dont, then we let them go -- but we feel they all have something to offer. Its about cultivating those [talents] and bringing them up at the right time to compete in NXT.Levesque has embraced that almost parental feeling of pride toward the graduates of NXT. He goes out of his way, both during their time in Florida and after they leave, to publicly recognize their major moments by taking photos and boasting about everything they accomplished.Im giving support to the people that need it as theyre coming up, and if me supporting them helps them to be seen differently or gets them seen by a broader fan base, thats great, Levesque said. Thats really what Im trying to do, expose them and give them that platform to grow and to succeed.At the end of the day, thats really what the Performance Center, NXT, all of it is about -- giving them the tools and the platform so they can go out there and live or die, succeed or fail on their own. ' ' '