Since Dennis Eckersley's record of most homers given up in a game by a Red Sox pitcher was broken today, I thought I'd do an Eckersley related entry today.

Actually, I've been thinking of a couple of Eckersley stories lately, so today just gives me an excuse.

When I was little, when my family would go to Sox games, my dad would put a Red Sox hat on my sister. And since she had longer black hair, he'd always call her "The Eck." I think it's funny that he's now in the Hall of Fame. Because it wasn't like my dad called her by some superstar player's name, he just gave her the name because Eckersley happened to have long black hair. And at the time, we didn't know he'd go on to relief pitching fame. But he did, and now he's in the Hall of Fame. I don't know if I'm desrcibing this the way I wanted to. I can just imagine my sister at some point in the future saying, Hey, remember when dad used to say I look liked that baseball player? What ever happened to him? Oh, he just went on to have a Hall of Fame career is all.

My other Eck story is from my recent plane flight that I described previously on this blog. (July 20th---ish? Look near there if you want to read about it.) Something I forgot to mention was that on the plane, I bought the cheap headphones, and one of the channels they offered was the "sports" channel. This channel consisted entirely of two interviews that repeated over and over again. One with Barry Sanders, one with Dennis Eckersley. I got to the point where I knew exactly how Dennis was gonna answer every question. In some weird way, Dennis really helped me get through that horrible flight. That was one of the weirdest sentences I've ever written. Maybe because when I think of the name Dennis, it always brings me back to that TV movie, about the kid who gets kidnapped, and the kidnapper says to him, "Your new name is Dennis," in this really creepy voice. Oh, it was called I Know My First Name Is Dennis. Hey, that's weird, kind of like my dad called my sister Dennis, in a way. If she didn't look so much like the rest of us, I'd wonder if he kidnapped her. Anyway, I was just sitting there on the plane, switching channels, because I figured I'd already heard the whole Eck interview, but I'd just keep going back to it because I was so nervous. So I'd hear a question, and try to yell out the answer in my head before Eck could say it. Then I'd switch around, stare at the wing, switch back to Eck, then yell out another answer. Then when Barry Sanders was on, I'd be all mad that it wasn't Eck anymore, and I'd go through my motions, hoping that next time I put the channel back on, it would be the comforting voice of the Eck. Comforting in that scatterbrained way he has of talking. I need to not fly for awhile.

Magic number is 64, even with Wake's 500 homeruns allowed today. But we better quickly move up 11 games in the standings to make that number mean something.

I will be interested to see how the team will be greeted back at Fenway tomorrow. I wonder if everyone will give their Nomar jerseys one last wear.

Thanks for reading, everybody.