Thursday at 11 am the Red Sox came to New Haven, CT. Larry Lucchino and Joe Casiglione spoke on the green. I couldn't go because, uh, I have a job. But my parents went, and my mom told Larry about how the Red Sox aren't on in Fairfield County (my county). She said Larry and Comcast and NESN seem to be working on the situation. So I may be getting closer to seeing my team on TV.

On the New Haven (Channel 8) News, the title of their story about this was "Red Sox Invasion." Terrible. It's not like New Haven is in New York, it's in New England for Christ's sake. Then they had an interview with a yankee fan who said for every Red Sox fan in the area, there are 25 yankee fans. Bullcrap.

After last night's 13 run loss and 13 run yankee win, the magic number is still 116.

First place by a game and a half. One game off the best record in baseball. Best home record in baseball. I'm psyched. More bad news for the Athletics tonight. Gotta build up a ten game lead! C'mon!!!!

Sorry. Carried away.

Magic number down to 117.

The reason the whole Michael Kay thing bothers me so much is that he is the source of baseball news for much of the New York area. Between announcing the games on Hell, No (Yes Network), except for west coast games, because, c'mon, he's so old, he can't be expected to make it to EVERY game, jeez. Anyway, between that and his radio show, his opinions represent a significant chunk of NY media. So when he tells lies about the Red Sox and their fans, of which I am one, it really bothers me, especially because I live around mostly yankee fans.

The biggest lie that he always likes to tell is that Red Sox fans don't cheer when their team is losing. And that unlike yankee fans, we just wait for something bad to happen, and sit quietly.

I was at Fenway Park a few weeks ago, for a game against Cleveland. The Red Sox trailed from the second inning on, losing 6-4. Here's a quote from Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli: "It just never seemed like we got a whole lot going today. I mean, we had some back-to-back hits here and there, but nothing like we've seen in the past."

Okay, so according to Michael Kay, I went home around the third inning, took some horse tranquilizer, and started looking forward to next season.

But what really happened was that this Wednesday night crowd was totally crazy, especially in the ninth, when all yankee fans would've been asleep in their Westport mansions (on the sidewalk outside the Stadium). I feel like the crowd 35,000-handedly got the team to rally, putting the tying run at the plate. But I kept telling myself, this isn't really happening, I'm really sitting on my hands silently right now, that's what Kay says is the truth...

And the crowd seems to be like this at Fenway every time I go. I'm not saying there are never quiet moments at Fenway, but Kay is just lyin' through his teeth. I've been to games against the yanks, that HE'S AT, TOO, where the crowd is raucous. He's just decided to lie on this issue. And that is, as every other caller on sports radio says, is the bottom line.

As you may know, the two biggest things I complain about here are Michael "Backwards" Kay, and the whole "Quantrill & Gordon" thing. Which refers to the fact that the entire media, NY and otherwise, has decided that thee two pitchers drastically improve the yankee team, and combined with Rivera, make games 6 innings long.

My opinion is that this is a completely unproven method, using a has-been and a could-have-been. But everyone else completely bought into it in the off-season, while I just figured it was George snatching up ex-Red Sox. But people talk about these two like they're some kind of proven tandem, that everyone wanted but the yanks got.

So we're a quarter of the way through the season, let's sum up the dynamic duo so far: Quantrill has been injured ever since A-Rod ran into him in spring training, but he's so stubborn that he'll just keep pitching. They've gotten 30 innings out of him--only Mussina, Vasquez, and Brown have pitched more--and he's given up exactly 30 hits. And has two losses. And has really stunk lately. He'll give 'em lots of innings, but that trend could end this year, we'll see what happens in September.

Gordon, he's done well for the most part, until this weekend when he completely crapped the proverbial bed. And he also has two losses. (So together, the two have 4 losses, the same amount as the entire Sox pen--and three of the Sox losses were by guys who aren't on the active roster.) Oh, and he's still old.

But the keys are: The "system," despite how flawless Charlie Steiner so arrogantly claims it is, still isn't an automatic by any means. The starters aren't good enough to put them consistently where they want to be--like, say, up 3-1 after 6. When they are up by 2, it's usually 9-7, which means they've already wasted a lot of innings from the rest of the bullpen. Maybe with the old starters from the last few years, this plan would be pretty good, except for the fact that we're still talking about Paul Quantrill and Tom Gordon. Of 2004, not 1997.

Right now, even with what Torre calls his "best bullpen since '96," I'd still take the Red Sox pen. Rivera's ERA is 1.08--and Foulke's is still 70 points lower. Even a yankee fan would have to say the pens are about even--oh, unless they're falling into the Q&G trap. Because if you listen to NY Sports Radio, you'd think these two were hall-of famers.

The point is, I think we're lookin' real good right now. A game and a half up without Trot and Nomar is so key.

The magic number is 118 after an awesome weekend.

The next team up for the Red Sox is the Athletics. And what does that mean?

Bad news for the Athletics!!!

Like I said before, Lys & I saw the band Magnetic Fields at Town Hall in NYC this weekend. One of the two singers came on stage wearing a yankee hat. I was kinda wondering if he did it to win points with the New York crowd (he is from Yonkers, though). He threw the hat off after a couple of songs. I didn't know if that meant anything, but I was probably the only person in the crowd thinking about this. Although one guy yelled out "Nice hat" when the initial applause died down, but I couldn't tell if that was sarcastic.

I've also said this before, but I think musicians, or really anyone, wearing yankee hats are less likely to actually care about the yankees than people wearing Sox hats. I think Steinbrenner can be blamed for this. The guy has probably alienated as many former true fans as he's gained front-running fans for his team. So when the team stops winning, (which it already has) what will he have left?

So a friend of mine saw the same band the next night in Boston. When I saw her today, I asked if the singer guy wore a yankee hat. She said he wasn't wearing a hat. Good move, buddy. However, she did say that it was nearly impossible to find parking because of the Sox game that night. I should have warned her...

At our show, we were psyched because we were in the same place as the concert in the movie A Mighty Wind. When we got home, we put the DVD on, only to find out that the concert in the movie was clearly filmed somewhere else. Oh well.