Well, Nomar's gone. But hey, we got a whole slew of .250 hitters for him!

I guess I've gotta be optimistic, though, as is my tradition.

At least Doug Mientkiewicz is a legitimate first baseman. Rare in Boston. I do like my first baseman to hit above two-friggin'-fifty, though.

And Orlando Cabrera seems like a great defensive shortstop, but again, I don't know about this whole .250 thing.

I look at this trade and what I keep seeing is 250, jumping out at me in really big letters. I mean numbers.

Dave Roberts, I'm down with him, he may be a steal. (Except for, you know, .250.)

The hope is that these guys can use the wall to their advantage, and maybe hit, I don't know, .275? Please? And I guess if Nomar was gonna leave anyway, at least we got a little something back. But this "infield of the century" or whatever Theo's calling it, is currently hitting, roughly, .250.

They better be really good on defense is all I'm sayin'.

I think the only hall-of-famer in these deals, besides Nomar, of course, may be Matt Murton. I remember some caller to a talk radio show once raved about that guy, after seeing him in the Cape League, I believe. And the guy was really psyched that the Sox drafted him. Is it bad to say he may be a hall-of-famer based on just that? Yup. I'll take that chance, though, why the hell not, you only live once, depending on future scientific advances.

I will miss Nomar. I really wanted him to stay. How messed up would it be if the Cubs win it all this year?

Just a reminder: The yankees continue to play horribly crappy ball. Hey Red Sox! Play to or even almost to your potential and the division is yours! 

at Toronto, Game 1: yanks score four quick, but can't get much else, then Mariano blows his second save in a row (both with two run leads), only to have yanks win in 10. NY media calls Mariano's blowing a save "rare"--again! 

at Toronto, Game 2: El Duque goes two innings, forcing the yanks to use "I Wear My Sunglasses At Night" Padilla, Heredia, Proctor, and Gordon. Jays have bases loaded, up 2-1 in eighth, don't score, and yanks get late win, but again, bullpen worn out. 

at Toronto, Game 3: yanks lose on walk-off homer in tenth after Heredia gives up tying run late, with help from Sheffield, who, as is his tradition, misses the cutoff man. 

So they mustered up two wins out of three, but good stuff (for us) happened in all three. 

Tonight: yanks, with Contreras starting, give up 9 to the Orioles, while "murderer's row"  (the only "murderer's row" in history without ONE .300 hitter) scores only one run off Ponson and the Birds. That's right, the Orioles showed up against NY. Savor that one. Note that in this 9-1 yankee loss, Hell No Network's 'Play of the Game' was A-Rod catching a pop up that he caught with his back to the infield. Too bad doing that doesn't get you nine runs. 

Add those games to the Sox series preceding them, and the yanks have been playing piss-poor for quite some time now. Contreras was a test tonight, and he failed. The next is Brown tomorrow. We'll see what happens. But they really need Randy Johnson if they want to, well, if they want to have ONE effective starter. 

The magic number is 71.

Also, it appears that the big toilet bowl in the Bronx is one step closer to being torn down.

Here's an article about this blog, among other things, from the Fairfield Weekly. Thanks, Brita, for not making me look like too much of a maniac.

My dad was born in the early '40s. He's stuck with the Red Sox through the heartbreaking years of '46, '48, '49, '67, '72, '75, '78, '86, '99, '03, plus the last-place years and yankee championships along the way. Needless to say, he's a "real" Red Sox fan. However, bostondirtdogs.com just informed me that my dad is actually NOT a real Sox fan. I'll explain. My dad has taught me in the ways of yankee-hating my whole life. I hope to one day pass this tradition on to future generations of my family. When my dad heard about the "yankee Hater" hats, he said to me, "I gotta get me one of those." Today, speaking of those hats, dirtdogs said,

"For the last time, real Sox fans don’t wear that crap."

And he used Curt Schilling's quotes to kind of back him up. (Schilling said that there's "ZERO" hatred between the two teams, just respect.)

Okay, players have to say that stuff. At different points throughout my life I've seen Red Sox players talking and laughing with yankee players. You make friends around the league, that's gonna happen in games between any two teams. But that has nothing to do with one fan's hatred of the rival team. Curt Schilling is an athlete. Don't you think growing up he hated (all right, he says he doesn't hate anyone or anything--also the "right thing" for a public figure to say--so I'll say "strongly disliked") the rival teams of whatever teams he rooted for? Or in college, surely he had a rival. Why is it suddenly bad to be a sports fan who hates their rival? Especially when it's the yankees. I don't see how you couldn't hate that team! Take my friend who I'll call James (who happens to be a yankee fan.) He went to Ohio State. Ask him if he hates Michigan. If he did stop laughing, he'd give you a resounding yes, and wouldn't be ashamed. Why should he? What kind of weak fan would have sympathy for the enemy? And let's remember that Schilling put on that hat in the first place. I don't care what he's saying now, he took a hat that says "yankee hater" on it, and wore it in public.

I feel bad for dirtdog if he was sitting there watching the Sox-yanks fight, and not getting excited about it, just sitting at home, yelling at the screen, "Break it up, guys!" And then thinking that Varitek's sitting in the clubhouse saying, "God, I respect A-Rod so much!"

Gimme a break.

And then Ed of Bambino's Curse just said in an interview how there are the "yankees Suck" Red Sox fans, and then there are the "literary" Sox fans.

Actually, I think I've got it all figured out. These two guys, the two who run the two most popular Red Sox sites, never seem to take my letters too seriously. In fact, Ed has never written me back. I guess they see my "illiterate" view on the world (being a yankee hater) and decide I'm not worth their time. But what is worth their time is saying the exact right thing, to the point where they each were picked up by major media sources. I say F the yanks, F the Media, F the people who'll say whatever it takes to get a paycheck.

That's right Boston Globe, don't sign me, I'm a Red Sox fan who hates the yankees. Good God! Not in our paper, you don't! This guy might come in to our office with his ratty trench coat and bag of cans, dragging his dirty knuckles across our good carpeting!

My point, which I've made before, is that I understand that the commerce side of "yankees suck" can be disturbing, when you realize that the people making the hats could be Brewers fans for all we know. Hell, I've been calling myself a yankee hater my whole life and I kinda wish I'd known that all I had to do was put a YH on a hat and sell 'em around Boston. Then I'd be the rich one, but at least I'd have been selling something I made and fully support.

Some people may be doing it for the wrong reasons, every team has their fans who are morons But personally, I've just got a natural, honest hatred of the New York yankees. Tonight I watched them lose on a homer in the tenth, and a feeling of pure joy came over me. I didn't have to hear from someone else that I'm supposed to be happy that they lost. It's just the way I was raised. And I feel good hearing the Fenway crowd booing the crap out of the yanks all game long. That's 35,000 people every night who buy a ticket, and go out and show their perfectly natural hatred of the yankees.

My request of dirtdog would be to please stop telling me and my family that we're not real Red Sox fans. In fact, if you want to sit around respecting the yankees all day and saying how great they all are, just go ahead and be a yankee fan.

And my request to Ed would be to not divide Red Sox fans into two categories, and put anyone who hates the yankees into the "dumb guy" category. After all, we can't all be quoting Voltaire or whoever every time we speak. In fact, that's ironic, because I believe it was he who said, "Opinion has caused more trouble on this earth than all the plagues and earthquakes."

Got that from my page-a-day calendar! Ha! I don't even know who the hell Voltaire is! I'm sitting here on a dirt floor typing on an Apple II-e chanting "yankees suck" 'til I fall asleep! Jeez, stop taking everything so friggin' seriously.

I'm sorry, did you say "yankee Ice Tray Night?" I wonder how many fans were thinking about going to a yankees game, originally decided against it, but then (!) said Oh my god, if I trek to the Bronx tonight, spend 150 bucks for the tickets for the family, park for 20 bucks, walk underneath the dank highway overpasses, through the pee-smelling walkway with the guy that plays the Flintstones theme on his trumpet really loud, pay 7 bucks for a beer, and 50 more dollars for food for everyone, stand in even more pee in the bathroom, and cheer whenever the scoreboard tells me to, I GET A FREE ICE TRAY.

But it's only for the first 18,000 fans, so get in the car quick everybody! Actually, kids, you don't get an ice tray because you have to be 21 or over. Maybe you could borrow your mother's. But don't even think about touchin' mine.

Is this what they mean when they say Steinbrenner's a great businessman?

Anyway, it's quite a shame that I don't have a light bulb key ring.... 

Even after that great series against the yanks, I was kind of worried, but strictly for the reason that our next three games were in Baltimore. Twelve runs later, I'm feeling better. Also, Pedro pitched way better than his line shows. And it was great seeing (I actually saw the game tonight because I was out at my parents' house, in NESN territory.)Pedro strike out Karim Garcia repeatedly, as Garcia was booed by the Sox' home crowd in Baltimore. And Mariano blew another save tonight, and Torre used the two stooges even though they must be ready to drop. Although that stubborn Quantrill would never admit it. So even though they won, it was a good day overall. The magic number is down to 72.

Speaking of that yankee bullpen, I've been thinking lately that maybe "Flash" and the "Amazing Mr. Quantrill" really were one person, since no member of the New York media has said one name without saying the other right away since the two were acquired. But that wacky arch-nemesis of mine, Michael Kay, beat me to it. Today he referred to them--and Mariano--as QuanGorMo.

It just gets more and more pathetic. At least Kay was admitting that they're getting totally overused. (If you've kept up with this blog, you know I've been predicting the fall of this bullpen since preseason.) But Kay also just keeps letting the arrogant yankee fan in him come through while he's trying to do what's supposed to be a neutral talk show. It's like listening to the average yankee fan at work, the way they get all mad and pissy when the yanks lose to the Sox. You know whenever yankee fans start bringing up 1918 and all that crap, it's because they're so scared it's all gonna come crashing down. And since the yankee fan is so insecure by nature (attaching themselves to the champion to cover up for their own shortcomings), it's just fun to hear them in these troubled yankee times. And yes, these are troubled times in the Bronx, and they're all livin' real close to the edge.

Anyway, Kay also said, in his little tantrum, the following line, that I will not forget: "The Red Sox have no chance of winning the A.L. East, they're just not good enough."

We'll see, psycho-boy.

More notes on the Sunday night game:

Good to see the guy going against Bush saying "Go Red Sox."

I never thought  I'd ever like Ben Affleck this much. I might even go out and rent some Voyage of the Mimi episodes.

The Youkilis thing, where he predicted Damon's HR off the pole was priceless. He seems like a wacky guy. We saw him in pre-game warm ups a few weeks ago imitating Axl Rose while a Guns N' Roses song was playing.

And they play Marilyn Manson when he comes to bat, so he's definitely down with the "rock" I hear so much about. But what do you expect, he's from Cincinnati, he grew up listening to Dr. Johhny Fever on KRP.

The yankee announcers must have told the ESPN announcers to tell America that Fenway Park is "quiet." Here's what I mean. We all know how Kay and Kaat like to lie through their teeth and say that the Fenway crowd isn't as enthusiastic as the yankee Stadium crowd, and that Sox fans sit quietly and wait for something bad to happen. When we know, and you can clearly see and hear it on tv, that the exact opposite is true. Now, granted, it gets quiet when the visiting team scores. That's perfectly natural and can be expected at any sporting arena in the world. So when Matsui hit a grand slam, and Fenway quieted down for two minutes, the ESPN announcers must have thought, "Hey, that Kay is right! It's quiet here! They must be waiting for something bad to happen, these cursed assholes!" It just makes me sick.

However, I did notice that at that moment, when they were saying that a hush has fallen over Fenway, that at least on the broadcast, I heard plenty of noise; more like a pissed-off buzzing at what had just happened. So maybe there's something going on in the Fenway annoucers' booths where they can't hear the crowd noise. I don't know, it doesn't make sense, especially since ESPN's Jon Miller is a good guy, who used to announce for the Sox, and I never thought Kaat was that bad, but since Kay's sunk his teeth into him, it's been a different story.

More Oriole action tomorrw, hopefully we've finally solved that team. Go Sox.