The frontrunners were out in full force today.

Don't get me wrong, I see yankee hats every day, but on this Saturday afternoon, the huddled masses were roaming in, uh, masses. Every loser and their girlfriend, decked out in post-'96-bought (stolen) yankee gear. Are these people that insecure that they needed the lead to hit double figures before they started representing Bandwagon Nation?

I was pretty pissed after hearing the Sox lost to Detroit last night, falling 10 1/2 out. But then I saw a stat that was pretty encouraging: Red Sox starters have lasted at least seven innings in each of the last eight games. That's pretty damn good. I decided that if that means the pitching has settled down, which is still an "if", then we've got one last chance to really turn things on, with Ortiz about to return. Remember, we've got six left against the yanks, so we really only need to cut the lead by five, and then whoop their asses six out of six.

So tonight, Ortiz came back, got some RBIs, and Pedro continued the seven inning streak, and we got a much needed win. So maybe this is finally the streak we've been waiting for. (Pretty sad, huh, thinking one win must be signaling the start of a long winning streak?)

Does this optimistic post all but guarantee a loss tomorrow? Usually yes, but I've gotta say what I feel. I can't worry about silly jinxes. Now excuse me, I have to go to bed, first taking off my right THEN left sock, setting the alarm to a time divisible by 16, and putting my glasses case next to my paint chip from a Fenway seatback.

That bastard Kay today, check out what he said (this is from my *superb* memory):

"Dale Sveum had Dave Roberts get thrown out at the plate in the eighth inning, with Bill Mueller on deck, and there was only one out. And he got thrown out by 35 feet. 35 feet! And all the Boston media talks about is Nomar."

Okay, if you saw that game, you know there are three things wrong with this statement: Ninth inning, no outs, roughly 7-10 feet.

Granted, his point may be true about Nomar, although I know my post from after that game talked about the bad third base coaching, and didn't mention Nomar. And the Sveum thing was the main story on dirtdogs, but yeah, people are still talking about Nomar. But, like Kay had just finished saying before this quote, he was the most famous Red Sox shortstop of all time. So...

But my point is, Kay wasn't lying here, just showing an incredible amount of ignorance. He proved that he definitely did not see the play he was describing. It's ironic, though, that he made the play sound less important than it actually was, by claiming it was the eighth inning. But if you heard him say "35 feet!", you'd have been able to tell that it wasn't said in a jokin' around way, he was really shocked about what was surely some incorrect report he heard. I guess he got a taste of his own prov. medicine. Had he known what he was talking about, he could've really driven his point home, as lame as it was in the first place.

Moving on to irrelevant land:

Whenever I see a close-up picture of a ballplayer taken in mid-game, I always check out the crowd, hoping that by some miracle, I'll see someone I know, or even myself. Like shots of Derek Lowe when he pitched the no-no. There's one that's kind of got the right field grandstand in the background, and I'm like, That's near where we were! Look closely! I think that's my goal in life, to be clearly in the background of some famous picture. (I guess most people want the foreground, but I'm more realistic.) Or even if I had a good friend who was in a really famous picture. There are certain shots of Elvis where you can see faces in the crowd really clearly. Why aren't those people out bragging to the world about their accomplishment? Maybe these people have websites, I'll have to check. I'd befriend somebody just so I could say, Hey, check it out, see this Freddie Mercury poster? Recognize the guy with the ketchup stain on his shirt in the bottom corner? Why yes, that is my boy Bob. Yeah, the dude I just met online! No, he's cool....

When I'm coaching third base, I never send a runner home when the outfielder has the ball before that runner has hit third base.

Especially when my team's down by one run in the ninth inning.

Terrible loss.

But to make the night worse, the A's couldn't hold a two run lead with one out and nobody on in the ninth. Jeter came up, and I said, Okay A's, be ready to buckle down, because after this bloop single to right, the tying run will be at the plate. The bloop went more to right center, but I was close. And the A's didn't take my advice, as Sheffield then tied the game on a home run, and the yanks went on to win, despite Mariano continuing to give up hit after hit in extra innings.

Screw that Jeter and his inside out swing bloop singles to right. You know, my cousin Kara could roll a six with a dice every time. She'd just put the "one" side facing up on a certain spot on her hand, angle the hand to the table, let the dice tumble out of her hand, and there it was, every time: six. Just like Jeter, every time, bloop to right. But you don't see my cousin in the craps hall of fame. Screw Jeter.

Just to expand on my accusation of bostondirtdogs.com driving Nomar out of town...

First of all, I'd like to revisit my theory that dirtdog is really Steinbrenner.
OR just someone working in conjunction with the yankees.

Let's look at the facts:
Dirt dog (who took his name from a nickname for certain Sox players coined by--Paul Quantrill) was the "leader" of the whole A-Rod to the Sox thing. This led to everyone to assume it was a done deal, including Kevin Millar, who publicly said he'd rather have A-Rod on his team than Nomar. Note that this whole thing, with Manny being put on waivers, also gave Steinbrenner a chance to make Manny look bad, as we know that Big Stein wants Nomar, not Manny. All the other teams couldn't afford Manny, but the yanks could have. (Again, if George is such a "great businessman," why didn't he grab Manny--how many games up would they be now with him in the lineup?)

And all of this led to Nomar being pissed, and, the yanks getting A-Rod, after Aaron Boone (coincidence?) has a mysteeerious basketball injury. So Stein--I mean dirtdog, continues to make Nomar feel like crap, while becoming part of boston.com, therefore making it certain that Nomar can have access to everything he writes. And sends Nomar a check, signed by George, and a note telling Nomar to kneel (oooh) in the yankee Stadium dugout instead of standing, to make everyone (dirtdogs.com) even more pissed at him, even though he played his ass off in every other game, and was hitting well over .300.

And George told Jeter to run into the crowd--you know, or somethin' like that--just to show how much more the lesser-quality yankee shortstop gives his team. But the plan almost backfired as Jeter had to choose the closest popup to the stands, but misjudged the ball and had to take THREE FULL STEPS before diving into the crowd. The blood diverted everyone's attention to the fact that the dive was completely unnecessary. (Pokey's catch from the same game was much more impressive).

And then there's dirtdogs getting these "yankee hater" hats--claims they're "from some other guy," gives them to Schilling, and they become popular to Sox fans, who are dying to show their hatred of the yanks while not seeming to notice that the hats look JUST LIKE yankee hats! And then when it gets out of control, the yankee-loving dirtdog can't face the reality that Sox fans really friggin' hate the yankees, says, "Hold Everything! Real Red Sox fans don't hate the yanks, stop wearing those STUPID hats (that I endorsed)."

And now, Nomar's gone, and at the end of the season, who will just happen to sign him? What team, with an all-star at every position except second base, will sign him to fill that hole? The dirtdogs, I mean yankees. Watch how happy he'll be when it happens.

Funny, I never did see a replay of Pokey's catch, apparently that footage was burned to make room for the statue being built to honor Jeter's catch that really symbolizes the yanks catching Nomar.

But conspiracies aside, I think it's just an easy excuse to say that Nomar wasn't happy about the A-Rod thing, so he was showing that he didn't want to be where he supposedly wasn't wanted. There was speculation of that all along. And even dirtdog's boy Schilling said that that didn't affect him or the team.

And East Coast Agony points out that Manny has been in the same boat all year, and all he's done is become a new man and media darling, while continuing to put up amazing numbers.

I just wished things had worked out differently with Nomar. No matter what dirtdog says, he's a good guy, and even if he did swing at the first pitch all the time, he's gonna end up hitting .300 for his career, while battling injuries.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be rooting for these new guys as hard as I did for Nomar.

From tonight's yankee broadcast, hilarious moment: Kay says that the point of Joe Torre's charity is to "stop abusive children within the home." And just when he finishes the line, Adam "Everything's Comin' Up" Melhuse hits a mega-dong for the A's, making it 10-4 Oakland.

With our win and the yanks' loss (they're down 13-4 in the eighth, I'm the one to kill if they come back and win), the magic number is now 66.

I just heard some of long-time Sox announcer and former Bob Montgomery boothmate Sean McDonough getting interviewed by Mad Dog.

He was saying how Nomar never liked the despite the fact that they never said anything negative about him (much like the rest of the Boston media is saying--what are the odds??).

I guess those guys don't read bostondirtdogs.

Thanks again dirtdog, for running a good guy and fan favorite out of town. (Yes, I've read all the irrelevant, made up stuff about all of this over on that site.)

Happy New Month everybody.

I feel more each day like Michael Dukakis, when he said about George Bush in a 1988 debate, "I can't believe I'm losin' to this guy..."

Well, it was really Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey, playing the roles of Dukakis and Bush on Saturday Night Live. But the point is, we should be 9 up on the yanks, not 9 down.

I don't know what's more frustrating, the fact that we just can't get any cool air into this apartment in this oppressive humid stretch, or the Red Sox. Yes I do. It's the Red Sox.

I played my first show with my new band tonight, so at least that took my mind off the team for a while. Man, if you're a Sox fan who doesn't have anything else goin' on in your life to distract you, you must be ready to end it all by now, if you haven't already.

Nomar's wearing my favorite number.

I couldn't help but notice that on the yankee broadcast, after A-Rod hit his 28th homer of the year, Kay said that he "took the lead" in the home run race. That was a lie, since Manny had already hit his 28th a little earlier. You know Kay knew about it, but he decided to lie. Then on one of the New York news stations, the sports reporter showed A-Rod's homer, then said that he now leads the league with 28. So he probably heard Kay's call, and just assumed it was a truth, instead of the filthy Kay-ass lie that it was. Maybe you can say someone "leads the league" in something when they're actually tied with someone else--but in that case, I've won every game of Tic-Tac-Toe I've ever played.

You may say this is a little thing that I shouldn't worry about, but it's not about the home run lead, it's about the deliberate misinformation that always makes the yanks look good. Don't these people have enough? Even if Manny had hit his 28th AND 29th homer today, that reporter still would've said it was A-Rod's "league leading" home run, thanks to Kay. It's sickening to me. Kind of like the way the Red Sox are playing right now. I guess the new guys need time to gel or whatever. I just hope it happens this season.

The magic number is still stuck at, I don't know, 70 or something.