When asked about the possibility that his illness is related to steroid use, yankee slugger and gutless coformist Jason Giambi replied, "This is absolutely not related to steroids at all. That's all I can say about that."

Whoaaaa (former) big guy, is that really your answer? Care to try again? Here's a suggestion: "Steroids? What the hell are you talking about?" Or even, "I've never taken steroids." Or go all the way: "I'm not even gonna answer such a ridiculous question. Next."

The way he answered, he might as well have said, "This is absolutely not related to my steroid use at all."

You know why he couldn't answer the way I thought he should've? Because he's a guilty man. So guilty, he can't even tell a standard press-conference lie.

Note: 'gutless conformist' refers to the fact that when he signed with the yankees, he said, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Which makes the fact that he still doesn't have a ring that much sweeter.

In bostondirtdogs.com news: My boy over there in reliable-info-5%-of-the-time-land said after a recent Sox loss that "yankee fans, front office types, players, and especially Big Stein are simply laughing their asses off at this laughing-stock of a team right now."

All that talk about how if we concern ourselves with the yankees, we look stupid. And what's he worried about? Scatmuncher and yankee fans laughing at us. I'm only an armchair psychologist (thanks, once again, to Bill Hicks), but isn't worrying about someone laughing at you like the ultimate in insecurity? The whole caring-what-others-think about you thing? And it's "especially" Steinbrenner, to him. Why can't such a die-hard Sox fan admit his perfectly natural and correct hatred of the yanks? Hell, I don't even care if they laugh at us, and nobody hates them more than me. They've been laughing at me, to my face, for over a quarter-century. It's because they're insecure.

Magic number down to 60--good to see the Sox do what they're supposed to do--beat the Devil Rays by 10.

Kevin Brown was awesome tonight. If you're a Sox fan. Good to see him and A-Rod lose to their old team, while Soriano and Delucci kicked yankee butt.

Too bad tonight's Sox game wasn't on ESPN2 instead of last night's. Sounded like a key win from what I heard through the static. The magic number to beat the yanks is 61*.

Tonight, Trupiano had the all time worst non-home run call. Or, as I used to say, ironically, he "Castiglioned" the audience. I know he likes to say SWING... or Swing and a drive.... and then the ball is caught on the infield. But tonight, he went all out on a ball hit by Manny to right...he even got as far as WAY BACK!, and then the ball was caught at the wall.

Maybe he's just hoping as much as we are.

Mets' pitcher Tom Glavine lost his two front teeth in a cab accident. I heard on the news that when Glavine first came up in the big leagues, he was asked why he chose baseball over his other sport, hockey. He said it was because he had all his own teeth and wanted to keep it that way...

*number of times Steinbrenner has eaten his own crap since Sunday.

If you, like me, have heard the Foxwoods Casino theme upwards of 1 million times, you should enjoy this, from Rallycuff.

Here's one way in which I'm still livin' in the past. Whenever I'm at my computer, and I think of some awesome idea, I immediately start looking around for a pen. Meanwhile, I could just start typing the idea onto the computer screen using the keyboard directly in front of me. (Yeah, the object I'm looking underneath for a pen!) In fact, when I thought of writing this as a blog entry, what did I do? Started lookin' for a pen...

I saw the Sox game on ESPN2 tonight. (Little League baseball was on ESPN, so, c'mon...) And I don't want to talk about it.

I will talk about the yankee game. Unlike all the yankee fans at work, and at the place adjacent to my work, I actually knew they were playing an afternoon game. I got updates throughout the day, and went out to my car one last time to hear the Jays wrap it up, as they were up 5-2 going to the bottom of the ninth.

When the first yankee reached base, I actually said, Go ahead Matsui, hit a home run, I want you guys to lose in heartbreaking fashion for a change. I was livin' dangerously...and the bastard did hit a home run, making it 5-4. I wished I hadn't said that at that point. But the Jays hung on, despite having the tying run on base. It's so disgusting to hear Sterling announce the ninth. He acts like it's predetermined that the yanks will win. How arrogant and stupid and unprofessional is that? To talk all confidently about your team when they're losing, (you supposedly being a neutral broadcaster) instead of fairly describing the action. It's almost like he's so sure this will be a great comeback, and the radio call will be played 100 years from now, so he doesn't want to be thought of as the moron who actually thought the yanks would lose.

Other Sterling notes: Every time I listen to a yankee game, which is a very small percentage, considering all of their games are on tv, and when I'm in the car, usually the Sox are on so I've got them on, and even when I do hear Sterling, it's only for a few innings. Anyway, the last eight or so times I've listened to him, he's brought up the fact that the yanks are drawing a lot of fans, and every time he follows it up with, "Amazing."

Too bad it's my radio that's gonna end up getting punched instead of that piece of crap yankee-rooter.

He referred to Olerud as, and I'm not kidding, "...the tall, elegant, classy hitter.."

Magic number went down to 64 with that yankee loss, but stayed there when Schilling tried to top Wakefield's home run record...

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.