If you were paying attention last November, you know that the Red Sox are playing in the Hall of Fame game this year, on May 23rd versus Detroit.

Tickets go on sale today, Februaury 19th.

So I went to the Hall of Fame's website this week, only to find out that tickets are being sold in three ways. Starting today, you can go to the Hall, line up at 9:00, and buy tickets at 11:00 AM (limited number of tix on sale at this time), and get into the museum for free. Then, next week, tickets become available to "Friends" of the Hall of Fame, i.e. people who have a membership. Then, on March 1st, ANY remaining tickets go on sale to the general public.

So I had a decision to make. At first, I said, "I guess I'm going to Cooperstown on Saturday." I'd have to go up the night before and get a hotel, or wake up at about 5 AM to make sure I got there in time to get on line. So hotel it was. The cheapest hotel room in the area would run me about 65 bucks, and a tank of gas is about 30. So, naturally, my next thought was, "How much does a membership cost?"

Turns out it's only 40 bucks. So I decided to get a membership, knowing that since only a limited number of tickets go on sale today, I'm guaranteed to get a ticket, provided I call right at nine o'clock on Monday (and get through).

So I called up the Hall yesterday and they guaranteed me that I'd have my membership number by the end of the day, and that I can use it to get in on the Members Only sale next week.

By the way, tickets to this game cost 11 bucks. A chance to buy 11 dollar tickets to a Sox game--I'd pay a thousand bucks for that! Heh heh. But I only had to pay forty, and I get a bunch of other stuff for becoming a member, including getting into the museum free for a year ("That job sounds like it might be worth a year's free haircuts"--Newman), and a shiny card with the dugout wizard* on it, and I didn't even have to leave the proverbial comfort of my own home.

Yes, it's an exhibition game, but it's a Sox game, three hours from my house, in a weird, small park, during the season. It will rule. I get the feeling the players will be a little more accesible at an event like this. Alright, so I'm picturing me and Ortiz hangin' out at a diner after the game, talkin' smack about A-Rod. A guy can proverbially dream.

So if you want to go to this, well, you've missed your chance to go up there, since it's already Saturday afternoon. But you can use my 40 dollar method. Call them on Monday, get your membership, they e-mail you your number by the end of the day, and then call back or go on line and use that number to get your tix.

Maybe I'm doing too much here. Maybe no one cares and I could've just got front row seats on March 1st. But I'm guessing that since seeing the Sox is so hard, and the place is close to New England, and the HoF site says camping out the night before the tix go on sale (last night) is NOT allowed, I probably do have to do it this way to get a shot at going to that game. Plus, we Sox fans will want to go there to see all the World Series memoribilia anyway, so....

Click here for all the info.

And no, I didn't get into the yankee ticket lottery, which is why I'm writing this instead of hanging out in the virtual waiting room.


*The "Dugout Wizard" was Tommy Lasorda's character on "The Baseball Bunch."

David Wells just got interviewed by his old buddy, Michael Kay, on ESPN radio.

I seriously don't know how I'm going to root for this guy.

Kay asked him what it was like to put on the Sox uniform, and Wells said "It was tough," with a little chuckle in the middle, which implied he almost couldn't go through with it.

Maybe he was just kissing up to the backward one, but either way, he really didn't do anything that made me want to like him. This was a New York station, so there was a lot of that "Always be a yankee"-type talk. I mean I liked how he did the now ubiquitous "A-Rod isn't a real yankee," but then he compared that to his own situation, saying he wasn't a part of the '04 Sox and doesn't "want to have anything to do with that." (By the way, I never formally thanked Trot for that line about A-Rod having his limo driver take his kid to school. Thank you, Trot. I love you, man.)

It was funny when Kay asked him if he ever did steroids, and Wells laughed, saying he asked around about what it does for you, but never experimented. Kay asked, "But don't you want a six-pack?" Fatty said, "That is my steroids!" Kay said, "I meant on your stomach..."

Wells also pointed out how the yanks didn't want him because he was "an old guy," but now they turn around and get The Mullet.

Then Kay said how in New York, you now need three beat reporters: One to cover the Mets, one for the yanks, and one for the Red Sox, because, "it's almost like they're the third New York team." Mwahahahaaa, the plan is working. And just after I ordered my "I [socked] NY" T-shirt, too. Have you seen this? I saw one at the Riv in NYC during Game 6 of the ALCS. It's "I [heart] NY," but with the red socks where the heart goes. The one I just ordered doesn't use the official logo like that one did, for trademark reasons, but makes the socks look a litle bit like a heart.

Then Kay said how a friend of his said that yankee fans can look at things like this now: We now know there was no curse, it's just that the Sox "stunk and choked" for 86 years. Hilarious. (Sound of crickets.) (I've seen this on a T-shirt on the net already, where this guy probably got the joke from.) Anyway, Kay was giddy while saying this, but then one of his producers said, "But in those 86 years, the Red Sox never choked like the yankees did." My thoughts exactly.

Kay brought this up when his producer kept using the term "yankee," referring to any historical collapse. And Kay was getting frustrated. So they (the producers/call takers/cohosts) asked, "If you're a neutral fan, why does this bother you," referring to the fact that the obvious yankee fan Kay pretends he's neutral for some reason. And that's when Kay came back with his little curse joke, only to be shot down again. Great job, non-Kay dudes (who are normally pretty horrible, though.)

Proof once again that yankee fans really ought to try continuing the "don't say anything" routine. Because every time they open their mouths, something so ridiculous comes out; something that can always be negated by one word..."their" word: CHOKE.

After learning that Ramiro Mendoza was re-acquired by the yanks, I thought about how he, Babe Ruth, and a handful of other guys are the only ones who won a World Series with both the Red Sox and yankees. I don't know why it took me until now to think of this, since he joined that club the moment the Sox won. But on SoSH a few minutes ago, I was reading the thread about Mendoza, and someone else pointed it out, too. Like going back to the yanks put him on the list with Ruth. It's weird how we both initially thought that way. Maybe the fact that he's going back there makes you realize, Oh yeah, he was on the yanks before, he's got a ring with both teams. But I think we knew he was on the yanks, as many of us suspected he never really left them. Oh, and speaking of rings, when I read that the ring ceremony might not be on Opening Day against the yanks, I got really pissed for five seconds--then I realized, the flag will still go up, it would still rule without the actual rings getting handed out. But it looks like it will happen, rings and all, so, whatever, it will be a sweet day either way. One of the sweetest ever created by any deity or explosion in history.

So the list of guys who won a World Series with both teams is:

Ramiro "yankee at heart" Mendoza (1 BOS, 4 NY), George Herman "Jidge," "Babe," "The Sultan Of Swat," "The Guy Who Got Sold To The yanks, Put A Curse On The Red Sox But Then Removed That Curse" Ruth (3 BOS, 4 NY), Samuel Pond "Sad Sam the Cemetary Man," "Horsewhips," Jones (2 BOS, 1 NY), Leslie Ambrose "Bullet" "Joe" Bush (1 BOS, 1 NY), Carl William "Sub" Mays (3 BOS, 1 NY), Herbert Jefferis "The Knight of Kennet Square" "Herb" Pennock (2 BOS, 4 NY), Walter Henry "Wally" Schang (1 BOS, 1 NY), Lewis Everett "Deacon" Scott (3 BOS, NY 1), Michael Joseph "Minooka Mike" McNally (2 BOS, 1 NY).

And that's all I can find. We're talking players only here. Let me know if you have any more, or if any of this is wrong. It's the best I could do. Retrosheet and the Baseball Almanac helped me immensely.

Did you know that the day the Red Sox last won the World Series before 2004 was 9/11 (in that glorious year 1918)? I don't think I knew that.

And did you know that, like this year, the Red Sox and yanks played in each other's home openers the year after the last time the Sox won it all? In 1919, the Sox won the opener at the Stadium (a one-game series, but they also played three exhibition games there, it appears), then lost the first two of the first series at Fenway, but won game three with Ruth.

And the time before that, 1917, following the '16 title, they did it again, with the Sox winning the yanks home opener with Ruth, and winning the Fenway opener against the yanks, with, yes, Ruth.

In '16, following the '15 title, they didn't play each other's home openers, but the Sox, behind, again, Ruth, did win the first matchup of the season, at yankee Stadium.

The other day, Sid & Joe (WFAN) had the best guests on their show. Apparently, they had mentioned The Magic Garden the day before, and the two women that used to host the show heard about it, and called in. Sid was psyched, since he watched the show ('72-'84), but Joe was too old. I definitely watched this show, along with Romper Room, Joya's Fun School, Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, etc. It was on WPIX, Channel 11 out of New York, which we've always picked up around here. (Eleven alive!) But WPIX was a superstation, so there is a chance you got it where you grew up.

They said people always come up to them and A. ask them to sing their trademark song (which they did on Sid & Joe), and B. tell them "You never said my name!" (They used to say hi to a list of names, they never said mine, either.

Anyway, it's good that they're still doing there thing.

MG rules.

Also, 11 was the yankees station for many years, including my entire childhood, while the Mets were always on 9. A few years ago, the Mets went to 11, and this year, the yanks are going to 9, completing this bizarro circle. (These are for the very few of their games that aren't on cable, of course.)

Today's "Weird Note To Self Found In Pocket" (where my ideas go to die--or sometimes to be rediscovered and put on this blog):

"12/23/04 12:29 PM Mr. Rogers-related deja vu."

I guess I was trying to keep track of my dejas. Maybe to try to better understand why they occcur. Oh well, no serious findings yet.

The first spring training pics are up at boston.com. Is it possible that David Wells got fatter? And Greenwell is down there. I'm lovin' the Gator's new fame. I'll never forget in '93, one of the first things I did upon arriving at the University of Nebraska, was find someone with a car to drive down to Kansas City to see a Sox game. This girl sitting near us was a Greenwell fan, and she kept yelling his name, with no results--until I said, "Yell 'Gator'." It worked, he glanced over. Also, Jose Lind was spraying Tony Pena with a hose from the bullpen, and Pena didn't know where the water was coming from. Moving on...

Y'all know I don't capitalize "yankees" on purpose, right? Just checking. I'm not dumb, or crazy, I just prefer not to capitalize their name, because they don't deserve it.

While I'm clarifying things, there's someone at SoSH called "soxfaninyankeeland." That person is not me. I am, however, "Ged-maniac" at Redsoxnation.net, but I haven't posted there since around the time I started this blog. The first time I went to SoSH, way back, I was overwhelmed, so I just didn't even bother trying to join it. Whereas at RSN, I was merely whelmed, so I joined there. (And they had an arcade.)

And I realize I'm usually a day behind on making fun of BDD, but I do have a job during the day, so...

I propose "yankees Choke" as a new chant for now and always. It's perfect. First of all, it's appropriate for fans of all ages, and "yankees Choke" T-shirts will never be banned from anywhere. Second of all, it will make yankee fans extra mad because they've been taunting us with that word for as long as I can remember. Third of all, it fits right into the three-syllable chant template. Fourth of all, it's perfect for people who were totally fine with the concept of "yankees Suck," but wished the language was a little more tasteful. Fifth of all, we need a new chant, already. (Although 2000, Year 2000, 2004, whatever it is, will be great, too.)

And finally, it's the fucking truth.


Also note: Last year, I really thought we should have been replacing the "Ba ba ba" in "Sweet Caroline" with "yan kees suck." So this year, if they're still playing it, it should be, of course, "yan kees choke." I really want to bring three signs and have three people hold them up in sequence as that part of the song plays, say, at the bottom of the bleachers, facing the seats. I give anyone and everyone permission to steal this idea. Tell your friends.

The Curt and Shonda Schilling Melanoma Foundation. SHADE. I don't get it. I mean, I know you go in the shade to avoid skin cancer, but the "all caps" implies an acronym. Clearly, the foundation should be called CSSMF. Or, come up with some words that fit the SHADE acronym.

I think I'll start the Jere Proper Acronym Learning Foundation, or AWESOME.

Did that article about Varitek make you feel like a lazy-ass slob or what? Today at work I put my feet up on the back wall of my cubicle and stretched each leg for five seconds. And I was proud of myself! I was like, "Between this and the fact that I park a few spots farther away from the building than I have to, just for those extra twenty steps of exercise, I am in hella shape!"

And then I read about Jason, with the workouts, the rope ladder, the jumping jacks, never mind the crouching/standing routine for the whole season, and the baseballs pounding him over and over.

And I realized just how lazy I am. Hell, I saw that the article was six pages and refused to read it at first, I'm that lazy. But I finally read it, and besides all this stuff, it was a good article. Jason's one of my favorites, always with the hustling and such.

And great job by Sheffield, causing possible trouble in that already un-champion-like yankee clubhouse. Start early, guys, I love it. And I've read in two different places Red Sox fans feeling for Jason Giambi. Uh...put me firmly in the opposite camp of those people.

Dirtdog did a good thing: He linked to that article about Greenwell saying he should be '88 MVP because he finished second to Canseco. I was a huge Greenwell fan, and honest to Gedman, I actually thought of this already. I was really psyched to see that the Gator thought of it, too.

Now that I've good-mouthed dirtdog, let's talk about his recent stretch of crap-itude.

1."Nomar Named." Yeah, named in Canseco's book as being NOT on steroids. Great reporting. And way to freak out all the Nomar fans, myself included. That was almost as bad as when DD was talking about Derek Lowe's wake and funeral. Kinda scary for a second before you realize it's a joke.

2.Then there's the "new alternate uniform" saga. Some guy made this up. I followed the thread on SoSH, and some other message board. I knew it was a load of crap when the guy made a horrible drawing of the words "Red Sox" to show what the uni would look like, even saying that mlb.com was already selling it. (which it never was, because it never existed.) So DD puts up the friggin' drawing, which looks like it was done with that pen you sign your name with when you get your driver's license, saying to watch for this uni in April. A few days later, it's "Jersey idea scrapped, moved to 2006." Okay. I'll keep an eye out.

3. The Murray Chass article about Giambi's contract. I heard about it four days before DD had it up there.

4. Check out this Pulitzer Prize-winning headline: Goodenow Makes Bad Decision. Okay, let me explain this, in case you don't understand the brilliance of it. You see, this guy, Goodenow, made a decision, and it was bad. So what dirtdog has done here, is noticed that the word "Good" apppears in this fellow's name. And what with his decision being bad--the opposite of good--well, all the pieces just fell into place from there. So it's got good and bad. Opposites. One means what the other doesn't mean.

I'm not saying everything he does has to be perfect, but when your site is all about headlines, you gotta try a little bit.

5. Speaking of his unfunniness, what's with the "Dirt Dog Steals The Ball" thing? Was it just done so that he'd have his face on there? Why is that funny? Am I missing something?

Also, he has a pic of the Stanley Cup in a coffin, with two women holding it. At first the picture contained a mega-cleavage shot (it's taken from above), but he's since cropped it out. I wonder if he got complaints, or maybe the Globe was like, What the hell are doing over there? Cleavage ain't gonna save you now, buddy.

Today, a guy who's worked in a lab testing steroids on rats for fifteen years called Mike & the Mad Dog. He brought up an interesting point. He said that testosterone helps with tracking objects, like, in most animals, the male of a species usually hunts, and all that testosterone they we dudes seem to have so much of, allows us to more easily chase and catch the buffalo or whatever it is we're supposedly hunting down and feeding to our villages. (Tracking objects, eh? I am pretty damn awesome at three card monte, now that I think about it.)

The point being that when people say, "Well, steroids don't help your brain, they just make you stronger--these guys are great hitters even without the juice," they're actually wrong. Pumping anabolic steroids into your body allows your brain to better track that little baseball. And hit it a mile.

Something to think about.

I cracked up when, after the guy said all this, Mad Dog came back with, "In rats, though!" And the guy was like, "Well, the effects are generally the same in all species..."

[Would it be inappropriate to say that the reason hitters start taking steroids is because they want to get more out of their balls?]

Alright, you should be able to figure it out with this last clue:

In the Giamatti article, they had this logo. It was shaped like home plate. Across the top was the word "GIAMATTI." The first two and last two letters were outside the home plate shape, leaving the middle four inside the plate shape, along with a baseball below the letters. A key is to think in other languages.

Both Sams commented on my blog within a twenty minute stretch yesterday. Which cleared up for me the fact that the newer Sam (female Sam) is the writer of the Anarchy in the U.M. blog. While Sam Classic (male Sam), of course, is the Devil Rays-writin'-about-but-Red Sox-rootin'-for guy from Most Valuable Network.

Now that we all know who's who (although couldn't one or either of you just write your full, gender-revealing name when you post?), look at what Original Sam wrote:

"Do you ever just repeat some words aloud to yourself over and over again, reveling in the oddities of their sounds until you reach the point where the sound becomes totally abstracted and dissociated from the meaning, thinking about what a word might mean if it didn't already mean what it already means? No? Uhh ... maybe that's just me."

Actually, a big yes, it's me, too. My sister and I discovered this when I was about six, when we realized that if you say "garage" a million times in a row, it just turns into meaningless syllables that don't resemble English in any way. So, I guess you picked the one dude who knows what you're talking about.

I'm so sick of these "No Fear" T-shirts. Do these people really think they're cool? Me, Pat, and O'Keefe always look at the whole "No Fear" selection at T-Shirt Station at the mall (to make fun of them, of course), where we go for lunch during fifth period. (McDonald's again today. God, I love meat. I can't see EVER giving that up.) We've got the entire period free, so we have plenty of time to get to the mall and back. Ah, the perks of senior year. We have to sneak by the security guy to leave the school grounds, though. What's with all the security? I definitely see American high schools only getting safer as we move toward the new century.

But back to "No Fear" shirts. I think the funniest one is "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space." My god. I can't believe someone would see that on a shirt and say, "That's exactly how I feel about life!" I want to make up a shirt that says, "Fear: Everyone has it, you megalomaniac."

Last night, on my birthday, ("I'm only 17"--Winger. God, they totally bite.) Nirvana played the Video Music Awards. They played "Lithium" and Kurt sang "I'm so retarded, instead of excited. Awesome! I can't wait to see what the next ten, even twenty years hold for that band. I taped the show, and when I woke up and watched it, I found that MTV went black for some reason halfway through the show. It came back on during the replay, so I have the beginning on tape AGAIN, but then the tape runs out. So I don't know if Nirvana won any awards.

The Red Sox lost to Texas last night. Kevin Brown beat us--I almost punched the wall when I heard that. If Ellis Burks wasn't hurt, we wouldn't have to play Herm Winningham in center, and we'd be fighting for the division, instead of 15 1/2 out, battling the yanks for fourth place. I still say Burks will lead us to a World Championship...someday. Canseco homered for them. At least we held Palmeiro and Ivan Rodriguez hitless. I think all three of those guys are a little too big, if you know what I mean. The young catcher Eric Wedge got in the game for the Sox, too. I think he's got the skills to be a big league manager some day--right after a Hall-Of-Fame playing career.

So, too bad the Sox couldn't win for my birthday, like they did the last two years. Hopefully they bounce back next year.

The link to the "Which Sock Are You"? quiz is in this general vicinity. I first saw this linked at Feline Red Blue Green Sox Anarchist Cat Democracies (she scored a Theo Epstien). Then when I went to Bullshit Memorial (who was granted Big Papi status), and Joy Of Sox (who joined my ranks as a Johnny Damon), they both had a link, so I figured this link was just about everywhere. Which is why I didn't put a link here.

Upon further review, I couldn't find this link anywhere else, so I guess I should've just done it. My proverbial bad.

Speaking of modern day language, you already know how I feel about throwing someone "under a bus." This past week, I heard three different sports radio boobs say this phrase without a hint of sarcasm, and I almost vomited each time. This reminds me of back in the nineties, when the first time I heard the phrase "Don't Go There" was when David Spade was making fun of it on SNL. I said to myself, "People actually say that?" And sure enough, as we speak, years later, people will still occasionally let a "DGT" slip out. My point is, there are just some things that people should be able to recognize the cheesiness of literally the moment they become aware of it. "Blog" is a perfect example. I've still never said that word without somehow implying that I know how ridiculous it sounds, or using air quotes (which I treat in the same way). So when I say "blog" with air quotes around it, it's like a double-sarcasachino-with-a-twist-of-pretentious-coffee-name-pun.

Singapore Sox Fan has had a lot of good stuff lately. From a crazy basketball shot to some Dirt Dog denouncing to a pic of the newest Red Sox, Roberto Petagine playing in Japan, which I, at first glance, thought was Brian Daubach playing on some kind of "Daubach's Barnstormers" type team.