I listened to my first Castiglione/Trupiano action tonight over Gameday Audio. There's a commercial for Giant Glass where Castig does a fake home run call, much like last year's version (with Trup), only this year the call is: "Back by the Giant Glass Foul Pole...."

Do you think they're going to put the Giant Glass logo on the left field foul pole? That'd be weak. Drinkwater's going too far. Speaking of "The Drink," I noticed yesterday that he was there in the seats behind the plate--and so was the Jerry Springer-looking guy--just like at Fenway. I didn't know he went to ST games, too. And there was a huge Giant Glass sign right below him on the wall. The guy covers a lot of territory with that big wallet of his.

Giambi got some "steroids" chants. Nice. Keep the psychological stuff goin' everybody. He did hit a home run. Didn't count, though.

All the usual coming-back-from-commercial-songs are back on EEI--"Feel the Pain" by Dinosaur Jr, "Drown" by Smashing Pumpkins, that Cornershop song. I missed the pre-game, which must have a new intro, complete with '04 World Series and playoff calls galore. There's a pretty nice audio montage if you call 877-REDSOX9, and get put on hold.

Speaking of that number, I don't think BDD ever clarified himself when he claimed there was a "magic number" to call for one of those ticket oppportunities. I still say he just wasn't aware of the fact that the Sox clearly gave out that number and the exact time to call it. Also, more evidence today on SoSH that Nomar never said that crap about the ring. BDD is so full of poo.

Speaking of magic numbers, I was debating whether or not to do the "Magic Number to clinch the division over the yanks," like I did last year. I've decided not to. What made me decide was that there's a site called "Boston Blood Sox," and they've got the Magic Number up already (163). So I'll pass that torch. Not like I'm the first to think of doing that for the entire season, but I'm just sayin'.

Speaking of sayin', I'm going to attempt an audio blog. Look for it above this post, I guess.

This is the first paragraph in the last four not to begin with the word "Speaking."

I've been reading Singapore Sox Fan a lot lately. And thinking about how good it is. There's something Bambino'sCursey about it. It's like Daryl is everything Cossette SHOULD have been. The writing is good, but not overdramatic, and the info seems to be mostly what I'm interested in. Not in the same way that Bullshit Memorial, besides his great Sox stuff, just nails everything about other things in life that I like, like movies and music, but more in a "strictly stuff I care about that relates to the Sox" kind of way. He's like a poor person's Cossette, which, from me, is a compliment, because I think poor people are cooler than rich people. So in my mind, rich people are the poor people's poor people. (--In the language of other people, who think rich people are cooler.) So...I guess, to me, and in my language, Rich people are the rich people's poor people. And SSF is BC without all that high-falutin' (which to me would be low-falutin') stuff about philosophy and literature. Which, don't get me wrong, can definitely be cool, but just not when you do it in a pretentious way. I'm not anti-intellectual or anything, I just think, I don't know, I've even lost myself here. Plus, SSF does have other stuff besides the Sox. So what am I talking about? Just go there, it's good.

A few weeks back on the Al Franken show, I heard a great thing about how Bill O'Reilly thought Barbara Boxer said the word "troops" when she actually said "truth." (Franken played the original tape, it's clearly "truth.") This led O'Reilly to rip into two different people, because he thought they were wrong, when in reality, he was wrong. The guy who Franken was talking about this with, whose name I didn't catch, made a great point: O'Reilly told the person he was talking to about this that when Boxer said the thing about "the troops" (which she never said), she crossed the line. In other words, the moment she crossed the line in O'Reilly's mind was when O'Reilly misquoted her. Read the whole story here. If nothing else, please scroll to the last paragraph where Bill is totally ripping this caller for not having her facts straight, when he was the one who was wrong.

I was at my parents' place for much of the weekend, where NESN is allowed, making a(very) short film on my new iBook about the Red Sox which, hopefully, will appear on this website, and watching two Red Sox pre-season games.

I LOVE hearing the beginning of the telecast: "Tonight, it's the World Champion Boston Red Sox versus..." Every game, please. Every game.

Last night it was a comeback win over the Reds. After watching the Sox pound the hell out of Eric Milton in the first inning, and then make about three errors in the field, I didn't see much, because like I said, I was making a movie.

But today's game got my full attention. Home whites in spring training! Between that, the fans in their Florida clothes, and Long Island Sound out the window, my body was fooled into thinking it was summer. And almost all the starters played. Jason's got that "C" on his uni. Weird to see. All winter I've been having visions of Chopper hitting a home run in a Red Sox uniform. His first time up he flied deep to left. His second time up, my dreams came true. Edgar's gonna be fun to watch, I think. And Petagine looked really good. I'd been wondering about the pronunciation of his name. I'm familiar with the Spanish language, so I thought it would be "Pay-ta-HEE-nay." I asked my dad, who's pretty much fluent, and he said the same thing, although he said it seemed like an uncommonly spelled name. But I've been thinking people were gonna call him "PET-a-zheen." Well, Remy and Orsillo, who were laughing it up the whole time--Orsillo trying to explain TiVo was awesome--were saying "Pet-a-GEE-nee" (with a hard G as in Gedman). So I don't know what to think. Except that he's making this team. But there's still a whole month to go.

Kim pitched a little. Sigh. Needless to say the bases became loaded, and eventually he was out of there. Our starter, Jeremi Gonzalez, wasn't so great in two innings of work.

I like Shawn Wooten. If for no other reason than his name sounds like Wu-Tang AND he wears number 36. As in Wu-Tang's "36 Chambers" Album. This can't be a coincidence. Surely I'm not the first to notice this, am I?

So in my house, he's called Shawn "Enter The" Woo-Ten.

The key play in the game was when Todd Pratt hit a line drive that looked ticketed for the gap in left center (alright, at least to the outfield), and young Hanley at shortstop leaped up, caught it, ran over to second to double the guy off there, and then threw to Youk at first for a TRIPLE PLAY. It's rare to get a moment so exciting in a spring training game. I think the only other time I witnessed (radio counts as witnessing) a triple play live (Little League doesn't count) was in the mid-eighties. I remember Jim Rice, the Twins, and standing outside trying to see Haley's Comet were all involved. Also, there may have been two in one game. It was definitely the Twins. I'll have to check retrosheet on this one.

If you go to mlb.tv, they're showing games free this week, and the Sox game from today is still on there as I write this. Go there, move the scroll thing to about 2/3rds of the way through the game, and see the triple play. It was in the top of the sixth. You can hear the Phillies announcers credit Renteria with Hanley's feat, even though they themselves announced he was in the game at the start of the inning. Then watch the Sox in the dugout during the between-innings break, as there are no commercials, and then hear the announcers come back and apologize for their mistake.

Another really crazy thing about that triple play: NESN had Tom Werner in the booth that inning. He talked about the Sox bringing the trophy to Walter Reed, and the poignant moments they had there. And about how Theo made some great moves this off-season. Everything was just going so slow and smooth, nobody out, two on; it seemed like Werner could have talked all day, and it looked like he might have to. And that would've been cool, because he's pretty comfortable with Remy and Orsillo, and he was telling some pretty interesting stories. What a nice, lazy Florida aftern---ONE OUT! TWO OUT! THREE OUT! Inning over! On one play. End of interview.

They also showed Thome and Lofton telling their memories of being teammates with Manny. Thome's story was pretty funny: "You notice that your shorts or something would be missing, and you'd look up and he'd be wearing 'em."

Terrible job by the people who run that park in Ft. Myers--playing YMCA while the field was being raked between innings, and "Da da da dut da daaaa....Charge!" Maybe some yankee fans snuck into the, uh, music-playin' area. "Sweet Caroline" was played during a pitching change, and "Dirty Water" was played in the sixth inning, after the triple play. Incorrect, people.

Today I also got my hotel rooms for my luxurious Cleveland vacation. 38 bucks for one, 8 miles from the proverbial Jake. And for after the second game, I picked a town roughly 2 hours east of Cleveland, to get a head start on the drive home, which turned out to be Brookville, PA, and that cost me about 40 also. Those and the six dollar tickets make it a pretty cheap trip. (Gas will be free because I make my own gasoline behind my shed.) (No, I don't.) But still cheaper than a trip to Florida. And I get to see games that count. And maybe I'll check out the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame. But maybe not, since it seems to be universally thought of as "stupid."

Then, at the end of that week in June, I go to Philly, wrapping up my week in places where people are a little bit weird and I can't figure out why.

Pennsylvania's just, I don't know, not normal. They play by their own uncool rules. In all the other eastern states, you've got roads like Route 7 , Route 1 along the coast, Route 9 up in Mass. In "PA" everything's, like, "Rte. 498," "Rte. 5921," "Rte. 958675." And you can go from the Atlantic Ocean to Amish country to the Midwest without ever leaving the state. And everyone sounds like Larry Lucchino. What's going on there?

Speaking of Red Sox road trips, there's a little thing up in the Red Sox Nation members only area saying, "Can't get tickets to Opening Day at Fenway? Go see the Sox in Toronto for the Jays' home opener." And there's a link to the Blue Jays website. Interesting development. How often do you see a team admit that their games are all sold out, and tell people to go see a game at another stadium!? I think it's cool that they encourage people to go support the Sox elsewhere. (Although we certainly don't need any encouragement in that department.) As for me going to Toronto, well, after going last year, and seeing what a dump that place is, and being hassled at the border because Bush ignored memos telling him to watch out for people flying planes into buildings leading to a terrorist attack, leading to tighter security, I don't think I'll be going there again soon. I like Canada, kind of, just not the Skydome part, and the coming back across the border part.

And check out
this anti-yankee fun.

Really hard quiz:

Only fans of the Blue Jays, Giants, yankees, and A's can say what?

Hint: It has to do with winning the World Series. And the thing these teams have done has happened a total of eleven times. (yanks 6 times, A's 3 times--once while in Philly, twice while in Oakland, Giants once (while in New York), and Jays once.

It has to be what I'm thinking of. So the answer "My team is either the Blue Jays, Giants, yankees or A's" would be incorrect.

Lady gets taken hostage. Lady gets freed by hostages. Lady gets shot at by U.S.-led forces while driving to safety. Agent-dude who escorted her out is killed.

Terrible job by us.
Why isn't this a bigger story? This should be a reminder of what a ridiculous war this is. (Oh wait, we're not at war, the "Mission" has already been "Accomplished," how could I forget?)

1,500 soldiers dead. Thousands more wounded. Tens of thousands (modest estimate) of innocent Iraqis dead. ("Liberated," but dead.)

And people claim this is being done to liberate the people of Iraq. If people really cared about that, we'd see Iraq flags on bumper stickers. Or "Support the People of Iraq" flags. But I haven't seen one of either of those things.

Resident Bush is a monster. With a little smirk-mask to cover his true face of evil. And not the cool, Iron Maiden-type evil. The actual innocent-women-and-children kind.

And if you're saying, What does the Italian hostage lady have to do with Bush and the war, well, I'm saying that the whole situation could have been avoided. Just like how my friend Nate wouls still be alive right now if it wasn't for this war.

And these people that shot at the car--they couldn't have shot at it without killing someone inside and wounding the freed hostage? That's what happens in a poorly planned war with poorly trained personnel.

In Red Sox obsession news, I got my Jacobs Field tickets for June games against the Native Americans. Six bucks. Sweet. My usual logic applies: "The Red Sox are playing in Bhopal? How much are tickets? Three dollars? Let's see, a thousand dollars for plane tickets, a couple hundred for meals and lodging...but for THREE bucks, what a bargain! I'd be stupid not to go!"

Whenever I think of the Indians, (alright, 35 to 40 percent of the time) I think of that Anthrax song of the same name. Wow, Anthrax and Maiden in one post. Speaking of anthrax, how's that investigation going, Mr. Bush?

[This post is dedicated to Giuliana Sgrena, and true Italian hero Nicola Calipari, whose names will be forgotten in the U.S. within the hour, if they were even remembered in the first place.]

Do a Yahoo! search on "yankees choke," and my site comes up fifth. What a proud day this is for me.

The Red Sox won 17-0 and pitched a no-hitter. Too bad it's spring training. And they were playing a college team. But still...actual baseball games are back again. The circle of life continues.

When I saw this picture of Kevin Millar, I thought, What, is he having twins?

Yes, he is.

Seahorse-boy Up!

Before I decided not to, I had kind of wanted to drive to Florida and see some spring training games. This would have been the week. So I saved a whole lot of money and I avoided the apparent north pole-like climate of Ft. Myers. But our boy Wrong Dog Silva is down there, and he's keeping us up to date with dozens of pictures of concession stand workers and empty bleachers.

Have you noticed that every year around this time we hear about how cold it is in Florida? The crops always freeze, the space shuttle always gets de-iced. Terrible job, Sunshine State.

Last night, and you can stop reading here if you're only here for baseball stuff, Pat & I drove up to one of my favorite places in the world, Northampton, Mass, to see Lou Barlow. This show easily made up for the fact that the Sleater-Kinney shows in NYC sold out before I even checked for tickets, and I couldn't get anybody to go to Le Tigre at Toad's Place in New Haven, strictly because nobody (myself included) wanted to go to the crap-a-rama that is Toad's.

But again, Lou Barlow and Northampton both rule, so it all worked out. Lou, of course, is the dude from Dinosaur Jr and Sebadoh. And Sentridoh. And the Folk Implosion. The music was great, it was him and an acoustic guitar, and a drum machine type thing. He also went back and forth (within songs) between a regular mic and a mic that makes it sound like he's on the phone. The dude has perfect pitch. Find out more about him at his website, (you'll be able to tell why big kids like myself enjoy this guy). Click on the cat picture, and see his reasoning on why he's a cat person. I agree with his logic 100%.

On stage, he reminds me, in a way, of the comedian Stephen Wright, only not as over-the-top-melancholy. (Under the bottom, I guess.) When he would talk between songs, he'd tell these fairly depressing tales, and compound them by accidentally hitting himself in the face with the mic, or knocking his guitar into a mic, making an ugly noise. And he'd just laugh it off. What I'm trying to say is he had a good stage presence, in a Stephen Wright kind of way. At one point he told a story of a cat he took in. After a while, the story went, the cat just disappeared, but then it returned. Then he played the song he wrote about the situation, only to shake his head at the end and say, "It ended up running away again. And it never came back."

He also said he's gotten 25 good haircuts in a row, always telling the barber to take off a half an inch, since his hair is curly. So with that streak, he got cocky on his most recent haircut, and told the barber to take a full inch off, leaving him with way-too-short hair. The way he told these stories were much funnier when he told them, you know how life is.

I saw him play with Sebadoh last year, but I don't remember him being this funny. Maybe it was because last night he had the stage all to himself.

Oh, and he covered that Ratt song "Round and Round." Hilarious. He told the story of Dinosaur Jr practicing in J's basement with MTV on with the sound down (in the eighties), and every time Ratt would come on, they'd turn the sound up.

Northampton-style famous types we saw milling about at the show: J Mascis.

We were going to parlay the trip into a viewing of the Sox game, since we knew we'd be in NESN territory, but the logistics didn't allow it, and we were sure the game would be rained out anyway. So the plan was "Parlay: View and Barlow, Lou." But we only got the Barlow, Lou.

As Bill Hicks would say, "Get off your 'we hate puns' high horse."

A quick note on the White House visit: Look at this line, shown here exactly as it appears on redsox.com, from Ian Browne's article:

"The Red Sox brought about 18 players to the ceremony, and they stood, dressed nattily, while the [resident spoke to the crowd."

I know that the open bracket ([) is right next to the "P" key on a keyboard, but still, it's hard for me to believe this wasn't done on purpose. And if it was--AMEN! Because he's not the president, just the guy who lives in the White House. God, I hope they don't fix that.

And what's this about dressing nattily? I guess if Mindy Cohn is naked, you dress her. Same with Mrs. Garrett. However, Jo Polnacek can stay naked, even though she did wear a yankee hat in that paint-fight scene, which was used on the opening theme for a while. I know what you're thinking. He'd probably like to see Blair naked, too. Terrible job. Blair Warner is not part of this fantasy.

Also, what's with Johhny Damon being pro-Bush? Come back to us, Johnny, you're drifting.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail saying that I, for joining anti-Dirt Dog Nation, aka the Official Red Sox Nation Mindscan Club, would get a chance to buy tickets to yankee games today. (With a one game limit.) Naturally, I'm still desperately looking for Opening Day tickets, so I was psyched to get this chance, after I'd thought there would be no more. Chances.

So today, at the pre-determined time for we with the logo branded on our backs to go to the secret link, I entered the virtual waiting room once again. An hour and a half later, starving, I decided to go to lunch, leaving the VWR open at my desk. (I was at work.) It was like playing the Range Game on The Price Is Right. I knew I'd have to go to lunch eventually, i.e. miss twenty minutes or so of waiting and watching, but I had to wait long enough to give myself a chance of getting through. But if I wait too long, and come back to find out that I'm already through, well, the page might time out, and if it didn't, I'd know that I was wasting time at lunch while I could've been ordering tickets. (And while other people are buying them all up.) You may be asking, "Why didn't you just bring your lunch and eat it at your desk?" What are you, a wise guy over here? I don't know, because A. They don't let you eat meals at your cubicle and B. That wouldn't look good, considering I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be ordering baseball tickets at work.

So as it turned out, I played the Range Game perfectly. As I ran back from lunch, I opened the window to see the thirty second clock at about "4". So I figuratively did the Marty McFly, where he bangs his head on the steering wheel in total frustration, as if to say, Come ON, Delorian, you have to start right now, I can't take this anymore. And sure enough, as the clock hit zero, I watched as the VWR let me in to the office of the good Dr. Ticket.

I looked at my choice of yankee games: All available. Except Opening Day. Damn. But at least I can get any other one. Since I'm already going to Game 2, and the October Saturday game, I picked the July Saturday game. Chose best available. Got 4 Standing Room. $20 bucks a pop, plus $3.50 per ticket plus 7 dollar fee. (But they already got my $9.95...) As you may recall, I recently purchased two tickets to three Mets games for a TOTAL of $7 per game.

Not a bad deal, though, considering the demand. And my extreme love of the Red Sox and extreme hatred of the yanks. Bittersweet, knowing I got pretty close to Opening Day. But that July game rounds out the summer nicely. I've got every home Saturday in July, which is my favorite month to see baseball games, because it's hot and sticky. August is good, too. But it's got those "dog days" goin' for it, whereas the underrated July has to get by with no nicknamed days. But they're both good. And don't leave out my birth month of September--two thirds of it are part of summer, but it's considered a fall month. Terrible job, society.

All that's left now is getting tickets to see the Sox in Cleveland, on sale this Sunday at 10 AM, and then rob a couple of banks to get some money back into my account, and I'm squared away for the whole season.

I could have used my vacation time to go to Florida. Or Paris. Or the pyramids of Egypt. "Nah, you guys go ahead, I haven't seen the Sox play in Cleveland yet, so..."

Welcome to Smarch. I am pysched. For baseballs flying over the Green Monster all summer long. I really love watching the Red Sox hit home runs. Home runs, people. Home runs. I guess I'm one of these people they were trying to cater to when they juiced the ball and the players, but screw home runs in general, they're only good if the Red Sox hit 'em. I never understand when people say "I like pitchers' duels," or "I love the long ball." I'll tell you what I love: The Red Sox pitchers pitching no-hitters and the Red Sox hitters walloping dongs. That sounds like an Australian Rules football team. The Walloping Dongs.

Alright, if it's a neutral game, or whiffle ball, I guess I can say I'm a hitting person. No, I take it all back, pitching's cool, too.

But still, when I'm listening to a game on the radio, and suddenly, say, the neighbor needs to borrow some Electrasol dishwasher detergent, but says it's no rush, am I gonna wait til the commercial after the Sox hit or after the other team hits? I'm gonna wait til after the Sox hit, because I want to, no, I feel I need to be there when they're up, because that's when they have a chance to score. Maybe this is my problem: Listening to the radio all my life, I've realized that pitching on the radio just isn't the same as hitting on the radio. I've never said the words, "Aw crap, I missed a fly out thrown by Bruce Hurst and caught by Dwight Evans!" But if you miss a home run by a Red Sox player, even on the radio, you feel you really missed something.

In real life news, the Supreme Court has made it illegal to execute people under 18 in the U.S. Hey, whatta ya know? We actually took a little step toward becoming a civilized nation...

Moving on, there's this thing in New York City, near the many Starbucks of Astor Place, that's, like, a 12 foot tall cube-statue. And at it's base is a flat, circular piece. If you push on the thing really hard (one person on each side works best), it starts to spin around on its base. Which looks really cool, if you didn't know it could spin, because the thing looks like a huge, immovable piece of stone. So me and Chan will always (alright, once or twice) charge at the thing when we're walking in that area, and start pushing at each side of the thing, spinning it around, and then casually walking on. I'm convinced tourists think I'm the coolest person in the world when we do this. And Chan, 2nd coolest, I guess. Well, terriblejobfully, the city has put rope around the "thing." You can't spin it anymore. Come on now. TJ. Maybe it got spun one too many times by people who thought they were the coolest person in the world. Also, I bet it has some special significance other than being "the thing that spins." But I'm not aware of what it is.

Sam, about what I was saying about Torre: I agree that they did a great job of getting to a position where they could win. My point is, doesn't going only that far go against everything the yankees stand for? At this point, they're just not gonna get any credit from me or anybody else for "almost winning."

Did the Red Sox try to take any credit for being one strike away in '86? No, and they actually could have, considering it was the closest they'd come in 68 years. Like in '75, we always did get credit for at least playing in one of the greatest Series' ever, and even Pete Rose, a member of the winning team, said that "there were no losers" in the '75 Series.

Whereas the yankees don't get any mulligans. Especially when they totally blow a series they should have won--as is their new tradition: '01, '04.

And when you say the odds are against the yanks, as in, they have a better chance to lose/blow a series because they're in the playoffs so much, well, I know what you mean, but the odds of a team blowing a 3-0 lead were about infinity to one. I wrote about this about a year ago (Torre talking about the team's great "near-win" in '01), see my post, brilliantly titled:
"Michael Puts the Kay In WeaKness." It's toward the end of the post.

Speaking of about a year ago, this blog turned 1 yesterday. You know I was 18 minutes shy of starting this blog on February 29th, 2004? Had I done that, it's first birthday would not have been until 2008. I always thought it would be cool to have your birthday be on Leap Day. The closest I've ever been to even knowing someone who had this anomaly was: I was standing in an elevator in college, and a girl in there was telling her friends, "We're taking my grandma out for her birthday, because she's turning eighteen." Nice.

So anyway, I thank all of you who have read my ridiculous writing over this past year. Me and a lot of other Red Sox blogger-types definitely picked the right year to start documenting this stuff. It's really cool how you can make friends over the internet, but I still think some of you are just figments of my imagination :) To all the other Sox bloggers, I'm glad we have this little fake, I mean "'net" community, and I'm proud to be a part of it, even though a lot of the time I feel like Brandon Fraser's character in Airheads, when he lamented about what it's like for your band to play show after show to audiences made up entirely of the other bands and their girlfriends. But, hey, I've been in that situation with my band, and those can be the coolest shows. So it's cool. And thanks to the non-Red-Sox-bloging readers who I've made friends with, all because I strted writing my thoughts on a screen: That lady who lives in my town who got proposed to on the Fenway scoreboard, that Sox fan dude who moved to Chicago ("Chicago Land"--how did that term ever catch on? "Okay, everybody, this is now Hartford Land! Just start calling it that."), that dude from Jersey who was literally the first person to contact me about this blog, the Rhode Island native who's out west, everybody. (Names withheld to protect against stalking.) And one of the smartest, weirdest, most interesting people ever to live in the same town as Hammer. Write me again someday, man! Oh right, thanks to my "real life" friends for reading, too. It's always weird when I start telling you something that I've already written on my blog, so I have to say, "I don't know if you saw this on my blog already, but..." and it's really awkward, and I feel like a big phony for sometimes skipping that disclaimer and just pretending I'm saying something I just thought of.... Okay, I'm done. Nobody gets thanked again until next year. I'm too busy trying to come up with stuff that no one could possibly care about except me.