Terrible job.

Bases loaded, no outs. Down one. You tie the game there, or you don't deserve to go on to the next round.

Also, I lost my ESPN feed while the Sox were batting at one point. There was a man on, no outs. Next thing I know, I can't see anything, I'm scrambling for the radio, the feed comes back on for a second, enough for me to see "Two Outs," which meant double play, and then thirty seconds later, I see Guillen being interviwed to start the next inning.

It was like the effin' Heidi game. That really pissed me off. It's bad enough that the game was on ESPN 2, but could we at least see the entire game? And imagine if you didn't have cable, and you're a baseball fan, and you never got to see the series with the world champs and the team with the best record in the A.L.?

Terrible job.

Terrible job, everyone.

Terrible.

But I'm right on this Angels cause. 3-0 in the first off that shit Randy.
We better hope the Angels win this series, because if the White Sox end up playing the yanks, we're going to see them turn magically into a T-ball team. From a country that doesn't have baseball.

I've noticed a disturbing trend lately. I've now heard two people say that the Red Sox got into the playoffs simply becuase Cleveland choked.

This ridiculous yankee fan said it.

And Murray ChASS said it.

I'm confused. Didn't Cleveland's choke allow the yanks to make the playoffs as well? And do these people realize that had the Indians won a few more games, the Red Sox and yankees would have played a one-game playoff to determine the winner of the A.L. East?

It just doesn't make sense that these yankee fans would brag about anything knowing that the yanks and Sox finished with the exact same record.

And that the yanks only won the tie-breaker without a one-game playoff because Cleveland choked.

So, to me, and to anyone whose brain isn't made of dog or human excrement, the Cleveland choke benefitted the yanks the same as or more than it did the Red Sox. It's just funny how they're going around yelling "Cleveland choked," when that's actually what allowed their success.

Thanks to Joy of Sox for the chASS link.

Another thing that makes no sense to me is how in the first link above (and I realize I'm talking about a person who thinks George Steinbrenner is baseball's savior) the person says that if the Red Sox lose this year, they can't "hide" behind a curse.

Okay, beep beep beep, back up a second here. Were yankee fans under the impression that WE ever said anything about a curse? Were there signs at Fenway Park saying "Damn You, Curse!" when we'd lose in the past? Or that we'd all walk around consoling each other by saying "It's okay, we know there's been a terrible curse put upon our team. There's nothing they could have done"?

That's why these shirts that say "There was no curse...the Red Sox just sucked for 86 years" are so stupid. It totally implies that for all these years, WE were using the "curse" as an excuse for losing. (And, of course, by wearing it, a yankee fan is saying "I was a total ass hole for making Babe Ruth signs and bringing them to the Stadium. They didn't help when this crappy team beat my team in our own building in a way that no team had ever done before.")

In another yankee fan note, Chan was on the phone with another yankee fan friend of ours during their game the other night. Here's what I heard Chan say:

"Are you watching the game?...Come on...You didn't even know it was on?...The yankees!"

Classic.

I think this was right around the time Joe Morgan was repeatedly saying that the yanks have a "two-hundred thousand" dollar payroll.

You don't want to hear about the premonition I had a moment before Graff's gaffe. All I'll say about that is that I really hope Tony doesn't get booed at Fenway. Red Sox fans are smart, and usually know who deserves forgiveness. But I have a bad feeling that some people are just thinking, "Everything would be better if it weren't for this guy." I hope that's not the case. This guy has done a great job for us. He should get a standing ovation.

I don't know why, but everything just seems so calm. I haven't had the heart rate increase that important Red Sox games have always provided me with. And I feel like even if we were up 2-0, I'd still have this feeling of calm. Like, last night, after the "G(r)affe; an E. No!" play, I didn't throw things, I didn't start yelling about the end of the world in a homicidal rage. I don't even think I got out of my chair. I knew exactly what it could possibly mean, and I cringed, but that was about it. Maybe it was because of my premonition.

And I don't know if all of this has anything to do with 2004, but I don't think so. My heart raced in the moments leading up to the September series at yankee Stadium, just like it would have pre-2004. But since then, I don't know, maybe it's just knowing that both teams got in to the playoffs yet again. Or maybe it's because the Sox need to give me a post-season win before I can really start to get excited.

Or maybe it's that i'm finally, after over 25 years of paying attention to baseball, I've become used to the Red Sox being in the playoffs.

Regardless of whether or not they'd won last year, I've got to see my team play in five playoff series' in the last two seasons. They played in eight over the span of my entire life before that.

All these extra rounds are ruining baseball.

Still, I think the team can come back. And I think my excitement level can, too. A win tomorrow means I'll be at Fenway on Saturday. And I know I better get excited for every game that ends up being played in this series, because each time, I'll know it might be the last chance I get for a while.


You know, maybe all this is happening because I heard Henry Rollins doing a Goodyear tire commercial. The world is just a different place now.

If that yankee loss didn't cheer you up after today's ridiculous Red Sox game, hopefully these pictures will. We have some pigeons that live on our air conditioner, right outside our window. Today, I heard them making a racket, and when I saw that they were either fighting or mating, I reached for my video camera to capture the action:

Here, one bird is on the other one's back, biting its neck, with its tail up against the window. This looks like birdy-style, so they probably were mating.

Then they started doing a square-dancing move.

They really looked like they were trying to kill each other. Maybe Sam can help us with all her bird knowledge.

I'd like to talk about umpires. You may have read my criticism of them before. And you may pass me off as some kind of jerk for always saying that they're rooting against my team. Well, as "some dude," rather than "a sports journalist," I just like to point things out instead of ignoring them.

When the playoff system changed in '94, I knew that the Red Sox and yanks could end up playing each other in a seven-game series at some point--something that hadn't been possible until then. I didn't know how I would possibly handle such a thing. I thought my heart might explode from going through that.

In 1999, when it was determined that such a series would actually happen, I needed to prepare myself. So I said, "As long as it's a fair series, I'll just deal with the result." I knew that if my team played hard and lost, I could accept that, so long as the umpires didn't root for the yanks, as I'd watched them do so many times before.

Then I saw this:


You make the call. Out or safe?

Or should I say "Safe or very, very safe?"

Well, the runner was called out. And that wasn't the only bad call in that series. You may have seen the garbage on the field in that series. For Fenway fans to do such a thing, you know something was fishy.

I'm just saying that you don't have to squint too hard to see the "NY" on the umps' hats.

Another thing: Did you see the Naked Gun? When Frank is umpiring a baseball game, and he makes a strike call, and the crowd goes wild, and he gets a rush from it and starts calling every pitch a strike? Well, that's not too far from what really goes on in these umpires' minds. They may be professionals, but they're still human. When else in their lives are they going to make a hand gesture and have tens of thousands of people applaud it?

And like I've said about yankee Stadium, "it's not the girl, Peter, it's the building." In other words, the way that stadium was built makes an average-sized cheer sound like a freight train and feel like an earthquake. Put 55,000 Red Sox fans in there and let the Sox play a home game, and the place would fall down. So, when the umps make a home call in yankee Stadium, they certainly feel that rush. Some guys can overcome it and keep making the correct calls. But watch enough games there and you'll see the excitement on a young ump's face as he makes the out call on a check swing, regardless of whether the poor sap on the Royals swung or not.

That's just my opinion, though.

Inspired by commercial for that new Pacino movie about gambling, Chan and I had the following conversation tonight:

Me: I'm thinking about becoming a professional gambler.

Chan: Please don't.

Me: Fine.

So we got that goin' for us. Chan also asked me if he could throw out the sugar packet I'd been saving for about two months, because I'd written a phone number on it. He also came out with this gem during the yankee game: "I like McCarver." After laughing for twenty minutes, I asked him why. He said it was because Tim explained much of the game of baseball to Chan on TV when he came over from Hong Kong in the late eighties. So that over "over-explaining" technique actually is effective on some people. Chan did admit that he's noticed the man still saying the same crap all these years later.

This takes me back to what I was complaining about earlier with ESPN. These networks try so hard to gain and keep new viewers that they make the game almost unwatchable to BASEBALL FANS.

McCarver was on fire tonight. At one point, Buck said that Chone Figgins was born in 1978, while Rocky I was released in 1976 (long story). McCarver chimes in with "So Figgins was just three when Rocky I came out."

He also defended Bernie Williams' ridiculous post-season records by saying "Hey, Bernie can't control that the post-seasons used to be shorter." But when it comes to the MVP vote, Tim just can't support the idea of voting for a DH. Hey, Tim! Ortiz can't control that his manager doesn't play him in the field! Idiot.

He also brought up the whole "code of conduct" issue regarding the Showalter issue. To me, the funniest thing about that is how the yanks broke the "code" at the same time the Rangers were breaking it. In fact, I still think the yanks didn't even know they were playing for home field, since A. No one in any media I heard said anything about it and B. Torre admitted he didn't know the yanks had a chance to clinch the division on Saturday and C. Cashman was calling the league offices that day to make sure there would be no playoff if the teams ended in a tie.

At least Buck came out and said that the yanks should have won their own game and not complained about what the Texas Rangers were doing.

Oh, but there's more. I was watching Tim McCarver's TV show last weekend (makes face like Krist Novoselic when admitting to playing a festival with Extreme) and he was interviewing his good friend Don Zimmer. After sucking ZImmer's ass for the first twenty minutes, Tim finally asked him about the Pedro incident. Now, I already know the man's thoughts on this, as I read it in his book (makes same face as earlier). But, if you didn't know, basically Zimmer takes full responsibility for charging Pedro unprovoked. He says he wanted to bull-charge Pedro because of his past "head-hunting." (Of course they brought up the time when Pedro sent Jeter and Soriano to the hospital and DIDN'T mention that one of those was a foul ball that also caught a piece of hand, and both those guys put their hands right into the strike zone when they swing. No one ever tells the truth about that. It's always "Pedro hit two guys in a row." He hit one guy on a ball IN the strike zone and the other guy fouled a ball off. For a strike.) So, after Zimmer admits to being totally in the wrong, and saying how Pedro didn't owe him an apology, well, here's what McCarver DIDN'T say: "Well, Don, now that you've said that, I guess I owe the entire baseball world a huge apology for immediately condemning Mr. Pedro Martinez for something he was completely innocent of. Now I'll go watch the tapes of A-Rod totally challenging Jason Varitek before Jason took him up on it, so I can see how wrong I was for saying that Jason should've taken his mask off before punching that little show pony."

Michael Leggett is gonna love this post. Is there anyone left who doesn't realize Tim McCarver is a yankee fan?

About the actual game: The yanks, in Prime Time and on network TV (you know, they do deserve it--after all, they are the defending World Champs. It's not like they blew a 3-0 lead in the ALCS and didn't even make it to the World Series. I really owe them an apology. Someday, the Red Sox will win the World Series, then we'll get a little respect.), won thanks in part to the cheapest two-out hit by Sheffield, leading to a three-run double by Robinson Can o' Corn, which was essentially the difference in the game. The Angels were screwed on the ridiculous ground-rule double rule, which really should be changed to allow the umps to let a runner to score from first on a ball bouncing over the wall, if there are two outs and he or she was definitely going to score.

Then there was Vlad's attempt to steal second in a key spot. The ball beat him, and he was called out to end the inning. It was a stupid move. But, still, I said to Chan, "I couldn't tell if Jeter even tagged him, but the guy would've called him out either way thanks to Jeter selling of the call." Sure e-fucking-nough, they come back from commercial, and McCarver himself is telling us how Jeter never made the tag, as they show us a replay. And, again, I'll tell you what McCarver didn't, but should have, said: "Kids at home, remember, that's very, very poor sportsmanship. Cheating to win will make you feel empty inside, especially if your team is chock full of all-stars anyway. If you cheat, your family and pets will die slowly and painfully while you watch. Also, say no to the steroids that your teammates are taking openly. Deceiving the umpires and the fans of your game are wrong, kids. I've also noticed that Jeter always catches pop-ups with one hand, Don't do that either."

That guy, Jeter, he just holds up his glove as if he just tagged the runner, and starts running off the field, making the ump think he HAD to have tagged him. I love the rare times when umps don't fall for his horseshit. (You have to watch every game to see it.) He also did that cheating move on a stolen base against the Twins in the playoffs last year--and later admitted that he "got away with one." What a total embarrassment to the game.

Still, I'll hear everyone, including Sox fans, say how great he is, and every time any yankee does anything good, even if Jeter had nothing to do with the play, on any network, I will be forced to see him clapping in the dugout. Because, you know, that's one of his intangibles. If Sweden scores a goal in a soccer game against Finland, and I clap at that moment, does the network showing the game cut to a shot of me in my apartment? No. Because I didn't fucking do anything.

If Mueller gets on here, wait, he's out. Okay, if the next eleven guys get on, oh wait, game over. And to think, thirteen more little runs and we would have won the thing.

Like Sutcliffe said, it's a must-win for the Pale Hose, aka the Pail Prostitutes (they're pail, they're bucket...), tomorrow. As (teeth clenched) Jon Sterling always says, momentum changes with that day's pitcher. A no-no, all right, just a win by Wells tomorrow and we go home knowing if we win two there, we're in the ALCS. (Clinching in Game 4 also means I get to witness the clinch in person.)

Matty couldn't hit the glove today. Contreras is still drinking the non-yankee success juice apparently. We'll get 'em tomorrow.

Clement finally comes out. Looked like we were gonna have a big inning in top 4, but the crazy throw to third with Millar not running that hard took us out of it, and now it's 8-2.

2-3-4 for us coming up in top 5. We need lots and lots of runs.

Also note that the strike zone when we're up is twice the size it is when they're up. Some of these are just unbelievable. But those talentless umps love to get cheers from the hometown crowd since they have nothing else going for them in their pathetic lives.

The "World Leader in Sports" is the world's second-worst at telecasting baseball (after Fox.) It's only the first inning, but the three plays that deserve replays haven't gotten one. The "great play" by the White Sox first baseman on Johnny's line-out was missed by the entire nation because it happened too fast. A replay wasn't shown because they had a pre-determined plan in place to show something else after the game's first hitter. The same thing happened in the bottom of the first. Podsednik got hit by a pitch and no one saw it. Again, that was when they chose to show something else, so we never got a replay. Then, the ball down the third base line that Mueller made the play on looked foul, but for the third time, they'd already decided there was other business to attend to at that moment, so no replay, on what also was a really nice play.

But that's not what's really making me mad. It's the fact that Clement lost it about a month ago, and, as the first inning just proved, never did get it back. I hope all you racists in and out of the media are happy with the way you treated Pedro, causing him to feel direspected and leave, because he'd be pitching right now. Oh, wait, you are happy, because you all love it when the Red Sox lose.

We can get the five back. It is still Contreras.

The playoffs are here. The leaves, the excitement, the rapid pace of the heart, the tyring to write like Ed Cossette.

"Tis the color of autumn, and the breadth of an old wagon-gate, whoseth windy words splinter like the promise of all things new and old, under an azure...what the hell am I saying, the Red Sox are in the effin playoffs, that's all you need to know! Do it again, Sox!" -- Me

I'll save the thee's and thus's for the off-season.

Just saw a shot of Guillen shaking hands with all the Red Sox players warming up. Remember that stretch when he was Ozzie "Gee-ZHEN"?

And I've been watching the Cards whipping up on the San Diego Silver Surfers, in the National League, or un-baseball, playoffs. Just isn't the same. I hate the country of Nationa and it's crazy style of play.

I guess my yankees-flushing-down-toilet thing didn't work. They didn't get eliminated, and they "won" the division. So I'll use the last few scenes of the flushing for each of their losses in the playoffs.

I'm antsy. 43 minutes til Game One. And no chips and salsa for me. The last two years of the playoffs I remember eating chips and salsa for dinner on game nights. Don't have the urge now. Don't know why I told you that.

My friend, roommate, and wacky neighbor to this blog, Chan, turns 31 today. Happy birthday, Chan! In honor of this occasion, I give you the 31 flavors of Chan:

1. Neutral.
2. Slightly above neutral.
3. Slightly below neutral.
4. Annoyed with me about baseball stuff.

All right, so there are only 4 flavors of Chan.

Hope your yanks lose 3-1 in honor of your 31st, Chan! And that you read my blog for once!

Click to enlarge any of these:

I'm always near Hansen, but he never seems to look directly at me.


Timlin's kid was out there with him. Hard to tell here, but Mike is using his son's tiny glove, while dad's glove is on the grass next to the boy.



Here are the shadows of Pesky's Pole, Pat, and me (giving devil sign). You'll notice the height difference: Pat's 7' 6'', while I'm a mere 7' 1".



There's been much talk, at least in my head, about Papelbon's tatoo. He was right in front of us before the game, and he stayed in this position long enough for me to get this shot of the tattoo. Of course, you probably saw much more of it if you watched the celebration after Sunday's game.



Here's an attempt at a close-up. The "Y" in "Pappy" looks weird to me. What font is that?



Here's Hanley, left alone by all the rest.



Je-Re-Mi-Ja-Sol-La-Ji-Do started goofing around with Hanley. At one point, he had his ear up to Hanley's ear, and was bopping along to a tune. We figured out that Hanley had those sunglasses with a radio built in. We started talking about how that was probably the first thing Hanley bought after he got a contract.



Now we're up in the 10-game plan seats in section 43. Our seats are literally as far to the grandstand-side of the bleachers as you can get. So we've got a view of the "Big Concourse" below.



Another shot from the seats. It was a nice day Saturday, as soon as the sun came out from behind the roof deck seats.



The scoreboard showing the date, Empy-style.



I'm starting to get used to my dad's digital camera. I actually got Manny right when he made this catch.



Manny rounding second on his first dong of the day.



The classic Manny and Johnny shot.



Jeremi on the mound. By the way, does anyone know what's written on the bill of Jeremi's cap? I had someone e-mail me wondering this.



Here's another shot everyone has taken. But you don't often see it with the long shadows, so I took a chance.



This yankee fan pleads his case before getting ejected from the park. This is another benefit of our seats: Looking down below to see what becomes of people after they're escorted out. After this dude was gone, his friend, a Sox fan, got pissed, and when the cops started carting him off, he decided to start swinging. After being thrown to the pavement, he still resisted, but finally they cuffed his drunken ass. You can kind of see it in this shot. He's got a red shirt and jeans, and you can see one cop with a knee in his back:



FIN

Do-re-mi Gonzalez shows us where the yanks and Sox are going. You'll notice he's pointing in different directions. I'll have more pics from Saturday up later tonight. But I wanted to mention some stuff:

Contreras in Game One--I'll take it. Did Guillen even look at the stats? I heard they were thinking about leaving El Duque off their post-season roster. If I were the Chicago White Sox, I'd start "The Dork" in Game One and keep Contreras far away from the stadium.

I watched a little of "Rally Monday." Millar and Ortiz sat on each other's laps. And just now on the New York news I saw a report about the yanks' version, complete with some non-fan saying "It'll be another 86 years before the Red Sox beat the yanks again." Oh, you original, witty, intelligent October-only yankee fans, you.

As I'd hoped, the Fenway scoreboard does indeed have us on top of the A.L. East. We tied the yanks, and we're ahead alphabetically. We'll show the standings the fair way, and let MLB use their unfair methods. (But, again, let the yanks fly to Anaheim.)

Per Pat, there WILL be a new Christopher Guest movie. Stay tuned.

Kapstein stood up and clapped right when the Indians lost on Sunday. No one else noticed until a few minutes later.

To the anonymous commenter who "couldn't wait" until October 3rd to read my post about next year, here you go: Next year, we'll three-peat.

Finally, it seems that some yankee fans (and players, and coaches, and announcers) are pretty pissed about Buck Showalter taking out some of his players yesterday, in a game the Rangers lost to Anaheim, giving the Angels home-field advantage in the ALDS against New York. A-Rod said, "there's a code of honor when so much is on the line," in this Daily News article. People were calling up the FAN saying how Buck was stickin' it to the yanks. And Jon Sterling was beside himself during yesterday's game broadcast. What a crock of yankee horsecrap. First of all, if they'd won on Sunday, they wouldn't have had to worry about this. And the fact that they took out THEIR starters IN THE GAME THEY NEEDED TO WIN to get home-field, after opting to NOT EVEN START Mussina in that game, tells me they have nothing to complain about. Mike Francesa was going ballistic hearing Sterling talk about Showalter as if he'd pissed on the Babe Ruth monument. And he's a yankee fan. That's the good thing about Francesa. When the yanks do something shitty, he'll make fun of it along with the rest of us.

Here's what Tee Jay-Rod should have said: "We really, really, really wanted to back into the home-field advantage, like we did with the division, but the Rangers took out some of their players during the last game of the season, as we did."

Sox win to tie the yanks exactly, and go to a one-game play--oh, wait, thanks to baseball's inconsistent rules, the yanks just get the division. But, that was our secret plan. Make the yanks miss Chicago, who always lays down to them, and have to go out to the west coast. That's right, Anaheim has home field in that series. I brought that up the other day, but no one on any radio seemed to notice that possibility. On EEI yesterday, I even heard some hosts saying how they thought the home field advantage had already been determined. TJ-Rod.

Also, I wanted Cleveland to win yesterday, so we'd have the chance to win the division. But Red Sox Nation was told to root for Chicago, allowing the yanks to clinch on our field.

But, now that I think about it, we're better off like this. Still, baseball's just not the same with this Wild Card. You shouldn't have the yanks celebrating, then us celebrating, on consecutive days. And the Indians getting swept made our entire end-of-seaon series just about meaningless.

I hope the standings on the Monster have the Sox on top of the yanks during the playoffs.

Johhny was just wearing an Astros hat during the celebration. I'm glad I'm in NESN territory to see this.

My pics from Saturday will be up tomorrow-ish.