Weird weather. Yesterday I got soaked on my way to work, went home and changed, and then got those new clothes soaked on the way home. Today, it's been going back and forth between sunny and rainy, but always with crazy humidity.

Yanks won with the help of a walked-in run and a balked-in run. Their bullpen did great, though. That was the key.

And the Red Sox, well, I blame the fact that I wasn't allowed to watch the game. I tried to will some hits out of Castiglione, but it just wasn't working. The kid didn't do all that bad on the mound. We're still 2.5000 games up, and we'll win tomorrow.

I've been uploading video stuff like crazy with the limited tapes I have here. This is gonna be fun. In the meantime, here's a screen shot of me with long hair, no glasses, and a beard-thing, from July 24th, 1994. (Date on screen of 7/14/91 is wrong.) My friend Jim was filming the 19-year old me inside Duchess Diner, which I always called "The Soup Kitchen." A 20-year old Chan is just off screen. Chan later tries to interview the toddler in the background. Why am I posting this? Because I want to. And to show how different I looked to people who never knew me pre-glasses and post-long hair. [Update: The date was 7/22/94. Confirmed because Trup was on the radio in the car on our way to Duchess, and I mathced up the game to that date on retrosheet.org. The starters that day: Randy Johnson for the M's, Aaron Sele for the Red Sox. It's so weird to think of that day. I wonder if I would've guessed the starters in that game would still be pitching 12 years later. Or that I'd be posting a picture from that day on this internet thing and strangers would see it. Also weird that I was deciphering what Trup was saying underneath my friends and I talking, right at the point in The Fugitive, which I'm watching on TNT right now, where they try to hear the voice in the background of an audio tape. And that that movie came out in 1994, the year in question. And that this video just happens to be the exact date that it is today, and that the Sox were playing the M's that day, like they did today. Note: in that game on 7/22/94, A-Rod made two errors!]

In 1986, young Jere came in to pitch the fourth, fifth and sixth innings of Ridgefield Little League's Majors consolation game. Watch here as the sidewinder gets the final out of the game, a 5-3 groundout. Rotary beats Community Center, aka the "Commies," 7-5, at Aldrich Field.

Other stars you may recognize: Doug Jarrow at short, Pete Williams at first, my dad, facing camera in white shirt, giving high fives. Hey, is that Billy Zeyer walking across the field in the high socks? Did he ump this game?

So, Chan hooked me up with this thing that allows you to put stuff from TV onto the computer. I have hundreds of tapes full of Cuh-rap. One I had here at my apartment was the '86 Consolation Game, so I figured I'd use it to test out the technology. So look for more video nonsense in the near future.

(Above video by I don't know, somebody's dad. Possibly Andy Jonic's dad, because I think he's the loud voice. And the batter I retired for that last out--a young Craig Biggio. As far as you know.)

Labels: movies

Well, Hendu was enjoyable until:

"The Yankees always get tabbed with 'They buy championships' and 'they have all the money.' The Red Sox do the same thing. They're right behind 'em!"

Not quite, Dave. You just moved down on the "beloved" list. Other than that, he and the other guys were good, especially talking about all the Sox fans there. They said they either relocated from New England or made the trip out to Seattle. There was no "ever since 2004..." bullshit talk.

Moyer was wearing the classic stirrups! Hope those five homers don't make he stop doing that. Nice to get a win for KySny, who appears to have hurt himself.

“I’m not superstitious, but No. 58 has been very good to me and I don’t see any reason to change now.”--Jon Papelbon

Hey, Jon:

Superstition: An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.

Jason just started his blog, but he's already made a multi-daily reader out of this cowboy. Lots of fun and interesting stuff, like the link this game. I was warned that it would make me want to kill myself. That's about right. Don't worry, the game isn't broken. You just haven't typed in the right thing yet.

Now that Captain Upside is back, so are the rain dance high fives. I like those. Do well, C.U. Or it's C.U. later to the dugout fun.

I'm getting the Red Sox on the Seattle station tonight. And, of course, Dave Henderson, one of the most beloved Sox of all-time, is announcing. That's two posts in a row where I've mentioned Hendu. Look for the hat trick later. (First baseman) Papi has us up 1-0 early.


Mr. Dunbar lost to the Jays tonight, thanks to A-Rod and his merry band of miscues. The Jays are now two back of the Yanks, who currently sit three back of us. This is anice statement by the Jays, and one I'm all for. That statement? "The Yanks just aren't that good."

And now Gonzalez has us up 3-0. And now the other M's announcer informs us they traded David Ortiz for Dave Hollins. That's right, two of our four D.H. DHs have been mentioned in this broadcast. (see post below)

Did you know that a majority of Red Sox players through history with the initials D.H. have appeared in a game as a DH?

Danny Heep, Dave Henderson, Dave Hollins, and Dwayne Hosey have all played DH. (Although Henderson only pinch-ran for a DH--Sam Horn--and never actually had a plate appearance.)

The non DH-ing D.H.s for the Red Sox were Dustin Hermanson, Dave Hillman, and Dick Hoblitzell.

Heep was the first D.H. to bat for the Red Sox as a DH, as well as the first D.H. to play DH in a World Series game (for the Mets).

Watch for further reports on R.F.s, C.F., and L.F.s. Well, not L.F.s.; the Sox have never had a player with the initials L.F. We did have a manager in the 1920s named Lee Fohl. But he was a catcher. When he played.

Ken Singleton had just finished saying how some Yankee pitcher had hinted that A-Rod needs to learn how to throw the ball, and that for the team to win, you shouldn't do that because you have to have "all your oars in the water." Then there was a grounder that A-Rod let get by him. Singleton, Kay, and Leiter immediately made the excuse that the last bounce hit the dirt as opposed to the turf, so he didn't get the right bounce. Whatever--glove down! They teach you in Little League!

A few batters later (this was the first inning), Jaret Wright had given up two runs on three hits and a walk. Kay comes out with this rhinestone:

"Not to make excuses for Jaret Wright, but every single hit in this inning has been the cause of the field."

And as he finishes that thought, the next guy rockets one to the gap. 4-0 Jays after one. That's where we are now.

A lot of tix just went on sale at redsox.com for the next homestand. Go now, quick. I already had standing room for Sunday vs. the Angels, that I got a while ago, which turned into a night game. I wanted to switch that so me and Pat could go on Saturday instead--I got those just now, two pavilion standing room. Then I thought, well, I might as well try to upgrade my Sunday tickets. I used the "select one, then select another and see if they're close" method, and it worked out perfectly. Two in section 23, not too far back, one in front of the other, or "piggy back" as sleazy scalpers would say.

Then I said, Well, I'm already taking Monday off since I'll be there so late on Sunday, why not get myself a ticket for Monday? I could've gotten front row, down past the foul pole. I was this close. In the 1 minute and 30 seconds I had to decide, I mentally put myself there, and realized that from that spot, you can't see crap. Yes, there's the fun of being in the front row, but you're down really low, facing the bullpens, and you possibly have the foul pole itself in your way... Not worth the 45 bucks (plus charges).

Poor me. I don't want people to hate me. Boo hoo hoo. I'm a little whiny Fred Garvin. Please don't hate me. Pleeeeease.

If you're hard of clicking, basically Boras tried to prevent the sale of a "Damon Sucks" bib by a Red Sox fan lady on ebay. I just checked over there, and it's now going for 70 bucks, and one that another guy bought and is reselling is also fetching a high price. Ah, the bib trade.

1. One last thing about the World Series ball. I never thought Doug did anything wrong. I don't remember anyone saying anything about the actual ball right after Game 4. I know I wasn't thinking about the ball at that moment. Had someone asked me what I thought about the final ball at that moment, I'd have said, "What, the last ball? Yeah, Doug got it. Cool. Why?" As far as giving out game balls, that could've been done with other balls from the game. As far as the "historical significance," again, there was no talk about it going in, and none right after. Besides, the Hall of Fame and the team could have gotten one of the hundreds of other balls used in the series. I wonder if the real casual fans don't understand that. It's not like they use one ball for the whole game. If they, did, then of course that ball would be historic. It would be the ball. But it was just one of many. We got the ring. We got the trophy. That ball was just one of thousands we used in 2004 to get us there. Everybody gets to put stuff in their own personal trophy case. Doug got the ball, it's his to choose to keep it or not. Kind of like how Mariano kept his 400th save ball. Because he wanted to. And that's finally the last I'll say about that.

2. There are a lot of traditions in baseball. The third baseman always throws the ball back to the pitcher after an out with the bases empty. The first baseman always throws the ball to the crowd when he makes the final putout of an inning before having someone toss him a ball for next innings warmups from the dugout. The home plate umpire always dusts off the plate with his butt facing the pitcher. Joe Castiglione has to refer to the Blue Jays as the "Torontonians" once per series against them. Jim Kaat has to tell us, ten times a year, that if pitchers were meant to throw overhand, we'd all be walking around with our arms over our heads.

But today I noticed one I didn't know about: Youk made the final putout of the game, and Timlin was nearby, in case he needed to cover the bag. Youk was kind of running toward Timlin when he hit the bag. Then, instead of giving him a high five or a butt-pat, he avoided him. Once safely out of the way, he flipped him the ball, and kept jogging toward the middle of the field, leaving Timlin to high five Varitek. So, I ask you, is this a tradition? That the pitcher and catcher always congratulate each other first? It makes sense. I just never knew that if the pitcher ended up really close to another fielder, the fielder will avoid him so he can go do his special exclusive battery-fest first.

3. About NESN's "What If?" show. Terrible job. I can't see it here in New York, but I wouldn't watch it anyway. One of the key things that made 2004 so great was 2003. Now NESN feels the need to just go ahead and change the outcome? What's the purpose of this? It's a little Yes Network-ish to pretend your team has never lost at any time in its past.

I know, I'm the guy who suggested they have the '86 team come out and re-do the end of Game 6. And they ended up doing a radio version of that game on WEEI (which I also didn't hear, or even find out what the mystery ending was) with an alternate ending. Well, that was 20 years ago, the team never got their due for what they did accomplish, and besides, those guys deserved to win a World Series possibly more than any other that came up short. So it kind of made sense. Just a fun thing. But 2003 was a few years ago. Many of those guys won the next year anyway. None of those guys are asking anyone to make it appear as if they actually won.

I will say that I was glad that they were showing what would happen if Pedro had come out, simply because I can hope that they lose anyway, to prove my point that we would've been even worse off without Pedro in there. That's right, people, I'm the only one in the world who admits he wanted Pedro to stay in. My theory that whole season was: A tired Pedro is better than a healthy anyone else. For me to say that I wasn't saying that in that game would be a lie. I know all about how good that bullpen got. But I also remember how many games they blew earlier in the year. The ol' Bullpen By Committee. I panicked like Costanza when he decided the answering machine plan wouldn't work. "Tippy toe! Tippy toe!" "Keep Pedro in! Keep Pedro in! Let's go with our ace! Even though he's reched the dreaded 100 pitch plateau!"

Besides, on the Matsui hit, he made a good pitch. The Posada "double"? Come on. Cheap bloop. And Giambi hit two steroid-aided homers in that game. BSM has told me that Grady was the worst manager in history. I think if one ball is a few feet to one side, he ends up being manager of the A.L. Champion, possibly World Champion, Red Sox. And Joy of Sox recently said that any intelligent person would've wanted Pedro out of the game. I got, like, 1300-ish on my SATs. I win at Scrabble and Boggle at a 90% rate. Brian's girlfriend refuses to play me. And I didn't mind him being in, simply because he's Pedro Mar-effin'-tinez. Who's with me!? (crickets) If you or someone you know is a pro-keep-Pedro-inner, please direct them to this support group. I'm actually serious. I want to meet someone who agrees with me, at least a little on this. Anyone?

Also, if Grady did take him out, what if we'd won?* How un-sweet would 2004 have been? It would never have happened, actually. So, thank you Grady Little. For the slap. The comeback. The breaking of the curse. Grady Little: The most important man in Boston Red Sox history!


*Hey, did we? Did anyone watch the show tonight? You know those computers are 100% accurate, right?

Good win by us, good loss by them. We're 2.5 up. Second best record in all of baseball. (Tied with White Sox.) Good stuff.

Bronson today: 8 IP, 2 ER, 8 K, 0 BB, against the best team in the NL, in the second half, even though the league has had a chance to see him. Wily Mo had some key hits. So he did what he could to get us back one of the many losses that would've been wins if we had Bronson instead of Jason Johnson.

In Chipwich news, Chipwich got smaller! And what's worse, they have the audacity to use the term "King Size" on the tiny wrapper. Terrible job!

If I only had this current weather map to go by, I'd say we're all going to die. (Or that the Detroit Red Wings were attacking from above.)

In other news, on the day of the Rolling Rally, I bought a box of Cap'n Crunch at the Store 24 in Kenmore Square and snacked on it while Pat and I waited for the train back to our car, parked in some random town. I haven't had too much Cap'n Crunch since then. Yesterday, I bought a box. This morning, I woke up and experienced that sweet taste of victory, and it was beautiful. I love how the human mind works.

I just put all of my movies onto YouTube.com. So now you can steal them and put them directly on your own site! If you do, please give me credit and put up a link to this blog. Thank you.

Click the "movies" label below to watch my movies.

They're also still up at Putfile here. But if one doesn't get clicked on at Putfile for a while, it gets taken down. So that might not stay current. But both the YouTube and Putfile links will always be in my links section, probably toward the top.

Here's the last one I made, O-Men.

There wasn't much response to this one, so I'm putting it up again. I'm also putting it here because I think it's awesome. The official deal with it: Manny and Papi were doing their backwards running while the commercial for The Omen played on the scoreboard. My initial idea was to simply play my footage backwards, so it would look like they were running forwards. When I did that, the sound of the commercial also played backwards, of course, and it created a really eerie thing, I think. So I didn't play with the film or the sound in any way, other than to play the whole thing backwards (and slow it down a little at the end). Let me know if you think this is at all cool.

Labels: movies

aka "Grandpa" from The Lost Boys. Dead at 90. Thanks to the great Lileks for this info.

For more of my twisted Lost Boys writing, do yourself a favor and click here.

Have some double-thick Oreos and a root beer for Grandpa tonight. Better yet, leave 'em alone. Nobody touches the second shelf but Grandpa.

And I just heard some dickwad on EEI recently complaining that we don't win close, low-scoring games, even being pissed at a 7-0 win. And now two 1-0 wins in a row.

Seattle takes a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the eighth here in New York.

Update: Mr. Dunbar loses. Very key to pick up a game today. Good job, everybody.

Update: The last time we won two home games in a row by 1-0 scores, Babe Ruth started one of those games for us. 1916.

Did you ever hear that theory that fastball pitchers get hit harder in the daytime? Because of it, I'm worried that Beckett, a fastball pitcher who has no confidence in any other pitches, could get shelled by the Royals today. And also because he hasn't done so well in the nighttime lately, either. Then again, they are the Royals, so maybe he can take this opportunity to get back on the right track (say in Matt Foley voice.) I still have confidence in him. He just needs to learn consistency. (Maybe from Seanez?)

Trot isn't starting against the lefty Mark "Fuck You" Redman.* I thought Upside McGee, back from Pawtucket, might start, but it's Kapler. Which I'm fine with. Maybe they'll split duty. Upside isn't gonna improve unless we get him into the lineup consistently, and, of course, turn him magically into Bronson Arroyo.


*Fans of the rapper Redman should appreciate this.

Last night's Yankee game should instantly go on "Yankees Classics." Simply because it was the classic Yankee win: Umpires give them a call to tie the game, home run to the front row in right field wins the game. I'm seriously just rooting for some kind of flu outbreak or something to hit their clubhouse. At the very least.

I went to bed knowing the game was tied. I woke up and saw on ESPN News "Yanks Win On Cabrera Walk-Off." I was so mad about the earlier call, I didn't even wonder if it was a short porch front row shot, or whether Melky did the Ortiz helmet throw. I found out just now it was both. At least with the helmet toss, it just proves they continue to copy the Red Sox, something very un- world class mystique aura -ish. And it's funny how they do it with the two-handed, or "far less cool" method.

Silly Dunbar, just face it, your only chance of winning is doing it the correct Red Sox way. And that ain't gonna fly in The Bronx.

So, to recap, in case anyone's still thinking I'm just making this stuff up, THE UMPIRES GAVE THE YANKEES A WIN LAST NIGHT. They shit the bed in every way last night, as they did the night before, and have come away with two shitty wins. They're going nowhere this year, as is the norm.

Wow, a one-hitter. Great job by Lester. Varitek moved into the all-time Sox lead for games caught. Really nice moment when they played the tribute to him, and he came out of the dugout and waved to the standing crowd. Gee, for a treatment like that at Yankee Stadium, you'd have to...hit a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to two in the fourth inning in a May game versus the Indians.

And great job by Tek for getting Gedman a mention and his name on the screen on NESN.

The Yanks are in a rain delay right now, tied in the bottom of the ninth. If you still don't believe umps are influenced by the loud Yankee Stadium crowd, you are officially a stupid person. Ninth inning, the rain and lightning and thunder arrive, the crowd is going wild. Wild enough to make the ump call Posada safe at first when he was clearly out. And the Yanks go on to tie it up. Hargrove was ejected over it, it was that obvious. When Yes showed the first replay, it was kind of a bad angle. Kaat, former good announcer turned complete Yankee cronie, says, "Posada tied it, that could've gone either way." Then he goes into the old "when you have to look at it this many times..." Problem with that, Kitty, is we'd only seen it once at that point. And with the Mariners arguing like crazy, I'm guessing even the most die-hard Yankee fan was expecting the next replay to show he was clearly out. And that's what it did show. So out that even Kay came right out and admitted it, and Kaat had to as well. Mr. Dunbar cheats to win. I'm not afraid to speak the truth.

Hopefully the M's can overcome the travesty when the game continues. But I might be in bed by then. I'm kind of tired.

Insert the letters from three* U.S. state abbreviations into Jon Lester's name and get the name of a former Giant. Name the correct states and the Giant.

Ponson had a rough start in his first game as a Dunbar, giving up a three run homer in the first. He honestly looks like he's wearing one of those inflatable Sumo wrestler outfits.

Blogger will be down from 8 to 9 eastern, so watch for that. At least they gave us a warning.

*After thinking about it, the six letters that make up the three states can also be used to make three totally different states. Not that it will really help you that much.

I like when he actually gets called "E-Rod" in the headline.

Always Frank Grimes to Jeter's Homer. Endlessly amusing to a dude like me.

Brian, Chan and I went to tonight's Colbert Report taping over in bizarro world, aka the West Side. I once again was pointed out for my Sox hat by the warmup comic. Only a quick one, as he said "Whatta ya got a Boston hat on? You a fan?" "Lifelong," I said. "Don't die," he said as he moved on. I don't really get it. Maybe meaning the fanship ends when I die? Oh well, he wasn't on his game tonight. But Colbert was. Like every other time, I felt like it was the best show he's done yet. But that could be because I was there.

There was only one mess-up tonight. In the past there have been more. Of course, the mess-ups are great, because they're always so funny. I think my favorite part of these tapings in the five minutes where Stephen takes questions right before the show. Since we only see him in character on TV, it's great to hear him just be himself, of course, the opposite of the character. One question was "what's the most disgusting thing a guest has done?" Stephen said, "some people have defended the Iraq war." Then he added that some people said they went on the show and realized later it didn't go as well as they'd have liked. He said he considered that to be playing with other peoples' time and that is disgusting. And he was totally serious. But normally he's just damn funny, always ready with a great comeback. There was also some controversy as someone brought up the controversial topic of whether or not a red panda was a bear. It led to Stephen admitting he was wrong, but only off air. He also was asked what Bush said to him when he shook his hand at the White House dinner. Turns out Bushie put his mouth right up to Stephen's ear and said sternly, "Well done." Which was funny to hear in Colbert's Bush-accent.

I highly recommend going to a taping if you can. If you like the show on TV, you'll have the time of your month, month and a half, seeing it live.

Afterwards, we got Brian's car and saw a famous person. That would be a dude who appears on Letterman sometimes and has a goatee. We knew he was from the show but couldn't quite remember what he does. Something like entering the stage, saying something mildly funny, and walking off, if I know my Letterman. We confirmed it was him when we saw a sign in the lot that said "Parking for CBS." Then we went to Harry's Burritos. Not bad. I felt like the waitresses didn't respect us because we weren't all Upper West Sided out, though.

Manhattanhenge 2 was going on, so we got to see our really long shadows, which is always really cool. Maybe Wednesday or Thursday I'll get some pics of the phenomenon.

Then I heard it was 3-0 Royals. I was pissed. I got home, put on the TV, and saw we were up 5-4, with Pap on the mound and three outs to go, which he got. A key homer by our Doug M., I understand. I noticed some boos for their, formerly our Doug M. when he batted in the ninth. Can someone tell me what the reaction was when he was first announced? I saw nothing about it in any articles, and nothing on RSN.net. (Although I did see that someone was complaining that DirecTV no longer shows pre- and post-game. Welcome to my Extra Innings world.) I would hope Doug would get a big cheer.

Okay, I have to go watch the show I just saw live now. Brian laughed when no one else did after Stephen said the line "mission accomplished." I'll be listening for that.

Whoa. As Stewart just did the lead-in to Colbert, Colbert said, "As mis hermanos the Dead Kennedys said, 'kill kill kill kill kill the poor.'" A DK mention!

It's an adjective-conjuring ninety-five degrees here in Manhattan. (But according to weather.com, it "feels like" 100!) I love it. I love to feel my face on fire. It's like when you get the chills when you're sick, and you get into a hot car, and you know it's not supposed to feel good, but it's just so nice and cozy. Until you get the fever again, and then puke or whatever. But I'm not sick, so I can fully enjoy the heat that's smothering me so wonderfully.

(I also love hearing non-heat lovers complain. Like Chan! TJ, Chan!)

I love it all. Hot, cold, rain, show, haze. Especially haze. But no wind. Wind is the incarntaion of hair-mussing evil. Who's down with banning wind from crossing our borders?

I'm on my way to another Colbert taping. The secret is to have all your friends request four tickets over and over. So then you get a steady diet of Colbert, without breaking any rules. Look for the old Sox hat if they show the crowd. No Bad News Bears Amanda Wurlitzer jersey for me tonight. A little too hot for that.

I think America knows why the Red Sox lost three out of four to Oakland. It's because I forgot to break out the "bad news for the Athletics" line before the series. I promise I'll use it next week when we play the Super Dope Homeboys From The Oak Town again.

So we all know that only one team is coming out of the AL East this year. It's been determined. Right? Why? Because a month ago two teams from the Central had much better records than the top team in the East, I guess. Well, if you actually look at the standings, you'll see that the Red Sox and Yanks are both within three games of the White Sox. And they're a team who has lost its last two series convincingly--to the Red Sox and Yanks.

I kind of thought that after this second crappy series in a row by the White Sox, people would recognize that a Wild Card coming out of the Central is far from a lock, and in fact not even probable. But ESPN says:

"With only one team likely to advance to the postseason from the AL East..."

All right, granted, the article was written at the All-Star break, but still, people are saying that even now, and it sounds really bad, like no one's paying attention to what's really going on, just to what the last person said. Terrible job.

Okay, so I was nice enough to give the pro-trade side a half a year for the NL to figure out Bronson as per BSM's request. I still say I'm right on this one. It doesn't seem like Wily Mo could possibly give us anywhere near what even an average starting pitcher right now.

Even giving him the extra run on his ERA makes Bronson a pretty good AL pitcher this year. And he's doing about as well as Josh Beckett did last year in the NL, and we got him and called him an ace.

I still say terrible job on this trade. I feel like it's already been proven that we could've used Bronson this year. Which is weird since the other side claimed as if it were pure fact that nothing could possibly go wrong with this trade. Lots more on this (i.e. all I've bottled up waiting for the All-Star break) as the second half goes on...