Click all pics to enlarge.
Do you see something in the clouds? I did, so I started snapping away, trying to get a good shot of it. It looked cool at the time, but after I got home and looked closely, my mind was blown. Of course, a non-baseball fan would not see that blue hole as a pair of socks. To help them out, I've altered the pic below. (The one above is completely unaltered--save for the web address.)

I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty freakin' awesome. Along with changing some blue spots to red, I lightened up the pic for you non-Mac users.

Below is a totally different pic. I just zoomed out a little more and added the caption.


Moving on, yesterday, the Yanks were looking to cut our division lead to 3.5. Their retarded fans were cocky as ever, still thinking it's our team that chokes, and theirs that doesn't. I can't wait til the reality sets in for them that baseball is different now. (I'll be waiting a looooonnnnnggg time, though.) No other team's fans brag when they're several games behind and haven't won a World Series in seven years.

It was a rainy morning, but it cleared out for game time. I knew there'd be no batting practice, so we got there late, around 3:00 for a 3:55 Fox game. Only a few players were on the field. Above, Roger Clemens searches the field for doughnuts.

Looks like a nice summer day, but it was cold and windy. The sun was going in and out of the clouds, though, so we'd get a little warmth when the sun was out, but the catch-22 was that it was right in our eyes.

Directly overhead, you can see the last of the dark clouds as they rolled out. By the end of the game it was completely cloudless.

I noticed Renee Russo touring the warning track with her family, I'd guess. Russo, of course, played Lynn in Major League. "That's bullshit, I have a much better body than she does!"

Russo again.

And again. Doesn't it look like mom and dad are stuck in a hurricane?

Beckett pulling a Mr. Zoppi as he always does before a start. Note of of Fenway's more underrated quirks, where the wall juts out a few feet from center field to the Monster. From our angle in the bleachers, someone could probably hide in that spot. (The "arrow" to the right of the word "company" points right into the hiding spot.

Beckett loosening up. You can see how the shadows are there sometimes, not there at other times, with the clouds going by so fast.

Kevin Cash does the floating ball trick.

Posada's freak-arms. (Another floating ball trick at right.)

Looking straight up at the light tower.

I took so many shots trying to get a Yankee in front of the "GL," to create the "GIANT ASS" effect. This one's close.

This one's pretty good, too. And note Jeter with hand actually on ass.

Hinske, Lowell, Coco. My prediction for the game: Hinske will hit a homer. It took a while, but he got one. My girlfriend's was that Beckett would plunk Giambi after Youk got hit. We both would be one for one on this day.

The obnoxious Yankee fan group behind us tried desperately to get Jabba the Slut to look up so they could take a picture. (Even doing the offensive "Indian wail"--they also called Wang "Fried Rice".) I turned to my girlfriend and said "do they mean like this shot I just got while he was staring up at us for the past five minutes?" These dudes behind us were older guys from The Bronx. They said stuff like, "you have to put up with us." I opted not to inform them that I've got chunks of guys like them in my stool. Wow, Yankee fans who think they're special, what are the odds? They got what they deserved--no one paying attention to them. They left in the eighth.

The first pitch of the game. Ish. Sun out now.

# 19 goes for # 19.

Shielding our eyes, as Drew catches a pop fly.

Coco and his shadow, 75-80% as tall as his soul.

A cool shadow on the Monster.

Another one for my "bat boys collecting bats" series.

Here's a shot I've never gotten before: the sun is so low that it's illuminating the rafters on the underside of the roof above the right field grandstand. You can also see the long sleeves and hoods.

A crescent moon over Pesky's Pole.

"Boop. Lights are on."--Eddie Murphy

More lunar action.

Bronson Sardinha was in right field by the end of the game.

And, I kid you not, Alberto Gonzalez was playing short for Jeter--who NEVER sits (or makes errors, like he did Friday.) It must have been TORTURE for him to sit in favor of Alberto Gonzalez.

Lugo bats with Doug M. now in the game.

Sardinha's first major league swing--a double play grounder to end the game. Ouch!

Moon over Fenway, and Mass Pike, blurred, 2007. Leaving the game we saw those two blondes from Still, We Believe. I always see them when I move down in the bleachers late in a game. They must have season tickets in the lower part of 42 or 43. (Or they just have the same 10-game plan as I do.)

What a great game this was. 10-1, and now we're 4.5 up with 13 to play. And the Yanks are 2 up in the wild card, as Detroit won on Sunday. Jacoby "&Myers" Ellsbury needs to be in this lineup. We couldn't believe it when he wasn't in, even with Manny out. Youk got knocked out of the game, so he came in. And sure enough, he comes through with two key hits. What more can he do?

Funny moment after Jeter's first inning homer. It bounces off the batters' eye and back onto the field. Coco throws it right back up, actually pulling a bit of a "Plinko," letting it roll down the eye to a waiting fan--who promptly fires the ball back toward the infield. Coco looked back like, "You're crazy."

After the game, I watched my Huskers not win against USC, the number one team in the country. During the game, Musberger was talking about Joba and his dad (still an usher at Memorial Stadium--they showed him sitting there). He said that the Youkilis play was something that "got a chuckle" out of everyone but Youk. Terrible call, Brent. But this is the guy who once said, while announcing a baseball game, "line drive...outta bounds."

So Beckett gets number 19. 19, like the Bad 4 Good song. You know. Sam from Diff'rent Strokes' band.

You won't believe what Mike Vaccaro said in the Post. Go read it. Second paragraph. You'll laugh. Hard. According to him, we'll all remember every second of Friday night's eighth inning. I just read the paragraph (in my best dramatic voice) to my girlfriend, and she said, "I forgot about it already!" Good call.

Finally, commercial number three of the Fios-tech series is out. We've all anxiously awaited new material from the potato-headed boy, aka greatest kid actor of the last 50 years, and I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. One line this time, not that funny. Number two remains his most riveting performance. Hopefully number four brings potato-boy back into the limelight.