Here's a poor folk's video-podcast I just made. Part 1:


Part 2, Havana Nights:


Oh crap. "ogspot.com." Oh well. I'm not gonna redo it at this point. Hey, March 3rd. Happy birthday to the "JA--Junior Adult" dude.

Is SNY (the Mets' network) a sister station of NESN or something? On their nightly highlight show--after earlier showing almost every batter of Die Skay's outing tonight--they threw it out to Tina Cervasio, reporting on Dicey with NESN shirt and microphone. At the end she said, "reporting for SportsNite New York, this is Tina Cervasio." Maybe they just commandeered her to get a direct report on Deem At.

I got more free Nets tickets for tomorrow's game. They play the Celts. If any of you Cs fans out there in laptopland have any favorites, let me know, and I can snap some shots of him or her.

Shaughnessy's son, that is. I turned on the radio in time to hear Tavarez strike him out. He took a good cut, according to Castiglione, in his first at bat as a member of Boston College, who we're playing right now.

I went back and checked the message board to see that Dice-inator gave up a double but nothing else in two innings. His line is a permanent fixture at the bottom of ESPNews right now. In fact, when I put that on, they were interviewing Papelbon. It seemed live.

This year's gonna be fun.

What would you call a documentary about scaffolding?

"Menace in the Sky"

or

"The People's Umbrella"?

Big number 92 Scott White has hit two homers for the Sox against Northeastern today. After being no-hit for three innings by the college kids, we exploded for either six or eleven runs.

The other half of the Sox is trailing the Jays 4-1 late, as Hansack and Gabbo, Gabbo, GABBO have given up runs, I believe.

Damon and Giambi have gone deep for Dunbar against the Twin Cities.

Okay, mlb.com's scoreboard just updated. They'd left out another 5-run inning in that Northeasern game. Final: Sox 11, whatever Northeastern is called 0. Bulldogs, right? Update: Huskies. Whoops.

In April 2004, shortly after starting this blog, I wrote a post called "Become The Sports Media." (Check it out here. Wow, was I ahead of my own time. Ha. Note: At that time, the blog looked nothing like it does now, was text-only, and comments didn't even exist, but with this new Blogger, they show it to you as it would look today. Like when they put an old player on a modern-style baseball card.) I based the title on a spoken-word album by Jello Biafra. After having listened to his talkie-talk albums for years, as well as his musical ones--Dead Kennedys, Lard, Revolting Cocks, etc.--I finally got to see him live. My girlfriend and I were up in the 413 for a long weekend, and part of the fun was Jello's performance in Northampton.
I've heard his clown-like voice so many times before, but I didn't know what exactly to expect as far as actually being there in the room with him. It was definitely worth it--people were really into it, laughing along and applauding. You don't get to chant "fuck George Bush" sitting at home. Oh, wait, I guess I could. Anyway, he goes back and forth between scripted pieces and just kind of ranting from his notes, all the while doing his wacky impressions of Bush and all the other sleazy politicians from both sides of the aisle.

Just when he was getting on a role, some stupid woman decides she's gonna walk out and yell "boring!" at him, effing up the show for the rest of us. Later, a dude and a girl also decided they were going to speak at someone else's show, saying something about troops just before leaving. Jello was nice enough to say to them, "I'm gonna get to that, actually," but the people just left. Then there was the guy who kept yelling out about the 9-11 conspiracy. At that point Jello went way off script to talk about how calling it a conspiracy would be giving the government way too much credit. I agree that certain aspects of 9-11 seem fishy, but, come on, bird-orbs? It's getting a little crazy. But I do keep my eyes open just in case.

He also did a lot of classic bits, like "become the media," and a whole diatribe on band-names.

I had heard that Jello can talk indefinitely (it really is amazing that he hasn't completely lost his voice by now), and Monday night proved it. He went three hours. Then he took a break. Then he came back for another hour to speak to those of us who stuck around.

The coolest part for me was when he called out to "Jeff from Disaster Strikes," who was there helping sell T-shirts for Jello's label, Alternative Tentacles. Disaster Strikes and my old band, The Pac-Men, used to trade shows a half-decade ago, them coming to the Newtown Teen Center, us going up to the Franklin, Mass. one. They've gone on to sign with Alternative Tentacles, which, in my opinion, is one of the coolest things a band can do.

I was psyched to see that Baseball Heavy went to the next night's Jello show in Rhode Island. I've also been meaning to give her a, uh, what's a way to say "shout out" without sounding like a tool? Anyway, I was gonna promote her by saying "go there for all your Paw Sox needs" or something. Turns out she actually said that herself today, citing the crapitude that is the Paw Sox website. But go there regardless, she'll crack you up without even trying.

Now some more random shots from our snowy trip (you can do your own captions):






One last thing about Jello: You know someone's quite influential when they have to give a pre-emptive message to fans who want to tell him "you changed my life."

Oh, and in baseball news, 'topes tie! Meaning the Red Sox tied their first spring training game. At this rate, come October, the Red Sox record will be 0-0, and the "win shares" theory will be shot to hell.

Wow, I just looked at the date and it reminded me this was the day I started this blog. So I looked at the time of the first post: 11:42. I looked at my clock: 11:41. So, as I write this, it's now 11:42, exactly 3 years to the minute that I started writing this blog in Danbury, Connecticut in a little white room with stars on the ceiling on an old clunky PC. A classic Jere coincidence.

What town was I in when I took the picture below? Update: Sox lead 4-1! Cyn is live-blogging the game if you don't have access to it. (You'd think they would've given us MLB.tv for free in spring training, at the very least...)

While I was away these past few days, I heard the report of how Mariano wouldn't play for the Red Sox. This followed the earlier statement by Curt Schilling, who said he couldn't play for the Yanks. (A story which dirtdogs read but somehow missed the key "n't" part of the word "couldn't."--And yes, Damon said the same thing as Schill, as we know, but remember, Damon's brain is half the size of the average person's.)

I am so glad to hear these players saying these things. Are they finally coming around? Are they finally able to realize how important this stuff is to the fans--who make their careers possible? Curt has even said the Yanks could offer him $25 million and he still wouldn't do it. This should be common sense, but unfortunately, most players--most people--would do anything if the money is right. (See baseball fans who complain about ticket prices and availability, but then advertise on their blogs for the very people who steal all the tickets away from us and then drive up the prices--the shady ticket agencies. Much more on that to come in the future. Trust me.)

While I'm glad players on both sides are saying they wouldn't want to play for the rival, can they please do it without saying "I love Mr. Steinbrenner"? (Curt, I'm looking in your direction.) Thanks.

I'd like to talk about that "other" Schilling thing again, too. It just seems like by complaining that he wasn't signed for '08 by now, he made it appear as if the team had done something wrong. They weren't going out of their way to disrespect him, nor were they saying "we don't want you anymore" simply by not saying anything yet. The reaction from fans sounds almost like they think the Red Sox haven't locked up Curt for this season, which they have. I admit to being the type who puts emotions ahead of other stuff sometimes. I wanted Bronson to stay, I wanted Pedro to stay. But that's because I was fairly certain they could offer us more. To honor a player for what they've done shouldn't entail a never-ending, automatic, blind loyalty contract. All these guys, including Curt, have been honored and thanked and applauded for what they've done for us. And I hope at the end of their careers, should they continue to work in baseball, they do it for the Sox. And in that case, yes, the ownership, in my mind, should offer every single guy who got a ring a permanent job with the team once they retire. But Curt is kind of old, and kind of declining. I wouldn't want the team to act without fully assessing the situation first. And they're allowed to do that--they do it with everyone. Curt shouldn't have to buy dinner ever again in New England. But he damn well better realize he still has to get himself to the restaurant!

Or something.

My girlfriend makes the point that it's not like there's a huge talent barrel of pitchers to fish from, therefore, locking up Curt for 2008 would might be our best option. I just hope the guy knows when to hang 'em up. He's very close to the "Californication"-era. We don't need to see that.

Just got back from a long weekend far away. Looks like I didn't miss much--same old Sox stuff, and everything's still fine and dandy with Manny. (Note to "average Red Sox fan": that wasn't sarcasm.) Exhibition games start tomorrow. More later.

Johnny Damon has left Yankee camp for secret reasons. Personally, I think he's tending to Manny Ramirez' mom.

My Gedman bio is up here. Check out some of the other bios people have done while you're there. I had nothing to do with the positioning of players on the list, as I came on board to the project after that was decided. We all have our own opinions on this stuff, so I don't need to tell you that my list would've been different--and no, I wouldn't have put Gedman #1. But Greenwell would've been irrationally high on my list. And Piersall behind Gedman? I'd gladly flip-flop those two on the list. I've actually done a bio on Piersall, albeit in high school after reading Fear Strikes Out.

I also would be Romulus and remiss if I didn't mention Andrew from 12-Eight, who tried to come up with a top 100 last year, but the project never made it to the final stage.

It gets sketchy when you say "Top 100." You could do 100 best, 100 most interesting, favorite 100... my girlfriend suggests doing the "worst 100." I'd like to do the "second 100."

So, about Gedman--he wasn't my favorite growing up. I liked Greenwell hitting-wise, and Clemens pitching-wise. And of course Dewey and Jim Ed from way back, as my memories go back to the late 70s. Gedman became a cult hero for Pat and I in the late 80s, when we started noticing Joe Castiglione would always call him just "Gedman." Just a quick, raw, harsh, "Ged-man." Jody Reed would come up and Joe would cheerfully say "Here's Jody-Jody!" "And it's a base hit for Jody-Jody!... Here's Gedman." Like the party stopped when Gedman arrived in the batter's box. Between that and the classic swing and the old baseball cards where he'd be wearing glasses--we couldn't help but develop the cult of Rich.