Drove from Bos to CT tonight. Couldn't get the Met-Yank game on radio, so we called my dad for updates. He gave us the good news. Now, my mom was at some writer's thing that had to do with sports, over in Rhode Island. And my dad informs me that she has called him with the news that she has just been talking to one Jeremy Kapstein at this event. We arrive at my parents' house, and my mom has beat us there, and they're both already asleep. But I look on the counter to see:



Gold! Kapstein autograph! And 10 games up! What a day! I'm sure there's a lot more to this story. I'll post it as soon as my mom types it out for us.

No Red Sox tonight. Doubleheader tomorrow. Yanks play Mets, and, if you look at the New York skyline, you'll be able to root for your favorite team. Yes, it really says that.

I'll get to see this display, as I'm headed to New York for the Ricky Gervais show at MSG Saturday night.

So the 9.5 really happened, after a Yankee loss and an us win. What a catch by Natasha Hinske. After the way he'd been playing right field earlier in the game, I didn't think he had a chance at Brunanskiing that ball. And then he gives us the win with a two-out homer in the seventh. Guy was psyched, too.

TJ by Orsillo--Don, what have we been saying? We're trying to keep Pap out of a game two days in a row. Of course he's not gonna pitch twice in one day! I knew it'd be the Mighty Oak for the save.

I also knew Hansack would be pitching tomorrow. They'd said earlier he couldn't be called up unless Beckett went to the DL. Then, early in tonight's game, they told us Hansack was taken out of his start at Pawtucket tonight. I figured that meant Josh was DL-bound, and now he is. (Thanks, Suzyn Waldman, you asshole!)

9.5 games is our biggest division lead since 1995, when we topped out at around a 16-game lead. In 1912, we finished the season 55 games ahead of the Yanks (then Highlanders). That must've been a fun September.

That Tiger pitcher Chad Durbin has to be nicknamed "Kentucky." For two reasons I can think of.

Jere's star of the series:

Hazel May said, about the upcoming interleague games, that "baseball purists were horrified" when the idea became a reality a decade ago. Of course, she was implying that those people were cra-a-a-a-zy, and now ev-v-v-erybody knows how wonderful interleague play is, and it's just another part of daily life, like the sun coming up or George Bush saying thing that make no sense.

Call me what you will, HazMay, but I still think teams from leagues which play by different rules shouldn't play in the middle of the season. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's ridiculous. It messes everybody up. Suddenly, you're taking a guy out of your lineup so a pitcher can be an automatic out in your lineup. When this started, the AL should've said to the NL, "Yeah, we'll do that...if you wanna play by our rules."

But we all know interleague play isn't done because the fans love it so (I'm convinced MLB's market research people are asking fans "Do you think interleague play is totally rad or intensely extreme?" and then going back to HQ: "Looks like everybody loves it, boss..."), or to spice things up, or to let the Mariners play their "natural rivals," the, uh, what's that other team in the Pacific Northwest? No, this has always been done for one reason. I'd spell it out for you, but I don't know how to spell "$." I think it's just spelled "$."

Where does this money come from? Okay, there's a little extra revenue from people going to interleague games in general--it is something a little different. Like how I don't necessarily want to root for Barry Bonds, yet I made sure to get tickets for when the Giants come to Fenway. But where they're really trying to cash in with this idea is New York.

Yankees-Mets is the reason this exists. I hate that they make the rest of the teams go through this charade, when it's all done for New York. And that brings me to my next point: Once again, the Yankees are in an early-season slump. And once again, who comes knockin' on their door? The Mets. The one team that the Yanks always know they can beat. The team that's so deathly afraid of the Yanks, it will almost inevitably turn to schoolchildren at the sight of pinstripes. The team whose own network stays neutral, as not to alienate the fans of their crosstown rival. The team who has such a complex about being New York's "other" team, they don't know if they should imitate the Yanks' every move, or run screaming in the other direction. Mets fans, it's not your fault. I hope and pray every day your team takes over that city once and for all, but they never seem to come close.

And even if the Yanks go back to their losing ways, they need not worry, there'll always be that second Mets series to pump them up again.

Meanwhile, we're stuck playing the Braves, often twice, while the Yanks always get to face the team they own twice. There are a few other areas with two teams, that get a chance to get all amped up for a series, but most of us are stuck playing "just another game."

So, Mets, for the millionth consecutive season, it seems, I ask you, please, bring your A-effin'-game. Do not let any of the following people near the park this weekend: Bobby Valentine. Billy Wagner. Timo Perez. And take a look at the newspapers before the series starts, eh? Don't assume certain guys just "always" beat you. While you're cowering at the sight of Bobby Abreu, we're all sitting at home going, "He's hitting .236, blow it by him!"

So it'll be the same old thing: Sterling will say, "Suzyn, you can't say this series is a must-win, I mean, there's a lotta season left. But this is as close as it gets." Usually when he says that crap, the Yanks will win by some ridiculous error or catcher's interference or a bloop hit or a single to where the fielder was until he went to cover the bag, and they stay alive just enough to stay in the race. This time, how about the Mets just sweep 'em? And we go up by double digits? We're gonna do our part. Mets, do yours. We'll see you in October.

Tavarez to the Mighty Oak to Pap. Perfect. Red Sox win. (So much for whatever panicking message board people saying Pap must be injured...)

In Chicago today, Matt DeSalvo came through, giving the Yanks three and a third innings. What is Torre doing? Tell the kid he's going eight today, rest the pen, man. Oh well, I'm not complaining. 4-0 ChiSox after four.

Rained out. Tonight's game will be played tomorrow at 12:35 PM. If anyone has a ticket they can't use for this game, can you, like, give it to me? Thanks.

Unrelated update: The Yanks' schedule now has little plane logos you can click on to "book travel." Weird. I wonder why they have one for every game, considering they all link to the same page. You still have to type in where you're going, etc. Continental's a huge sponsor for them. I'm sure that's why. I'm guessin' this little perk doesn't get George a championship this season....

[Update, 1:00 AM: Yanks win game two, so we're 8 up on them again. Could be anywhere from 6.5 to 9.5 tomorrow at this time. I vote for 9.5. Pretty cool site here.]

Yanks lose game one. Since they only have three guys hitting, Torre put them 2-3-4. With Posada being the cleanup man. Come on, Torre. Give it a rest. Didn't work out for 'em today.

So now if we get either a Sox win or a Yankee loss tonight, we gain on them overall on the day. We might not play, though, with these repeated storms passing through. Was awesome today--like midnight at 3 PM with the darkness and whatnot. I'm still hoping for baseball tonight, though.

Did you know that John Wilkes Booth was killed by a dude named "Boston" Corbett, who earlier had castrated himself, grew his hair long to emulate Jesus, and once said, "It's wicked to play baseball on the lord's day. Don't do it."?

I've been studying up on the Lincoln assassination. I also didn't know about the four people who were hanged, all having been found guilty of assisting in the assassination. One was Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed by the U.S. government. Her boarding house was used by Booth and others (including her son) in the planning of what was originally supposed to be a kidnapping attempt.

I'll let you do your own research if you want to know more. But, it was kind of funny how after reading all this serious stuff, including details of Surratt's execution, the last line of the her wikipedia page said

Mary Surratt's boarding house is still standing in the Chinatown area of Washington D.C.; it is now a Chinese restaurant called Wok and Roll.

What song is John Houseman doing when he sings:

The location at which an unspecified object or neutral-gendered being is situated. Yours truly is currently in possession of a pair of phonograph players in addition to an electronic, hand-held voice-amplication device.

C4B, ie Click for Big.
Thursday, I thought, Hey, We're going to CT on Sunday anyway, why not go Saturday night and see a Pawtucket game on the way? Turns out they were at home, and tickets (which you can choose the exact location of) were available--and only cost 10 bucks for the sweetest seats. So my girlfriend and I took our first ever trip to McCoy Stadium.

McCoy is a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I've been to some tiny minor-league parks, and I thought this would be the same.

Was a nice day in the rare state of Rhode Island.

Almost right after I bought the tickets, we heard Hansack was sent down. After that, we heard he was starting for the PawSox Saturday night. Our night. Sweet.

The park features huge pics of past PawSox. Here's Al Nipper, carefully placed below a vent.

Here's quizmaster Reid Nichols, one of the many stars of that Red Sox puzzle featuring the '83 Topps cards. Why was that the only year they made a puzzle of Red Sox cards. Note Reidy-Deidy's uniform. I once saw one of these on ebay. The seller claimed it was "game-used," to which I thought, There's no way they would actually wear those mesh shirts as actual uniforms. Apparently they did.



Some of the huge pictures are actually artists' renderings. Some players came out more, uh, "real-looking" than others. For example, Mo Vaughn looks like a cartoon. Above, some dude admires a very sad-looking Rich Gedman. What's that in his hands, a dying dove? (I also got a shot of my girlfriend in front of the Morgan Burkhart picture, as she's apparently his biggest fan.)

Many players, like Valentin, above, had their own, uh, parking lot light post banners.

'sack delivers to a Hen of Mud.

Some PawSox at the plate. Ellsbury above.

Murphy.

Bailey.

We were just to the right of the screen, in the second row.

The Toledo on deck area was right below us.

Devern delivers.

Devern devours. Gatorade.

Brandon Moss.

First baseman going for a popup and missing.

Devern destroys. Bats.

The MudHens' hurler.

Hansack's shadow taller than his soul. He pitches well for a few innings, then did a little bed-shitting. If I had to make an excuse, it was the incredible sun shining right in his face while he was in the stretch.

More long shadows. We were getting an awesome sunset. At this point, I really focused on capturing it.

The sun never sets on Hansack Nation. Until a few minutes after this photo was taken.

I totally fell in love with the sight of the shadowy people right in front of the Earth's yellow sun.

Craig Hansen also pitched (above, in a shot that shows us why baseball is the best game), as did Bryan Corey and Mike Burns. Oh, and Timo Perez was the MudHens' DH...

The sun sets behind the right field foul pole.

More sun-creatures.

Okay, on the terrible job front, get this: After six innings, we all were told to stand for a singing of "God Bless America." Okay, whatever, at least they're not putting it into the seventh inning stretch like some teams I know. But then I thought, that's weird, having us stand after two consecutive half-innings. So the top of the seventh ends, and they play some ad or something. After it, they do play "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," but nobody says anything about stretching, and nobody stands up! Above is a picture I took during the song, with only a select few people even standing, let alone stretching. This is a travesty. TJ, Pawtucket. I hope this isn't a trend. (But is it worse than having "Coca-Cola presets the 7th Inning Stretch"? Like the grub at the various Chicagoland correctional facilities, "they're all pretty bad."

One final shot of the Pawtucket sunset. The almost Red Sox lost, 3-2. For more PawSox fun, visit Baseball Heavy.

When you have a porch, a good system is to sit out there for some of the game, and watch the rest inside. That way you get some Castig action, and some Rem/DO action, and you get all the fun of the classic "sitting outside on a summer night."

Too bad about tonight. I guess Zoolander was too much for us. About Glenn Geffner, though--people don't seem to like his announcing, and I'd defended him up until now. But there are certain calls he makes in which it's almost like he thinks we can see the play. We can't. Tonight there was a home run to the bullpen. Geffner's telling us "Drew can't get it..." At this point, he's being so casual as to imply he already knows what the result will be (plus, enough time has passed so that the ball has to have either hit or gone over the wall), yet he isn't telling us what happened. Then, almost as an afterthought, he says, "And it's gone, a home run." As if we already knew and he's just making it official. But we didn't know. We were still holding out hope for just a double at that point.

Still, he reminds me of the announcer from The Natural, and that always reminds me how much I want to see that film again. Plus, it's still May. He should improve as the season goes on.

Yanks rained out tonight, so they play at 2 and 8 tomorrow, and we've got an 8-game lead. I always feel like a doubleheader makes it a better possibility they lose one, because it's harder to win two games in one day than two in two. So I think we have that goin' for us.

My pictures from Saturday night in Pawtucket are all ready to go. I'll post them around Twilight Zone time tonight. (SciFi Channel shows back-to-back zones every weeknight at 1 AM.) Speaking of that, I just found out something awesome. The star of one of my favorite episodes, The Midnight Sun, is played by Lois Nettleton, who would later play the mother of Costanza's girlfriend, the time he got caught eating the eclair out of the garbage...

[Update: On the Devil Rays' game-winning hit tonight (at DisneyWorld?!), check out the dude flipping the double-bird behind the plate, right as the pitch is thrown. He's right above the pitcher's head. I saw it on ESPN, but you can see it at the Rays' site. It's right at the very beginning of the clip.]

For all the Yankee fans who think their offense is better than ours, click here. (Feel free to click on the different category heads to see us ahead of you in almost every one.)

For the ones who think their pitching is better than ours, well, you're just out of your mind.

It's official: "Fashion" Red Sox fans think the old White Sox logo that just says "SOX" with a line above and below it is a Red Sox logo.

In the eighties, when the ChiSox were wearing this logo on their shirts and hats, we all had an aunt who bought us a White Sox hat, assuming "SOX" meant Red Sox. And by "we all," I mean "Pat." But I'm sure this happened to a lot of Red Sox fans.

Lately, I've been noticing people wearing a tilted, stylish, oddly-colored hat with a B on it, along with that ridiculous White Sox jersey with "SOX" on it, often in crazy colors as well. Maybe they know. I think they don't.

Terrible job.

My girlfriend and I got to see Dice's sweet complete game victory tonight. Here are some photographs from the evening, copyright Me, which should be clicked for the purposes of studying in a larger format. It was a beautiful day that had an ulterior motive: to remind us that it's still May in New England when darkness fell.



Wily Mo and Oka-"Jeemer" play a form of batless pepper.

The Mighty Oak.

Manny in the middle.

McCarty and Mirabelli.

Inge and an Inge fan.

Shef was booed when announced.

Hey Leyland, you don't give a shit about Dice, eh? Do you give a shit about the fact that he kicked the shit out of your team?

A dude in the Monster seats dropped his sunglasses 37 feet.

A Tiger coach was hiting balls off the Monster for carom practice. He hit one ball right into that Carlton Fisk '75 camera hole, on the fly. It was amazing. Then this dude, who got an unexpected surprise, popped out.

Tiger dudes. The girl in the orange hat? Sam! I'd spotted her earlier, so I went back here and got some shots of her doing what she does best: taking pics of Tigers. A moment later, she turned around to find me. Turns out, she was with Iain (also in above pic, left of Sam), Beth (also in pic, right of Sam), and Amy. I'd met Samara before, but it was good to finally meet these other bloggers, albeit briefly. Although I didn't even realize who exactly I was talking to at the time, except for Iain. In fact, I'm not quite sure if Amy is the same one from Red Sox Bat Girl or what. Maybe someone can fill me in on that.

To completely change the subject, here's a close-up of the right wall of the visitors' dugout.

I took a lot of Dice-K shots...





From the area of the 10-game plan seats, on the far edge of the bleachers, looking out toward center.

Like I said, I'm at the edge of the bleachers, so I can look down into the Big Concourse. Here's a juggling dude.

Dice warming up.

And again.

Dice pitching in the ninth.

Tavarez rushes out to celebrate the win. 8.5 games up on the Yanks.