Went to the Celts game last night. Pictures to follow. In the meantime, check out this clip I shot of Terry Francona, who watched the game from the front row.



I suggest clicking on the little button below the video that makes the screen smaller. It's a shame with all this crazy technology, this video, which is crystal clear on my screen in the QuickTime player, is so blurry on stupid GooTube. I mean, the ending is so classic--dude in Sox hat points right at camera. But on here, you can't even tell it's a Sox hat.

On what date was this photograph of Jim Rice taken? (for expert detectives: Jere's time--approx. 5 minutes)

I always hated it when someone would do that wacky little technique where, instead of just saying a very famous person's name, they say, "some guy named (famous person)." I mean, I get it, but it's just a pet peeve of mine. Just say the name. It's like "internets." Fine. Funny. The first few times. And don't get me wrong, I love repeat-style comedy. But some things only work for so long. When I saw Henry Rollins speak a few weeks ago, I don't know what disappointed me more, Henry saying "internets" three separate times, or the guy next to me cracking up every time. Even on the first time, I wanted to say to the guy, Surely you've heard that one a million times, right?

In other pet peeve news, sports reporters continue to refer to the mound as "the bump," each time acting like they invented the term and are unleashing upon the living rooms of America. Oh, that's another one I never liked: "right into your living room." Growing up, we never had a TV in the living room. It was in the family room. But, hey, I was using "izzle" a liiiittle too long, so I guess we each do things in our own way. Ooh! That's another one I hate. And this one I've only heard on TV--"oh, that's just his way." Huh?

But back to "some guy." I usually associate it with the Splendid Splinter: "The only other player to rack up something-something hits in a single-season? Some guy named Ted Williams." Call the fire department, you're on fire! ("Hot"--I've already talked about that one.) So I web-searched the phrase. Three Google pages worth of "some guy named Ted Williams." Then I tried Michael Jordan: Eight pages. Now I'll try Tiger Woods.... Five pages.

Hmmm, I wonder who the champion of "some guy named" is. Let's try Babe Ruth. Wow, only three pages. Gretzky, three. Jordan seems to be the early front-runner. If anyone comes across someone with more than eight pages, let me know. (I'm talking athletes only.) (I also wonder who the top "some girl" is....)

9/24/07, anonymous (love that nonny!) said:

[...] dirtbag looking Red Sox [...] The Sox will never be the "world team" as the Yankees are. The interlocking NY is know worldwide! Being a parent, it gets me sick when I look at what the Red Sox players look like. The Yankees have been, are still, and always will be the most professional looking team in the world! How they ever got the title of the "evil empire" I have no idea.[...] We will see what the post season brings. I have been saying since July that I think the Yankees are going all the way! The are the hottest team in MLB since the ALL-Star break. We will se who can "bring it home"!

Labels: RRPCBYFs

With the Rangers' schedule now fully released, we've pretty much got the entire 2008 Red Sox schedule down. The only stragglers now are Oakland, the Yanks (but the Globe article told us these dates), and the road Blue Jays games. (And, of course, the Red Sox, whose delaying made this project necessary.) So we know when we're playing who, for the whole season, with a couple of offdays still uncertain.) Theo says the players will make the call on that Japan series. And they don't want to do it, so maybe the plan will be scrapped. We'll see.

Note: Some of you may have noticed on one of my previous schedule posts that someone commented with a link to a full schedule that they made. I thought, That kind of kills the fun. The last thing I was gonna do was say, Okay, project over, somebody else also unofficially made one! But still, I was kind enough to post his comment, so people could go see his version if they wanted to. Then I found the blog post he wrote about it. It was from Tuesday, and it was bragging about how "here's the FIRST place you can see the COMPLETE schedule!" No mention of me having shown my readers my step by step process of adding to it each day, and having had it just about complete. Terrible job. And it's not like he just happened to be doing it himself--he clearly saw mine, then made up the sked, was able to get the whole thing down, and posted it, acting like he was the man. As evident by the fact that he commented here. So, I've deleted his comment. I should've known at the time--his comment wasn't "Hey, great idea! I've taken it and run with it, and here's what I've come up with!" or "I do this stuff, too, wanna be nerd friends?" Instead it was just "here's the complete schedule." He may as well have added, ", asshole." to it. Again, TJ.

Speaking of giving credit: Why is it that when somebody online "finds" a YouTube video, they get credit from everyone else who links to it? The credit hierarchy should go: 1. Person who made video. 2. Person who posted it to the internet. 3. Person who came across it. Instead, some people out there are basically going to YouTube, searching "red sox," finding videos, posting them to their shitty sites, and then everyone else who sees it links it and says "Hat-tip to Screwy McDougal (or whoever)," referring to the person that first posted it. Nobody gives the credit to the initial video uploader, let alone the people in the video. So, credit the "finder" if you must (and, wow, they did do SO much work sitting there doing a search), but think about mainly giving credit to the person who posted the video. Or, think about doing video searches yourself. It's quite simple. This way, we don't give credit to people who come out of nowhere, paid by some newspaper, who don't know shit about shit. They're getting paid anyway, they don't need yet another link.... (Also, think about linking bloggers who actually go to events and tape them, as opposed to those who sit on their asses. Note: I'm not against linking videos in general, and I don't expect people to only show a video they made themselves, that would be ridiculous. I'm just saying, give credit where it's due.)

Johnny Damon, on the '07 Red Sox:

"They were a great team all year," Damon said. "I think we were the only team that really played them tough."

Aw, the poor Yankees didn't get to play the Red Sox in the playoffs.... And they definitely would've beat us, too.... Life isn't fair, the way it sends little bugs out to harm you--and, incredibly, not the team you're playing at the time. Boo hoo.

Remember how we laughed at how Damon's average dropped 31 points in his first year with the Yanks? In his second year, he topped it, dropping 46 points below his '05 mark. The best part, of course, was how Yankee fans were still "taunting" (?) us with "tell Theo thanks for Johnny!" Oh, and the classic "players still come from Boston to New York to try to get a championship." So let's put this next part in boldface:

Johnny Damon won the World Series in a Red Sox uniform. He then went to the Yankees, and the Red Sox, not the Yankees, won the World Series again.

I think I might go back and compile some of the best quotes from Yankee fans from the past few years.

But you can't top the Yankee players themselves. That whole bug thing: I don't know what's funnier, the fact that the Yankees thought the bugs were put there on purpose* and/or that the league was out to get them by not stopping the game OR the fact that they can't get it through their thick heads that both teams had to deal with the bugs. No, I do know. It's the second one.


*This is from Baseball Prospectus via Joy of Sox, and they don't say where the quote came from, so blame them if it's not true, but: ""If someone came out twenty years from now and said they released those bugs on purpose, I'd believe it." --Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter

Dude writes column telling Red Sox fans to "admit it, we feel bad for the Yankees."

AND IT GETS PUBLISHED.

There seems to be a little bit of tongue-in-cheek-ness to the whole thing, I guess. I mean, he is coming out and pointing out the flaws in the Yankees. You can read them and laugh. But it really seems like the guy is honestly expecting us to say, Hmmmm, you're right, I do feel kinda sorry for them.

Unbelievable.

I'm starting to think there's a huge faction of baseball fans who started watching around the year 2000. In their little world, the Red Sox are the team who's won the most--we HATE them. The Yankees always seem to lose in the end--we feel SORRY for them. Unfortunately, these are the people who have all the media jobs where they can tell other equally stupid people how to think. Oh well, screw 'em all. Anybody with any sense at all knows the truth.

Kim and I, over the past few nights, have been watching both Decline of Western Civilization films. There's one scene in part two in which Gene Simmons says, "people tell you it's lonely at the top...they're full of it." Earlier today, I read a quote from an author who knows a lot about candy but doesn't know shit about baseball. He said, "Red Sox fans are finding out what Yankee fans already know--it's lonely at the top."

Gene Simmons was right. My team just won the World Series--and it's AWESOME. I've got a zillion friends up here at the top of the mountain, and we're dancing like fools and spitting on the Yankee fans who litter the valley. With gigantic grins on our faces. All this bullcrap talk about us being like the Yankees is just another way to insinuate that Red Sox fans wanted to lose all along. No, we wanted to win. We have. We're happy.

Let's just say, for argument's sake, that it was somehow made "official" that it is indeed "lonely at the top," and that every team's fans know that going in. Do you think we would've said, "well, let's not root TOO hard for the Red Sox. We wouldn't want them to win and make us all LONELY...."? Eff that! Like every single fan of every single team, we root for our team to win. What is going on here? Why is the last hundred years of history erased? To call the Red Sox the "new Yankees" in 2007 would be like calling black people the "new white people" a few years after slavery was abolished. "Yeah, I felt bad for you guys while you were oppressed, but ever since you were all freed, come on, you're just like any other race." No! Wrong! I don't expect people to stop liking their team and start liking mine. But I would think they would at least realize A. what Red Sox fans went through for decades and B. that the Yankees are the only Yankees and always will be, at least until they have a slump that lasts a minimum of 86 years.

But I'm really just getting worked up about the media. I have to stop paying attention to them.....

Kevin Youkilis wins a Gold Glove. Boomer Scott was the only other Red Sox first baseman to win it. Carlos Quintana never won one? Come on.

So, I always thought Youk kind of looked like a friend of mine who goes by the nickname "Gold." Gold.

And more pieces of our puzzle are filled in. So plan your trips to the beautiful city of Baltimore now, Sox fans. (O's fans--you're already there! All you have to do is buy tickets to the game! You're so close on this one....come on, you can do it!)

The order of our series against the O's goes: Away, away, home, home, away, home. Weird. There's one weekend series down there, end of May. Also, a two-game mid-week April series, and a weekday August series.

At left, our almost-completed 2008 Red Sox schedule. The release of the Oakland schedule will prove key to this project. (Or, if the Red Sox would just go ahead and release theirs.)

So I made a DVD that contains the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox Rolling Rallies, which were taped by me. A donation of 12 bucks gets you both rallies. I made up a little store for this. Click here to go there and buy the DVD and get all the details. Thanks.

Wow, late night news. I love it. Schilling is reportedly "close" to that one-year deal with the Red Sox he wanted. Sweet. He's even blogged about it already.

Update: It's official. Schill back. Here's his new blog post.

Rich was at the Rolling Rally--his second--as we know. This dude, who apparently is the vice president of Red Sox Nation, interviewed him afterward. The article is more about a specific game, and only includes a few Geddy quotes, but it's a fun read. I have to point out, though, that the guy looks up a past boxscore and finds it on Baseball Reference, "thanks to Google." So, you're telling me the VP of RSN was not aware of BR? Or retrosheet--which is where BR gets their boxscores? Maybe I should've run for prez....

In Kwiz Newz, Kwiz Season is on, and I was happy so many people took a shot at the first question. Thanks, everybody.

This day in RSF/PT history: 11/5/05, I write what I think is a pretty funny post--but no one comments. Also that day, quiz season started. As it will today. Here we go. I'll start you off with an easy one. Remember, answers go in the comments section. Since comment moderation is still on, you may answer and get it right, only to find out later someone had already gotten in ahead of you--the first one to answer gets the credit. But, please, one answer at a time. Once you've answered, don't answer again until someone else's answer has been posted. Okay, the question is:

I played on the Red Sox in 2005. If you take each of my names and replace it with a word that directly relates in some way to that name, you'd get "Shakespeare is the pride of England." Minus the "is," "the" and "of," of course. Who the eff am I? (And bonus points will be awarded for figuring out the connections.)

More on the '07-'08 Kwiz season: Kwizzes will be spelled with a K and will be named after a Sox player who wore the number corresponding to the quiz. (This one: Bernie Carbo=1.) There will be 27 quizzes, in honor of the championship season of 2007. 2 and 007. 27. This will also be to mock the Yanks in their never-ending quest for that 27th championship. The kwizzes will always be here, but the results will be posted on the Kwiz page, linked at right. We'll talk prizes later.

Other stuff happening soon: Your chance to own a piece of history, as I'll be selling some cheap stuff to you that I made. Also, the RSF/PT glossary, which I finished a while ago, but have been just letting sit.

Squash is dead. Not the sport. Not the vegetable. The dude. If you lived or worked in Ridgefield, Connecticut between the beginning of time and today, you know that "Ridgefield News Store" is really "Squash's."

It was such a staple of the town, I just assumed, as a little kid, that every town's newsstand-type shop was called "Squash's." After middle school, me, Pat, Mike Lep, and Suff would sometimes head over there to buy Panini baseball stickers, and then go trespass in some building and sit and put them in our albums. Man, I was the king of "nerdy trespassing." Me and my friends would sneak into places, only to do completely innocent things, like play board games and stuff. In fact, I recommend this to you young people. You get the thrill of breaking and entering, but when you get caught, the people see you're not really doing anything wrong, and let you off easy.

What's the lesson here? Squash is dead, dude! I'm proud to say I represented his store in two different seasons of youth baseball. Once in Little League, "triple-A." That was the year I got my black eye. And once in Pony League--when me, the aforementioned Mike Lep, and Fran Trejo were told we were gonna have to "tow the load," as the rest of the team kinda stunk. Our coach that season is actually quoted in the above obituary. It makes sense that dude would talk about scoring chicks in an obit.

While looking at the other Ridgefield obituaries, I saw one person who graduated RHS a year after I did. William Perron--died in a car crash. I remember the name, but can't come up with any memories of him. I found a pic of him online, and he was wearing a Sox hat and a Bad Religion T-shirt. Nice job, guy. Hopefully Squash has opened up a new place in whatever dimension you're both in, so you can get Panini stickers or whatever.

Thinking of these dead people makes the "extra hour" we just got seem a little unfair, doesn't it? Ah well, they'll get the last laugh when we lose the hour next spring. But we'll get it back again. But then we'll lose it again. And so on, and so on, until we're all dead. Except for me. I plan to live forever. Could happen. My girlfriend says "you wouldn't want to be alive after a certain point." Eff that, I'm Papa Smurfin' it--when you die, you're done forever, so I say keep rollin' 'til the wheels fall off. And then get prosthetic wheels. Re-sign Lowell!

Okay, I found a Globe article from October 16th which solves some 2008 schedule mysteries.

1. We avoid the Braves. So our natural rival games are split between Philly and... Arizona! Whatever. I was right about the central teams we play, and all those dates are set on the schedule.

2. It would be a series in Oakland to start the year. If we play them in Japan, that series will be two games in Japan, two in Oakland on the first week of April.

3. All the Yankee dates now set.

So, at left, I've almost got the whole thing down. Red with black lettering are home games. White with purplish text and the @ symbol are, duh, road games. White with red lettering means I know the team, but not sure of home or away, or not sure which is the off-day. And some of those have more than one team as a possibility. But this gives you a good idea of the sked.

Seth Myers on Weekend Update tonight: "A-Rod opted out of his contract...he's the perfect fit for a team with money to spend who doesn't like winning." The best part was how he was grinning ear to ear during and after the joke, knowing that everyone knows he's a Sox fan.