Done and done. It wasn't looking good for the Jerinator on this January morning. Last night, I discovered something slightly off with the ticketing page. This morning, I devised a plan, but worried that maybe by doing that, I was only throwing myself off the trail, while the people who go in clueless end up with all the tix.

At 10:02, my ticket buddy who you know as savethejellyfish announces he has already cleaned up, having gotten through five seconds in.

By 10:30 (an eternity later in VWR time), he's told me that the thing I'd discovered was indeed the key to getting in right away, only I hadn't taken it to the next level. (I'll spare you the details of what it was--he mentions it in the comments of my previous post.)

By 10:40, I'm burnin' up, burnin' up for your lo-uhve, kicking myself for having recognized something, but not having seen it through, and therefore still ticketless, wondering if I'd have been in by then had I just gone in blind.

Around 10:45, though, a window pops up. I am in. This is always the classic Costanza "tippy toe" moment. You've got everything written out. Reams of paper with detailed instructions, charts and graphs that "last night you" has created. Oh, the naivete of some dude who's sitting there calmly the night before, with no clocks ticking, no heart pounding....

So I got my four Cardinals tickets. But I scrapped my plan of waiting til "later" (come on) to get the game my parents will go to with us (using my mom's card), and just nabbed them right there with my remaining four allotted tickets.

Surprisingly, though, another window did pop within minutes of me getting the first eight tickets. So I got two more foursomes on my mom's card, she now unsuspectingly being charged for two games she won't attend. Fear not, she will be paid back in full.

When that was done, much like the guy from King Missile in his cheesecake truck, I had to get more tickets. So it was on to my girlfriend's card. We got another Friday night summer game for the two of us. The beauty of having the 10-game plan is you can sell those pre-selected games to other people (to friends, for face value!), and buy new and better games for yourself with that money. And if you get upper bleachers, you can turn a 10-game pre-selected plan into a 20-game personalized pack. If you wanted to. And if you have enough people with credit cards willing to give up the digits. (But then you just end up going to most of the games yourself anyway....)

So, basically, I got a lot of 12 dollar seats together for the games I wanted. Cards, Brewers, three other summer weekends. And I can take three people to these. So, again, I say, it's not impossible to go to Fenway Park, and it's rather cheap. Don't be fooled. It just takes a little planning and a little time--and a little luck does help. If you were shut out this morning, just know I feel your pain.

I should point out by the way that all these tickets were very delicious.

I've fully planned. I've thought of all the previous issues and prepared myself for them should they come up tomorrow morning. But I feel like I've overplanned. Like, maybe last year was the height of perfection, and maybe they'll change the system or my computer will break or something this time.

Kind of like how every Christmas, I have all this fun with Chan and Gumby, when Gumby comes back for his yearly trip. And every year, I try to plan everything out to ensure the magic of the previous year is recaptured. Yet this last time, everything got screwed up, and there wasn't much magic.

I need to go to bed. I'm clearly thinking too much. The milk and cookies are out, the war room will remain quiet. All that's left to do is wait. And sleep. See ya on the other side, Ray.

Oh wait, before I go, there's something I've been meaning to write about, and I was just reminded of it yet again by a TV commercial. Has anyone else noticed that we are in a renaissance for bad commercial music? Historically bad. Those Old Navy ones from holiday time where it sounded like the woman was being tortured. While singing in what sounded like German. The "just another ordinary miracle" one. Oh my lord. Make it stop. And there are too many of 'em to mention. But it seems like every commercial break, I'm puking. Okay, I'll flip around right now to find some. Got one. "You're the only rea-zahn" for AT&T. Horrid. And I'll admit there are some that aren't too bad. Just came across two--the one Geico one with the dudes singing that train song in the background, and that Hey-la Hey-la one by New Pornographers, but even that I'm getting sick of by now. But in general, I feel like there are more bad ones playing at one time than ever before. TMBG are almost incapable of making a really bad song, and their latest in the Dunkin' Donuts series, for which they've done at least six, is Freezing at Pee-Wee Hockey, which is better than a lot of these other crappy tunes. So we've got that, too, but still. Ooh, Splash is on! Crap, I really need to get to sleep. I have this on DVD! But it's the classic "Charlie Brown Christmas Special Syndrome"--it doesn't feel right watching it unless it's airing on TV. Okay, I gotta go watch Splash. Hey, there's that cop who also plays the cop in Ghostbusters. Commercials now. Let's keep it right here. "Code Orange." Only mildly bad tune. Bisquik Shake and Pour. No reaction. I guess these aren't too bad. But there are a lot of really bad ones. That's the point. Hey, how long til they put commercials in the virtual waiting room? Oh--here's one, the Listerine Whitening Strips. Ba da da da da dah. Terrible job, jingle singers/writers.

Some of us guys have no interest in fake-boobed, fake-blonde, anorexic, club-going, overdosing supermodels.

Some of us guys wouldn't want to play for the Patriots, because we don't like the Patriots.

And some of us guys would never wear a Yankee hat.

For those reasons, despite what the media might tell you about "every guy," I am in no way jealous of Tom Brady.

A great article by L-girl about war resisters seeking asylum in the home of Christine,* Canada, here.


*you know her better as "Moose"

People who have been following this blog for years know this, but if you're new to this site, I just wanted to make sure you understand something very, very important. I haven't even looked at the dirtdogs site in a good two years. And before that it was "go to it occasionally just to know what to make fun of it for," and before that it was "go every day but fume over the lies, racism, and hatred of some of my favorite Sox players, and then write about that at my own blog." And at that point, we're talking three to four years back.

So, yeah, it's important to me that you know where I'm coming from. As each fan discovers the internet version of the Red Sox, they probably see that site first, and think it's law, only to slowly come to their senses. It happened to the best of us. If any of you happen to be at that initial stage, I hope you'll do some searching, and realize there are plenty of ways to follow the Sox online without even needing those big, colorful, misleading headlines that the guy just pulls from the Globe anyway. Or does he still do headlines? I wouldn't know. The guy used to have an "inside source" or whatever, but that ended with the A-Rod trade, December '03. And that fell through anyway.

I was sure that site was done a long time ago, but a new, snotty TV ad for the Globe shows its logo prominently. It seems it'll just always be there, like the Republican Party. It's a shame.

Red Sox fans are taunted by Yankee fans for "only" having seven championships compared to their 26. And the '07 numbers are out, and we see that the Red Sox' payroll is 71% of those Yanks, who play in our division. So how are we not an underdog?

You know how many different teams' entire payrolls could fit in the space between the Yankees' and the Red Sox'? 14 of 30. [Correction: it's 6 teams. I effed up. The point remains, and the above percentage is still correct.]

You know how many different teams' entire payrolls could fit between the Red Sox' and the Dodgers', who have the next-highest payroll? ZERO.

Yes, 12 teams can say the Red Sox' payroll is at least twice as high as theirs. But 24 can say it about the Yanks.

Why do I get the feeling if the Seattle Mariners win the World Series next year, nobody's gonna claim that it's unfair or that the Mariners are "the new Yankees"? Yet their payroll is the sixth-highest, at $114 million. The closest division opponent to them in terms of dough has a payroll 68% of the Seattle's. An even bigger advantage than the Yanks have over the Sox.

The Orioles' payroll is three times as high as the Devil Rays'. The Angels spent $20 million more than the Braves, who spent $20 million more than the Brewers, who spent $20 million more than the Pirates. Surely it ends there, right? Nope--the Pirates spent $20 million more than somebody, too.

The point is, it's horrible how baseball allows this, I know how much money the Red Sox have (despite having the smallest park), and I'd sign up for the league to be totally equal right now, especially knowing what a great job we've done with our farm system. But the team that started all this crap is the New York Yankees. They've got way more championships than your team, and way more money. And their spending left other teams with no choice but to spend as well if they want to win--and stay competitive beyond that one season. But it's not your fault if you were brainwashed into "hating" the Red Sox--that's what the Yankee fans in the media will do to you. These are the same people who, when the Yanks were actually winning a decade ago, told you "it's impossible to hate these Yankees." (Secret: It absolutely wasn't!) If yawnfests like the '98 Yankees (again, with all the championships and all the money) can be considered likable, why can't a fun-lovin' bunch, whose fans had to suffer for eight decades, and who is the opposite of those Yanks, be? I wouldn't expect anyone to switch loyalties, ever, but to just start hating a team because--well, from all I can tell, because the newspapers started telling you you already do, I don't get that.

The Chicago Cubs spent 115 million dollars last year. If they win the World Series, I totally wouldn't hate them. I wouldn't say, Oh no, now we have to "deal" with Cubs fans. I'd be like, That's awesome, the Cubs won after a hundred years, a time in which the Yankees won 26 times. And I don't know anyone who wouldn't feel the same way, except White Sox and Cardinals fans.

Sorry, I saw those numbers and I had to continue this never-ending, multi-part rant. But at least I didn't mention football.

And yes, I know the Dice-K posting fee doesn't count in the payroll. If George had spent that, we'd hear, "he always does what it takes, spends the money, and that's a totally classy move by that total non-convicted felon."

Do you think of states as being certain colors? I'm sure it has to do with the color they were on whatever map or puzzle you had when you were little. To me, Connecticut is light blue. California and Mass are pink. Florida is always yellow. New York is that orangey color. Minnesota is yellow, too. Does this make any sense to anyone? Idaho is green, I think. Oh and Montana is also yellow. Wyoming's pink. Anyway...

Joy of Sox is in the finals for Best Canadian Sports Blog of '07. Vote for him here.

We Move to Canada is up for Best Canadian Progressive blog. Vote for her here.

Vote through January 30th. They say one per day, but in round one, it seemed like if I voted and then waited a day or two and voted again, the second vote counted, too. So just go whenever you think of it and vote, please. Thank you.

I'd like to go to a general assembly meeting in Philly and yell "Dewey" at the this guy.

From bloggers to [people who are for some reason paid to write about "sports"], everybody's saying exactly what I feared the most about a Boston-New York (actually Foxboro-East Rutherford) big non-baseball match-up:

That I as a Red Sox fan am somehow affected by it.

any hint or semblance that Tom Brady is remotely injured is enough to have any Bostonian reaching for the Valium.

100% incorrect. Some Bostonians don't like football. Some don't like sports. Some like football teams other than the Pats. And some people--even New Yorkers--are rooting for the Patriots, as they hate the Giants (though the Valium idea is a little strong.) Because people "from New York" don't like "every New York team."

But there is a simple way for New York to return the favor, perhaps return to the old days and certainly have something just as vicious and painful to hangover every Bostonian's head as that historic baseball comeback in the fall of 2004. The Giants just have to ruin the Patriots' perfect season in the Super Bowl on Feb. 3.

Let me get this straight. If a certain result happens in some stupid football game, Red Sox fans will walk into Yankee Stadium in 2008, as fans of the World Champions, hanging our heads?

Some people are just ridiculous. And should be fired immediately. The guy also says "New York is everyone's rival in virtually every way (sporting or not)." Shut up and die. Why is lying considered journalism? This whole thing is just so stupid. I'd boycott this Super Bowl but I'd look awfully silly at the party I'm going to, facing the corner with earplugs.

Boston is cool. New York is cool. It has nothing to do with sports. And baseball and its rivalries have nothing to do with football or basketball. Red Sox baseball has never been about Boston to me anyway. It's about your grandpa's cottage at the beach on the Connecticut shore with the game on channel 38. It's about a radio coming from a little ice cream shop on a boardwalk of a Maine beach town. It's about Ken Coleman's voice accompanying you on a drive to the Cape, or to upstate New York. It's about rooting for the Red Sox surrounded by Yankee fans who don't know left from right, in Fairfield County, Connecticut. It's about watching a game in a bar in New York City, with a hundred of the most loyal Sox fans you could ever meet, all of whom are New Yorkers.

So I wish everyone would shut up about completely made-up shit that has nothing to do with baseball.

62 days til Opening Day.

Terrible job, Red Sox.

That's right, a corporate logo will be splat upon our right shoulders like a big shitty turd for the Japan games. The series is sponsored by Ricoh, but it won't be their logo on our uniforms, as it was with the Yanks and Rays in '04. It will be the EMC company, who also has their name on the former .406 club.

Again, terrible job.

Please consider writing to the team and voicing your displeasure. 4 Yawkey Way, Boston, MA, Moneyisthemostimportantthingland, Earth, 02215.

If anyone wants to say we're "acting like the Yankees" on this one, be my guest. Spending the money you have to try to win and all that crap is okay, but defacing yourself is inexcusable.

Can "careerbulilder.com's Fenway Park presented by ExxonMobil" be far behind?

[Update: From a new press release: "announced that State Street will sponsor baseball's Ricoh Japan Opening Series 2008."

And that Burger King sentence was sponsored by Geico insurance.

We need a new baseball league and quick. Bill Lee, commissioner.]

Nearly three years ago, I brought up the Patriots' song from '85, "New England, the Patriots, and We."

Just now on the news, Bob Lobell broke out a few seconds from the video. Fortunately, I didn't get too far into my thought process of waiting for the news to repeat, taping it, and putting it online before I realized, Hey asshole, check YouTube. Well, this asshole just checked YouTube, and here's the full video. Count the number of choruses if you can (...finish the song without shooting yourself.)



Terribly, while they were showing it in the news, their caption was "New England, the Patriots, and Me." Seeing some of the game highlights--I remember those playoffs like it was yesterday. The Jets losing the wild card game, with my favorite player, Johnny Hector, fumbling a key kickoff return. I still don't know why he was back there. I don't remember him being a kick returner, but for some reason he was there, and he lost the ball. And we all watched as the Pats played what we thought were better teams, yet they somehow beat the Raiders and Dolphins both, I think. But I knew the Bears, with their superior music video, were not losing.

Great "rapping" by Craig James, eh? And there's one clever line in the whole tune: the one about the Bruins being the only bear for me or whatever.

The man at the plate in this picture hit a World Series home run off of a pitcher who was his teammate at the time the pic was taken. The next time that pitcher faced the Red Sox (after this pic was taken), he gave up what player's only major league home run?

Prize news: The winner of this year's Kwiz Season will win a prize. As will the second-place person. The prize so far consists of nothing. But I'm adding to the pot. First and second prize will get a free copy of my book, although it won't come out until after Kwiz Season is over. But the first place prize will also include 1 (ONE) 1982 Topps cello pack of 28 baseball cards and 1 stick bubble gum. Current standings here.

Wasn't I just talking about Mike Easler?

The Hit Man has been named Dodgers hitting coach, after Don Mattingly backed out of the job, citing everybody's favorite kind of undisclosed issues--the family kind.

I was so looking forward to rooting against the Pats in the Super Bowl, seeing them fall one game short of an undefeated season. But then the one thing happens that doesn't let me do that. The damn Giants make it in.

This would be like if the Braves, or any non-lovable NL team, won the World Series four years in a row, and you're just dying to see them lose one, only to have them end up playing the Yanks, and being forced to root for them, as rooting for the Yanks would not be an option.

So do I automatically root for the Pats? Do I hate the Giants as much as I hate the Yanks, to the point where there's no situation where I could root for them?

If the Pats win, I have to hear even more about how great and perfect they are. And they'll take even more popularity and air-time away from the only team that really matters, the Red Sox. You talk about a perfect season? My perfect season is an entire calendar year in which WEEI spends every minute talking about the Red Sox. Okay, maybe not EEI, but a good station, if it existed. The good news, besides the fact that the crusty old Dolphins would no longer be the only undefeated team in history, would be the fact that Red Sox fans could rub in something else to Yankee fans, provided said Sox fans are Pats fans and said Yankee fans are Giants fans, which, as we know, is not always the case.

If the Giants win, well, my worst nightmare--which, as Matty pointed out, has already been brought up, as a New York writer has proclaimed that a Giants win would top the Red Sox 0-3 comeback against the Yanks--would come true, as next year at Fenway Park, I'd have Yankee fans making fun of me for "choking," because of something the Patriots, who I could care less about, did.

When that thought hit me, I thought, That's it, gotta root against the Giants.

And I thought I'd made my decision. But then I thought, Wait, screw that, I could be at Fenway next year, see people with their "Giants World Champions/Greatest Upset Ever" shirts, and high five them and tell them "good job, some of us are sick of the Pats!" And then we could talk about how cool New York is and stuff. And how much they enjoyed Boston when they went to college here. Because even the Yankee-est of Yankee fans know that to have bragging rights over your rival, you actually have to beat them. Your team. In that sport. Not some other team that plays in the same ci--wait, the Giants play in New Jersey, and isn't Foxboro in Rhode Island anyway?

I "stopped paying attention to football" to avoid dilemmas like this. But even if I was still rooting for the team I grew up with, the Jets, I'd be in this spot. Because I only gave up rooting for my team, not rooting against other teams. That's what kills me here. If I'm officially no longer a football fan, I should be able to root for any team, even the one I always thought of as a rival. I should look at it this way: If the Pats were from Montana and the Giants were from Idaho, I'd be rooting for the Giants, no question. But if the Giants were the team who had won three recent Super Bowls and were going for a perfect record, I'd root for the Pats, no question.

It's weird, I grew up with hatred toward the Giants, and indifference toward the Pats. It's funny to see how those emotions can be swung by talk of perfection and dynasties and pretty boy QBs who wear freakin' Yankee hats....

Hmmmmm.....

All I know is:

Johnny Damon endorses America's favorite torture-supporting candidate.

I love the ignorance of a Floridian saying "New York was bad and scary until Giuliani made it safe."

Occasionally you'll hear a conversation from the row behind you at Fenway Park that goes like this:

"Hey Sully, did anyone ever hit a ball over those retired numbers out on the face of the right field roof?"

"Aw, shu-wah, Sully II, Jodge Brett did it twice, and ah cahse, Teddy Bahlgame used to do it about every utha night, pal."

And you think to yourself, "nobody could ever reach that roof. If anyone ever had, surely we would have heard about it from some real source."

A few months ago, though, I read something on-line about Carl Yastrzemski once hitting the facade of the right field roof.

This dude, who claims to have been there, said:

the Sox tore into the Yankees to set a three game record of sixteen homeruns. Sixteen. Fan-tastic! One of them a Yaz bomb down the right field line off the facade. To this day it’s the highest home run I’ve ever seen. Ever.

And someone on this board said:

Carl Yastrzemski is the only person to ever hit the grandstand facade in RF - the ball was still going up when it hit. He just missed becoming the first to ever hit one out of Fenway to right.

The first guy says it was a high fly. The second guy says it was still going up, which would mean the ball would've probably gone at least 700 feet, so I tend to think that's bullshit. In fact, I didn't believe either person, as, again, how could this fact have avoided me? I asked some other big Sox fans who are older than I am, and they'd never heard of this either.

Based on the first description above, I knew it supposedly happened in the June '77 series, but I couldn't figure out which game it occurred in. And I couldn't find anything else about the homer, so I concentrated on measuring the distance to the roof on Google Maps, trying to figure out if it was even possible.

Let's start with the height of the roof. There have been changes to the roof over the years, but that facing where the retired numbers are is in the same spot it was in back in '77. ('76. '07.) And it's roughly 40 feet high. On Google Maps, it appears that the roof is about 430 feet away from home plate at the far left edge. It goes out to maybe 440 before jutting in to about 405 at the point where the roof deck ends, which is also where the positioning of the facing was seriously altered by the roof boxes later. (A direct line from home to these spots will give you different results--I took into consideration that the top of the Pesky Pole is about 18 horizontal feet southwest from its base. In other words, the camera is not directly above the park, so points 40 feet off the ground are above ground points several feet northeast of where they appear.) At that point, you're already in foul territory, but, of course, a ball hit down the line by a lefty would be curving around the pole. Depending on the path of the ball, you could hit a ball that wraps around the pole, travels less than 400 feet when it hits the roof (40 feet above the ground, though) well into foul territory. (Though how would the umps even tell if it was fair, as the ball would have gone way above the pole?) I guess if a ball is on the way down and it skims a 40-foot high point a little over 400 feet away, the true distance really wouldn't be too outrageous.

Finally, I found out more detailed info on the supposed home run. It took place on Sunday, June 19th, 1977. This was the third game of the series against the Yanks in which Billy Martin fought with Reggie Jackson in the dugout--that was the second game, NBC's Game of the Week. The Yaz roof-dong happened in the next game, and it capped off a three-game set of Red Sox domination.

Baseball Library says, of the 6/19/1977 game:

Yastrzemski's homer‚ served up by Dick Tidrow‚ is a towering drive down the RF line off the RF facade (to the right of the retired #'s) the only player to ever reach that height. No one else has ever come close to duplicating that feat.

The book Red Sox vs. Yankees says:

June 19 - An 11-1 rout gives Boston a three-game series sweep over the Yankees. Boston is paced by five home runs, including Carl Yastrzemski's 460-foot shot that is the only ball to ever reach the right field roof facade.

Okay, so it's a "towering drive" and it's "to the right" of the numbers. If it was measured at 460, then it probably hit a point well to the right, along the part of the roof that's at a 45-degree angle if you're facing it from home plate. Maybe at the 430 mark. So add the 30 or so feet more it would've traveled and you'd get 460. (On hit tracker, you'll see, for example, a high homer that hits a point 40 feet up at 430 feet from home will go about 30 more feet in horizontal distance. So I added 30 feet of height to the horizontal distance. Not totally scientific, but a good rough estimate.)


So maybe he really did hit it. But why isn't more made of this? Why is there no marker, no tribute, nothing, to commemorate something that happened once in history? Wasn't the game televised? It must've been on TV-38. (In general, where did all their archives go? NESN only seems to show their own or national broadcasts when they show classic games. Did WSBK even save their old broadcasts?) And more importantly, why did no newspapers cover this at the time? Okay, I don't know about all of them, but nothing comes up on a Google News search, which covers many papers.

I bought the New York Times article about the game, and it makes no mention of it. It says the Sox "peppered the screens and stands of the 65-year old park." Nothing about peppering a roof. And look at what they say about Yaz:

All the Red Sox hit, but Carl Yastrzemski, the crowd's favorite, outdid the rest. In the series, he had nine hits in 14 at bats with four homers and 10 runs batted in. "That's the way to do it, I guess," he said afterward, dragging on his post game cigarette and sipping what he described as a "cheap 1976 red wine" with ice. "Everybody on this team's playing up to their potential."

Notice there's no line that resembles anything like "Yaz hits fucking roof!" I mean, would you leave that out of your article? "If he'd hit one on top of the roof, I'd have mentioned it, but this, eh, just not as important as the type of wine he was drinking after the game. I'll have to include a note for the editor: 'Roof dong a no go--do not cut wine bit.'"

The Times also ran a blurb the next day about Yaz being player-of-the-week, and only mentions his four homers and .444 average.

On this page of the Red Sox' official site, they say, "Did you know...? No player has ever hit a home run over the right-field roof at Fenway Park." No mention of hitting the face of the roof. (They might want to change their wording, since with seats up there, no one ever will hit one over now. They should say "on to" at this point.) There's also no mention of it in the website's "history of Fenway" section. But scroll down to the last paragraph (which spells Smoky Joe Woods' name "Smokey"), and you'll find that on any given night, you might see things such as:

a catcher from New Hampshire hit[ting] a ball just fair past the left field foul pole into the cool October night.

No! It hit the pole!

Maybe I'll go to the library and check out the Globe's archives from '77.

Do any of you out there have any memories about this supposed incident?

Go Neither Team!

What I just heard on WEEI led me to assume it was some kind of "opposite day" at the station. Or maybe a psychological experiment.

A question was asked. The person was being serious. It was a host, don't know the name, along with Bob Lobell. The question was:

"If the Patriots don't win the Super Bowl this year, will it be more devastating to the city of Boston than the Red Sox loss to the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS?"

Instead of laughter, followed by the station immediately being taken off the air by the FCC, we heard Lobel on the fence, then a caller say the Pats loss would be more devastating, followed by Lobell changing his mind and agreeing with the caller. And I didn't hear the other host disagreeing.

So these people, who are paid money to do this for a living, can honestly say that a team coming so close to getting to the World Series for a chance to break an 86-year drought and losing, would NOT be as bad as a team winning three Super Bowls in four years but then falling a game or two short of adding a fourth title? I swear, this this undefeated thing is turning people into morons. "Oh no, if we don't win every single game, I'll be devastated. I'll only have three recent championships to fall back on!"

After hearing New York sports radio all my life, and now having heard a lot of Boston sports radio, I can say that the Patriot fans who call these stations are no worse than Yankee fans who called New York stations in the '99-'01-ish era. I admit, I don't like hearing Red Sox fans being overly pessimistic, but I think I'd rather have that than ever hearing a Red Sox fan act so sure about victory to the point where they don't even feel the games need to be played at all. It's like that kid at the World Series last year with the "Can we celebrate yet?" sign. Again, optimism is great, but what parent allowed that one? Celebrate like crazy--when it's over.

Also, in case you're still trying to make up your mind on Clemens, here's the latest guilt-proving article.