Should we make the ALCS, and should it be against Tampa, I assume you'll all be there, easily outnumbering the Devils fans. But if you want to get a head start on tickets and you lost their ALCS lottery:

"If inventory remains for any of the Championship Series games that may be played at Tropicana Field, they will be made available to the general public on raysbaseball.com on Tuesday, Oct. 7 at 9 a.m. ET."

What was better, taking it to that piece of self-involved crap K-Rod, and his whining, complaining, Jeter-esque teammates---or shoving it in the faces of the announcers, Caray and Martinez, who took it upon themselves to root with everything they had, unapologetically, for the Angels?

Answer: It's all good, as they used to say in the mid-90s.

Oh my lord! I don't even know where to start with this game. I mean, holy crap. Youk with that crazy catch, and amazing play on the bunt, both in the ninth. Drew, becoming a "true Yankee" for the second straight post-season...Pap shuttin' 'em down. And, again, Caray screaming like a little kid with every ball the Angels made contact with. Oh! That's gone! Oh, wait, it's a fucking popup. Those guys can to to hell for putting on such a pathetic, completely unprofessional performance.

Oh, but hey, the Angels got the "extra base hit monkey" off their backs. Fine. Enjoy that.

I will be at game three!!! I dot dot dot can dot dot dot not dot dot dot wait exclamation point.

And FUCK that Yankee fan they kept showing in the crowd. All you got left is going to the freakin' Angels game and roting against us while your team is home. Hahahahaha! Ass Wipe! I love it!

[Contest board here. Tie for the top spot.]

Game 2 tonight. Let's win so I can see the clinching game live on Sunday!

In the contest, two people have 2 runs each, the rest have zero. It's anybody's game.

A dong in each game so far for Manny. I'm so totally happy for him. I love the thought of all the racists complaining with each great play Manny makes. The thing I hate about the anti-Manny side is how they've convinced themselves they're right by acting like WE'RE the "crazy" ones. I'm still convinced the fans of Manny--the 35,000 who were honored to watch him and showed their love every night at Fenway, as opposed to the whiny, old, button-down, jealous, racist, macho radio and newspaper shit-heads who hated Manny all along--will always keep a place in their hearts for Manny, and cheer him whenever they see him.

I get mad with every mention of Manny by those 'holes. In response to whoever it was yesterday who said in the usual condescending way, "Manny's having fun now? He didn't have fun here in eight years," I again give you my photographic tribute to Manny. You tell me if he was having fun or not.

I'm still just so confused. They say Manny doesn't try (lie), is declining (lie), doesn't care about winning (lie), that we couldn't win with him (huge, very easily disproven lie) and is a clubhouse cancer--if they mean the type of cancer that yields joy, happiness, and the championships we waited our whole lives for, then sign me up for that cancer. I'll pull a Paul Newman and refuse treatment.

So...just because I like when Manny does well (and Nomar and Lowe), doesn't mean I'm rooting against the Cubs. I want the Cubs to win. But if those guys on the Dodgers move on, that's fine, too. It's the NL, so in the end, I really just don't care. Gonna be tough for the Cubbies now, though, down two-zip.

And just because I'm still pissed about the Manny thing, doesn't mean I'm not totally confident in my team.

I wondered what the 2008 playoffs "thing" would be, and I think I've got it. Wednesday night, we finished dinner, and I reminded Kim of the cookie mix we had, since I wanted some tasty junk food for the game. She suggested I make them. Interesting. Me "bakin' stuff." Hmm. Well, I gave it a shot, and those pigs came out great. First time I ever baked anything on my own. (I'm an expert at licking the bowl, but I'd never done the whole process by myself.) There are still some left. Meaning for the initial bulk of games, I will have been downing these chocolate fudge chip cookies. Now I'm thinkin' I'll make more when those are gone. So it looks like the official 2008 playoffs thing will be: cookies. But you never know. We could get a pet elephant tomorrow, then "the thing" will surely be "those early days with Stampy, training him, tucking him in and watching him sleep lovingly, etc." You just don't know how these things are gonna turn out. Wait, maybe this is why the anti-Manny people think I'm crazy....

Did it ever occur to you that at any given time, there has to be at least one Major League Baseball team that hasn't won the World Series in at least thirty years?

(Of course, some of the thirty teams haven't been around thirty years, but it's essentially true. You get the point.)

Nice review of our book in the Denver paper, the Rocky Mountain News. "Grade: A." I haven't gotten an A since 5th grade!

...are destined Torii-peat it:

It's frustrating for everybody, but we have to get it out of our system and come out with the right attitude for Game 2 on Friday. You've got to have amnesia in this game.

That first playoff game. Wow. All the old feelings: goosebumps, shakes, heart palpitations, the urge to scream like Howard Dean and run and jump around. And when you get that last out, sweet relief. We needed to win one in Anaheim. We've done it! Now do it again and let's not look back goin' home!

Jon Lester is a deity among regulation human hurlers. Oh my him. Seriously.

I'm never afraid of "Peter Brady" Lackey, but he was good tonight. Until the Bay at bat--he'd K'd him twice on those outside breaking balls. Then in his third AB, Brady gives him one right over the heart. Bay takes it. Brady gets away with it...but stupidly throws it again. And Bay swung. Boom, we lead, 2-1.

How key was that Youk play where he threw out Vlad by 30 feet? Lowell running to tag Vlad before he got to third was like American Gladiators: Senior Division.

Masterson was great. Pap was great. And it's one game to none. Us.

Interestingly, Peter Brady doesn't look much like Peter Brady anymore with that slight beard and short hair. But it was funny how he was replaced by "cousin" Oliver.

So that's 10 straight vs. the Angels in the postseason, and yet another 8-game win streak in the postseason, as we had in '04.

We will all sleep well tonight. And as a bonus, the next night, as game two isn't until Friday. Yeaaaaaaahhhh!

*pic of Wicked Lester by me, 9/28/08

Inning # / Person / Runs

1 / Jeff / 4
2 / pweezil / 3
3 / Elisabeth / 0
4 / Dan / 1
5 / JCal76 / 3
6 / Rooster / 2
7 / laureen / 0
8 / Kara / 0
9 / SoxyLady / 5 (winner!)

Fill in that 3rd spot, somebody. Rules here.

Update: 3rd inning taken. Sweet. All nine are filled. Good luck everybody. Totals will appear in this post as we go along.

Pick the inning you think the Red Sox will score the most runs in for the entire ALDS. Winner gets a signed copy of my book, Dirty Water. I will open up comments to the first nine people. The person who picks the ninth inning gets any runs scored in extra innings.

Also include number of hits for your inning as a tiebreaker, in case two or more innings tie for the most amount of runs.

So, your entry should look something like this:

"5th inning. 5 hits."

Remember to check the other comments first to see which innings are taken. You have to pick one that hasn't been picked yet. Good luck. Deadline is up until first pitch tonight, or when we get the ninth contestant, whichever comes first.

Went out to the car between games. WFAN was coming in clear, so I listened to the end of the Shea Stadium Farewell. I headed back to Fenway for game two. Didn't even bring the umbrella, or need a jacket. Here's the park from that Charlesgate bridge.

And now I'm right near the park. It's very weird to be entering Fenway when it's already pitch dark. This is the first of a left/right shot.

As you can tell by the bus, I took the "right" shot first. This is the "left" shot. In Righty, you can see a sax player at bottom right.

I went to the burrito place at the end of Lansdowne ($7.30 for a regular bean/cheese, come on.) Got this shot of the light tower from Ipswich Street.

Close-up of same tower.

I walked in, and went right for really great seats. While the park did eventually fill up to a degree, I was able to keep this seat the whole time, until I purposely left it very late in the game. Here, Hale and Mussina exchange lineup cards. Do you get to do this when you enter the 20-win-but-no-ring club or something? Or did Moose write the lineup himself?

Game 162 is about to begin, and Robinson Cano is posing for pictures while on deck.

Tim Wakefield started. Other than him, Coco, Casey, and Cora, the Red Sox were basically the Paw Sox.

Another Wake shot.

Alex Cora.

Chris Carter.

Coco Crisp on third.

Coco crosses the plate.

Jed Lowrie.

Sean Casey doing the horse.

Velazquez on deck. Ponson on the mound for the Yanks.

Kevin Cash in the box.

Gil again.

Jeff Bailey.

Chris Carter and Magadan in the dugout.

So this girl brought a "Hey Dusty, We're Here for the Laser Show" sign. She kept holding it up, even though Pedroia wasn't in the lineup. But she knew what she was doing. All the Sox on the field saw the sign as they ran off, and one by one the other players would peek out and laugh at the sign. Finally, Dustin himself acknowledged it, as shown here.

A sweaty Wake chats with the home plate ump after an inning. What was this ump's deal? He was all suave and stuff, winking up at the official scorer and making confident hand motions to signal changes--he was like the Don Juan umpire. I felt like I was watching a TV show about a guy who solves crimes by day, is a ladies' man by night, and calls balls and strikes to hide his identity all summer long. "Umptower. John Umptower." I also kept thinking he was gonna tell me that one of the game's engines did indeed flare out, but the odds of it losing one of the remaining three is remote. (That means he reminded me of the pilot in the final story of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Note that that same actor was also in that ridiculous Kiss Meets the Phantom movie.)

Kevin Cash moved to third base. Here, Tito's talking to Umptower and looking and pointing out at Cash, who had just been laughing, but now has a look like, "Oh my god, Tito put me in at third and I've just been hamming it up and now he's totally talking about me and thinking about making me put all that gear back on. Please look away please look away please look away."

David Ross was the new catcher, and he showed off this thing.

Justin Masterson came in to pitch.

Dr. Ross from Chicago at bat.

Tek warming up a pitcher.

Coco on deck. I'm even closer to the field now.

I almost left this game early. But I didn't. But I still said, Okay, we're up two, going bottom nine, I'll head for the exit, watch the last out, and run outta there, as I'd been at Fenway for like 11 hours. But we blew it in the top of the ninth, letting them tie it. So I went back down to the good seats, now on the third base side. Here's my last shot from the first base side, the soon-to-be hero, Jon Van Every.

Okay, seriously. When all the players in either of the Fenway dugouts go to the top step, they lean on the little fence with one leg up and the other one step down. All heads are at the same height. But even in this situation, Jeter still has to find a way to be higher than everyone else, by putting the second foot up. Or does he bring along a special stool with him to all the visiting parks in case there's no other way to be the highest?

Van about to be rockin'. Actually, this is his ninth-inning at bat. His game-winning hit would be in the tenth.

This would've been a great shot of Alex Cora diving head first into third--if the pitcher hadn't been backing up. Stupid fundamentals.

And Van Every, after two intentional walks, knocks home Cora with the winning run. And the Red Sox celebrate:







Good night, Kevin Cash. I stayed by the Yankee dugout, thinking they might give crap away since their season was done. They did, but nothing came near me. Jobber started tossing balls from right in front of me, but they all went over my head.

So that was Pesky day. All the sports radio station were playing football games on my home, so I didn't hear that Beckett wouldn't be starting game one until I got home. I really hope what they say is true, that he can pitch game three. If he does, we've still got Lester and Dice, who both had great or great-in-a-dicey-way seasons. If they're on, we don't lose. And the Angels--people say past playoff matchups don't matter. If you say that, don't you also have to say it doesn't matter that Beckett has been amazing in the playoffs? I say both things matter. Not the '86 ALCS, but the '07 ALDS is relevant. It's a lot of the same guys. Peter Brady still doesn't scare me. Playoffs start tonight, he said, as the calendar fittingly struck October. Woohooooooooo! What will the "playoff routine" be this year? One year it was constant chips and salsa. Last year it was watching The Shining before and after games and on off-nights. Now that we have HBO, I think it'll be some movie that's always on. The three Bad News Bears movies and the three Back to the Future movies are early candidates. Then again, maybe when the month changes, new movies play over and over. We'll see.

Part 3.
Part 2.
Part 1.

In the Chinese restaurant episode, Jerry says you can't go to a movie by yourself. Who are you going to make sarcastic remarks to? Yet in the the dog-sitting episode, Jerry asks, "How does sitting next to a person in a movie theater increase the level
of enjoyment? You can't talk during a movie."

How did I not notice this until now?

The White Sox beat the Twins to claim the central. But more importantly, the nation got its first taste of what we Sox fans experience all the time: the utter madness that is midlife crisis-era Dennis Eckersley.

Going in, I feared the worst. That Eck would say one regrettable thing, then follow it up with four more in a desperate attempt to undo the first one. Followed the next night by a new host in his place, with the others "never speaking of this again."

But TBS surprised me. They prepared for the coming of Eck. They just went with it. When he'd say a wacky line, they'd replay it and Johnson and Ripken would laugh at it. By the end, they had Dennis's face superimposed on a doctor holding a stethoscope, with the caption, "THIS WON'T HURT...MUCH." (That's actually true.)

Isn't this weird? It's like they found a way to merge "think they're funny" sports journalism with stuff that isn't supposed to be funny but is hilarious. Tripleheader tomorrow--check it out for yourself.

You probably know "SoSock" from the comments section. He also comments on Joy of Sox, and over there you can read Allan's piece on SoSock's wife, who has cancer and is in a tough situation. Read it, and if you want to donate any money, the link is in that post. Thanks.

So I watch the start of game one from behind the plate. Here's Dice-K. Did I mention the classic home whites might have been more appropriate for the Pesky ceremony?

It looked like many of the seats were filled, but then I thought back to those right field roof boxes I'd been in earlier in the day. I took a shot, and there were plenty of empties up there. I've had seats up there before, and if you're way out in right field, it's not the best spot. But those boxes extend pretty far in, almost to (a point above) Canvas Alley. I was inside the foul pole, and I really liked the view (pic above). If you're looking for 50-dollar seats, and you can get something in the (section #) 20s up there, go for it. The 30s and 40s are too far out, especially considering you can get infield grandstand for the same price.

Pedroia from the right field roof boxes. Click any pic to enlarge in all these posts. And always.

View of the outfield.

David Ortiz up. This was the game in which the starters actually played.

The retired numbers, now sixier.

I was in the exact spot where you can't see the screen on the side of the pole, as it's facing directly away from you.

Plenty of Yankee fans in town over the weekend, and as usual, there were some fights and ejections. This guy was quite proud to get to miss the rest of the game.

Pesky honored for the hundredth time that day. Well-deserved.

From up there I had a good view of the Monster scoreboard. The Mets were tied much of the time, as were the Brewers. Finally the Brewers took the lead, and the Mets lost theirs. The White Sox were winning, which meant a make-up game on Monday looked necessary.

I also had a good view of the box seats below, and when I determined there were enough empties, I went downstairs again, down by first base. Here's Kotsay from my new seat.

Pedroia making a face.

In the Giambi shift. You can see in the background that the Brewers have lost, and the Mets are down two in the ninth. Finally, the guy came out with no new numbers in his hands, went past the Mets score, pulling another inning number out, and then, like some kind of sadistic Vanna White, grabbed the "9" out of the Mets game's inning slot on his way back to the door, making it a final, and ending the Mets' season. That poor team, man.

Jason Bay up against Mussina. The game was close, with the Yanks finally getting a three-run lead. I was hoping they'd blow it for Mussina, who was going for his 20th win for the first time in his career.

And it looked like they would blow it when Terrible Joba came in and shit the bed. So great to see. Here Bay's 44 is next to a rare #66, which Jobber in the background.

And Joba is taken out quickly after being totally ineffective. You could tell Girardi was going all out o get Moose his 20th. All I wanted was for us to tie it so he couldn't get it. Please note the "2000" sign in the crowd. After 2004, I thought saying "2000" would be a given. For some reason, Fenway crowds never started doing it, though. And actually, I didn't even notice these during the game. When going through my shots, I saw one up by Pesky's number (you can see it in earlier parts of this post), and for some reason I thought maybe it had to do with Fisk, since that's when his number was retired. It made sense, and it was such a small and "offical" looking sign, attached to a bar--I thought maybe it was Fisk's party, and they labeled his table with a "2000." It wasn't until I saw this pic, with people holding up the sign, that I realized it. Finally! Let's rub this in their disgusting faces in every way we can! Eight years is the third-longest drought in their history!

And then the rains came back. Papelbon was clearly messed up by it, and kept having the dugout throw out new resin bags. Good thing this game meant nothing.

He finally got out of the ninth, but we were down four. Papi up here.

After the rain stopped, I moved even closer. Here's Mo, in the middle of a four out save. "Look, Mo, I know you're about to get surgery and all, but since we're not going to the playoffs, all we've got is beating the World Champs, so we're gonna go ahead and risk your health. Moose thanks you."

Mariano and A-Rod.

Lights on for this gray day.

Pigeon-toed Youkilis up.

Cano having a ball out there....

Yanks in third....

Bay up. We lose. Stupid Moose gets 20. But we go to the playoffs.

The folks in the Bleacher Cafe. Stay tuned for part 4, game two, where I found even better seats.

Part 2
Part 1

Part 4