The NESN camera person who shows the angle from behind the plate (i.e. the one they cut to on just about every ball that's hit) is either A. new B. high or C. unfamiliar with how a baseball game is filmed. From following just the ball in flight and not allowing us to see where the fielder is (and sometimes not recovering in time to let us see the catch, like tonight) to being asleep at the wheel, keeping the camera facing straight out toward center on a ball hit down the line, this person is pissing me off at a time when I'm already pissed off. Not good.

And have you noticed that sometimes Don will do the excited "possible home run" call on a deep ball down the line even after we've all clearly seen the batter put his head down and make the decision not to run to first as if to say "I'm so sure that ball's foul I don't even need to look at it"? What's up with that? Don does a fine job, though. You know I love DO.

My baseball card magnets are selling like hotcakes! Granted, I'm referring to the type of hotcakes that sell at a slow to moderate rate, but that still counts for something. Thanks to everyone who has bought one. They're really fun to make.

So the Red Sox lose again and we're two back. I think our lineup will start bashing the ball again soon. And since the pitching really isn't doing too badly anyway, we'll start racking up the Ws again. We had a similarly shitty start to the first half, leading people to think the team had fallen to sub-.500 quality, and wouldn't recover for years, almost as if they'd never followed a sports team for a season in their entire lives (fantasy leagues don't count!). Anyway, that half worked out pretty good for us. O-Birds come to town on Friday. Don't forget to donate food or cash at the door to get an autographed picture of "your favorite Red Sox player," as NESN is saying. I have a feeling you ain't gettin' an Ortiz graph five minutes before gametime, though.