I was fully expecting a game where we get an early lead and never look back. I was almost right. 6-1 became 6-5, but fortunately we pulled away for a 10-6 win.

Pedroia 2-3 with three walks. Bay came out after fouling a ball off his ankle, but he says he's fine now and won't miss any time.

How funny was it when Maddon intentionally walked Dustin to face Papi, and then Papi gets on by HBP, and Youk gets a walk, too?

Remy still out with Canine Flu.

So we're a game out, Yanks are three, TB 6.5, Orioles 7.

The Angels tried! They tried to give the game away! But fortunately for us, they failed, hanging on for an 8-4 win.

In our contest, the board looks a bit different now. First place: Marlins, Twins, Phillies. Each two totals away from the championship. Second place: Cards, Rays, Indians, Braves.

Sabathia fails again. 5-1 Angels in the 7th. Hopefully those assholes can hang on to a late lead today.

Also, I got the weirdest comment just now. It's on my post about Hunter Jones. This person claims to know me, saying he used to "date Jason's mom" (I have know idea who that could be) and that I liked to "ride in his Jaguar with the 'grey Poupon tables'." Wha????? Now I've ridden in a Cadillac hundreds of times. Thousands! But a Jaguar? I have no recollection of this, especially not one with tables in the back.

Okay, update: Upon re-reading, I figured out the guy was talking directly to Hunter Jones with his Jaguar comments. So, there you have it--Hunter used to ride around with Jason's mom's boyfriend in his Grey Poupon Jaguar...

Crappy baseball night. I'm glad I missed most of this action, as Kim and I were at my nephew's birthday party.

So classic: Seven of New York City Councilmembers say they like both the Mets and Yanks. Fortunately, there are more Mets fans than Yankee fans overall in the City Council though. My favorite part of that article is this:

Then there is Bill de Blasio, an up-and-coming councilman from Park Slope, Brooklyn, now running for the citywide office of public advocate. Mr. de Blasio, who grew up in Cambridge, Mass., roots for the Boston Red Sox. And despite his ambitions, he is not shy about displaying his feelings.

Mr. de Blasio and Erik Martin Dilan of Bushwick, Brooklyn, have had a running bet for six years. If the Red Sox win the American League East division, Mr. Dilan buys Mr. de Blasio a steak at Peter Luger Steak-house. If the Yankees win, Mr. de Blasio buys the steak.

In 2004, when the Red Sox overcame a three-game deficit to the Yankees to earn a spot in the World Series, Mr. de Blasio took matters a step further: He required Mr. Dilan to wear a Red Sox cap at a Council meeting, rise and make a speech praising the Boston club.

Mr. de Blasio gloated, “He was very uncomfortable, but he honored the agreement.”

Mr. de Blasio, who is raising his children to be Red Sox fans, said that “everyone should be proud of whatever team they root for.” (He added that among New York teams, he has a soft spot for the Mets.)

If you were a Yankee fan, would you wear a shirt that had the Red Sox logo, but with the socks in blue, boasting that you wear "navy sox"? Well here's your chance! Seriously, the person who came up with that was thinking way too hard. Or not at all. I know I wouldn't wear a shirt boasting of my love for white pinstripes (which are on the white Red Sox home uniform, you just...can't see 'em! Hey, you can't disprove it, they're invisible! Like marshmallows in a snowstorm.) Thanks to Pat for the link. (Ironically, Friday is the night the Sox DO wear navy socks--at least I think they still will be with the blue alternate jerseys, which are the Friday night uniform, though they've gone back to red with the regular road uni. We'll see tonight. Hey, if they listened to our complaints about the blue socks, let's all write in and tell them to scrap ALL alternate crap!)

Also, the discounted food prices at Fenway were supposed to be for April. Yet O'Brien on radio read the ad for it the other night, even though the team had already played their last April home game. I hope this means they'll continue it...but it could just further show that Dave's asleep at the wheel.

And what's going on with Remy? What's this under the weather crap? It's at the point where everybody's wondering, so they might as well just tell us.

Clemens: man-boobs. But we could see those anyway.

Because the Jays lost. But we did lose BEVO. (13-0) Van Every pitched!

Yanks won 7-4 at the homerdome.

Just keeps getting crazier with A-Rod--supposedly he tipped pitches to the batter from shortstop in return for the same when he was up.

Sox at S-Rays, right now--it's 0-0 after 2. Angels up 3-1 early on Yanks.

(Title of this post referring to the nickname A-Rod's teammates supposedly gave him.)

Guy behind me at Fenway this weekend, talking to girlfriend:

"...it used to be called the .406 club, which was Ted Williams' average in his last year with the Red Sox. And on the wall there's Morse Code, for...well, I forget whose name it is...but there's a lot of history in this park..."

He could've just summed it up by saying, "there's a lot of history in this park--none of which I'm familiar with"!

(His knee also bumped my seat hard as he lurched forward on what he thought was a home run ball two separate times. Each ball was fouled back behind home plate.)

And while I'm at it, have you seen the Pantene commercial where the woman excitedly says, "it's like the icing on the cupcake--the best part!"? You idiot. The "icing on the cake" phrase doesn't mean "the best part of something," it means something added on to something really good to make it even better. Like Bacos.

Was just looking for other Van Every pics that I've taken (that I didn't post at the time) and came up with a few, all from last year's regular season finale against the Yanks:


On deck in the two above, and, below, getting a hug from Sean Casey after knocking in the winning run in the bottom of the tenth.

Sox not buying Boston Globe. I guess people have been wondering about this. I knew nothing. About anything. Now I know something: It's nothing.

A-Rod story I read last night, but forgot to post till now, making me look like some schlub who just posts what he sees on Extra Bases. Damn!

And this, considering I knew what was coming, is pretty funny, too. Thanks to my mom for the link. Hopefully five or six of you hadn't seen it yet.

Get in the Van!

It was JVE night by the lake. Van E and the Boys came back from a 5-0 deficit to win 6-5 in ten. Jon got a key single in the game-tying rally, made a diving catch late, and then hit a two out homer in the tenth. There was a scream when he hit the ball. You can hear it on the replays, too--when I heard the scream, I knew that ball was going a long way. A memorable win for us.

With the Jays losing, we're back in first place by percentage points. Yanks won, but a little good news, as they were forced to use Mo despite taking an 8-1 lead into the ninth. AND he promptly gave up a three-run dong, but the Yanks held on 8-6.

And look at the Twins! Another unique total tonight, and they're tied for first with Florida, each two away from the win. I can't wait till a team is one total away....


Photo of Jon Van Every at Pawtucket last June taken by me.

Last night TC asked Amalie why she looked summer-like, while Heidi earlier in the night had been bundled up. She said, "some of us are from hearty New England stock and some of us are from California..." Score one for our side! Ha! I meant to mention this last night but I forgot.

Tonight, though, TC gave Heidi a chance to retort--she pointed out that Amalie goes down on the field for 15 minutes and then spends each game in the warm press booth, while she sits outside for the whole game. Touche.

Sox at Dragons, 7:05. Drew and Youk out of the lineup. Green at short.

There hasn't been one run-total achieved by every single team yet. The closest is 2 runs. Every team but the Pirates has scored exactly two runs in a game so far this year.

Ryan's Twins have steamrolled into a second-place tie with three new totals in their last five games.

My cousin Kara's Dodgers have only one new total in their last nine games, after picking up seven in their first eleven. But she's not too worried about that, as she has just announced she's pregnant with her second child. Congrats, Kara.

AJM usually wins things around here, but his A's remain alone in dead last.

Mickey's Jays have dropped off, but they're still a good sleeper pick, as they've gotten 12 and 13 out of the way.

Liza's Marlins are still alone at the top--but they're playing today, and need either 7 or 9 runs in the ninth to pick up a new total. SoSock's Cards (taken with the second-to-last pick), Lee's Phillies, and Ryan's Twins look to join them at the top tonight.

Here are the full standings.

Have you noticed the Aramark vendors at Fenway have numbers on their backs now? I wonder if they're just given a number, or if they get to choose like on a softball team. Or maybe it's a code, like football numbers: twenties carry soda, thirties carry peanuts, etc. My guess is they all pick, and the cool kids end up with the best numbers. In fact, I saw a few guys with no number.

I noticed this guy, and wondered if it was a Benito Santiago tribute. To prove whether it was done on purpose, I had to find another single digit number. Finally I saw an "01." But that still could've been done on purpose by a Dukes of Hazzard fan. Eventually though, I saw an "05," an "07," etc., so I guess they just give everybody a two-digit number. I also noticed the lower numbers appeared more in the field boxes. But it's probably a coincidence. Overall, I'd say there's no rhyme or reason to this, other than "everybody gets a random number now." I also feel like putting the number on the front would be better for identifying your vendor. (If you can't tell by simply looking at what he's holding or listening to him yelling it out.)

Youk flips to Lopez covering first, and we go to extra innings....

Nope. Lopez misses the easy flip. Winning run scores from second. Bad way to end a winning streak. Of course, we had a huge lead earlier, and another guy I could do without, Brad Penny, did his usual "lot o' runs" thing. But an error by stupid Lugo and one by Lowell cost us big time, too.

I listened to a little bit of this game on radio. Dave O'Brien is suddenly horrible. It sounds like he's trying to be bad to get fired or something. No flavor, no excitement, no info, no interest. What happened? I wasn't even gonna say anything, but just now I saw a replay of a homer I heard him call, and I noticed it hit the foul pole. Which he didn't tell me at the time. Terrible job.

Okay, so I guess the "Blue Sox" experiment is over. I noticed right away we had red sleeves tonight, and then I saw Penny and Tek, and they had red socks. The red does seem muted compared to the home socks/sleeves, but I could be wrong. NESN didn't mention this major uniform change, at least not while I was watching.

1. At Fenway Sunday, I overheard the people in front of me talking about how much they paid for their tickets. We had one person who fell for the "you can't get tickets" myth, and one who bought from the team site for face value. The face value person was explaining how the team dumps tickets periodically, which everyone should know by now, but noted that she "got lucky" because she knew when they were going to do the dump. You know how? Because her friend works for a ticket agency and knew when the dump was coming. Okay, last year, I figured out when the dumps happen, so anybody can do this. And, granted, someone that works for a seedy scalping agency is probably as ticket-savvy as I am, since they're whole business is based on gobbling up tickets so they can rip you off. But still, that person saying that led me to believe the team might be tipping off the agencies. I hope not. I should've asked the girl more about it.

2. Remember how my friend Mike and I were discouraged from entering Fenway Park early by the worker who said "there won't be batting practice, they're all hungover"? Only to find out that there was batting practice? Well, this weekend I was entering the park early on the RSN line, and people had come right up to the gate, trying to get in, not realizing they needed to be signed up to do so. That same old dude was there, and guess what he told them. "Don't worry, you can get in in a half hour anyway. Besides, you're not missing anything, they're too hungover for batting practice." I then walked in, up to the Monster, and watched batting practice. This guy must be stopped! I mean, yeah, it's better for me, trying to get a ball, the more people he keeps out, but it's not worth it to know that a Fenway employee is lying to fans! Most of the workers are really nice, but this guy just likes to be a dick, it seems.

Sox at Dragons, 7:ish. Going for a dozen in a row.

The standings.

Florida got their last easy one out of the way, scoring one run last night, and breaking the tie for the top spot with Philly. Liza's Marlins only need 11 and 13 now to win it. Lee's Phillies remain alone in second, with 11 totals. Six teams have ten, nine have nine, and seven have eight. AJM suddenly finds himself alone in the cellar, as the A's have just seven different totals. (I've also added the fiven untaken teams to the list--none of them would be near the top.)

Wakefield once again comes through with a fine performance. And as soon as I saw Wood's first few pitches in the ninth, I envisioned us breaking the scoreless tie with a six-run ninth. I was half right, as Bay hit a three-run dong. Pap with a shaky outing, but we win 3-1, as Cleveland strands the tying runs. (And NESN freezes and everybody missed the last pitch of the game!) Eleven in a row. As the bingo-caller at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico circa 1987 would say, "the chicken necks!"

Sabathia threw a 99-pitch complete game. But the Yanks lose 4-2! They're below .500. We can be in first place if Toronto goes down--they're losing 6-1 in the sixth.

(Update: Toronto lost. We're in first by percentage points. Half-game behind St. Louis for best record in baseball. "Too soon to panic?"--every idiotic newspaper reporter, like, two weeks ago)

How many times have we seen Yankees come out for a curtain call for a completely un-special moment? The one we had last night was the perfect example of how you save curtain calls for the very special moments. That's how Red Sox fans (and I'd think all other non-Yankee fans) do it. Yet Jerry Remy, who watches every game, apparently doesn't know this. When asked if the curtain call was a "showing up" of the Yanks, he just talked about how curtain calls are common nowadays. Not mentioning that his own team hardly ever does it, and that the fans of the team claiming "showing up" do it all the time.

But wait! TC comes through! Noting that the Yanks have more curtain calls than anyone, including on check-swing home runs to the front row. THANK YOU, TC.

And if you're a Yankee fan with the audacity to make fun of the one curtain call we've done, knowing you've done probably 100 since the last one we did, well, what am I saying, you can't read anyway.

My old-timey-style article about the sweep is up at Baseball Digest.

Really good package here, featuring the steal of home with the radio calls, going back and forth between Sox and Yanks radio. The Yanks team is so flustered, Sterling gets everything wrong, saying it was a triple steal and that Andy was in the set position.

Man, the Yanks sure picked the wrong weekend to quit smoking. And man, I sure picked the right weekend to buy tickets for the entire series.
Sunday: On free meter day, I got one of the best spots, and went to the line to get on the Monster around 5:00. This pic doesn't capture how hot it was. I didn't get any balls up there, but then I went to the bleachers. Papi hit one to the camera well in dead center, where the ESPN camera man picked it up. I went over to him and asked if he gets to keep balls or if he gets to give them to lucky fans nearby....

After messing with me for a few seconds, he said, "I don't need it," and flipped it to me. At that point, after two amazing wins and then getting a ball, I almost felt like I should just call it a weekend and pull a "good night, everybody!" Instead, I stayed and saw the SWEEP. (By the way, I took this pic after more fans showed up--when I got the ball, there were literally no other fans there.)

Bad smile by Swisher here.

Cano calls himself out.

Mariano was laughing his ass off about something.

I hung out with Reb for a while on the third base side, as she was at this game, too. Here's Ortiz and Cano.

The captain of that ship with the pirates and whatnot--he's a longtime Sox fan who met his wife at Fenway.

Masterson on the mound. He got the win.

Jacoby on first. "Quick Recovery" Pettitte thinking of how he can come up with even more of a balk move.

After a few innings I started wandering. Here's Pedroia on deck taken from behind the plate.

The under-screen view. Soon after this, Ellsbury stole home. It was amazing. On the first pitch of the at bat when he was on third, it was almost like he wasn't paying attention, only leaving third to get a lead as the pitch was about to be thrown. But maybe it was a ploy, because a few pitches later, he was bolting for home. What an applause he got for that sweet moment. I can't remember if I've ever seen a straight steal of home in person before this.

I was a little worried when Tito brought out the new guys with just a three-run lead. But it worked. Here's Hunter Jones. Now I'm way down the right field line.

And now I'm in the pavilion seats--here's Michael Bowden.

Night view from the pavilion.

Jonathan Van Every at bat.

For the ninth, I went back out to right field, and got this shot of the dejected Yanks. Saito got the save, and Damon pinch-hit to make the last out--it's almost as if Girardi wanted to put a cherry on top of this great series for our sake. Thanks, guy! A crazy sweep, and ten in a row!

I will post more pics from Friday and Saturday later...

And I saw the I Like Baseball guy tonight! First of the year. But I couldn't get a good pic, or read the back of the sign, which surely is new material.

In the contest, the Marlins scored a run in the ninth, ruining their chance to get within two totals of the title. They lost to the Phillies, 13-2. That 13 put the Phils in a first place tie with Florida. Six other teams are tied for second (none of those are the Jays!), and the D-Backs are no longer in last, where they'd been by themselves recently.

Video I shot of the entire "Papelbon entering the game" experience last night. Funny twist at the end.


I'm off to Fenway.

I was psyched my mom could be there Friday, and now I'm just as psyched that Kim was with me today. Another crazy comeback win. I'm gonna do some describin' and leave the pics for later.

Saturday: We didn't do any pregame, just got there in time for first pitch. Great day--hot when the sun was out, perfect when it was behind clouds, dreamy when it went down and a cooling breeze came through. No major Yankee fan-age around us in our bleacher section, but just across the great divide, in the grandstand, their fans were representing in scattered but noticeable fashion. It's a shame that the truest fans in Fenway--the right field corner people, had to share the area with the enemy, who were all fooled into buying neck-craning seats by scalpers, I'm sure. But of course it makes for more fun and fights and ejections.

So these people got to cheer a lot at first, with the Yanks going up 6-0. All their cheers were drowned out quickly, but there were more of them, and they were louder than Friday, today being the weekend day game. I started feeling bad for Kim, knowing my mom saw this great game, while she was getting a stinker. But Kim said Beckett would settle down, and overall kept hopes high. And a Jason grandmother slamfather later, we were right back in it, at 6-5. Then Jacoby tied it at 6. Neither Beckett nor Burnett was on today. A rare Dustin error gave the Yanks a lead late, but Lowell's three-run John made it 12-10. Soon the Yanks were bringing out guys from triple-A to pitch, and we finally pulled away after a little scare when it got to 12-11.

Once again, it was so satisfying to know how completely sure these Yankee fans were that they had this won, and then see them blow it like usual.

Friday: My mom was a few minutes late meeting me to go to the Monster Seats for BP, so I had already gotten in when she got to the line. She was supposed to be my "guest," as only I have a RSN membership--but she gave a sob story to the woman at the gate, and was allowed up. We didn't get a ball, though Dustin was trying, but we had fun in the nice weather--it only got a little chilly when the wind blew after dark, but nothing to complain about in April. At one point, Papelbon threw a ball up to the Monster fans, and the missed it--and he booed them.

We had really cool seats. The back wall of the bleachers, to the left and a few rows down from the scoreboard. There were literally two seats in our row, and the back wall behind us. We never had to get up, and we could stand at any time. Some of the best seats in the house, even if they were almost 500 feet from home plate.

Cody Ransom was announced in the starting lineups as Cody Patterson.

In the section to our left was the graduating class of Northeastern University. You always get college kids in the bleachers, but this was ridiculous. Overall they were well-behaved, but there were some Yankee fans mixed in. These guys were big on Derek Jeter chants, and even saying, when Mo came in, "we can go home now." Yeah, you should have for your own sake! A bunch of Yankee fans got ejected, always fun.

And you know what happened. It started with us riling Joba (woohoo!) and having Jacoby get all the way around the bases in about ten seconds. And it ended with Bay hitting a game-tying dong off Mo with two down in the ninth, and Youk winning it with a walk-off blast in the 11th. I should also point out that they're not playing Wild Thing for Papelbon anymore--they go straight to Shipping Up to Boston, with an extension to make it fill out the time, it seems.

Can they possibly top all this Sunday night? I'll be there again with my broom.

(JD Drew, well, he's gotten off the hook with these two incredi-wins. But let's just say he's a case FOR booing your own players. What's the record for most triple plays hit into by one guy in a game? I feel like his next goal is to set that record. Or maybe just "most run-scoring opportunities shat on in one weekend." Anyway, if we'd lost either of these games, this paragraph would be ten times as long.)