That's right, a 1-0 win for the Red Sox. You have to win those games. Timmy one step closer to All-Stardom. Still four up, as the Mets sleepwalk through their game.

Tomorrow'll be a grand day for photo uploadin' and postin'. And writin' 'bout stuff. Chan also kinda shot video of me kinda getting a ball from Justin Masterson.....

What did I tell you?! That last post of mine may have killed Michael and Farrah...

I'm back (to New York) from DC. Pre-game ball: check. Lots of pics to be posted later: citizen of the Czech Republic. Win: empty box. Heat stroke: almost!

Tonight I missed the whole game since I was on the train, but got to do that rare thing where you check the score having no idea who won--and I got the good news. Then I saw the headline "Yanks take what Mets give them," and read about the Mets making three errors in one inning. But the key is we stay four up.

Good morning! Here I am in DC! And the Red Sox won/lost last night! Okay, I have a confession to make. I didn't bring my laptop to DC and I won't update until late Friday night. I'm writing this late Wednesday night and setting it to post Friday morning. So....yeah, that was a sweet win/crappy loss, eh? We totally swept or took two out of three. Good/bad job by the Nats getting swept/salvaging a game. I'm glad my game was a win/sad it was a loss.

Of course, because I'm doing this, it'll probably turn out that some amazing thing or great tragedy happened, and here I am hammin' it up oblivious.

Okay, I gotta go to bed since we're leaving for DC early. No wait, it's Friday to you. So...I'm probably looking up at a giant Abraham Lincoln or something. See you later. Oh wait, here's my chance to make a prediction about the game. But I don't wanna get it exactly right or you won't believe that I'm writing this 19 hours before the game. So I'll go off the board and say 21-0 Red Sox. Smoltz will pitch a perfect game--a truly perfect one, with every pitch being a strike.

I'm staying at Chan's in NYC, and tomorrow we hop a train to the capital of the United States. I got to see the end of the Sox game tonight--looked like a nice W.

I also saw the end of the Yanks game and noticed Tony Pena in the dugout acting like the manager. At that point, I knew it was "spark" time--Girardi must've been ejected, and everyone everywhere would soon be talking about how he sparked the team. After the game, I did a news search on Girardi to get the details, and sure enough, MLB.com's headline is

Girardi's ejection sparks Yanks in win
Bombers reenergized in sixth inning to take down Braves

So full of shit as usual. When I brought this topic up recently, I wasn't clear on why this pisses me off so much. People thought I meant that I don't believe there's a mental aspect to the game. Of course I do. I understand baseball isn't played on paper. I hope people who follow this blog are picking up on that. What I'm saying is: If a team is "sparked" by something and goes on to win the World Series, fine. But for a team to see what that team did and try to repeat it by staging the same event that sparked the first team--that doesn't count. And you definitely can't go bragging about it, because anyone can do it at any time. This one was even more obvious than the last one, though. Before this game even happened, I had planned to write about what I heard fans saying on New York sports radio today: "Girardi needs to get ejected or something...." Not "the Yanks need to play better," but that they need to do something they've seen other--winning--teams do. Sure enough, Girardi gets ejected, and he's given credit for having actually done something, when in reality, the trillion dollar team is still five Shwisherific games out. Look, they won for the fifth time in 14 games, they're "re-energized"!

Was it Girardi's "spark" that made Robinson Cano run out of the baseline and not get called for interference? That's the funniest part about this--that the "energy" they got seemed to come in the form of their usual run-scoring dribbler-a-thon of a rally. Fielder's choice fest! Sound the siren!

So you see my point? Getting ejected on purpose, hitting someone with a pitch, starting a fight, getting pizza together....I compare this stuff to whacking the remote control to get it to work when the battery's dying. You're not "lighting a fire under it," you're just doing anything you can to attempt to get it to work. You can do over and over, and it may work every time, but eventually that thing's gonna be completely dead unless you actually replace the battery.

MLB to allow mlb.tv to show games of a team in their own market. Sounds great right? Wrong--it's only for the Yankees! What the hell is this???

Either do this for every team or don't do it at all!

So Fairfield County is not allowed to get NESN, but is allowed to get YES, AND, can get the Yanks on the computer just because. MLB, you're HORSE SHIT. Keep telling us how much we love watching Brad Penny bat while you're at it, ASS HOLES.

It's official. 11-3 win and we're five up. It was tight early, and Penny was pissing me off a little, especially when he threw the wild pitch to score a run right after a visit from Farrell. Then he walked the guy, his third in a row. But the guy has been key for us lately, and again he gave us a chance to win.

The high camera in that park is ridiculous. I'm talking about the one behind the plate that they cut to on any batted balls. Such a bad angle, especially on balls to the outfield.

Where was TC tonight?

Don seemed off his game early, first screwing up a count and then saying Nick Green was playing second base. By the way, Green's somersault DP was amazing.

I have a vision of Jason Bay catching the last out of the 2009 World Series. DomiNation!

As Jason Bay gives us a 3-run lead with a two-run single, the Yanks game ends--they were shut out. 14K Gold. And with the Jays on the verge of winning, it looks like the ScumBux will be tied for third. And sinking. And now Tek knocks home another! 7-3 us in the 8th...and now Ellsbury with a two-run triple! His second tri-cornered hat of the night, and it's 9-3 Red Sox. A five-game lead is in....Green singles in Jacoby! 10-3! Should be a five-game lead by Wednesday AM. And Toronto just officially won.

Should Ed McMahon's death be mentioned on my blog? You decide! No, forget it, I already mentioned it. It's weird, I just looked him up the other day to see how he was doing. (Because I heard Conan's old announcer had been The Tonight Show's announcer earlier in his career, which makes no sense since Ed was there the whole time.) Speaking of Conan, I feel like he's already settled in nicely to the new spot. Silliness continues to reign, as far as I can tell.

No Ortiz tonight in the NL park. We face Lannan, who had that great performance against the Yanks last time out.

The last time we played a regular season game in DC was 1971. We beat Ted Williams' (new) Senators. And the last time we played in DC against the previous Washington team was 1960, when we beat the (old) Washington Sentaors in one of Ted's final games with the Red Sox.

About 11,000 people witnessed those two games. Total.

Doesn't the Nationals' "W" look like the Walgreens one?

I'll be seeing a new stadium this week and I'm psyched. I'm making a mental list of the ones I've been to, and now through the magic of life, I'll convert it into a list that's also not actually real when you think about it. Until someone prints it out. Major league parks I've seen a game in: 

The Red Sox signed a guy named Seth Schwindenhammer. If he ever makes the bigs, his last name will edge Saltalamacchia's 14-letter total as the longest in major league history! I'm rootin' for ya, kid.

We found a metered spot (Sunday=free) and then headed to our 12-dollar seats. We got there as they were taking the tarp off.

Walking around underneath, we saw this giant Lego creation that seems to be from 1999. How is it that I've never seen this before in my life? It's out by Canvas Alley.

Here's a close-up. Hey, why are the clouds black?

If you look at the first Lego shot, you'll see a runway to the field in the background--here's a zoomed in shot of that spot, showing the scoreboard on the Green Monster.

A blustery, soggy, misty, spitty, 60-degree afternoon on the first day of Red Sox Domi-Nation summer.

This view should look familiar. Again, I was toward the top of section 36. For that incredible Friday night game against the Yanks in April, I was in the top row, row 30, the two-seat row. For the Thursday night comeback win against the Yanks, I was in row 28. On this day, my dad and I were in row 27--all three seats in about a 12 by 12 foot area. Is this the lucky spot or what? All three games, the Red Sox have won in their last at bat.

I didn't take too many pics during the game, but here's the part where W.B. Mason threw Bobby Cox and some other Braves out of the game.

Above left, Dusty Brown, who was called up as Kottaras' back-up for this game only. Oh, and let's talk about the security guard jacket exchange. Whenever a new pitcher comes in for the visitors, that bullpen area security guy (the one who looks like the kid in Billy Madison with the rat tail who says, "hey look everybody, Billy peed his pants") runs out with the pitcher's jacket. Another guard from the dugout area runs out to meet him behind second base and take the jacket. For a while, they did a little curl pattern on the exchange, neither guy stopping before heading all the way back to their original positions. Now they're switching it up, going a few steps past each other, and cutting back on their original paths in unison. The Billy Madison guy seems more into it, like he's mad when the dugout guy doesn't give it his all.

Anyway....the game went to the bottom of the ninth, and I started getting my camera out, to tape a possible walk-off win. While taking it out, I told my dad how Nick Green had hit a walk-off homer for the Braves against us in 2004. And before I could get my camera into video mode, Nick lofted one to right toward the pole. I just held my camera up over my head, no time to zoom, and shot in the general area. Here are the three shots I got in order:

That one guy thinks so....

More people realize it's a homer....

...and now everyone knows. Red Sox win, 6-5.

Nick rounds second as the Braves WALK OFF the field. It's rampant now--that is, people referring to the home team as "walking off with a win." Every walk-off is referred to like that in mlb.com headlines now. It's horrible. Again, the visitors (the only team on the field in the first place) are forced to walk off when the home team ends a game on offense. Hence, a "walk-off." I have a new theory as to why people are confused, though. I think people are thinking of it the same way you'd say a team (figuratively) "walked away" with a win. So in a walk-off win, it makes sense to them to say the home team "walked off with a win." Even though the term is obviously referring to the visitors. I wish Eckersley would clarify this, as he coined the phrase! He's got Orsillo right next to him completely misusing HIS term!

So then I switched to video mode, and caught Nick crossing the plate. That vid is here if you missed it. I attempted to show me and my dad but I screwed it up. That's why the camera circles around for seemingly no reason.

Red Sox (and me!) go to DC this week. More details on that later.

video by me

Update: A great day was made greater when the Yanks came oh so close but still lost. Better watch your back, Girardi! I'd hoped they would see fourth place by the end of this weekend, and while they're still in second, four behind us, they're only one up on Toronto and two up on Tampa.

I actually got an email reminding me of today's game which I bought tickets to. This is the first time this has happened, and I've gone to a lot of games this year. I wonder if it'll be the new thing...

Dice-K will not make his next start, and that's all they're sayin' about that...

I'm off to Fenway with dad...there's no catch on the field this year, just a walk on the track, so I don't know if we'll even do it. That's terrible--the team goes on the road after this, you'd think they'd let us out there. Three days' worth of hippies on the field for Phish/Dave Matthews shows just a few weeks ago, but we have to stay on the warning track. Boooooo!