Red Sox win, Sabathia destroyed, Twins down a game with two to play.

Front e-page of New York Times tells people about Fenway's game-day ticket sales. (While I tell you for the millionth time that you can buy tickets to the same game online or by phone at the same time these people are standing in the street waiting for five hours, and then walk past them and into the park.)

This weekend I'll be at a book convention signing copies of Dirty Water. It's not a public thing--more like booksellers getting authors' books signed...and then putting them on ebay. So I guess you're not invited, un-4ch. The highlight of the day for me will be meeting Josh Wilker of Cardboard Gods. He scored a book deal recently (which was overdue, come on), and will be coming in from Chicago to sign. Sweeeeet....

Unless he spits blood and flies around, though, he won't be the highlight of my weekend. More on that later.

Good to see Wicked Lester back on track.

One weekend left. Then the fun begins. What will this year's playoff "thing" be? One October I ate chips and salsa for dinner a bunch of times while watching games. One year we watched The Shining on the off-nights. And I guess the other years' things weren't that memorable.... eh, this post stinks, go back and watch the umpires again.

I have no idea if this is "something only I know about" or "on Yahoo's front page" or anywhere in between, but here you go: two dudes dressed as umpires calling pitches from the second row at Fenway on Tuesday night.

Happy new month! Hope it's a good one baseball-wise.

Do you those "push button to cross street" buttons really care how many times you press it? Sometimes you see someone pressing it over and over, like the thing's really gonna say, "Oh, this person must be in a hurry, I'll make the light change a little sooner." But then I do it myself sometimes, figuring I might as well give it a shot. (Then again, it could be like Jeopardy! where if you buzz in to early, you get locked out--maybe one press makes it kick in but another clears the system.) So, in the rare situation where you can't just cross the street without even worrying about it anyway, what should I do to get that thing to know I mean crossin' business?

I may have the answer! Last night I saw a Boston cop, prepping for the mass exodus from Fenway, and he was pressing the button over and over! So it really must work if a cop does it. (Or maybe he's just as dumb as the guy--sometimes named me--who thinks it actually matters how many times you press.)

Weather update: I've been finding warm spots at Fenway the last two nights. It always seems like there are two different experiences at every game. There are cold people and warm people. Sometimes a cold can be right next to a warm. I just wanna yell at the cold person, "move over five feet and you'll have a wall behind you and you'll be totally comfortable in short sleeves instead of shivering in a jacket!" Monday night it actually got so warm behind home plate, I wanted to go stand in the open air to cool off. And last night it was pretty rough in the wind, but at the Jordan's Deck area, it was like being in the Metrodome. Room temp-style. It's funny how in April, it's the opposite--if you're under cover, you're freezing, while sun people bake.

It's about damn time!

I never want to take a playoff appearance for granted, so I will now sip some liquid from an elongated glass. My liquid of choice will be water. You can drink whatever you like.

Least exciting clinch ever!

(MLB Network just showed the end of the Rangers game. The announcers wondered if anyone was hanging around Fenway to celebrate, haha. And now back in the studio, they cut to a live shot of a dark Fenway, with no one in the crowd. So at least I didn't miss anything...)

We were down 4-0 before I got inside the ballpark.

The late rally was fun, though, and provided a taste of October-style Fenway madge.

Maybe I'll post pics tomorrow night. I will not post video of Youk watching strike three with the winning run on base to end the game.

Of course, we can still officially make the playoffs if the Angels hold their 4-2 sixth inning lead. I'll be staying up a little longer....

Hey I just saw a preview of the new Inning of Ken Burns' Baseball--and they showed some scenes from that game where I saw Ken working! I really hope I get in that thing. What history of baseball is complete without me? Ha.

Click here to see what Chuck Knoblauch has been up to.

First, the rain dance videos, then the pictures.









Took a thousand shots of Millar. Here he is posing with a grandma and a ma. Oh, it should also be noted that the Jays pitchers, specifically BJ Ryan and Chacin, were really good with the crowd, throwing us ball after ball. They even purposely had this one guy catch a toss in his half-full beer. This is in contrast to that one Blue Jay earlier this season who got pissed when a security guard gave one of their balls away.

It was Pesky's 90th birthday! He tried to do his patented "hit out the first pitch" but kept missing.

Bowden started in place of Beckett, and was bombed.

Dustin Richardson makes his MLB debut.

At 11-3 Toronto on a school night, it was easy to get a good seat. I went to the second row for this awesome angle.

Pedroia--isn't it funny how Kelly shows up in so many shots?

Pedroia again.

My view of the field from the sweet seats.

Dustin up.

Youk in the hole. We cut it to 11-5, and were rallying...and then there were a few drops...and then we were soaking wet.

I could have gotten some great shots of the tarp going on, but I was concentrating on getting my hood on and my camera into my bag.

Rainy Fenway, from up under the roof.

Grounds crew in action.

This guy was dancing on the dugout until they kicked him off. At this point, they started playing all these dance and/or rain songs, making it a festive atmosphere.

Down in front again, ready for more baseball, but they called the game after an hour.

The tarp that never came off....

I had visions of magic...the only way to see a clinch live tonight would be for our game to last 6 hours, with us winning and then the crowd staying for the final inning of a Texas loss on the scoreboard...and it kinda almost happened. A long rain delay meant the Texas game was already being shown on the board. Had our game started again, and had we had an amazing comeback win, maybe they would have let us stay to watch the end of the other game. And since Texas is getting killed, we really had a chance. But...no, as they just call our game even though the rain had pretty much stopped.

Guess I'll just have to go back tomorrow. This team needs something positive to happen. A celebration with the fans would be great.

I just found out if we make the ALCS, I'll have guaranteed tix through my 10-game plan, since they gave me an ALDS game which now definitely won't happen.

Got one of the ten free parking spots in Boston tonight. I always pass the row of free spots, and I think only once before have I been able to park there. So I saves a few quarters tonight. No balls in BP again--my awesome 2009 run has cooled off.

Talked to a nice Canadian dude all game. We both knew that Jason Bay and Rush were from Canada, so....

I love how rain makes people dance. I got drenched tonight but I got some good pics and video, which I will post--well, I'll post them now but I'll schedule them to appear in the morning. Unless Texas scores 11 runs before making five outs, we've clinched at the very least a one-game playoff for the wild card.

Oh, and I think I was the first fan to find out the game had been called. This dude passed me to open the door to go onto the field to give the official word to the security guard, but first he turned back and said, "they called it." So at least I was able to beat the final rush to the exits, even though there were only 24 people left...

Dear people who came here randomly on a post-Red Sox-Yankees weekend series Monday,

Buy my baseball card magnets.

Thanks,

The guy

P.S. Do you think the Yankees will have a parade for winning the division since they haven't won a World Series in so very, very long?

As long as I'm making fun of my own team for not trying hard enough, I'll gladly make fun of the Yanks for trying too hard, once again acting like the only important thing is beating the Red Sox. They can go for the small victories, we'll take the big ones.

I'd love to see their new band of soulless pricks choke in October as usual.

Hey, why does the Yankee Stadium crowd noise sound like other crowds, when their fans don't know how to hit one hand with the other hand? Could it be that the sound of knuckle dragging makes the same sound as hands clapping?

Anyway, terrible job, people in charge of the Red Sox, you're giving your fans the opposite of what they want to see. Now that the division race is finally over, I have to concentrate on the stupid wild card. 7 games left, three wins or Texas losses and we're finally officially in. A clinch Monday once seemed impossible since we'd easily be in by then. Now, if Texas holds a two-run lead with an inning left, it will be impossible to clinch Monday because we won't be close enough! But again, that's what happens when you make the official decision to stop trying before you've won anything.

Update: Tampa Bay makes amazing comeback to beat Texas! So tomorrow night I have a chance to see a clinch after all....

Update again: Texas' game will be out in LA....so unless our game goes until like 1:00 AM, I doubt I'll see any kind of celebration. It's just the wild card anyway....

Before this series I said it was more likely the Red Sox clinch the wild card than the Yanks clinch the division this weekend. After the first two games, the Yanks have a chance at the division, while we have NO chance to clinch anything. Great job, guys. The only good thing is that the wild card clinch has to be at home now, which means I'll see it in person--although I was rooting against that, and in fact almost didn't think it would be possible we wouldn't have been in the playoffs by the end of today. But maybe that's what happens when you instruct your team to just coast while everyone else is still giving their all. How would this be for a lesson: we lose the next five games and end up having to throw Beckett and Lester the last few games just to get in anyway, after all this, and end up starting Paul Byrd in Game One, while in the meantime the Tigers team plane crashes and the Yanks just get an automatic win in the ALDS, which could have been us if we'd gone for the division.

(By the way, MLB already thinks the Yanks have won the division. I'd love to think this could be motivation for the Red Sox, but instead Tito's probably like, "see, the Yanks have already won so let's keep 'resting.'")