[11:11: Wow--that phone method takes a while! 21 minutes to buy three games--meanwhile I saw windows open up on the computer, so I was getting them all prepped in case the phone order got effed up. But with the pressure on, I finally got to the end of the ordering process and got my conf. number. Got what I wanted except for one of the Phils games--they didn't have 2 upper bleachers together so I picked an alternate game (I have another game in the Phils series already so I didn't mind so much.) Continued good luck to those still waiting. Try the phone!]

[10:50: Phone comes through! Am ordering with "Gertie" now! All these windows, and the old-school method comes through.... am getting what I want, too. Nice.]

[10:40: Haven't had a good, long wait like this in a while. Still shut out.]

[10:20: Tough crowd. Nothin' yet.]

[9:48: Okay, now all tabs/windows are staying in the VWR. I think we're good.]

[Update, 9:44: Interesting. All the windows that went to the VWR cycled a few times and then went back to the ticket page saying Error, game not onsale till 10 AM. This could be a huge deterrent to my methods. But ya know sometimes I kinda root for 'em--I've learned so much, they really should be tweaking the system more often...stay tuned.]

{Update 9:37 AM: VWRs open already!}

If I've done the math correctly, the 600th consecutive sellout game will be Sunday, July 18th, vs. Texas. If there are one or more yet-to-be-made-up rainouts by that date, 600 will move all the way to the next homestand, which starts on Friday, July 30th vs. Detroit. So think about that. Also, if you're having trouble deciding between a Saturday and a Sunday, one thing I always remember is how Sunday is free metered-parking day. I try to get a metered spot anyway for night games and pay the few quarters, but I'm just sayin', Sundays rule. Never pay 40 bucks to park at Fenway when you can pay $0-$2 in quarters.

Also remember that game one of any series would be the day of the return to Fenway of an ex-Sox. And one last tip: Wednesday, September 22nd will be the game when they do the rookie hazing afterward. It will be at night, which is way less cool than when the day before the last road trip falls on a Sunday, but what are ya gonna do? Hopefully we'll get some Sunday hazing in '11.

Good luck.

Can you believe it's time for another "big day" already? (I'm 34 so I perceive time to go by twice as fast as it did when I was 17, a fact made even more mind-blowing since I feel like that was just yesterday. Wait, does that mean 0 seemed like two days ago when I was 17?) So, yeah, Tixmas Morn', tomorrow, 10 AM.

Get those windows open tonight. [see added note at bottom] In past years the urls looked like this:

http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/MLBEventInfo?gameid=2009/09/29/tormlb-bosmlb-1

So you had the date and the teams in there. This season each game, from 1-81, has a unique code number. So, since only the Apr/May/Sept games have links on the sked, to find your summer game, just use a number higher than a May game or lower than a September one. Example: you can see the link on the sked for the last May game, 4/30 vs. KC:

http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/MLBEventInfo?pid=6651629&agency=MLB

The next home game would be the next number up, so add one to 6651629 in the url, and get June 1st vs Oakland:

http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/MLBEventInfo?pid=6651630&agency=MLB

Find the game(s) you want by doing the math or by narrowing it down, and get that swine open tonight. Then just reload 'em a few minutes before 10. Lately they haven't been letting us into the VWRs until juuust before 10:00.

Good luck. (I also like to try by phone with my third hand.)

Or pay triple face value plus 15% on the scalper/greed sites. The choice is yours!

[Note, a minute later: Just noticed they actually have put up the little T icons for the summer games, so that shortcut is already there. But it's good to know the behind the e-scenes stuff. I guess. Either way, the point remains that you should open your windows tonight instead of waiting till tomorrow, and then just reload 'em. Or whatever.]

[Oh, and I forgot to keep up with the "who's on the tickets" watch. I've gotten a bunch of tickets in the mail lately from Sox Pax, the Apr/May/Sep sale, and the voucher sale, and besides the Pedroia/Clay duo, I've now gotten Ellsbury/Papelbon, and Beckett/Drew. So that's your cousin!]

While you wait for me to get my act together on the current Kwiz season, check out this addictive quiz site.

Ol' Doggy's at it again at Extra Bases--"Javier" Molina? I guess all those brown people and their craaazy names are interchangeable to him.

(I double checked just to make sure Jose Molina wasn't born Javier or something. Nope. Why did I check? Because I figure I should at least get the basic stuff right since I'm paid my a major corporation--oh wait, that's him!)

(Also note, I went ahead and checked Bradford's original story--sure enough, he was the one who said Javier instead of Jose. Which means Silva's now guilty of getting it wrong and cutting and pasting.)

That idiot who runs the DirtDogs site (I'm proud to say my complete boycott of it has lasted for years now and I hate the fact that so many people probably still think it's "the" source for Red Sox "news" online) has posted to boston.com's Extra Bases site about this Saturday's ticket sale. Going by last year's information, he tells us how Yankees and Opening Day games won't be available during this sale.

But since he's a media whore and not a real fan, he wasn't paying attention to the Red Sox Road Trip thing, which revealed that Dodgers games also are considered "special" games this season and won't be part of this big sale. (Info can be read on this page, in the box in the middle.)

This is a great example of how anyone could do the job the Globe hired that racist asshole to do--only they'd probably do it better.

Hey Dodger fans! Take a trip to Fenway Park and see your Dodgers take on the Boston Red Sox and their old logo! Even though all the MLB sites are integrated for that shitty pre-packaged feel, we didn't get the memo in December 2008 that the Red Sox changed that logo! Just the the latest in my ongoing series.... (I also like how they say "Bean Town" on this page.)

row of asterisks

Recently Kim and I got lost looking for a restaurant we thought we knew how to get to and ended up at one we'd never been to before. Yadda yadda yadda, I walked out saying it was the worst experience of my life. After checking this restaurant's reviews on Yelp, I found out we weren't alone--someone else said the exact same thing I did about the place. After reading some more hilarious reviews, Kim has decided to start compiling some good ones. Check out her new blog.

Dawson to go into Hall with ELB on his hat.

This is my 4,256th post. Tied with Pete Rose! Funny how I've done posts about him and sports betting recently...

I just got one of the greatest spam e-mails ever:


Hi,
we will be greatful if u could send us your quotation for
supplying of the following,

1.500 yards
2.700 bedshits

please including your most favourable term and
delivery.Looking forward to read from you and thank you for
taking your time to read.
note;Including the method of payment.

Yours faithful
calvin ulmer
(manager)

For 2.700 bedshits?? I don't think you'd be able to afford it, Cal.


Sox spring training broadcast schedule here.

Used the vouchers, quickly got several windows to pop out of VWRs, and had three sets of tix by 12:08. (Two on behalf of other people, of course--my mom attempted to give it a shot herself and gave a valiant effort, but I stepped in so we'd get what we wanted. And when my mom is buyin', she goes for the good seats, so we got the summer weekend game of our choice, right behind the Sox' dugout. I like this method--one splurge game, and the rest: 12-dollar upper bleacher-fest or pavilion SRO (and then go down to the good seats anyway when the bored rich people and parents take off.))

I still hate the fact that we real fans have to fight with people buying just so they can re-sell. (Well, they didn't put up much of a fight today, but you know what I'm talkin' about.) I do like how the Red Sox are doing this voucher method--because you can tell most of the people who go out to get the vouchers intend to actually buy the tix so they can go to a game.

[Post with the grid and stuff now up here. Contest no longer enter..able.]

[Originally posted 1/18/10 at 9:21 AM. Bumped to top. See comments for available squares.]
It's almost time for the Gamblers' Big Day, aka the Supe. For this year's Super Bowl contest, we'll do the classic 10 x 10 grid (FREE to play, this is all nice and legal). In comments, leave a letter between A and J and a number between 0 and 9 and that will be your spot in the grid. Once it's filled up and the teams are set, I will draw numbers at random to go along the top and side, and those are the numbers you'll be rooting for. But I'll give everybody two squares each, so we only need 50 people. So your entry should look something like this:

"Jere, you are awesome and my squares are A-3 and J-6"

We've got three weeks so hopefully we can fill the 100 squares. (If two people pick the same thing before I publish their comments, the first person gets what they asked for, and the second gets moved one square over.)

PRIZES: I recently bought a wax box of 1989 Fleer baseball cards. You know what that means: A chance at the Billy Ripken "fuck face" card! All winners will receive unopened packs, possibly containing a "fuck face." 1st Quarter winner: 1 pack. Halftime winner: 2 packs. 3rd Quarter winner: 1 pack. Final score (score at end of game whether it goes overtime or not) winner: 3 packs. Note: If you do get the Billy Ripken card, I'd say there's a good chance the "fuck face" is blacked out in some way, but it's still cool.

(For people with no clue what I'm talking about: you will get a number for the AFC champ and one for the NFC champ. So if you have AFC 4, NFC 0, you're rooting for those to be the last digit in the score at the end of each quarter. If the AFC team is up 14-10 at the half, you win the halftime prize. And since you get two squares, you get two sets of numbers to root for. "Why not just pick the common scores like 0, 3, and 7?" Well that's why you pick your grid locations first and THEN I draw the numbers and place them alongside the grid. Still confused? Ask the guy at work who wears "baseball pants" at your softball games.)

Note to banned commentors: I was actually thinking of letting you play just to fill the grid, but then if you win and I send you something, you'd know my address. So, as usual, you're out! Actually, you'll probably send me your choices anyway, so feel free to monitor all this from behind your curtain and see if you WOULD have won. Fun!

Went to the Pawtucket Hot Stove Party at McCoy on Saturday with Kim. My goals were to see the clubhouse and get Natale's autograph, and I met them. But between getting there late and spending most of my time on line, that's about all I did. Above, the clubhouse.

The mascots in the clubhouse.

Natale, Doubront, and Kelly were in the weight room, taking questions from an audience. The guy told me they'd sign when they were done, so I waited in there, knowing this would be the only player room I'd have time to go to. Natale is on the mic.

While waiting in line, some dude said these guys had to catch a flight and that we had ten minutes left. As it turns out I was about nine minutes from the front when he said that. While I waited, I got shots of the Astroturfed weight room...

...and explained to the guys behind me who Jeremy Kapstein was. I've met the Kap'n a few times now, and this time he recognized me! Had another friendly chat with the man. How far we've come from the days of admiring/worshipping/obsessing over him as "that guy behind the plate." (Cue AJM comment about Fisk and Lynn.)

Left to right in these shots, it's Jeff Natale, Felix Doubront, and "guy everyone talks about" Casey Kelly, as TV's "Newman," Wayne Knight, seeks an autograph.

I only had a printed out pic I took of Natale to sign, so I had the other two sign pre-printed pics that were on the table--Kelly was very polite and gave a big smile (his 5,000th of the day, I'm sure), and Doubront, well, I feel like I was kind of rude since I was making sure I got Natale to sign my pic and not the one the other two signed, plus I wanted to make sure I got to talk to Jeff in what was a rushed situation. So I kind of had to breeze by Felix. I got to Natale and told him how he knew two of my cousins and he definitely recognized the names and was friendly about it, realizing I wasn't like the other dudes on the line who looked like me and were my age--that is, autograph re-seller slime. So that was cool.

At this point the festivities were over, but Kim and I had fun walking down the long hallway full of memorabilia (which I'm assuming is closed off to the public normally). This is also when Kapstein walked by and talked to us. Above, Spielberg in a Paw Sox hat.

The hallway. (You can barely see that the three players from the room I'd been in are on their way out.)

Wives Lounge sign.

Lots of Gedman stuff, naturally. Here he is in the 1980 team pic.

The 1973 program.

Got to peek out at the field from a suite they left open.

And in that sweet, this 1981 yearbook signed by the team--Gedman is right over the "19." I know that autograph well... There's a lot of great stuff in that hallway. We could have spent hours in there. I'm still wondering what they're gonna do if that longest game ever gets surpassed.

Also saw Kelly O'Connor (and maybe Cyn?) briefly but she was kinda far away and I was rushing to do my thing so I didn't say hi--but JS of Baseball Heavy spotted me and Kim and said hi in a Bouncing Souls shirt.

I like this Providence-area place. It seems to fit the Even Steven image that's adopted me--it's between big and small, between Boston and New York, between city and country....I don't think I'm a "middle"-type person, more like I like things covering the entire spectrum all the way out to each extreme, therefore my average point ends up in the middle. Or something like that.