The Cubs are going with "It's a way of life," with the W being that "win" flag from Wrigley.

And the Braves have gone slogan-less, getting rid of that Excitement of Turner Field thing.

See all the current MLB slowgz here.

Yo, juicy what happened to Joba last nite?

Oh my lawd, LUGO coming up, 2 outs in the ninth, O's down 1, first and second. And he does what I thought he'd do! Something anti-good for him! A strikeout, and we win. Key play by Bill Hall in the 9th playing the carom perfectly and throwing out the guy I wish was wearing JD Drew's uniform.

Gotta beat the 2-14 teams, and we did. Those poor O's are gonna give you a lot of games, you just gotta take 'em, say a little prayer over their grave, and hope they show up when they play the Yanks.

Oh and I've begun my official boycott of the Boston sports media. I'm feeling liberated already. This is just a rough draft of the boycott, but if it lasts, it'll count as the real deal.

Former Red Sox manager Kevin Kennedy a superhero?

Interesting question from a season ticket holder survey I got from the Red Sox yesterday:


How would you rate your level of interest in the following programs? Please respond using a 1-5 scale, with 5 being "extremely interested" and 1 being "not at all interested."

Loaded tickets, where you can add cash value for the purchase of concessions and merchandise to tickets for a specific game

Stored value cards, which would act as a pre-paid gift card that you could add value to throughout the season

Red Sox rewards/loyalty program, which would provide discounts and special offers based on frequency of ticket, merchandise, and concession purchases

Digital or electronic ticketing, which would replace paper and would be easily transferred via the internet (email) or mobile devices (cell phones, PDA’s, iPhones)


I was "extremely interested" in #3! (I got the survey because of my 10-game plan. Sometimes I get treated like a "season ticket holder," but not always. Example: I don't get those 10 games at the STH discount price. But I brought that up in this survey! I also told them about my Monster Movies idea--to show movies on the Green Monster and let us sit in the outfield on summer weekend nights when the team's away. Who's with me??)

The bad news: we lose. The opposite kind of news: The 2-14 Orioles are coming to town. Pretty good job by HH tonight, but no runs = no win.

NESN Camera Antix of the Night: Okay, 'member that play when Clay threw the ball down the right field line? That guy was headed for second, while Pedroia and Drew tracking down the errant throw. Everybody and their florist are sitting there wondering, Will the dude try for third? We're waiting and watching. Waiting. Watching. Finally, the ball is retrieved, and we see a throw going toward third. So you would think, with all this time, NESN would have a shot of third base ready to cut to. Nope. Close-up of runner, and suddenly Don's voice becomes excited, and we can tell the throw has gotten away, and there will be a play at third. But we never even see where the ball went until the replay. From an angle that showed the entire throw to third as it bounces away, and then stays on the area of the base to show the runner arriving there. They couldn't have cut to THAT camera while the play was going on? And that wraps up the NESN Camera Antix-tix-tix of the Night-ight-ight. Brought to you by....nobody. (You'll notice none of these TV stations screw up when it's time to slap a sponsor's logo on something!)

Have you ever clicked a pop-up ad? If so, have you ever bought something because of it? I'm pretty sure no one ever has. So instead of banning them because they just get in the way, how about just banning them because they don't work?

Clay the Menace vs. Mr. Wilson, 7:10 p.m.

10:59: Youk wins it with a Wall Ball!!!!!

10:57: 3-0 count to Youk!

10:54: Drew up... fly out to CF, and Marco tags and gets to second! Barely. Two outs, single wins it. Dustin facing Dustin. And they're walking him.

10:50: Scu and Dru coming up...Come on Marco, hit the foul Polo....the payoff pitch...base hit! Sweeeet...

10:46: No baserunners for us since the 6th! And Hermes gets engraved, one out.

10:43: Oka gets the 1st 2. Elvis complains about a near-perfect called third strike. Young out. We go bottom of the Dozenth.

10:34: DMC hit it--to second for a 4-3. We go to the 12th.

10:32: Zek strikes out after having 2-0 count. Here comes our man!

10:29: Tek down, Exec up.

10:27: NESN's messed up this year with the local ads. They used to match your region. But this year we're getting all kinds of ads made for Maine and stuff. Okay, Tek's up.

10:25: 1-2-3 for Pap, bottom 11 coming. We should go ahead and end it here.

10:17: Youk can't catch up to the 102-MPH heater. 2 out, Lowell up. Out. We go to 11.

10:15: Pedroia hits a dong-looking ball to center, but caught shy of the track, one away in the 10th.

10:13: "He has adventures. And I have mine," says some dumb commercial. I think they left a "his" out...

10:12: And Pap quickly gets the third out. We go bottom 10, 7-up.

10:10: Pap gives up hit to ass head Hamilton. Vlad with a tailor-made DP though! By the way, "Darnell Lol's" is wordplay. Coles, ya know?
-----
Between day games and being at games, this was only the second weeknight Red Sox game I've seen on TV in 2010. Not including Fridays.

Hockey on NESN. Hope you found NESN Plus.

Drew hit the cheapest grand dong you can get, but it was key, and hopefully it gives him inspiration to not crap the bedder's box.

Darnell Lol's again, with an outfield assist and a wicked line shot four-baser to See Eff.

What's up with all our "aces" doing so horrible? 7 runs given up by Beckett, and Lackey shat last time, too. I think our entire unit will cohesify come May, and we'll be back up toward the top instead of the bottom.

I'm typing this in the bottom of the ninth, tied at 7. One out. Scutaro up....ooh almost hit in head, maybe he's thinkin' revenge...nope, called strike 3. Now it's Drew...come on, just double off the Monster and Dustin will bingle you home... 3-1, hitter's count....but Drew pops out. I'll go ahead and post this now and update in the 10th. See you back up top. The sentence below, I typed earlier as the "ending."

And if you missed it....

Kim's a big Celts fan, so when playoff tickets went on sale, I took a shot at the only affordable seats, the $12 ones. Somehow, I got in and got some, randomly choosing game 2 over game 1. That game was tonight. So the Red Sox tickets I had for tonight went to a co-worker.

As we sat in the top row of the upper deck, I was watching not only the Celtics on the floor, but also the Red Sox on a TV I could see in one of the luxury boxes, hundreds of feet away. Without sound or the ability to see the graphics, it was tough, but I was getting the idea. Close-up shots of Wake, then Tito in the dugout, then Wake, then Tito. It just seemed tense. Finally at halftime, I called my mom, and she told me it was 6-2 Texas. Then I could see a play involving the left field line, and two white-shirted players scoring. So I guessed it was 6-4. Later, I saw a home run. I couldn't tell who hit it. A righty. But who? The Garden big screen then showed the highlight. So we saw that the blow tied the game at 6 in the 8th, but we still couldn't tell who hit it, other than maybe Manny Delcarmen trying something new. I had heard Reddick was being called up today, but I didn't know about any other "new" guys.

So then I watched Papelbon--I had to assume it was still tied, top 9. At that point, Kim gave the go ahead for us to leave, as the Celts were up 30 with three minutes left. We had passed bars on the way in, so I knew exactly where we had to go.

We got the windows of a bar with Youk leading off the ninth. We planted ourselves there. As the crowd leaving the Celts game got thicker, the crowd at that bar window built up around us. Soon there were two on, two out, and we could see that "home run guy" was on deck. It would pretty much have to be a walk to give him a shot at a game-winning hit. Just before he came up, we got through to my mom who told us it was....Darnell McDonald! Okay.... anyway, here he was again, and there went a fly ball to deep left...

And while I wanted to start jumping up and down immediately, I knew there was a chance it was "take your infant to work day" at NESN. Again. Meaning the cameraperson's infant could be at the controls, thinking any fly ball is a home run, and pointing the camera at the sky instead of the fielder as he camps under the fly ball. Sure enough, I was correct in my assumption, as they jolt the camera down at the last second, after having fooled everyone, and we see what looked like the left fielder jumping for this ball that two seconds earlier was bouncing off the top of the Citgo sign and over the Charles. Fortunately, we saw the ball bouncing away, and that was the game. DMC ties it and wins it in his first game as a Socker.

I've watched the replay a few times online, and that ball looked catchable. It definitely clanged off the scoreboard. [edit: I guess that was the sound of the GUY hitting the board, but the ball couldn't have been that high if he jumped for it] Too bad we couldn't really see what happened. I didn't see a different angle, don't know if they have one. Maybe the Texas channel knew to follow the fielder instead of the ball.

In the car, we heard some of the calls. Castig actually said, while DMC was batting that first time, "he could become a household name here in a hurry." How right he was.

When I get to work tomorrow, my co-worker better not tell me she left Fenway early!

Nobody in the majors has more strikeouts than Jason Bay.

Let's go, let's go, let's go! Stop effin'!


Around!

Update, 3:38: Terrible job.

We lost.

I had tickets for tonight. But I've been sick this week and and I shouldn't have been sitting out in the rain from 5 to midnight. So I didn't go. Best decision of all time. Oh my lord it was like Cast Away. A shitty thing happens, and we end up working our way to the point of almost making it all better, but we "lost her all over again." Hopefully we know what we have to do now.

Juicy that 20-inning Mets game? And what was up with the Remy-Don suspended game talk? As soon as Gammons in the pre-game said Remy had a bunch of hits in a suspended game, we all looked up Remy's game logs (right?) and found that 6-for-10 20-inning game vs. Seattle. But then when Don brought up the three suspended games Remy played in, he only specified the length of one of them, saying it was "seventeen innings," implying it was the longest of the three. Hello? Seattle, 20 innings! Finally they did bring up the 6-hit performance, and this time they specifically said they didn't know how many innings that game was. Come on, booth research people. Or whoever.

Nice job by Fenway playing "Easy" when the game ended, technically on Sunday morning.

Have I mentioned how effin' pissed I am? Goddamn it.