I've got a lot to say about Nava-mania! But I'll get to that later because I just found out Aroldis Chapman is pitching at McCoy and the game just started. So I'm gonna go check that out. Bye.

Nava!

My view last night. Beautiful, but just to the right of this, a giant pole. I was literally in "that seat," John D. Pole as the fan in front of me. However, I had a perfect view of the entire infield (which is why the ticket wasn't marked obstructed)--just had a big blind spot in the shallow outfield. But with the aisle on my left and Kim on my right, I could move to either side for extra seeing.

Jamie Moyer, with the stirrups. We would tattoo the Monster against him, all the hits going right out in front of me.

Friend of my co-worker friend who knows everyone, Rhode Islander Davey Lopes.

Again, the pole was just off to the left of this view--but I'd rather see the entire infield, it really wasn't bad, especially for $30 and free parking (got a non-meter, free spot on Mass. Ave in zero seconds searching-time!)

Papi goofin' around with somebody.

This tells the story. Easy win, great night. I got there right from work and knew I'd miss all of BP, so just these few pictures... and, let's see..oh, at one point I ended up behind home plate at that new food stand, and these fans were having a back-and-forth, with this drunk Philly guy getting pissed, and as I walked between them one way, Tom Werner and his wife/girlfriend walked by the other way... Kim had to leave early (she met me up there since she had to go to Boston for something else), so she got to see the exact innings when the runs scored, perfect set-up for her....as I headed to my car I walked through the crowd getting out of the Boston Pops in teir suits and gowns and stuff...weird....

Sat there thinking "sickening" for a good while, only to have the Red Sox "un-sickening-ize it then go back to sickening then un-sickening-ize it for a second before sending it back to sickening" the game.

If you were watching the Celtics or something, here's what happened in this unique-ass game:

Marte makes three errors in the first. We score 4 but could have had more. We add one in the second and could have had more there, too. But it's 5-0 and we've got Lester. Then he starts giving up runs, one at a time in the third. 5-3 after 3. Then he does the same thing in the sixth, and in this game that seemed OVER, we're sitting there losing the fuckin' game. I was screaming at the TV for the first time in a while. However, by the ninth, with it still 6-5 them, I'm thinking, Well, they gave us the runs in the first, we shouldn't have been up big in the first place. BUT, with no one on and two outs and two strikes, Drew gets hit by a pitch. Beltre comes up and hits a massive dong, and all is right with the world again, 7-6 us. Bard comes in and walks the first guy in bottom 9 on four pitches. Then he loads the bases, none out. And we're back to sickening again. BUT! He gets Hafner on a K, and Peralta on a pop-up. We're back, baby! But.... next guy bloops one over Pedroia, he can't get, it lands, two runs score and we lose. Ri-dick-street-ulous game. Unspeakable....unspeakable.

Pissed.

A couple other things: Don Orsillo was sick but apparently in the building. Remy did play-by-play on his own at the start, until John Rish came in. Just an awkward night, announcer-wise.

At one point, NESN cut to about a minute and a half worth of commercials during play. Terrible.

Ellsbury's gonna be out for several more weeks now.

Pissed.

...at least it was to my favorite Red Sox player,* Justin Masterson.

*like, when we had him

A new statue dedicated to the "Teammates" is up outside Gate B at Fenway. They actually moved the Ted-with-boy statue over a little to fit both at that spot.

We're 0.9 games ahead of the average non-AL East first place team now. And at 4 back in the East, we're actually doing better than the average first place record, including all six divisions. SWGTGFU...WIN

(All stats done in my head--you might want to double check.)

Tim Wakefield has now pitched more innings in a Red Sox uniform than anybody else. And I'm sure I've seen him pitch in person more than anybody else, too. He got win #177 tonight in Clevey.

"Bridge It" Bard-o isn't bridging the Gap 2 Pap this week, as he's "the man," and he has closed out the game both times. I loved how he buckled the knees of Shelley--the guy Yankee fans thought would be the AL MVP a few years ago.

That dude Crowe had two great catches, but his dropped fly ball was key. It's funny, I'd already planned to write about how Vik-E Mart always seems to hit balls that anyone else would get an extra base on, or slow grounders with a man on first, but because of his toe/foot/whatever issues, he'll end up just standing on the bag making no attempt to get the extra base, or thrown out for a slow-developing double play (like in the first inning tonight). And then there's this high fly ball, guy drops it, fumbles it, snaps it to an imaginary quarterback behind him, goes back and takes the snap, finally throws it in...and Victor's just pulling into second. In that case, with two outs, it didn't really matter, and Youk's non-HR scored him easily.

About those two plays--they were great examples of how sometimes Don/Rem just aren't on the ball. First Don assumes the guy caught the ball. He makes the out call as the ball's bouncing off the glove and falling to the ground. Then on Youk's ball, they just seemed kind of clueless. They never came to the conclusion that maybe the ball hit top of board, then railing (meaning it WOULD have gone over the wall and therefore a dong), then back to field. After several replays, it seemed like all it did was hit top of board, go up, then back down (while Remy's coming up with the crazy theory that somehow the ball was IN the stands and came back). But even then, when Remy asked Don what the call would be if hit the scoreboard and went over the wall, Don says it would be a home run! What? Thnk about it Don, if a ball hit that upper ledge of the Green Monster scoreboard and somehow went into the crowd, would it be a home run? Of course not. Same as if a ball hit the ladder and went out of play, or the Monster just right of the foul line and landed in the left field seats, or the center field wall to the left of the yellow line and landed in section 40. Come on, Don.

Bill Hall, why are you running toward the side wall with your glove down, shying away from the impact? And look what happened, you got hurt anyway! I like this guy, but I think we're seeing a bunch of reasons why he never became the star he was supposed to be back in the BSM Brewers-following days.

Drew scared me on the last out of the eighth. It's like he didn't even watch the ball go into his glove next to his head.

Those stupid texty I'm-so-social opinion questions NESN asks should be shot. Tonight they asked what people thought of a player who'd never played in a major league game, and one of the choices was "overrated." Another was "average." If you're gonna ask a question about a guy who 95% of your audience has never seen pitch (and anyone who did only saw him in minor league action), how about asking how we think he will do in the majors? Even that would entail everybody giving a bullshit answer, but at least it wouldn't be as bad as, "that guy I've never seen....I'd say he's average. Yeah, right around average."

Speaking of Strasburg, he had 14 Ks in 7 IP--so had they left him in, he could have tied Wood and the other guy with 20.

This past weekend I went to NYC. Stayed with Chan, and saw another Pist reunion show. I'm pretty spoiled, now having seen that band at least four times, all since they "broke up" almost 15 years ago. If you're new, Brian, drummer of The Pist, was the singer of the band I played bass in, The Pac-Men, and we were around from approx. '99-'03. And The Pist went from '93-'96.

So what you see here are pics I took at that show, at Brooklyn's Europa club, 6/5/2010.






But wait, you want more Pist, you say? Fine. A few weeks earlier, I saw them right here in Providence at Club Hell. Here are some less black & white pics I got at that show:


So yeah. They're gonna do more shows in California and Chicago and stuff. They basically keep flying out to different places on weekends for the current reunion tour. Impressive, as they're keeping their "normal" jobs. I heard they played to a crowd of a thousand in Austin recently. So go see The Pist while you still can.

Get Scutaro on the court and he's trouble! That's right, I end up getting to use the Ice Cube reference on a triple double for Scutaro. Dice-K: beautiful. Four hits and no runs in eight innz. We win easily, 4-1. Four games back, alone in third.

The Cleveland crowds are dwindling, to the point where I didn't even see Hat Guy! Or maybe that camera angle just changed.

Tonight, Jerry Remy brought up a game in which he broke up Ken Brett's no-hitter. Here's the game, from May of 1976. A former major leaguer (other than the encyclopedic Dennis Eckersley) finally got facts about an old game right! He was on the Angels, Brett was with the White Sox, and the game was in Anaheim. And Remy broke it up with two outs in the ninth on a check-swing roller down the third base line. Brett was pissed. "If that's a hit, I'm a bleepity bleepity bleep," he said after the game. Pictured is Ken on the mound that night.


As if we weren't disgusted enough by the awkward "safe at second, safe and secure" ad that Orsillo has to read after doubles when we should be seeing a replay, I heard the same little ad for the same company after a double...on the Yankees broadcast. If a slimy corporation is gonna be a sponsor of multiple teams, they could at least come up with a different stupid gimmick for each one....

Speaking of that crap, your New England Ford Dealer is an Official Partner of the Boston Red Sox--yet they've made it to June still using the old Red Sox logo in their ads. June of the second year.
They're hardly the last holdout.

I've always said I could watch anything at Fenway Park. Open it up and let me watch the grass grow? I'm in. However, with the announcement of a soccer game to be played there this summer, I've finally found something going on at Fenway that I have absolutely zero interest in. (When someone says "zero" instead of just "no," don't you always think of Joey Buttafuoco when he said Amy Fisher had "zero credibility"? Me too!)

A lot of the news stories say that Papelbon's been placed "on the bereavement list." But look at the exact wording from the team's press release:

"on the bereavement/family medical emergency list due to a family medical issue."

So this list involves either bereavement OR (that's your slash, son) a family medical emergency. And they come right out and put it in the latter category. So, what I'm trying to say is, it's not a death in the family, it's someone who's sick. Let's hope first that it's not Parker or Gunner.

Pretty Essy Sunday baseball-wise. Our game was dick street. Robert A. Dick Street, I tellsya. Plenty of blame to go around, but I'd like to single out Lackey, who was once a good pitcher but has shown us nothing. He's our least reliable starter! He's the "god dammit" king, and it's usually his own foibz that make him say it. I trust he's not gonna be so fack street all year, though. But it's June, guy, let's go. And the Yanks won in their classic way to make it worse. At least we're still tied for third.

Sox at Swampdragons, 7:05.

As in 3.5 back. We're gettin' there.

Right now we have the same record after 57 games that we had last year. And the year before.