Missed the entire game. Just found out Lester gave up 9 in 2 innings. Come on. We weren't the only losers so just gotta forget it and move on. But it's almost, ya know, September.

Looked good for a while, but Beckett just lost it. We're done. Until tomorrow night!

Some Roger Clemens news. (So funny to see that ridiculous lawyer of his in that picture! I forgot about that clown.)

Red Sox look for a perfect 10 against the Anaheimlichs, 7:10. (Hey, are those bumper stickers that say "Is it 7:05 Yet?" referring the the Red Sox' former weeknight start time? I've only seen them recently--I never saw them in the 7:05 era. My all-time favorite starting time was 7:35. It just seems like the time the game is supposed to start; everything since has seemed contrived.

WIN--we keep pace, and go to 9-0 against the Angels in '10. Lackey gets the W, though he had his problems. Bard H. And Papelbon was lights-out in the 9th. I love that they threw that stat up about how he's the only dude to get 30 saves in his first 5 seasons. Only in Boston can one of the best ever who can be our closing horse for another decade is a guy thought of as done, basically a ghost, already gone. I can't figure it out. A Corvette in the garage and it gets a coupla dings and you wanna give it to 1 877 Kars 4 Kids? A good closer is hard to find. AJM, rebuttal please.

Three balls that were right at the top of the fence that fans touched. One was called a "fuckin' moron" by Lackey. And Don/Remy never know what's going on. Remy will make his call and then even super-slow replays can't make him change his mind.

Good to see Dave Roberts tonight. Despite the cancer, he seems his old happy self.

The seat is back! Or maybe just the one in row one at the bottom of the home plate aisle? Because there was a guy there tonight for a while. Yet no one sat there all last night. Something's going on in that spot and I'm gonna get to the bottom of it.

Great job by their 3Bman Callaspo tonight, especially on the pop-up he caught Mays style.

I don't think I'd ever seen, at any level including T-Ball, a player cross home plate with a run while holding a baseball until tonight. David Ortiz did it--dead ball on the bases-loaded hit by pitch, and Papi picked it up on his way home, carrying it across.

Key play of the game: the Nava diving catch. Nice job, guy. (The Angels giving us the tying and winning runs helped, too.)

Article on the Fen-dors here. No mention of that one girl that carries the water on her head, hands-free?

Sox have yet to lose to the Angels this season. They get their 9th shot at us tonight.

FIne job by HH tonight. 6-0 WIN. Yanks and Raze also winning right now.

Great to see Kalish get a grand dong. He was psyched--as much as I was to see Dustin back on the field.

The Darnell dong was great, too, right through a back windshield. I wonder if we'll hear about the innocent fan from Smithfield who got a check to cover the damages, and an autographed ball, from McDonald. I think it might even be a street vendor's car, as it was right next to Mr Sausage's truck.

Lots of talk of Clay's first MLB start, three years ago today. Check out my photo gallery from that day at Fenway (and see how many people missed his first pitch!).

Looks like they finally did get rid of those middle seats right behind home plate. That spot in row 1 and 2 was right at the bottom of the aisle so you'd have to hop over to get there (with your gold shoes). Once before I thought they were removed, but you just couldn't see them when someone's not in them, since they're so low. But now I really think they're gone. Kapstein even had to move over. Maybe this was done so he could get out easier!

The missing Wally conversation was some funny S.

I always love when the announcers mock a sponsor. Remy said that stupid New York Life organ sounds like a funeral....

Today I heard some sports radio hosts wondering exactly why Bobby Thompson's home run was such a big deal. They knew why it was famous, but not why it meant so much.

I could give you a lot of reasons, but here's a big one: From the turn of the last century until 1968, there were two very different leagues, with no divisions. Winning the pennant was important. And the way you did that was having the best season--no playoff...unless two teams tied. That had only happened twice before, and there wasn't much drama in those tiebreakers. So for a team to come back in the pennant race and then in the final game of a three-game playoff and win the whole thing with one swing...there you have it.

RIP Bobby. Continue to live in, hopefully, relative peace (CTLI,H,RP) Ralph.

Red Sox-Angels, right now.

This is not episode 2! This is a special "road/home trip" edition of Randomonium:

Basically, the stuff I've been filming for the show gets older the more I procrastinate. So I want to slip in some current events in between *actual* episodes (the kind with theme songs and celebrity intros!). So this episode contains the length-of-Manhattan walk that Chan and I did earlier this month, and some bands playing at Foo Fest, which took place in Providence two days ago. I'll get some photos up of the NYC walk here on the blog soon.

(Funny how this slip-in edition turned out to take up the full 15 minutes...oh well.)

From an NY Post article from May:

"We are Americans, we are Muslim Americans," Rauf said. "Many of us were born in the United States. We have no higher aspirations than to bring up our children in peace and harmony in this country." But the crowd got ugly when he added, "Freedom of assembly is the right of all Americans."

Amid boos, one woman shouted, "Not at the World Trade Center!"

I suppose this woman wanted all US Army-trained white people out of Oklahoma City after the bombing there. Or, they could go there...just stay a mile or so away from the bomb site. And would it have been "insensitive" for the black employees to show up to work the day after the Hartford shooting? Should they have had to eat lunch in a separate cafeteria that day out of respect for the family members of the victims?

That woman in the article is basically admitting she's a racist--but I don't think all people who are against the mosque are like that, I just think they're looking at this in terms of "those guys killed my friends, these guys look like those guys, so screw these guys." But "these guys" just aren't the ones who committed the act. You know what? If this mosque happens, and all the people in there secretly plot to commit terror attacks and use it as some kind of underground headquarters, I'll wear a Yankee hat.

I've been thinking more about this mosque thing and I figured out a better way to state my opinion about it:

If a religion called "crazy people who fly planes into buildings" wanted to put up a house of worship right near Ground Zero, that would be insensitive to the families of people lost on 9/11.

But to think that all Muslims are bad because Muslims were behind the attacks is to be just as bad as the terrorists, who attacked Americans because they thought all Americans are bad just because some of us are.

Kim's newest addition to the soap-line is her Narragansett beer soap, Last Call.* It got a mention in the Boston Herald, and on the Loren & Wally show on a Boston radio station. We put that one on Youtube so you don't have to go to the exact spot in their podcast.

*As you know, I'm always suggesting names for Kim's soaps, and usually they're understandably rejected, as no normal person would see the connection between lemongrass and Dwight Evans' glove or something. But Last Call, I'm proud to say, is one of the ones I came up with. I actually forgot about it (probably because I originally gave her a long list of suggestions, including ".08% Pure" and "Cold Shower"**) until she recently reminded me, but now that this soap's getting some serious attention, I won't be forgetting any more!

**Okay, I just came up with Cold Shower now--she said it's good, but it's no Last Call. I don't know...***

***As long as I'm setting personal sub-footnote records....

We lose.

And autograph Alley schedule:

Tues 8/17: George Scott
Wed 8/18: John Trautwein
Thur 8/19: Skip Lockwood
Fri 8/20: Sam Horn
Sat 8/21: Billy C.
Sun 8/22: Gary Waslewski
Mon 8/23: Chris Howard
Tues 8/24: Bill MacLeod
Wed 8/25: Jeff Plympton

It started out as a story I'd been following in the New York press and now it's a national one: the proposed mosque near Ground Zero.

I happen to think religion is dumb. But I also think people should have a right to choose whichever one they want, or make up their own, or not have one at all (recommended!). In fact, that's what this country is supposedly all about. People have that right. When the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks happened, lots of people made sure to remind everyone of that. The word "freedom" was tossed around like a rag salad. But now those same people are offended at the thought of someone practicing a religion other than theirs.

What if the attackers had been white Christians? I get the feeling none of these people would be upset about a church going up near the site of the attack. In fact, they loved it when two of the twin towers' beams made a cross right on the site--the mosque would be two blocks away.

I respect the victims of the attacks. These people worked in a diverse city, and practiced all different faiths. I would hope that they would have seen a controversy like this and said, "Yay, America, keep on allowing freedom of religion and don't let the terrorists change us!" But they're gone, so it's up to their families and every other American who truly cares about freedom to speak up.

A Baltimore Sun reporter wrote a great article about this whole thing--which among other things gives a better idea of what exactly they're proposing.


Sox in the country of Texas, 3:05 eastern. It's gonna be fuckin' hot.

...because I got the pressure-free win tonight. Went to Foo Fest here in Providence, got out at 12:30 AM, and then heard the final score. The easy way out, but the easiest kind of baseball night on the nerves.

It's funny how we're really starting to see what a small world this Providence place is. Everybody's a friend, an almost, a familiar, a local celeb, a recognizable hipster, or someone who recently waited on you but you can't remember where.