14 games against this franchise on July 9th. We won 8 of the first 9 and lead the 7/9 series 9-5. (7-1 at home.)

1911 @STL: 9-3 W "The Red Sox had the time of their lives today fattening up their batting averages while engaging the lowly Browns in a quiet little game on the Sportsman park lot." --Boston Daily Globe "Red Sox...Knock Three Brown Pitchers Off Slab and Abuse Third" --Detroit Free Press
1912 STL: 3-2 W "Boston's success in the game against the Browns was expected, but the stubborn fight made by St. Louis was not...In the last inning, with the score a tie, two men out and O'Brien and Yerkes on base, both having singled, Speaker hit to center, scoring the winning run." --Meriden Daily Journal
1913 @STL: 9-0 W "Red Sox Maul St. Louis. Chase Two Pitchers in Merry Batting Bee." --Detroit Free Press
1919 @STL: 3-0 L "The Boston Red Sox went down to defeat today... The locals found the offerings of Mays easy to solve in the pinches" --Christian Science Monitor "One Roof-Top Drive by Babe Misses Fair Territory by Only a Shade" --Boston Daily Globe
1920 STL: 2-1 W "Dixie Davis of the Browns allowed fewer hits than Joe Bush of the Red Sox, but the Browns lost a 2 to 1 game." --Toldeo News-Bee
1924 STL: 5-4 W "Vangilder...was turning in a good game until the sixth when he allowed the Sox to tie the count...After that it was only a question of time..." --The Southeast Missourian
1924 STL: 5-0 W "Fuhr was at his best and hit left-hand shoots were so good that the Browns were completely tamed, while Dixie Davis was being touched hard by the Sox..." --The Southeast Missourian
1932 STL: 4-2 W "Dale Alexander's home run in the eighth inning...broke up a pitching duel between Ivy Andrews, former Yankee hurler, and Carl Fischer, and gave the Boston Redsox a 4-to-2 victory....It was their sixteenth victory in 75 starts." --Pittsburgh Press
1933 STL: 4-0 W "George Pipgras...allowed the St. Louis batsmen but five his...while Cooke, Boston centerfielder, had a perfect day at bat getting three doubles and a single and driving in three of Boston's four runs." --Lewiston Daily Sun
1933 STL: 9-2 L "Reynolds set a good example in the third inning...when he hit one into the left field bleachers for a homer." --Lewiston Daily Sun (I guess this means those bleachers on the cliff in front of The Wall)

And the rest... (feel free to do your own news searches on these)
1943 @STL: 5-4 L
1955 BAL: 5-4 W
1998 @BAL: 3-2 L
2005 @BAL: 9-1 L

Bonus: July 9th in Me Vs. Chan in Wiffle Ball History: click here!

Sox vs. O's, 7:10.

I'd tell you all the things Michael Kay said in today's All-Time Jeter Ass-Kissing Extravaganza, but you wouldn't believe me. You'd think I was doing some kind of sarcastic post. I will say that Jeter getting his 3,000th hit the way he did should be an example to all those ballplayers who cheat on their taxes, are constantly stroking their ego by appearing in countless commercials, and constantly try to steal calls and deceive the umps to get an advantage. Oh wait...

First of all, gotta give the credit to the Rock Brigade for kicking ass tonight. Another big win and we're a game up in first place.

And second, before getting to the obvious, how sweet is it this: Jeter's out for the All-Star Game, as is A-Rod, as is Mo, plus you've got CC and Tex not even making it, and now Youk will be replacing A-Rod.

Okay, now for the fight. What's up Kevin Gregg's ass? He throws at Papi three times, then yells at him to run on a shallow fly, getting himself immediately tossed. Of course Papi's gonna come at you at that point. And then it turns out Gregg is the worst fighter of all time! He got one weak punch off, but it didn't come close. At that point I think he was just waiting for the pile-on and looked like a fool bobbing around. Then I heard him interviewed after the game. The guy's bringing up payrolls and how they should be allowed to play on the same field and they're not afraid. DUDE--nobody's saying we don't think you should be allowed to play against us! And nobody's trying to intimidate you! We're swinging the bats and hitting the ball really far, but that's kinda what you're supposed to do. This is an Orioles team that matched us win for win last year. I understand retaliation for someone being a dick to you, but if someone's just doing better than you, I never get why you go and try to hurt them. And he's got such an attitude yet at the same time won't admit he was trying to drill Papi. And another thing! If Papi had hit a deep fly ball and admired it I could see the pitcher being pissed (though if it came after three pitches thrown at him we would have had the same result as we had tonight), but he hit a shallow one. Gregg getting pissed about that (when only the Red Sox should be) shows he was really just lookin' for trouble, and that's what he got. It's not like Papi did that thing where you get all pissed at not getting good wood on the ball--that is a version of showing the pitcher up.

I'm not alone in thinking Reddick should not have been called out on the play. Let's review. Reddick on third, batter hits fly ball, and fight breaks out while ball is in the air. Entire Orioles team is streaming out of dugout across third base line to enter fight. Entire Red Sox team and both bullpens all coming on to the field. Is Reddick supposed to stand on third? Tag up and run home through the Orioles players flying past him? He opts to enter the fight, and is called out for "abandoning the base." Was anyone else penalized for abandoning their position? That call is beyond Reddickulous.

We lost 8 of our first 10 July 8th matchups against the Orioles' franchise, before taking the last three--a doubleheader sweep in 1956 at Fenway, and a 7-2 win at Camden Yards in '05.

1911 @STL: 7-5 L One hundred years ago today, a five-run fifth doomed Boston.
1912 STL: 5-1 W Smoky Joe Wood struck out 8 and scattered 7 hits in a 5-1 Red Sox win.
1920 STL: 4-0 L Urban Shocker beats Herb Pennock.
1922 STL: 2-1 W In game one of the second of three straight doubleheaders, Del Pratt tripled home George Burns for the walk-off win.
1922 STL: 10-6 L Pratt went deep in game two but the Sox couldn't overcome an early 9-0 Browns lead. Ray Kolp got the W for St. Louis.
1924 STL: 8-7 L Shocker didn't make it out of the first, but Kolp got the win, as the Red Sox blew a 7-0 lead and lost 8-7 at Fenway.
1932 STL: 8-4 L The Red Sox can't overcome an early 6-0 deficit.
1933 STL: 4-1 L Boston makes three errors to give this one away. (Baseball Reference's linescore shows 0 errors for the Red Sox, but lists all three in the boxscore below. Too busy with videos you can't stop from playing and charging fans money to sponsor pages even though they already have paid advertising from actual companies to get stuff right, I guess. Actually, checking other pre-1950 games I see they do this every time, listing 0 errors in the linescore when there are clearly errors in the game. Terrible! Retrosheet has their linescores right, by the way.
1943 @STL: 5-2 L One newspaper described the Browns as being "hit-drunk." They had 12--all from the first 5 guys in their lineup--in the 5-2 win. Both Lucier and Lazor (the guys who wore #81 and 82 for part of that season) played in the game for Boston.
1955 BAL: 9-3 L Ted Williams went 2 for 3 to up his average to .413, but Baltimore snapped Boston's 7-game win streak to stay with 27.5 games of the first-place Yankees. The Orioles would finish 39 games out, but it was better than the 57 games behind they finished the season before, their first in Baltimore.
1956 BAL: 9-0 W
1956 BAL: 8-4 W Dick Williams was the Orioles' leadoff man and Tito Francona was also in the starting lineup for both games of this sweep by the Red Sox. Ted Williams went 4 for 8 with a homer and a double.
2005 @BAL 7-2 W The Red Sox knocked Sidney Ponson around and Bronson got the win in a 15-hit attack. Varitek, the only active Red Sox player to have played against the O's in a July 8th game, went 1 for 5 with a double. [Correction: Ortiz also played in that game, duh. Went 2 for 2 with 3 walks.]

O's @ Sox, 7:10. We look to go 1-1 all-time in 7/8/11 games vs. the Orioles.

Last month I got to see Dick Williams manage (both teams!) at the Hall of Fame Legends Classic. The manager of the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox died yesterday at 82. His ashes will be scattered at Doubleday Field, where he is in my picture above.

I absolutely appreciate what the '67 team did for Boston baseball. But I don't know how much I buy this stuff about it being the "birth of Red Sox Nation." My family (the ones who are Sox fans, anyway--remember, I'm from the middle ground of Connecticut) has loved the Red Sox since long before 1967. And had the '67 team finished in last place, all of us would still be diehards today. If Red Sox fans wanted to just root for whichever team wins the pennant, we all would have become Yankee fans decades ago.

As you know I avoid much of the Boston media. Especially Pete Abraham. I can't even look at anything he writes because I know it will raise my blood pressure more than seeing a selfish waste of space texting behind the wheel does. But while looking at Dick Williams articles, I came across one from the Globe, and was glancing over it before even realizing I was reading Dishonest Pete Abe. Sure enough, I'm pissed again.

Peter starts his article by talking about Red Sox fans who started liking the team in 2004. Then he goes on to say that Sweet Caroline and NESN* exist because of the '67 team, talking about how the Red Sox weren't always good and the park wasn't always packed, stuff we've all heard before. Why can't this man tell the world about all the great Red Sox fans who lived and died with this team through decades of heartbreak? Why does he have to imply that we're all a bunch of front-runners who started liking the team in 2004? And on top of that, he goes and acts like a true Red Sox fan started liking the team during another pennant-winning season 37 years earlier. So we're all a bunch of assholes who only like teams that win. You're talking about Red Sox fans, Peter. There are legions of us, all of whom had this team passed down through the family for generations. You should know this as you claim to be a fan who grew up with the team yourself. But let's all remember that this man who mocks us all as being fake Red Sox fans is such a real fan himself that he....covered the New York Yankees.

I hate this man so much. Now he's starting to get serious NESN airtime, too. The guy's ego has got to be ready to burst. Thinks he knows it all. I will continue to try to avoid him, but, for now, there's my yearly rant about him. Sorry, Dick Williams, that this seeped into my post about you, but he started it.

*A cable network covering Red Sox games starting in the 80s exists because the Red Sox won the 1967 AL crown? It's funny how certain ideas just get into people's heads and suddenly everyone's saying it without stopping to think that it might be complete bullshit.

One word to describe that six-dong concert: Schwaaaa-na-na-na-nihnt, schwah-nah-na-naaaa, schwa-na-na-naaaaa, dun dun schwaaaa! The Rock Brigade, tellin' you the score: 10-4 good buddy, roger, E-Bert* & Co.

Man, JD Drew is always involved in or close to dong streaks. He was part of 4 in a row for the Dodgers, part of 4 in a row in that Sunday night game vs. the Yanks, and I seem to remember more recently he had a chance to be in another 4 in a row had he hit one out. Then tonight, three guys before him go deep, before he walked. So I think he's 2 for 4 in that situation. Meaning twice he was part of 4-somes and twice he would have been had he actually homered.

And guess who lost? The emmer-effin' Yankees, putting us in first place. Life's better when you're in first place. Always cherish the hell out of it. You never know when the Russkies are gonna nuke us. (Or whatever the current fake threat that keeps us all scared and buying stuff is.)

Pretty funny moment in this game, when NESN came back from commercial showing two couples in the bleachers. Jerry quite innocently notes the "happy couples" and Don adds that they're "enjoying a summer night at Fenway Park." Right at that moment, one of the guys goes to the backhand, for an over the top boob grab. Remy let out an "oops" before the air went dead. I figured he and Don were letting time go by, then they'd casually start announcing the game--silly me, of course they were laughing their asses off. When Don started speaking again after the long pause, he was losing it, and said something about how this used to be a family place. A few pitches later, they threw it to Heidi who also seemed to be holding back laughter. I Boob-Tubed the first part (the grab), here it is:



*Adrian Gonzalez is called Evil Bert at Joy of Sox.

[Update, 1:00 a.m.: Did you hear about the fan who died at the Texas Rangers game? I saw the video of it--as he's going over the rail, he tries to brace himself while holding the ball. Had he just let it go, I thin khe could have stopped himself from falling. Kind of sad that the A's announcers were laughing about it at the time, then the guy later dies. Also, it's surreal to have the lead-in to a video of a man's death be one of those wipes where the A's logo goes shooting across the screen. To see some views of that part of the ballpark where the guy fell, see Zack Hample's April archive. The first four posts you'll see are from games in Arlington, and they include a lot of outfield shots where that railing and canyon are.]

Woohoo, a team with more than a century's worth of history against us! The Red Sox have played the Orioles' franchise 2,087 times. (After this four-game series, we will have played them and the Yanks the exact same number of times.) We've won 1,143 and lost 930, with a 615-414 home record. We haven't trailed in the all-time series since the then-Milwaukee Brewers led 2 games to 1 in 1901.

We should soon score our 10,000th run against them, but not this series (unless we score 79 runs in four days). Only twice has a team scored 10,000 against another, the Yanks against us and against the Orioles. There is a chance the O's score their 9,000th run against us in this series, should they come up with 19 runs.

On July 7th, we've met them nine times. Five of those were against the St. Louis Browns, which is who the Orioles were from 1902 to 1953. We were 2-3 in those games, and are 4-5 overall. The last time we played them at home on July 7th was 1957, an 8-4 loss. The full list:

1903 STL: 3-2 L The '03 Browns were streaky. Coming into this game, they'd lost 11 in a row, after winning 5 in a row, after losing 7 in a row, after winning 8 in a row. But they broke their most recent streak by beating Boston in the ninth. Down 2-1 with two outs, they rallied for two runs. The soon-to-be Red Sox loaded the bases in the bottom half, but had the tying run thrown out at the plate on a sac fly attempt to end the game. 4,320 people were in attendance at the old Huntington Avenue Grounds. Boston remained in first place, and would stay there for the rest of the season, eventually winning the first World Series.

1911 @STL: 6-1 W One hundred years ago today, Boston's Smoky Joe Wood pitched a masterpiece. He took a no-hitter to the ninth, and struck out 15 Browns in a 6-1 win in St. Louis. The Boston Daily Globe called it "one of the greatest pitching exhibitions that has been staged in this city in many long years."

1922 STL: 1-0 L
1922 STL: 5-4 W On the first of three straight doubleheaders at Fenway Park, Boston lost a pitchers' duel in game one and took the second game in 13 innings after tying it in the bottom of the ninth. Slugger George Burns ended it with a home run over the left field wall.

1932 STL: 8-2 L Red Sox players include guys named Rabbit, Urbane, Smead, and Ivy. They lose to a guy named Bump.

1956 BAL: 4-3 W A Saturday in July at Fenway, and only 10 thousand fans show up to see the Orioles and Red Sox. Tito Francona went 3 for 4 for the Birds, but it wasn't enough, as the Sox won 4-3.

1957 BAL: 8-4 L For the second straight July 7th, Tom Brewer started for the Sox against Baltimore at Fenway, this time losing 8-4. The attendance was only a little better than the previous year, again with both teams out of the race.

1996 @BAL: 7-5 W With two on and two outs in the top of the ninth and Boston trailing 5-4, Mo Vaughn his a three-run homer that would give the Sox a 7-5 win on a Sunday night at Camden Yards.

2005 @BAL: 3-1 L Baltimore wins a 6-inning, rain-shortened game--Adam Stern's major league debut!

O's @ Sox tonight. Boston tries to go 2-0 in games played on 7/7/11 against the Baltimore Orioles' franchise.

6-4 win. 2 of 3 taken from Toronto. 184 for Wake! Ricky Romero cannot stop the Rock Brigade. (I've been meaning to say this for a few weeks now, but the 2011 Red Sox offense at my house and hopefully yours will officially be known as the Rock Brigade. Even a huge fan of Def Leppard albums #2-#4 might not even be aware of this tune, one of the only good ones off of the 1980 debut album, when they were pretty much trying to be Iron Maiden and Joe Elliott sang like he had cotton balls in his mouth. Check it out here and play it every night, as I have been doing, in honor of our super-powered O. I'll have to make a video highlight film using the song.)

Yanks lose, so we're a half game out of first place. The O's come to town for four, then it's the All-Star Break.

Tonight I had the misfortune of hearing the first five innings on the radio in the car. I only say misfortune because Dale Arnold was Joe's partner tonight. Okay, it is hard to fill in and do something you don't normally do--but Jesus, that was a poor performance. Aside from just generally not knowing how to do a radio play-by-play, and the fact that he insists on inserting snarky comments when doing color, here are two examples of the horror show that is Dale in the booth:

He called Tuesday night's win a walk-off. If you're gonna call a game that ends with the winning team on defense a walk-off, you might as well call every game that. Because that's how they always end. (Unless it's an actual walk-off.) I referred to the game last night as having the "celebratory" ending. Yes, it's a different kind of ending than usual when you end a game with a play on the bases on a non-force out--but that doesn't make it a "walk-off." But hey, as long as nobody's even using that term correctly, might as well go hog wild. Hey, these peaches are on sale. Walk-off!

Another thing Dale does is to misplace his enthusiasm, almost as if he's imitating an announcer. Maybe the casual listener wouldn't notice something like this, but as a 30+ year radio tuner-inner, it sounds ridiculous: Red Sox hit a deep fly ball (which he sometimes describes as a "pop"--someone get this guy lessons). He tells us the outfielder is back at the wall, "looking up." Fine. But at this point, the listener knows there are only two possible outcomes: 1. ball goes over wall, 2. ball goes off the wall. If it goes out, the announcer should say so with surprise and excitement. If it goes off the wall, there should be excitement (though not as much as if it goes over), but, considering this is now the worse of the two possible outcomes--still great, but not a home run--there should be no surprise. But Dale yells it out the same way that, say, Vin Scully did as soon as the ball went through Buckner's legs. Since Dale already knew the ball was at minimum off the wall already, it means he was faking his surprise (and excitement, since he used the "home run" level call instead of the "aww, it's only off the wall which still is sweet but isn't as good as a dong" type call. Does that make any sense?

Overall he just doesn't fully describe the action that we can't see. Everything's disjointed or delayed. If he was a young announcer still innocently learning the ropes, that would be fine, but he thinks he's the shit. (Which is why I seriously soured on him as a talk show host back when I was listening to that crap. Needless to say I smiled an evil smile when he was fired from his gig.)

Oh Jesus, TC just used the term "core four" when referring to Red Sox players. End that right now, Tom. Right now.

Last night we scored our 2,500th run all-time vs. Toronto.

7/6 fun: We've played the Jays once on July 6th, in that same series from 1977 when we hit the 8 dongs in a game. (July 5th was a scheduled mid-series day off--not a rain-out--which is why we've never played them on July 5th.) It was another big win at Fenway for the high-powered Sox. No homers this time, as the runs came home on singles, doubles, and two late sac flies as Boston pulled away for the 9-5 victory. Luis Tiant didn't make it out of the fourth, but the 'pen allowed nothing the rest of the way. Yaz made two great plays in the field which you won't find in the box score.

Interesting at bat in the third--from retrosheet: "Woods fouled off 11 straight pitches before fouling out; three of the fouls just missed home runs." Those little tidbits are yet another reason retrosheet is better than the ad-diseased Baseball Reference, at least when you just need a box score/play-by-play. (Obviously retrosheet has nothing like the B-R Play Index.)

Another kinda cool site is Back to Baseball, which plays back old games in their entirety, in the same way you might watch on Gameday or whatever. Here's the game from above. (Why do players from both teams go back to the same dugout? Okay, I can get past that....)

It could have been a no-hitter. But Lester had to leave the game due to a lat injury, and in the end we had to settle for a combined shutout 3-0 win. Or so we thought--Pap gave up a two-run dong to the Bautista regime, and then put the tying run at second with two out. On a base hit to left, Darnell fired to the plate, nailing the runner to end the game. The runner's foot kicked some dirt across the plate just before Tek got the tag on him. Whether the foot itself dragged across the plate's surface was hard to determine. What I do know is, it was fucking sweet. It's fun to have the celebratory victory fun when you're in the field. You only get that on no-hitters, clinches, milestone or record-setting wins, and extra-special defensive plays that end it like this one.

I wasn't watching live at the moment our no-hitter was broken up. But I was curious--since it was a different pitcher than the starter who gave it up, what would the fans do? Especially knowing the starter was most likely injured. Because normally you'd give the guy a big hand. But does the new guy deserve the hand for simply coming in and blowing the no-no? Or do you clap for all the pitchers used up to that point collectively to honor that they have gone that long without giving up a hit? So I watched the hit on line. Turns out there was a fairly big "awww" as the ball got into left field, and then...not much of anything. (From what I could tell on the Blue Jays' feed.) I guess it makes sense. But when you go through 5+ innings of a no-hitter, you should get that moment to cheer, right? Like, Woohoo, this was fuckin' fun while it lasted! But I guess in this situation you get nothing and like it.

Dicks won, so we stay 1.5 back. The Devs have fallen to 5 behind, the Jays are 10.5, and those poor Orioles have quietly slipped to nearly 15 games out.

Never played 'em on July 5th. But I'll take this time to say that the 7/4/2002 game was the fifth win of a five-game sweep. I should have said that yesterday. That's all I got. Oh except the whores lost so we're still 1.5 out. And also, hope you got to see some of the Twilight Zone marathon. Usually I forget about the July 4th one as I associate the show with snow and calendars flipping, but this year I got to see some of the hot version.

After Lackey put us in a huge hole (as he is wont to do), I said we'll just have to win 10-9. It almost happened. We cut the Jays' lead to 9-7, and had the tying run on first with no outs in the 9th, and Pedroia and Adrian coming up. But we lost. And I was pissed.

We've played the AL's Canadian squad twice on the 4th of July. Both at home, both wins.

In 2002, we pulled away from the Jays late, as Nomar and Trot went deep. Lowe got the win and Varitek walked in a run in the 9-5 victory. We stayed a game out of first, while Toronto fell to 19.5 back.

1977's game had a similar score but was a much crazier day. After not getting a baserunner through the first four innings, the Red Sox would explode for 9 runs on 8 homers. George Scott, Fred Lynn, Butch Hobson, and Bernie Carbo had gone deep through 7 innings, but Boston was still down 6-5 going to the bottom of the eighth. Fred Lynn tied it with a dong, then Jim Rice gave the Red Sox the lead with a dong, then Yaz made it back-to-back-to-back homers, the first time the Sox had done that since 1959. A batter later, George Scott the fourth bomb of the inning onto the roof of the parking garage across Lansdowne, and the Red Sox were suddenly up 9-6. And there's your final.

The 7 solo dongs set an MLB record. The 8 total dongs tied one. It was the seventh time in 1977 that they hit five or more homers in a game, another record.

Sox vs. Jays, 1:35.

Interleague Play is done. We end it with a sweep of the worst team in baseball. All-star Josh Beckett did a fine job, a run in 8 frames. We had a few bigtime squanders and should have been way up, but we found ourselves tied with two outs in the ninth. After a bases loaded intentional walk to all-star Adrian Gonzalez, Youk drew another, and we took a 2-1 lead. Pap got the save.

The one last piece of NL craption is hoping the Mets can somehow accidentally pull a run out of their asses, trailing the Yanks 2-1 in the ninth as I type.

Update 5:32. Holy shit. Mets tie it off Mo. He had the first two out, and 3-2 on Bay, and walks him. Next guy singles. First and third but they still need one more hit. And Duda, after being down 0-2, singles it in! Next guy hits a grounder that goes under the shortstop. The Mets play it exxxxxtra aggressively and try to score from second, and the guy's out by a mile to send it to extras.

And let me say this about the TBS announcers. Fuck 'em. The whole fucking inning they're doing that sarco-talk as if Mariano has literally never given up a hit in his career. They were just laughing about it. And of course all the Yankee fans at Citi had that old look on their faces. The ollllld nothing can ever go wrong for the best people in the world look. ONCE AGAIN it was erased with Mo on the mound. Okay, now it's top 10, and the Mets got the first two, but then Cano hit a liner that the National Leaguer they got out in CF let the ball go by him, turning it into a triple. Now a free pass to Posada, and Martin's up with 2 out, first and third....

5:43: Mets get out of it. We go bottom 10, tied.

5:46: Mo out. Ayala in. Walks first guy! Okay, Mets, National League in a run here!

5:50: Runner bunted over. Winning run at second.

5:57: Logan in, first and second, one out. Beltran up...

5:58: Beltran strikes out. At least he swing the bat. God damn it. God DAMN it.

6:02: Another E for the Yanks SS, but he keeps it in front of him, so it's bases loaded, two out, tied, bottom 10, JASON BAY coming up as the Yanks go to the pen.

6:05: Bay base hit, oh my lord in H!!!!!!!!! This is an all-time great day in Yankee Hating history! 1.5 games back. HUGE!!!!!!! I will be laughing long into the night.

Adrian and Papi got in as expected. Ellsbury didn't catch Crack Jesus, but he did make it in through player voting. Beckett will represent our hurlers.

The exciting news: We got Russell Martin out, and Avila in. Nice job, everybody.

So shitty to see Jeter make it. But of course he'll recognize he's far, far, far from an All-Star and will classily concede the starting nod to someone more deserving.

Sox @ Colt .45s, 2:05 eastern.