So we got that goin' for us. Tied for first again. The plan is to win Sunday night to take a one-game lead, then pull away and make the Yanks forget they were ever in first place. Who is with me?

Also, I saw Steven Wright out in public (again!) today. Just now I told two other people, and they each told me their Steven Wright meeting stories. This guy's everywhere.

And I have since that 6th inning. Bases loaded, up 2-0, bottom 5, Gonzalez up. We don't break the game open. They come right back with 3, and that's all the runs for the game.

We should have never been in the situation of seeing Mo's bullshit balls being called strikes.

We're 3-5 against the Pinstriped Penises on August 5th (Spike and Tabitha's birthday) all-time, 2-3 at home.

The first games came in a doubleheader in the first year of the AL, 1901, with Boston taking on the team that would become the Yanks, the Baltimore Orioles, in an important battle for second place. The Baltimore American from the next day has a detailed write-up of both games. It's fun to read the references of the time, like Santos Dumont's flying machine, the "pitching gun" of Professor Hinton, and old-timey pitcher Al Maul. (It being the Baltimore paper, there were also references to crabsoup parties and crabnets.) There was a fight that day when the Orioles' first baseman punched the umpire in the face. Both men were taken away and arrested. A further description of it appeared in a separate article. Anyway, Cy Young was dminant in game one, but the O's took game two 9-0.

The most recent August 5th "affair" was 1974, when Rudy May shut out Bill Lee and the Sox 8-0 at Shea Stadium. It was Lee's first loss to the Yanks in nine decisions.

Yanks @ Sox, tonight. Colon/Lester.

In a similar spirit to 1901 baseball, when you had a lot more fans just running out onto the field whenever they felt like it, check out this video of NBA star Kevin Durant scoring 66 points in a game at Harlem's Rucker Park playground. Start at around the 4:00 mark and watch as he drains his 4th three-pointer in a row, causing the crowd to be unable to contain themselves at 4:25. The NBA should be more like this!

Look, it's Yawkey Way. From...

The bathroom! I was finally able to get this shot, as I got into the park right at gates opening and I knew nobody was in there yet. Still, I took the shots quick and got the hell outta there.

I had a ticket for "upstairs," so I figured this would be the key to getting around the "dugout to dugout" limitation. It kinda worked. But it's a boring story, let's move on.

The moon and the light tower.

Classic Cask sign in front of Citgo sign.

Looking down at the Monster Seats.

Was trying to get the Fisk Pole to somehow replace the antenna of the Pru but obviously that's not possible. Still, it's, like, in the middle. Of the building.

Finally I grabbed a spot on the 3rd base side. It was only 70 at game time, and with the wind in our faces, it wasn't summer at all. Glad I had my hooded sweatshirt.

More of the view.

It was Erik Bedard's first Red Sox start. I was pretty encouraged with what I saw in the 5 innings he threw.

C the reflection GO.

Tito and his pal Dustin.

It was Peace Corps Night. Good to see them do this since they always do military stuff. Both my parents were in the Peace Corps, but I couldn't find either of their countries' flags.

Bedard's first pitch.

Ortiz connects vs. Masterson. Justin continues to be awesome and we continue to shouldn't have traded him.

Chopper over the Citgo sign.

Night. That's it. We lost. I went down low for the 9th but didn't really get any good shots. And the damn Yanks won, so we're tied going into our series with them.

One more thing. I grabbed this vid from NESN the other night. For their teaser for Yankee highlights, they opted to show 13 seconds of video. All 13 of those seconds featured Jeter. It does make sense, though--he was the only player in the game.



So from what I can tell, what happened in the game was: Jeter took BP. Jeter prepared to hit. Someone filmed Jeter hitting. Jeter hit a line drive. Jeter hit the same line drive from another angle. Jeter hit the same line drive in slow motion. Thanks, NESN!

Erik Bedard makes his first Red Sox start tonight against chum Justin Masterson.

Right after the Sox got Bedard, NESN put up his picture, with a Red Sox hat on, and his stats below. Under his face they put "Erik Bedard, Pitcher #45." This was before and then during Monday night's game broadcast. My first reaction was, THEY CAN'T GIVE OUT PEDRO'S NUMBER! After a minute, I calmed back down to lowercase thoughts and realized that NESN must have just effed up. I checked the 40-man roster on redsox.com, and while Bedard was listed, he had no uniform number assigned. Then I checked his Wikipedia page and someone had given him #23. I searched news articles but found no more info on his uniform number. The next night, NESN showed that same graphic, still showing him as #45! By that point redsox.com had him listed as #23, and I knew for sure Pedro's number was safe.

So what I want to know is, as usual, who's in charge over at NESN? Okay, new player comes over, has no number yet, but wore #45 on his old club. If it was some random number, I would have been fine with them just saying, Eh, just use his old number for now. But this is 45! You're telling me no one at NESN, which is partly owned by the Red Sox, realized that he couldn't possibly be #45? People in charge of the network that shows Red Sox games don't hear "forty-five" and immediately think "Pedro," whose number has never been given out to anyone since he left the team and is just waiting to go up to the right field roof facade? And that after that horrible error is made, nobody else who works there notices, and 24 hours later they do it again? I guess that's what you're telling me. Jeez I wonder what they'd do if we acquire a guy who used to wear number 9.

I mean, even Memo Paris, when told that new acquisition Roy Hobbs was a right fielder, immediately recognized it as Bump Bailey's position. That's the kind of reaction we need from people over at NESN:

"What's up, Sebastian?"
"Eh, just makin' graphics, Rogelio, we got new players."
"Oh yeah, Bedard. We got a head shot?"
"Yup, I'm just typing in the stats, and, uh...hey, what's his number?"
"Doesn't have one yet, guess we'll just use his old one for now--provided it's not a number the Red Sox couldn't possibly give him."
"Okay, I'll check...45!"
"45?!!"
"Well, looks like we'll have to immediately come up with an alternative idea of how to go forward here. I shall contact the boss of the entire network before doing anything else, and ye and I shall make certain that whatever it is that we do, we shall not show a picture of this man wearing a Red Sox hat and being credited as the bearer of the sacred uniform number forty-five."

Cleve/Sox 7:10.

Another good job by Pap in a tie game, and another walk-off hit for Ellsbury, this time a 2-out dong in the bottom of the ninth to break the 2-2 tie. I love it.

Yanks lead 18-7 so we're most likely still one game up. Each team has one game left before we meet at Fenway for a 3-game weekend set.

11-9 against Cleveland all-time on this date, 4-5 at home.

1904 @CLE: 7-2 W
1905 CLE: 5-0 W
1917 CLE: 2-1 L
1918 @CLE: 5-1 L
1924 @CLE: 3-2 L
1926 @CLE: 8-7 W
1926 @CLE: 2-0 W
1937 CLE: 13-2 W
1938 @CLE:4-3 W
1938 @CLE: 8-6 L
1939 CLE: 17-6 W
1943 CLE: 11-9 L
1956 @CLE: 7-1 W
1958 @CLE: 3-2 W
1958 @CLE: 4-2 W
1976 @CLE: 1-0 L
1989 CLE: 4-2 L
1999 CLE: 5-4 L
2006 CLE: 7-6 L
2010 CLE: 3-1 W

Four highlights:

1917: Babe Ruth gave up one earned run on 7 hits, but the second run scored on an error in the 8th, and Cleveland won 2-1 at Fenway.

1926: In game 1, we score 6 in the 4th to go up 6-0, only to have Cleveland score 7 in the bottom half. We scored one in the 8th and once in the 10th to pull it out, 8-7. In game 2, Paul "You Can't Call Me Paula Zahn Because She Isn't Born Yet" Zahniser throws a 5-hit shutout in the 2-0 Boston win.

1943: Sox go down 8-0, then 10-1. Down 11-3 going to the bottom of the ninth, they score 6 times to cut it to 11-9, before Tony Lupien pops out to end it.

1958: Sox sweep a doubleheader in Cleveland, winning game 1 on a Ted Williams dong in the ninth, and game 2 with a 4-run eighth. Jackie Jensen threw out Rocky Colavito at the plate in the first game (see high-quality pic). The Red Sox jumped into 2nd place, and the Tribe fell from 2nd to 5th that day (in what was really a race to see who'd come in second to the Yanks).

2011: Cleve @ SOX, 7:10. Carrasco vs. Wake, looking for career win #200

Youk ties it with a bomb, before getting ejected in the 8th. We go bottom 9, tied at 2, Tek singles, Salty pinch runs and moves up on a bloop hit. Ellsbury with a line single to center, Salty makes a nice slide into home, avoiding the tag of the catcher who had to go way to the side to get the bad throw, and we win, shortly before the clock strikes midnight.

We stay one game up--Yanks win 6-0 in a 6.5 inning game.

1902 @CLE: 2-1 W
1904 @CLE: 4-1 W
1913 CLE: 5-4 L
1913 CLE: 7-0 L
1918 @CLE: 6-3 L
1938 @CLE: 7-4 L
1939 CLE: 8-2 L
1939 CLE: 5-4 W
1958 @CLE: 4-1 L
1976 @CLE: 3-1 W
1999 CLE: 7-5 L
2006 CLE: 6-5 W
2010 CLE: 6-5 L

5-8 in 13 games vs. Cleveland on August 2nd, 2-5 at home. Some highlights:

In 1904, Boston won the game, and then four of our players put out a fire at their Cleveland hotel.

In the 1938 game, Denny Galehouse got the win for Cleveland, ten years before some other thing, also involving the two teams.

In 2006, just as the Sox season was about to fall off the cliff due to injuries, Mark Loretta doubles home the tying and winning runs in the bottom of the ninth for a 6-5 win.

Tonight, Cleve. @ SOX, 7:10. Your starters and Huff 'n' Gas. Bedard's first start for us will be Thursday, against my former favorite Red Sock, Justin Masterson.

After some back and forth action in which Lackey wasn't so Lacktastic, Bard gives up the tie-breaking dong, and we end up losing 9-6. The homer, hit by the Azz Man, Asdrubal Cabrera, was a line drive down the right field line. It appeared to hit on top of the wall before bouncing all the way back to Reddick in right field. But if it did, why would it bounce left like that? Because it didn't hit the front corner, it seemed to hit beyond the wall slightly, like maybe off an armrest. The umps review it and call it a dong. A few minutes later, NESN's roving camera shows a close-up of a woman in the front row down by the pole, and she's got stitch marks on her black and blue knee! So the evidence was there, and it turned out to be the game-winning runs for Cleveland.

The stupid White Sox just lost 3-2 to the Yanks, so we're a mere one game up. (To the delight of NESN, who made a commercial saying the Yanks come in Friday with "the division lead on the line." We were up at least 2 games when they made the ad, and there were at least 4 games to be played before that series! We could have been more than 3 games up heading into the 3-game Yanks series, meaning the division lead wouldn't have necessarily been on the line. But this ad was in the same family of NESN preview ads that called the Yanks the best in the east (or something) when they were tied with the Red Sox.)

More on tonight's game: Crawford needs to get some practice playing that Wall. He had the one ball where he thought he was right at the wall but wasn't, and knocked it in the air before catching it. Could have easily dropped. Then later there was one that he again thought he was so close to the wall, and gave up on the ball, which hit very low on the wall. Practice makes perforated edges.

You know how Fenway plays that song "9 to 5" when we're up 9 to 5? Tonight they did it when we were down 9 to 5. Seems odd, why would you want to celebrate a losing score?

NESN noted that the Red Sox are 17-19 in series-opening games tis season. That's crazy. Kinda. In an essentially random sampling of 36 games from a team that's won at a .617 rate over 107 games, you should see 22-23 wins. We're 5 worse. Okay, maybe not that crazy at all, but unexpected--unless you factor in that whole "you just took a flight before a bunch of those games and therefore might be extra tired or something" thing. But the point is, this means that in non-series opening games, we're playing .690 baseball. So once we get to know a team, we dominate them. If that's how you wanna look at it. (I would like to know the MLB average record for series openers.)

On Joy of Sox tonight, a woman who goes by the name of Kathryn mentioned that she was at the Manny 500th dong game in Baltimore, and that she saw Dough Flutie there. I was at that game, too, and Flutie was right behind where my seats were. So I produced some crowd pics from my gallery of that game for her to look for herself in--and it turned out she and her family were in my shots! That's what I love about...life, I guess.

The Red Sox' all-time record against Cleveland is 956-1,019. The Tribe has led the series since September 22nd, 1921, when they broke a 222-222 tie. Their biggest lead came in 1966, when they extended it to 124 games. We've inched back over the years to cut the deficit to 63 games.

The scores for Cleveland-Boston August 1st games:

1902 @CLE: 6-3 L
1904 @CLE: 8-0 W
1907 CLE: 14-1 W
1913 CLE: 6-2 L
1926 @CLE: 2-1 L
1929 CLE: 10-3 L
1939 CLE: 7-5 W
1940 @CLE: 5-2 W
1943 CLE: 8-6 L
1943 CLE: 4-1 W
1944 @CLE: 8-4 L
1946 @CLE: 2-1 L
1948 @CLE: 12-2 L
1948 @CLE: 6-1 L
1949 CLE: 4-3 W
1958 @CLE: 7-1 L
1958 @CLE: 3-1 L
1979 @CLE: 7-4 W
2006 CLE: 6-3 L

7-12 all time, 4-4 in Boston, where we meet them tonight at 7:10.

Some highlights:

In 1904, Boston's Cy Young threw a 5-hit shutout, striking out 10 at League Park in Cleveland. Some of League Park is still standing today, and plans are in the works to put a baseball diamond back on that spot.

In 1926, a young Red Ruffing scored in the top of the ninth to give the Sox a 1-0 lead, but gave up a 2-run single with two outs in the bottom half giving Cleveland a 2-1 win. Ruffing also lost the 1929 game, in his last full season in Boston.

In 1939, the teams combine for 12 runs and 17 hits despite the Bob Feller-Lefty Grove matchup. Grove was 39 years old at the time, Feller was 20. Bobby Doerr's 2 dongs--one a grand slam into the screen--led Boston to the 7-5 win in front of 11,000 on a Tuesday afternoon at Fenway.

In 1979, Dennis Eckerlsey won with the help of two 2-run homers from Jim Rice. Every Red Socker who played hat at least one hit in this rain-delayed contest at the Mistake by the Lake. The Indians had just won 10 games in a row after changing managers. Unfortunately for them, they only gained two games over the streak, going from 20 games out of first to 18 back.

This says Clay ain't comin' back this year. He still has to see "the James Andrews of backs" today. We'll see what that dude says. I'm still holding out hope. Meanwhile, Bedard just may have to be BedHHard for the '11 stretch run.