[On Friday night, I posted this--on the wrong blog! There's another one I use for hosting pics for avatar-usage, stuff like that. And Blogger defaults your most recently used blog to the top. So I clicked the top one thinking it was RSFPT, but...it wasn't. So this post didn't go up until now, which is the following Monday at 3:06 p.m. Terrible job by me. I knew I posted something Friday night!]

Sox win 7-1, Yanks win 8-1, so we stay 1/2 game back.

Miller with his best start in a Sox uniform. Hot Lava-rnway with his first major league hit, after ending innings with the bases loaded twice.

Saturday night's game is at 7:10, but before that we've got the Paw Sox, SeaDogs, Chiefs, and Mets at Fenway.

I entered a bunch of dollar bills into that Where's George site about a year ago. And I finally got my first "hit"! Somebody in Owls Head, Maine got one of my dollars in change and entered it in today. I feel...like there should be an apostrophe in that town's name.

Sox @ KC, 8:10.

4-3 win in KC without Youk and Papi. Beckett wins it. Hot Lava-rnway goes hitless in his debut.

Yanks were up 6-4 in the top of the 9th. With 2 outs and no one on, the Twins change pitchers, and the new guy gives up walk, double, single, and suddenly it's 8-4 going bottom nine. So barring a big comeback, we're still a half-game out. [Update, a very, very short time later: Twins go quietly in bottom 9. We're .5 out with 39 left.]

Youk's on the 15-day DL, Papi's in a bootie for a week. But I still believe the Brigade will be ready to Rock in KC tonight at 8:10.

We're back to a half-game back, as the Yanks just lost. This is perfect because now KC isn't "due" going into our series with them, which starts tomorrow night, while the Yanks go to Minny.

The ninth was tough. Soria came in with a 5-3 lead and did everything he possibly could to blow it, including two 4-pitch walks. The game ended 5-4 with the bases loaded. Fortunately the last hope was Posada, who decided to just not swing the bat.

We lose a shitty one, 4-0.

They just said on NESN this is the first time in history we've had three or fewer hits in three consecutive home games.

One game back now, Yanks play tonight.

1:35 vs. Rays.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday: Three pet peeves that pet great together! Talking baby ad way too late + advertising for advertising + old logo on baby's bottle used by network owned by the team = Bad things.

We got a nice win today, and turned a triple play.

But we fell a half-game back. Because we also lost, and the Yanks won their game.

To reiterate, terrible.

The effin' Yanks beat KC, so we're back to a first-place tie.

Tuesday could be big, with us playing a day-night doubleheader. We'll be 1.5 up, .5 up, .5 down, or 1.5 down going into Wednesday. Then again, it's supposed to rain...so we could also be 1.0 up, tied, or 1.0 down.

This was the Sunday night game from August 7th. The one I'd gotten tickets to for me and my Yankee-fan friend Mike before the season. Funny how going in, our teams were tied for first, and each had taken a game so far in this three-game series. He was late getting in, so I got to do one of my lifelong dreams, standing on Lansdowne and trying to get balls hit over the Monster during BP. The guy from that parking garage was holding a ball and told me he got three, and has roughly a hundred this season. No balls came over the whole time I was out there. Mike arrived, and we went to our seats one row in front of the Dunkin' Dugout, which is the last row of the bleachers in right field.
But as you can see, we moved. I suggested we check to see what great seats were available, then sit in them as long as we could. For a Sunday night summer Sox-Yanks game, we knew there wasn't much hope, but hey, $400 seats still cost $400, and if nobody buys them in that last hour before the game...they're ours.

His phone is weird--it only brought up one pair of seats. So we had to go with those. But they were great, as you can see. The four seats in front of use also were empty, so when the real ticketholders showed up, around the second inning, we moved up one row (this is about 8 rows from the on-deck circle), and were able to stay there the WHOLE GAME. So for our $12 each, we parked free at meters steps from the ballpark, and sat in $135 seats that were scalping for $400.

And here's the proof we were still there. Mid-game action. This is around the point we exhaled. As for the game, it was a 1-1 affair for a long time. And me and Mike talked about our beloved mundane baseball memories and numbers from years past, and talked about the "old days," which included when his dad used to get us Fenway seats in this same section, only they were front row, right next to Libby Dooley. This was in the late 80s.

They put Ocho Cinco up on the board, and people cheered. After thinking it was either Jamie Foxx or Michael Jordan, Mike finally realized it was Ocho. I wouldn't have recognized the guy out of uniform, and, honestly, I knew the Pats had gotten a guy everybody was worried about, Haynesworth or whatever, but I didn't even know they'd gotten Ocho Cinco. Maybe I heard people saying they got "Chad Johnson" and I just didn't make the connection, I don't know. I clearly don't pay attention to the NFL. Anyway, we figured out where he was sitting and I got this pic. Too bad we didn't see Larry David, who had been there on Friday night.

It was a long night. A weird day, too, where it was raining all along the coast all day leading up to the game, but everyone west was getting a sunny day. The rain stopped in Boston just in time for the game, but around 11 it got foggy again. The whole time, though, it was hot and sticky. Here, the clock shows a post-midnight time.

Even the Citgo sign had gone to sleep. (Yes, they do shut it off at midnight.) Also, Mo is in, about to blow the save, after the Yanks had taken a 2-1 lead.

Papi waiting to hit in the tenth. His double started the game-winning rally.

Reddick, the eventual hero, on deck, with Crawford up, and Bogar talking to pinch-runner Darnell McDonald, who was on second for Papi, as the eventual winning run.

I love this shot, because it shows Reddick waiting to hit against new pitcher Phil Hughes, who he would get the winning hit off of. I already posted my video of it here.

12:29 a.m. at Fenway.

And the analog version.

Your final, 3-2. Mike, fortunately for him, had to leave before the end, with a long trip back to Fairfield County, CT, and work the next morning.

I had to stay for the celebration of course, so I didn't mind being trapped for a while. After Dirty Water, Tessie, and Joy to the World, they played (on keyboard) On the Road Again since it was the last game of the homestand. I need to stick around more often to make an exhaustive list of what's played after the three staples. Sometimes it's that Build Me Up Buttercup song, which kinda makes no sense after a win. And after a loss of course you don't hear the winning three tunes. I know I've heard Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow after a loss, but again, I need to do more research--feel free to add your own.

It's always shitastical when you lose a series to a last-place team, but....there's no but here. Except that we stay in first by a half-game since the Yanks were rained out today.

It seemed like everyone from the umps to NESN (fine, only those two) were conspiring against our enjoyment today. Let's start with a play where both of them let us down. At left, you'll see Jed Lowrie about to catch the ball at second and make the turn on a double play. The runner is so far from the bag he's off screen. So please give me one reason why an umpire would call the guy safe in this situation. You can't because he's out. But the ump said safe. My guess as to why: Jed got the ball and very quickly slid to his left to avoid the runner and make the throw. I think the ump saw this and thought he left the base area too early, much like the way a first baseman will come off the bag to try and sell a call. However, that was not the case. As you see in the picture, he's catching the ball while still at the bag.

Here's where NESN comes into play: Remy thought out, too. Said he thought there was no question. As the first replay airs, he suddenly becomes obsessed with whether or not Jed actually made contact with the bag. He left it at that: did he touch it, or not? This former second baseman didn't even mention the neighborhood rule. The phantom tag. Every baseball player and fan knows that a player turning the double play at second base doesn't have to be ON the base to get credit for the forceout. Just be right near it when you catch the ball, then get the hell out of the way of the barreling runner, and you've done your job. They eve went back to two more replays later, and Remy was still in deep focus on whether or not he actually touched, in a situation where just being close is good enough. The ump shouldn't even be watching for that! You think he's watching Jed's foot sliiiide across right near the bag and thinking, That better touch, I got my eye on that foot! No! He's seeing what you see in the pic, and he knows that right there is good enough for an out, as long as he doesn't either drop the ball or move away from the base before he gets the ball. So in Remy's mind, he's safe because the foot juuuuust missed second as he brushed across the dirt inches from the base (which IS an out, at every level of baseball--this isn't something I'd try to argue against if it was the other team in the field), and in the ump's mind, he's safe because Jed pulled out early, but in reality, neither of those things happened. (Maybe you could make a case that the ump felt that since the runner was so far away, he needed hot spikes-on-base action to give credit for the out, I don't know.)

NESN is also killing me with these new angles they'll show on pitches. I've said it a million times: If you wanna give us crazy and different views of things, that's wonderful--do it on replays! Only. Why are you suddenly showing me a live pitch from behind the catcher, zoomed in. One time we saw Youk swing from this angle. You could barely tell that he hit it. And where he hit it was anyone's guess. Since it was a 3-2 pitch and he was still batting, we knew he'd hit the ball, and that it went foul. But we never saw the secondary camera shot that should show the ball after it's hit, and Don didn't even say what happened at all. We completely missed what happened on a batted ball. No video, no description. How does that happen? Later, they showed that angle again. And again, it turned out to be the money pitch. Guy hits it. Ball goes up. We have no idea. At least with the regular shot, you get a sense of where the ball's going right when it's it. Once when Pedroia was up, they showed a live pitch from off to the side! And once again, it's the pitch he puts in play. Turns out it's a deep fly out. But we never got to have that sense of "Oh, this could be a dong." Just "he hit the ball." Sadly, these aren't mistakes by NESN. They're clearly making an attempt to try new things. I just can't understand why we all have to miss the game while it's happening because of it. Is that what people were begging for? Joe from Walpole tweets: "more othr stuff, les game shit." Kristi Z. wrote on our facebook wall "baesball's for fags, more conseshun stand reports plz." Be smart, NESN. Lots of people went to Justin Beiber concerts last year. Doesn't mean lots of people have a clue. You know you're supposed to be showing a baseball game to baseball fans. Do that first.

Then there was the time when they cut to a pre-taped Heidi Watney segment where she talks about the train in left field. While we're still getting that audio, they cut back for a pitch, on which there's a stolen base attempt. Guy slides into second, and the ball gets away. Guy starts to run to third as the fielders chase the---CUT BACK TO HEIDI'S TRAIN REPORT. Yes, they cut away mid-play. Action was happening. There's action in baseball, what, 10% of the time? When you actually get some, please show it. But nope, we got Heidi instead. We were finally taken back to the game only to find out the Raiders had scored two quick touchdowns and won 43-32! Will these networks ever learn?

What a crAzy Wack funKy night. Today was Providence's big annual music/art festival, Foo Fest. This is one we weren't gonna miss, as the headliner was to be the world's #1 partier and dude who was actually rocking while the Strokes were "saving rock 'n' roll," Andrew W.K.

It got to be dark, and finally Andrew came out. It was as beautifully wild as I dreamed it would be. I'd seen the guy live twice before, but one time was an acoustic set, and the other was...I don't know what you'd call it but it was nothing like the I Get Wet album I feel in love with ten years ago--four guitars across, and a maniac writhing all over the place. Even though he didn't have his band tonight, he had the music pumped in, and played some piano over the insanity.

It started out really fun. I used to go up front for rowdy shows all the time. Lately, except for a Circle Jerks reunion show around 2006, I hadn't actually been right in the middle of the blender in a while. Yeah, you might get a concussion from someone landing on your head, or a crushed set of ribs from the crowd surge, or just pass out from exhaustion, but I don't skydive or even go on rollercoasters. This is my risky fun. Kim & I were right up at the stage.

I attempted to shoot some video from that spot. It actually came out pretty good considering my body was moving up and down the whole time. The sound isn't great between the fact that my still camera's video mode doesn't capture the best audio and the fact that the speakers were behind us so the piano and the crowd kind of drown out the loud guitars. But the video gives you an idea what the show was like:


The woman on stage is Cherie Lily, who had played a set before Andrew, and happens to be his wife. Her performance is a lot like an aerobics class. Hence the outfit. The dinosaur was just some guy. Three times I took top-of-head blows, but I'm still conscious a few hours later so I don't think there's any damage. Also, my shorts kept falling down when my camera was in my pocket, but I was able to keep pulling them up. And those were the worst things that had happened. So far.

I remember singing along to one of my favorite W.K. songs, Ready to Die, which always seemed to have the same spirit as some Pac-Men (my old band) songs. One of our tunes asked if you're ready to lose, and our theme song went "We'll eat you alive/And we won't leave nothing left/And we're not gonna stop/until you're all dead" while Andrew's song says "you better get ready to die/you better get ready to kill/you better get ready to run/cuz here we come" along with "we shoot without a gun" and "we cut without a knife." The two Pac-Men songs I mentioned were based, on the surface, on the game Ms. Pac-Man. But the overall point of both ours and Andrew's seems to be, in two words or less, "fuck you." Because you--not you, but the douchebags who infest our society--can do whatever you want, it's not gonna stop us from trying to make things right. We don't even want to actually kill you, we want to do something you'll like even less--ignore you. And sticks and stones and all that. And keep in mind, the fact that we were named after a video game and Andrew is the party master should tell you that we both remember to have fun while fighting the fight. (Pac-Men lyrics by Brian Marshall--written before Ready to Die was released, note.)

So I was singing along, and right toward the end, some part of someone's body flew across my head, and I felt my hat start to slide backwards. I quickly put my hand on top of my head barely in time to save the hat, but then...my glasses disappeared. Gone. Didn't even feel 'em come off. I knew that was it for me. As Andrew says in Ready to Die, "close your eyes and say good night." I can see up close fine, maybe to about 7 inches. After that it's a blur. There was no chance of going to the ground in the dark amongst the jumping feet and finding them. No way anyone would hear any kind of plea over the music, in the off chance they actually caught the things. So I made my way outta there, now a blind man.

Only once has this happened before. In college, when I wore contacts and didn't even have a pair of just-in-case glasses, there was a midnight fire alarm, and I went down to the dorm lobby contacts-less and stood with all my dormmates, not able to make out any of the faces. It's a tough spot to be in. You're walking through a giant crowd--in tonight's case, away from the stage they're all facing--but you can't see their faces. I probably looked like a squinting drunk, walking all around in a desperate search for Kim, who I'd been separated from as soon as the blender had been turned on. I had one huge advantage, though: she was wearing a red dress. After stumbling through the fuzzy masses for about 15 minutes and fearing the worst (A. that I'd just never find her and B. that even if I did, she'd be in no shape to drive us home since I knew she'd had a few pops earlier, and therefore we'd have to choose between a blind driver and a drunk driver), all while missing this great show, I finally spotted the red dress. She was back on the booze line! And she was pissed. Besides losing her shoe, some girl had gotten in her way and took her spot right by the stage and the bouncer dick made a ruling in the other girl's favor.

A half-hour earlier, we'd both been up front, having the time of our lives, and now we were completely deflated, far from the stage, not even able to concentrate on the music. We made our mad faces for my camera. At this moment, my glasses were probably getting stomped on repeatedly by a drunk, sweaty, yelling person.


Anyway, I made sure Kim didn't buy that next drink, and as it turned out, she said she was okay to drive. (And believe me, if I had even the slightest feeling she wasn't, I wouldn't have given her my keys.) But first we had the end of the show to watch. I finally realized that, hey, using my camera's zoom, I could actually see with perfect vision since, like I said, I can see close up. So I recorded "Party Hard" and had to watch the whole thing on my little screen:



In the middle you can hear me offer up my right shoe to Kim. Andrew also played "I Love NYC" but changed it to "Providence"--don't know if he personalizes that one for every town or just us and it's gettin' reeeeally late now so I won't do the research. He closed with "I Get Wet." We both decided that the experience was worth our troubles. After an extended search for the glasses and the shoe (I was no help--when you lose your glasses, you also lose the ability to look for your glasses) by the stage area, all we had was this:

Was it even mine? It's certainly the right shape. But the thing was so scratched up I couldn't even see through it to see if it matched my prescription. I decided to save it as a souvenir. I kinda needed new glasses anyway.

On the way home, the big question was, Did I have some kind of alternate way of seeing? I've got stuff to do that involves enhanced vision. Without it, I can't get anywhere or do anything. I'd recently found some old pairs of glasses and knew exactly where they were--I'd brought them to Block Island last weekend in case the surf knocked my glasses off. Turns out it was a crowd surfer I needed to be worried about. I should get one of those straps. We got home, I found the old glasses, and, whew, close enough. I'm wearing them now, though I would have been able to write this without them, face pressed up against the keyboard.


And now for the Red Sox report! In the car, before we got the score, Dave O'Brien mentioned that if Beckett gets the win, he'd be something like 70-30 with Tek catching him. Or the team would be. The point is, it was 11:30, the game started at 10:10, and Dave was iffing about a win. So I'm thinking we're not only up, but up big. Inning ends, and he says "Mariners 5, Red Sox 0." Goddamn it! Help a blind brother out!

We get home, and after the successful test of the old glasses, and after I find out that much worse things happened to concert-goers on this night, I put on the TV, and, as if this night couldn't get any weirder, who's coming up to the plate for the Mariners, but Wily Mo Pena!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Could this all be a dream? Nope, Wily struck out. That's how I knew it was real.

Then came our rally against Felix. A Scutaro triple that hit off the guy's glove at the wall, an Ellsbury dong, a Gonzalez shift-shucking bunt that almost reached the outfield, and a Pedroia opposite field dong. 5-4 now. But double plays in the 7th and 8th were killer, and we didn't score any more. The weirdness of this day actually made me forget to check a Yanks score, and it turns out those dicks won, so we're a game up.