Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Smoke On The Dirty Water

On a night where Boston burned to the ground and the entire city went dark (or something like that), and the Brooklyn Bridge was ripped in half (or something like that), the Red Sox beat the Yankees for the first time in 2012, 1-0.

Since NESN wasn't carrying the game but MLBN was, and since MLBN was picking up the YES feed, we in NESN-land were actually forced to watch a Red Sox game with Yankee announcers. So I was stuck with old friend Michael Kay and his backhanded compliments and false sincerity, and Paul O'Neill and Lou Piniella's agreement that everything the Red Sox do is wrong and everything the Yankees do is right. Piniella was drunk as a skunk, referring to Pedroia as "Pedrosia" (like "ambrosia") and asking "is that Willie?" after an extended slow-motion close-up of Willie Randolph over which Kay specifically said it was Willie. He also surmised baseball has been around for about 100 years. Hey, I can understand Sweet Lou not remembering baseball's centennial, as it took place before he was born. He was only off by 73 years. (Give or take.)

As for the game, Doubront and Nova each gave up no runs. Padilla also threw three scoreless. The game went to the ninth scoreless. When yesterday's hero, Ciriaco, came up, Allan suggested he hits another last-inning game-winning dong on the Joy of Sox board. And the man delivered! Kind of. He hit a low liner to right, and the right fielder let it bounce under his glove, at which point it was off to the races. Ciriaco headed toward third, and as the camera cut away, you could tell he was being held up, but he was looking back at the ball. The throw was just coming in--and it was offline...and kept rolling and rolling...and Ciriaco raced for home, scoring what would be the game's only run. All this went on as we listened to an unaware Mark Teixeira getting interviewed in the clubhouse. I hoped Paul O'Neill would mention the time he himself tripled and scored on an error--on Seinfeld. But no. Turns out they called it a single, a two base error on the right fielder, and another error on the second baseman for the bad throw.

Oh, and good job noticing the old version of the Sox logo on the scorecard taped to the dugout wall behind Bobby Valentine. You're getting good at this!

Comments:
Ciriaco's hit reminded me of Danielle Martin, Ridgefield Little League, five and six-year-old T-ballers. She hit the ball off the T (probably a first for her since, usually, she hit the T itself), and the ball dribbled seven inches into the infield, and all of us started screaming, Run,Run! (We had reached the point where the players knew that when they heard, Run, run, they all weren't to run, but rather just the batter.) The fake pitcher dashed in to pick it up but in his excitement tripped. The fake catcher got to it and threw it to first, long before Danielle realized she should be running, but it sailed over the first-baseman's head as Coach Comerford shoved Danielle. Danielle was off, rounded first, (Run, run!), flew past second with no problem as the second baseman decided he should back up the first baseman thereby putting him somewhere in right field(Keep running, Danielle!; )coach of the other team now screaming for the second baseman to throw it home as the third baseman is kneeling down staring at the grass, presumably looking for a four-leaf clover; and Danielle crosses home plate while the fake catcher stands there waiting for the ball to arrive in his glove rather than going after it as it's now against the backstop.

IN-THE-PARK HOME RUN!!! YEA, DANIELLE. And you being a nice boy, said nothing, but as soon as we were in the car made the point that she reached all the bases and home on errors and it wasn't an in-the-park home run. but Dad said that since Mr. Plock was the umpire that day, he'd made the ruling and that was that, and besides, our team won (in the 37-6 range). You were not a happy camper.
--Guess who?
 
Awesome. You can search the Ridgefield Press online now, and see all the old write-ups of my games (many of which were written by you).
 

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