Turned out to be a pretty exciting game, with the bonus of the Yanks "almost winning but still losing"--always a fun effect.

After a long rain delay, we jumped all over CCC, taking a 3-0 lead in the first. In the fifth, my TV came back just in the nick of time after a flash flood warning--I got to see the Gonzalez dong. Little did I know that Pedroia had gotten on base during the flood, giving me a bonus run. I thought it was a 2-run shot but it was really a 3-run blast. 6-1 Sox. But Lester finally had a bad inning right after that, giving all 3 back.

So it was 6-4 us, and in the bottom of the 8th, Padilla faced his racist arch-enemy and mine, Keidis Teixeira. And Tex won the battle, tying the game with a 2-run dong.

But in the 9th, we proved we weren't the team of zombified losers that Fox was making us out to be, while the Yanks proved another McCarverism wrong: that they aren't actually winning even when they're losing. But we got some help from the not-so-Grand Concourse. With Ellsbury on first, Ciriaco hit one over Curtis's head. He seemed to think the ball was in front of him. For a long time. By the time he started running back toward the wall, he'd gotten turned around and the ball just got over him as he fell to the ground. You knew instantly Ellsbury would score the go-ahead run. Then a Pedroia sac lunch brought home Pedro from third, and it was a 2-run Red Sox lead. Just when the Yanks fans thought it was classy-fest destiny that they'd win! Aceves shut the door. 8-6 Boston is your final.

A few things from the Fox-cast:

Cano, aka Sir Nonchalance-alot, got away with one in the 4th, and still got the royal Jete-ment from the Focks. Grounder to third, dude throws to Cano at second who drops the ball. Ump says it was on the transfer, and calls the runner out. Look closely at the play and you see the ball hit his glove, then slingshot out of it as he's bringing it around his body. He never even closed the glove. Using the three angles they gave us, it appears his hand never grabs the ball either. So basically he didn't catch it, nor did he transfer it. Ball hits his glove and bounces out. Runner should be safe. Now do you think Buck and McCarver even considered the possibility that the wrong call was made? No. All they could do is talk about how he's the ONE second baseman in the game who COULD have turned that double play. They were too busy talking about that to care that the truck was giving a super slo-mo shot from a new angle--that's the moment they were supposed to be discussing whether or not he ever had possession. Instead, McCarver's talking about how he was "in the act of throwing." Throwing!? He never had it in the first place! And Buck goes on to say how "unique" he is throwing across his body. They also brought up how he only dropped it because he knew he had to hurry. Freakin' Shoppach was running! All this on a play the guy blatantly botched and lucked out on getting one out. Meanwhile Pedroia's in the dugout going "Jeez, I at least would have caught the ball...."

Remember when Granderson hit those two foul balls down the line right before the Keidis dong? The first one was practically a pop-up, landing in the lower deck. Yet the cameraman was hopin' and a-prayin' it would be a dong, so he showed the upper deck, and missed the ball landing by the time he turned the camera down from the moon. So while it looked dangerous off the bat, it was just a 315-foot foul ball that wasn't even that close to the pole. The next pitch he hits one that really is well beyond dong distance, and really does just miss the pole. At which point McCarver says "that's about 800 feet of foul balls." Even if you make the second one 420 feet, you still need that first one to go 380 feet. But it was just a shallow fly ball! I just hate the fact that even after seeing where the first one landed, they're somehow still in the mind that it was a long, thisclose foul home run. It'd be like if I shot Jeter with a marshmallow out of a real gun, and he thought at first it was a bullet, then realized it was just a nice, soft marshmallow, but still went and started his autobiography with "Let me tell you about the time I almost died." You know he'd do that shit, too.

Did you see when Ichiro caught a routine fly and then slid for no reason? You know who taught him that move the minute he joined the team, right? Fox also did the usual BS about how Ichiro can choose to hit a home run whenever he wants, just like the old Wade Boggs myth. I guess he felt no homers were necessary out of his bat tonight. Let's hope he feels the same tomorrow night! (If he hasn't been released from the team due to extreme shittiness by then.)

One more thing on Ichiro--don't you love how people are breaking out all these stats like "No team has ever had this many hits in the lineup until now..." as if the Yankees somehow deserve credit for the thousands of hits Ichiro got with another team! Makes as much sense as announcers thinking players are afraid to play in Yankee Stadium because of all the "history," when that history has merely happened to the team who plays there; Babe Ruth didn't play 90 years ago in a park built 3 years ago.

Tim McCarver on Adrian's home run: "That was as high as it was far." A 380-foot high batted ball. That I'd like to see.

Even Smarty O'BowTie is coming right out and saying that "the second wild card has so many teams in it." Yup. Because under last year's rules, they'd be a HALF GAME further back and would have thrown in the towel by now. I really am wondering if MLB has ordered them all to say this. Then again, maybe it just seems so right that they think they're stating an obvious fact. As I've said, I do understand that there are two spots instead of one, despite that teams are still essentially the same distance behind as they would be with one wild card available, so maybe these people are just thinking that having two spots makes all the difference regardless of number games behind. But I kinda think they're just fuckin' up.

Finally, something from Friday night. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw NESN's "Producer for a Day" contest. My thoughts went from, "Oh Jesus, that's all they need, someone with even less knowledge in the producer's chair..." to "I should enter that" to "can we get some REAL producers to stuff the ballot box on this one so they can give NESN a really solid lesson?" But then I heard their explanation--it's more like "see all aspects of a broadcast." The winner would sit in on the pre-game meeting, get an inning in the truck, one in the booth, one with a cameraman, one with Jenny Dell, etc. So you wouldn't be doing any actual producing. But man, would I bring some notes with me on that day. I'd have a page for each place I go throughout the game! Wish me luck. If I remember to enter.