Edit, much later: Sox beat BC 6-3 in night game. Tazawa stunk. Doubront was fine. Papi hit what looked like a massive dong but it was caught in front of the right field fence.

Update, 5:00: The Red Sox dropped a quarter of a hundred runs on the Huskies, winning 25-0. Lester pitched two fine innings. Gonzalez, Lin, and Sweeney homered once and Ross homered twice. Great prediction by me on the Joy of Sox board: I saw Lin was entering the game, and thinking back to the article I read in PawSox Patter about him the other day, I decided to predict he'd homer "this inning or next." He would homer that inning, just 8 minutes after the prediction. (He actually got TWO more at bats in the following inning alone, walking and scoring on THREE STRAIGHT wild pitches, and singling in the game's 25th run.)
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The 2:30 Red Sox-Northeastern game today has no TV or radio, but NESN.com will live-blog it here. Also: Gameday here.

The 7:00 Red Sox-Boston College game will be on NESN/mlb.tv. David Ortiz will be playing first base.

Phillies-Yanks on MLB Network right now. Baseball is on! (The Yanks scored in the first on a wind-blown double. Jeter's not playing but I'm pretty sure his standing on the top step affected the air currents in the ballpark just enough so that the ball stayed fair. You can't teach that.)

Check out today's Yanks-South Florida box score. The Yanks won 11-0. If you were, say, a major sports channel, and you were going to highlight the performances of three Yankees players from this game, which three would you choose? Four guys had two hits, so let's start with them: Almonte was 2-2 with a triple, 4 RBIs, and a run scored. Pena was 2-2, also with a three-bagger, and 3 runs and a ribbie. Bernie was also 2-2, and Curtis was 2-4. Nunez, Granderson, Laird, A-Rod, Garner, and Adams each had hits, with Nunez's being a triple. So you'd have to choose from those ten guys, most likely the first three I mentioned.

Now let's see who made MLB Network's list:
Well whatta ya know! Turns out I was way off--Derek Jeter was actually the star of this game. While he didn't collect any hits (what do you want from the guy, it's the first game!), or knock in any runs, he did score one (crucial, I have to assume) run out of the Yankees' 11 on the day. Gotta place him on top, no question. The TEN Yankee players who did have hits in this game just didn't stack up to the captain's maiden voyage of 2012.

[Alphabetical excuse? G comes from before J. Lineup order excuse? Pena hit above Gardner (who they actually confused with Garner--Brett was actually 0-1 with no runs or RBIs). Stars only excuse? A-Rod, Teix, and Nose Grandy Man all played. The one possible excuse I might except is that they were trying to make fun of Jeter by showing that he went hitless against a college team, but, again, Teixeira played and he went hitless and they didn't mention that, and besides, it would be un-American to mock Jeter like that, right?]

So what have we learned here today?

That it's gonna be a long season, on This Week...In Base-ball! I mean, on A Red Sox Fan From Wherever....

Ten in, twenty out.

Negatives:

1. Too many teams in the playoffs. Or maybe that's not a negative. It means the Yanks in the playoffs every year, but at the same time it gives them more chances to get knocked out every year.

2. For 2012 only, since the schedule was already set before they made the change, the ALDS will be in 2-3 format. This pisses me off. You win the division, and you start the playoffs on the road. I loved when they changed to 2-2-1 and it stinks they have to go back to 2-3 this year. I would've said Screw it, you players want more teams in, you're gonna have fewer days off in the ALDS, sorry. I hate how money trumps consistency.

The One Big Positive:

I hated the Red Sox' indifference about playoff seeds. It made me mad when Theo would say "just make the playoffs and you have a 1-in-8 chance of winning like everyone else." Yeah, if the game was played on paper with dice-rolling and games were played at neutral sites! Last year, and I hate to say this, the Yankees played it exactly right: They were in the same position as us, battling for the division with a huge lead on the wild card. Yet they played their games against us as if they were the most important. We were the team they had to beat to win the division and that's how they played it. Whereas we always have this bullshit wild card mentality, that they'd use NESN to push on the fans. The wild card should be something you don't even check until you're officially eliminated from winning the division. It just seems like every September, everybody's focus is winning while ours is resting. How are you supposed to have a "winning attitude" going into October if you haven't thought about actually winning in a month? And how can they not realize that it's better to have a home-field advantage? Or at least that it's something that's okay to shoot for? The division should be the main goal, not for bragging rights, but because it gives you A. an easier path to the World Series and B. it makes you try every game.

Now that we've got this new system, it shouldn't be an issue. Any non-division winner will have to play a one-game playoff. Nobody wants that. And the top division winner gets to play a team who just used their ace. Bobby V should have no problems motivating our guys this year.

Tomorrow, Saturday, the Red Sox play actual baseball games, against the colleges. So for to-morrow, and the rest of the season, despite that you have very important business (V.I.B), thoughts of baseball will weigh the scale...well, I'll just let this cartoon from the Providence Evening Tribune in 1912 explain...


I guess I could have saved this for the day before the regular season...but who says I can't run it then too?

For the Wakefield retirement, NESN came on a little early, so even though it starts at 5:30, tune in a little before for some pre-retirement action. If you're in NESN land.

NESN.com also live-blogging the B game today. Best line:

"Because the umpires didn't show up, Twins third-base coach Steve Liddle will be the ump."

(They later showed up....)

From the Providence Evening Tribune, exactly 100 years ago today.

I love how they reported on the Red Sox taking walks! Like, actual walks. Over "the mountains." This of course is from spring training, which was in Hot Springs, Arkansas in those days. It's funny, too, because seeing those three names together reminded me that I've seen a picture of them together, out of uniform, before. I searched for that image, and sure enough, ol' Cy has a walking stick in the shot. It's one of their walks* from that same spring training of 1912. Nuf Ced McGreevy is also in there--maybe he was on the walk described above, too, and maybe they just left him out of the write-up since he wasn't, ya know, on the team.

*It could even be the same walk--the paper is from March 1, but it's an evening paper, and the article is actually dated March 1. And the picture just says "March 1912." So let's just go ahead and make an ass out of you and me and say it's the same walk.

The beginning of Fenway Park's first season taking shape:

Providence Evening Tribune, February 29, 1912

Can you believe you could get pongees for under 50 cents back then?!

Nice site full of old NYC photos started by the NYT recently...

This shit has to end soon, right?

While trying to avoid thinking/talking about the latest BS from the Boston sports media, I was going through some old VHS tapes. A couple things:

1. Twins-Red Sox preseason highlights from 1993. Bad narrating by Gary Miller here. Hopefully the Emmel Beasts don't take this vid down. It's just preseason! I like how Jose Melendez is featured....

2. A kid jumping into the water for an Ozzie Canseco foul ball, also from spring training '93, off of Len Berman's sportscast on WNBC channel 4, New York. Enjoy:

To the Wake-to-Tek ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day at Fenway.

Except for this video of the gigantic boat passing by behind right field, I haven't posted anything from my trip to a Staten Island Yankees game last summer. Finally, here's your photo gallery. Above: On the (free!) ferry from lower Manhattan to Staten Island, looking back at the city. I used a shot which has another ferry going the other way so you can see what our ferry looked like while still being on it. The unfinished building at left is the new 1 World Trade Center. (Progress as of last month shown here.)

On Staten Island, right by the ballpark (which is steps from where the ferry brings you), looking at Manhattan, five miles away. Left to right: The ever-growing skyline of Jersey City, New Jersey; The Statue of Liberty; Manhattan, with antenna of Empire State Building sticking up behind another building directly above the green bouy and new 1 World Trade Center just to the right of that; Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge at far right edge.

The ballpark.

This is Staten Island's 9-11 memorial--set up so you see the new WTC in between these two things.

I don't know which Staten Island Yankee this is. I checked their roster but couldn't figure it out. Oh, I should tell you Chan was on this trip with me.

Why is their mascot named after Phil Rizzuto? Because he's a "holy cow." Figured that one out myself, thank you. As for why their mascot is a cow in the first place, or why they specifically chose to honor Rizzuto in mascot form, I have no idea.

Your 2011 Jamestown Jammers.

View from our seats. The row in front of us was directly under a wire which birds constantly sat on and pooped from. Also, they've got a mini Verrazano Narrows Bridge on top of their scoreboard. For more information, contact Tony Manero.

Empire State Building and 1 World Trade Center through the foul screen. WTC is 5.5 miles from the park, and ESB is 3 miles farther away than that.

The place had the usual minor league stuff. Above, kids in sacks, racing.

Jammers helmet with a 9-11 logo on it.

The city behind right field.

The Jammers kicked some Staten Ass that night.

Nighttime action.

On the ferry on the way home. We were right on the front and got to watch Manhattan grow. These people are all facing front--they don't let you go right up to the front edge which is why you see extra boat-ness on the left.

City at night. The building at far left that's all lights is, once again, the new 1 WTC. Below is a video as we approached the city. The roar you hear is the wind, but it was the hot, awesome kind. And I had it zoomed so you can hopefully feel the city looming in your midst. I love when you're moving along, close to a skyline, and you're so close that the buildings in the background appear to be drifting along behind the closer ones, peeking out from behind one and then hiding behind another. Anybody know what I mean?



Finally, from that same NYC trip, a shot I took out Chan's window. Harold & Maude fans will appreciate this....


Final summary: Staten Island Yanks game: Worth the adventure. Oh, right, one more thing. This night would feature my all-time best guesstimate. I know I've bragged about this type of thing before, so you can probably stop reading now. But this one must be documented. While waiting for the ferry to take us home, there was a delay. People were pissed. From what the regulars were saying, this is unusual. The ferries have set times and usually are there for you. So while we waited, I went into my patented NYC time-distance guesstimation mode. But first I had to guess when the ferry would arrive. So I took that amount of time, added the time of the ferry ride, then the estimated walk to the subway, then the estimated time of the subway ride which is upwards of 100 blocks long, then the estimated walk to Chan's apartment. I added that all to the current time and gave Chan my predicted time of arrival at his door. And I got it right. To the minute. For months I actually kept the exact times in my head, but seeing as it's been seven months since this happened, I've lost those. But it was something like 10:18 to 11:51. This wasn't no half-hour trip, I can do those in my sleep! And you gotta pretty much guess out of thin air when the ferry will come and how long you'll be waiting on the subway platform. And Chan monitored it the whole way, with me never looking at the clock and therefore unable to start walking faster or slower to affect the time of the trip. I'm still trying to figure out a way to make a living using this skill. Your ideas are always welcome.

I thought I'd post a previously unseen random (-ish) picture I took last baseball season to help you think of Fenway Park and summer and all that good crap. So here it is--but there's a bonus: What's that woman on the far right (next to the yellow vendor shirt) wearing on her head? And what about that one in Aybar's armpit? And those three on the far left, even with Youk's ear? Sombreros. It was Cinco de Mayo.