Joba Chamberlain sustained a "massive" injury...on a trampoline!



Photo from the incident:

I guess Girardi decided the game was over. So it's over. And V was pissed since he was ready to play the tenth, pitcher warming up on the mound and everything. But Joe says he's out of pitchers and just walks away, without any kind of conference. Why couldn't he stick with the pitcher who was in there? The guy before him sat between innings and came back out. I think V is right, Joe just wanted to get out of there. He could have done a better job of getting his "no one left" agenda across, before our guy started warming. I had NESN, and they were on commercial when the Yanks left and the crowd started booing. We came back from break, Orsillo said it was over, and they rushed off to hockey. So I didn't find out about what happened until later. I could talk a lot more about V speaking his mind, the media's coverage of it, and how it's going to affect things, but I'm gonna save that for a whole other post. Moving on....

Was cool to see Tito going around talking to the players--but in gym-coach formal! Weird to see him on the field out of his baseball clothes. If the ESPN feed hadn't been blacked out,, I would have watched to listen to Tito--including him talking to V during the game. Instead I got the NESN cameras showing him, and Don and Remy talking about how he seemed to be talking non-stop to the truck but not to the audience. Pretty funny.

I should've seen that game-tying suicide squeeze coming in the bottom of the ninth now that V is at the helm. Also would have loved to see the play at first on that squeeze, but NESN never showed it--not live, not on replay. They also missed a full pitch at one point because to come back from a highlight, they required a three-screen wipe, the first saying "Red," the second saying "Sox," and the third saying "Baseball." While watching all that I knew they had to be missing stuff. They better not do that come April. Or--don't do it when something's happening! Genius, huh?

Hopefully Pedroia is okay. Kind of shitty how after he got hit by the pitch, the first base ump calld him out on the swing. The home plate ump had sent Dustin to first, he's writhing in pain, and neither the catcher nor pitcher appealed, yet the guy goes out of his way to say it's a swing on what was right on the line between check and swing.

I liked what I saw out of Aaron Cook tonight. Including his two pickoffs.

Like I always say, it's good to beat the Yanks at any time of year. That's right, I'm calling this "tie" a win. If one team leaves, the other wins.

Just got the yearly catalog from the Yawkey Way Store (formerly The Souvenir Store--the gigantic thing across Yawkey Way from Fenway which is now partnered with the Red Sox). I opened it, and right away saw this on the first page:
Yakwey! Gotta spell your own name right, especially in your web address. At that point, I thought, This is gonna be fun.... Remember, these are the same people who once had the Red Sox' championship years wrong on the front page of their site.

So I started leafing through:
This isn't the biggest deal--one paragraph rag right and the rest justified, with giant holes in paragraphs. Just looks terrible. I understand when you've got long urls it's better to keep them on one line rather than to hyphenate them. Still, I would have had those 'graphs sparkling clean like a mountain stream. Also, you can't say "EST" (Eastern Standard Time) referring to something that's year round. Because for more than half the year, there is no standard time. I think people have come to think "EST" is an abbreviation for "eastern." Gotta learn your EST vs. EDT, people. If you're confused, just go with "ET" (Eastern Time). That'll cover you all year.

Oh, backwards apostrophe, how you sink your teeth into my brain. The Orioles also do this. An apostrophe only faces one way, whether it's at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a word. If it's facing the other way, it's an open single quotation mark. People love to mess this up, especially on year abbreviations. (Also, those aren't really the covers--they obviously don't have this year's covers ready, so they took the old ones and slapped a big number twelve on them.)

I know, I know, not that big a deal to most people. (Although would you ever spell your own name wrong?) All I'm saying is: This catalog isn't going to make it to Coopersburg.

...

...

I mean Cooperstown! Town!

Remember how I noticed that in the "last chance drawing" for Monster standing room, the Red Sox botched it and only allowed them to be sold in fours? And how I felt that meant they'd be stuck with lots and lots of them? Well, they've put them on sale to everybody. Whole season. Minus summer weekends and Yanks/Opening Day. I just bought some. Get yours now. Note: If you want more than 4 (max is 10), you may have to enter quantity two or four, click continue, and then click "Add" and keep adding seats until you reach the amount you want. See example below. (I chose a random game--no, I didn't actually buy the ones you see here.)
See note below.*

Watch out for bugs, though--some games I was trying for 1 but it would only allow 2. But eventually I found games that were allowing singles. But in an ironic twist, I ended up getting 2 for a game and no singles. But if I had decided that I only wanted a single for a certain game which only allowed deuces, I was all ready to break out a Twilight Zone reference--the one where the plane flies into the age of dinosaurs, and then comes back--but not far enough! Because before, I wanted 1 and they only sold 4s, and now it would have been only 2s--still unacceptable. But, whatever, I think if you keep clicking around you can get exactly what you want.

It's funny. To get Monster SRO, at first you had to win the lottery, or call that day as I did, with a 4 ticket limit. Then, you had to win the Last Chance lottery, also with a 4 ticket limit, only you HAD to buy exactly 4. And now...on sale to general public, 10 ticket limit. There are also games with entire bleacher and upper bleacher sections still unsold. No excuse not to get to Fenway (assuming you want to) this year. More importantly, there's no excuse to overpay to go.


*(These $35 tickets, for this same O's game, are going for $110 or $190 each on ShitEaterHub. The Marlins series, also weekdays and also available for $35 face value right now on redsox.com, is going for $125-$300! And by the way, despite changing their seating chart, FuckHub still hasn't corrected the fact that they don't differentiate between bleacher (face value $28) and upper bleacher ($12) on the map. Therefore customers are misled into thinking all these seats' face values are the same. Sellers can base their marked-up price on 28 instead of 12 for upper bleachers. The Red Sox obviously are aware of this as BarfHub is partnered with MLB--shame on all three.)

Something that went pretty much unnoticed from the Red Sox' schedule of events commemorating Fenway Park's 100th birthday in 2012:

*****

June 19, 2012

Presentation of the First Annual Lib Dooley Fan Award Elizabeth "Lib" Dooley was one of the Red Sox' most ardent and loyal fans who attended over 4000 games, never missing one between the 1944 and 1998 seasons. She was beloved by fans and players alike, who enjoyed the cookies she passed out during games.

This annual award will be presented each year to a Red Sox fan who best exemplifies and personifies what it means to be a Red Sox fan. The fan will be chosen by a committee with recommendations from Red Sox Nation of individuals they deem worthy of recognition by the club.

*****

I'm so glad to see Lib Dooley officially recognized. By complete chance back in the 80s, my friend's dad (a Yankee fan) had access to the box next to Dooley's, and we were able to take advantage of those seats a few times. (The view can be seen in the sweet shot shown here of me as a kid with Rich Gedman in the background--a photo he would later sign for me.) So I got to listen to her talk to Tommy the bat boy and whatnot. That same friend ended up going to BC years later, and once gave Ms. Dooley a ride home from a Red Sox game, a story I still have trouble fathoming. (Why wouldn't she have a ride planned in her 50th season going to games? How did my friend know she needed a ride? Why would she bring it up with a stranger? Why did she accept a ride from a Yankee fan? I forgot to ask for more details this past weekend when I hung out with this friend at Bobby V's. Maybe it all just shows how friendly she was. Maybe you won't win this award unless you too get in a car with a college kid you've never met before.)

Anyway, my personal connection aside, do some searching on Lib Dooley. She has quite a history. (Though the "never missed a game" myth is just that--she supposedly didn't go to the ballpark when she had family events and things like that.) (Then again, maybe those reports are myths. Either way, missing a few games over 50-something years is definitely understandable.)

It's 26 degrees warmer in Burlington, Vermont right now than it is in Tucson, Arizona. It's an 80-54 lead for the northerners.

Red Sox vs. Toronto on NESN/MLBN tonight at 7:05.

Green Monster seats available for the early-season Rangers and A's series on redsox.com. Entire sections even. (Yet people are still trying to sell them on the scalper sites for two, three, and four times face value.)

A year ago, I saw that Topps had a proofreading job available. As a baseball fanatic and someone who proofreads for work (and for fun!), this was a bit of a "dream job." (Although they could have started me out in the Club Penguin department, who knows--still woulda been fun.) The company is located in New York, but I would have gladly taken it and figured out a schedule that works for both of us. Like, I work in the office a few days a week while sleeping at my friend Chan's apartment and work from home the other days. (I remember Chan at the time saying, "you're giving them your own terms already, I see....") Anyway, nothing became of that.

Yesterday I bought my first Topps baseball cards of the new season. After finding a Mickey Mantle card and curiously checking to see if it's rare or desired more than the other pieces of cardboard, I noticed people referring to it as an "error" card. They were saying the stats area on the back had two "triples" columns. There were two "3B"s and no "2B." (The stats below were correct; the mistake was only in the header.) Noticing that my card also had this goof, I looked into it even further. On a message board, someone asked if anyone thinks Topps will be correcting this error. (Without a corrected version, an error card doesn't have an extra value--according to the hobby-spoiling card-pricing junta! One year they called Mike Greenwell "Jeff" right on the front of the card--but since they didn't correct it, which would have made the "Jeff" version more rare, it's just like any other card.) The answer that came back was: "Considering they made that mistake on the whole set, probably not."

That's right. Topps, the leading baseball card producer since before you were born, labeled the "doubles" column "3B" for the entire first series of their 2012 baseball cards. Except for the pitchers, whose doubles/triples aren't shown anyway. And certain other cards, like rookie cards and ones with horizontal pictures on the front, for some reason. But a majority of hitter's cards have the screw-up. After looking at the cards I had in my hands and seeing that it's true, I also looked at some pitcher cards, and noticed they topped the "walks" column with a "W," instead of the usual "BB," which differentiates it from "wins." (I can imagine the same non-baseball fan who messed up the 3B thing going, "oh look, they've got 'BB' standing for "walk"--there's an easy fix....")

So what did we learn today? I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE PROOFREADER FOR TOPPS BASEBALL CARDS! Clearly. Now I feel like just sending them my resume. I could bring up my "terms," and if they seem weary, I'll just say, "double triii-plllle," and they'll realize they need me.

Once again from the Providence paper, 1912:

Did the annual "meet up with old CT friends for March Madness at Bobby V's in Stamford" this weekend. As AJM said in comments once, the waitresses now wear Red Sox shirts. Other than that, I saw one V-signed Sox jersey, and a collage of V at his press conference, at Fenway, etc. There could have been more but I didn't really look around the bar area as we were in the back room. But essentially it looked the same as it did last year, only this time we knew we wouldn't be seeing the man himself as we did last March.

Then it was on to NYC where Chan and I tossed the Aerobie around in Central Park in the beautiful weather today. It was seemingly clear, but when you could see faraway buildings, you could tell there was a haze. Which made said buildings look like ghosts, as you can see in the above pic of the Chrysler Building, and the below pic of the Empire State Building, whose second reign as the tallest building in New York is scheduled to end in about a month, when the new 1WTC will pass it.

It kind of freaks me out just how large it's looming here, its base 3.13 miles from where I was standing. The way it feels like it must sprout from hundreds of feet underground. And think about this: If that girl were the height of the Empire State Building, that lamp post would come up to around the top of her big toe.

I got to hear Castiglione on Saturday. He was talking about his upcoming book during the game, and while talking about it, we got to hear a classic Joe home run call. Cody Ross hit it, and then he hit one the next day. I love these guys with Fenway swings. Just loft a fly ball to left. Every time. If only it were that simple. Was good to hear that ClayHH had a really nice outing too. Monday at 1:35, it's Sox-Twins. Seventeen days till Opening Day....