Five solo dongs for the Dick Squad and we lose 6-4. After going down 3-0 we came back to make it 4-3 (as the Red Sox have been known to do to the Yanks before). But they scored a run each in the 5th, 6th, and 7th to win it.

A few things. I was surprised to see Adrian Gonzalez pull out a G2 cup while in the field, probably full of sunflower seeds. At first I thought, Oh, the coach must have handed it to him. But then I thought, Wait, the other team's coach is on the field. So I realized he actually keeps this crunched up cup full of seeds somewhere on his person while playing the field.

Wait till the media gets a hold of this one. Eating, carrying cups in his pocket...IN PUBLIC. For shame. He just doesn't get it. Unlikeable. Toxic. Turmoil. He needs to stop chewing sunflower seeds and start playing with some heart! And who knows what else was in that cup. There could be.....meetings in there! Or golf clubs. Or charity events. What are we gonna do with this guy? You HAVE to rid the team of this cancer immediately. Next thing you know he'll be swimming within 30 minutes of eating. If he does, man, you better believe I'll be snapping pictures and Tweeting them instantly. Then I'll tell you he DID wait 30 minutes and you'll still believe he did the wrong thing. Because when you're losing, everything you do is wrong. Even if you do two opposite things in a row. The latest perfect example: Millar saying the Red Sox need to play with heart. Lemme guess: The same people who said Valentine should be fired in April because he said Youk had no heart will now agree with Millar when he says the team has no heart. Millar was guilty of what all the casual fans are. Mixing up "doing poorly" with "having controversy around them that they didn't start." As if one has to do with the other. "Stop having controversies said about you and play ball!" What??

Moving on...

The Red Sox had been wearing black armbands for Pesky on the gray road jerseys. (They will have them along with a 6 in a black circle for the home unis.) Tonight, though, they had the blue Friday night road jerseys. So instead of the band, they wore just the black Circle-6, as a black armbad wouldn't show up on blue. (The circle doesn't really show up either, but the white 6 does.) Yet Don and Jerry couldn't figure this out, acting like the team is randomly deciding when to wear the 6, when to have the band, etc. Seemed obvious to me.

One thing Orsillo does that annoys me is when he starts making a call before the play is complete, assuming what's supposed to happen will happen. Joe Buck is the master of this, starting his "makes the catch" call while the ball's in the air. Stuff like that. I'm not saying you should act surprised when a routine play is made. But you shouldn't call it before it happens because it might not happen! And on TV, you don't need to be telling us every single thing, as we can see it anyway. So you definitely shouldn't be trying to tell us something when it hasn't happened yet. On radio, you need to tell us right away or the crowd will blow your cover. (Charley Steiner was big on this--you'd hear a loud cheer so you knew a double play had been turned--yet Charley hadn't even described the flip to second yet.) But on TV, you don't have to say anything at all if you don't want to. Wait till the guy catches a fly ball and go "one down" and leave it at that, even. Tonight, Don did his thing, and got burned. I give you the "pre-emptive call burn":


See what I mean? Usually he's smart enough to not actually finish the call, so he has time to call an audible. Even when that happens, though, I get pissed, knowing exactly what he was up to. In this case, though, he actually completed the incorrect call and had to give the Whoops call.

I guess that's about it.

Fox tomorrow, ESPN Sunday.

"Don't mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta 'rage' in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he's not raging against is the privileged elite he's groveling in front of for campaign contributions."

--Tom Morello, on "extreme fringe right wing nut job" Paul Ryan saying he's a Rage Against the Machine fan

If you agree with BOTH of these statements:

"A player should be with the team when he's injured!" (see Ellsbury 2011)

"A player should stay away from the team when he's injured!" (see Lackey 2012)

then you should admit that you will believe anything anyone tells you, and that when your team isn't playing well, the media could tell you that they're doing anything off the field and you'd consider it a travesty.

If you fill in the following blank with any word besides "win," you've been manipulated by the media:

"These players need to _____."

Oh wait, that apology was just a dream I had. In actuality they just keep talking about how the team needs to stay focused amid distractions the media is inventing and that if they win, they all go away--which is a blatant admission that they and the rest of their media buddies purposely stir up shit and manipulate the fans who are already upset about the team not playing well and will be appalled at literally anything they do, whether it's even true at all.

I'm hoping you'll all be that much more into the next anti-media weekend.

(It's funny--I have done a complete boycott of Boston sports radio and the papers since the last anti-media thing, yet these ridiculous things are spilling right into the broadcasts of the game, which is the only reason why I know about them. Oh, and hearing people on NY radio repeating the invented stories and just assuming they're true even when proven false. It's such a goddamn joke.)

Red Sox WIN tonight. Clay gave up 2 in the first, but SD'd. Eight solid. Three runs. A bunch of Ks. And the offense came through with men on. 6-3 win. We outhit the O's in all three games (31-21 total) but only won one. Now it's on to NYC.

I love it when I get comments on posts that are years old. I recently got one from someone completely missing my sarcasm when I called the CN Tower "the tall thing" in a 7-year old post about a trip to SkyDome. And it made me want to post some video from that day. (The game was from May 2004, and I had no way of posting videos back then. By 2005, when I did the post, I still was only doing video stills.) So here's Pedro Martinez signing autographs before the Red Sox-Blue Jays game, shot by me, 5/14/2004. I wish I knew what he was saying in that pre-signing soliloquy....

There are two things you can be sure of in life:

That the media will say absolutely anything they want, knowing that even if it's proven to be completely false, it doesn't matter, because once a seed is planted in a manipulated public's mind, it's too late.

And, that no pitcher will ever be able to figure out how to accurately throw to second base on a double play grounder.

Cooksey was on such a roll that no kitchen-related pun could describe it. A no-hitter into the 6th. But as is often the case with this guy, he turned from Cy Young to Cy Who Ran The Heritage Motor Inn In Old Saybrook, Connecticut In The 1980s almost instantly. And after he lost the no-no, he lost the shutout. And after that, with runners on first and third, he made a nice stab on a grounder, and went for the DP. But the throw was nowhere near. Anybody. Pretty soon he was out of the game and for the second straight night, the O's had a 5-run 6th, this time putting them up 5-2.

And we lose, 5-3.

Side note: I don't like it when color men do little outbursts during a play, and we're fortunate enough to have announcers who, despite their foibles, don't do that shit. But I have to say, good job by Remy blurting out "take it easy" to the dipshit who felt the need to thank the heavens above or his dead relatives who live in the sky or whatever that he got out of the 8th inning, Joba-style.

As you know by now, Melky Cabrera has been suspended 50 games for taking testosterone. (Bonus: he was one at bat shy of qualifying for the batting title! Edit: See comments.)

But what I missed a few weeks ago was reporter Andrew Baggarly bringing up PED rumors directly to Melky, and later offering a public apology for doing so.

Now, of course, the rumors have been proven true. And Baggarly just Tweeted, "Now, if Melky Cabrera wants to apologize to me for lying when I asked him about it, that's another matter."

But here's where the crazy (kinda) coincidence comes in. A few weeks ago, there wasa Jeopardy! champion who had a nice winning streak--who said he covered the San Francisco Giants. I kept meaning to go online and look the guy up, but never did. Today, when I went to this Andrew Baggarly's Twitter page, I saw him pictured...with Alex Trebek. And it all came together. This was that Jeopardy! guy. Weird.

First, a line I should have used yesterday:

Derek Lowe, every time you sign with the Yankees, Johnny Pesky dies.

In tonight's game, we outhit the O's 11-7. One might think that'd be a game we win...or at least not lose by 6. But we lost by 6. 1 for 10 with runners at 2nd and/or 3rd.

When the game started, NESN's video was frozen on a moment from the pre-game show. We had audio only. For a while. Then that disappeared and came back, before we got normalcy I think during the Gonzalez at bat. (It's almost like they're so pissed about being called out for missing stuff, they said We'll show ya missing stuff!)

The game was close until the 6th, when the O's turned a 2-1 game into 7-1, which was your final. A big play in that inning came with 2 on and 1 out. And Don, Jerry, and the umps screwed it up royally. With a 2-2 count, Wieters attempted to check his swing. The ball got away from the catcher and both runners moved up, but more importantly, it appeared as if the Red Sox had gotten the second out. We immediately saw the home plate ump point to the third base ump, to see if it was a check or not. Then we see a wider shot where Beckett and Lavarnway are looking at the home ump and pointing at the third base ump. The home ump again signals to the third base ump, who we barely see start to make the "no swing" motion, before the camera cuts to the guy on third--and the ump's hand entering the side of the screen as he extends his arms out in the call. Next they cut to Valentine coming out of the dugout, making the swing motion. Two different people in the dugout behind him are either making a swing motion or screaming to get the right call.

Don, who had yet to say anything except to note the advancement of the runners, says at this point, "Valentine saying that he fouled it off."

!?!?!?

After all that I just described had happened, neither Don nor Jerry had any idea what was going on!

NESN then cuts to a close-up of the third base ump. The truck at least by now realizes what's going on, but Don merely says, "Wild pitch charged to Beckett."

Only at this point, as they cut back to Valentine again, does Don say (probably cued by the truck) that they "wanted to see if he went around...."

So now I'm pissed for two reasons. But wait, there's more! Now that we all know what's going on, it's time to replay the swing. First they show a frontal angle. Nice choice! It's funny, though, because the swing seems like such a swing that you can actually tell on that front view that he went too far. Still, it's not definitive, of course, but Remy decides that he's gonna call it a no swing! He seems perplexed that the truck wants to show this again, saying nonchalantly, "doesn't appear to be...". Finally, after all this time, Dr. Venkman takes a look at the fridge. We get the side angle...and boom goes the dynamite. It's close, but the bat clearly goes too far. Hands way out in front of body, bat angle shooting out at about 10 degrees passed 90. Should be strike 3 and two outs. Don and Jerry give it the old "hey it could be after all," but quickly end the discussion.

So with all this crap they do on the broadcast lately to try to pull in the casual fan, they leave those same casual fans to think that basically nothing's wrong, instead of letting them know that the Red Sox just got robbed.

Terrible job, guys, and terrible job, umps.

The O's would go on to score 5 in the inning. Maybe with the out call, they would have scored 10, we don't know. I'm just saying, that play changed the inning. Wieters ended up hitting the Jeter-est single to score a run. It should have been two outs, two on, next guy up. And yeah, we never got past 1 run ourselves, and we are surely to blame for stranding so many runners, but we don't know what would have happened had they gotten that call right. And to be so pissed about a call and as a bonus have your OWN announcers not realize what they were even seeing, just frosted my ass, as they say.


In case you missed it, the O's did a nice job having a moment of silence for Pesky before the game. (Of course, during NESN's technical difficulties--they attempted to play it later, and of course, there was a double by Ciriaco at that moment, so they had to awkwardly turn up the live audio in the middle of a replay of a moment of silence. Typical NESN.) And the Sox wore armbands on the right sleeve on the road unis tonight. They'll wear one on the left sleeve with a black circle-6 above it at home.

Remember that post I did in March about Providence's old Cycledrome? Well Projo just did an article about it. So go read it if you like.

Red Sox @ Orioles, 7:05. Beckett v. Chen.

Since July 23rd, the 1912 Red Sox have played .650 ball. Yet their lead shrank from 8 to 5.5 by August 7th. Today, though, August 14th, the lowly Browns came to town, and Boston swept a doubleheader, extending their league lead to its biggest margin yet, 9.5 games, with a little more than 40 games remaining.

Over this last 21-game stretch, Smoky Joe Wood started 5 games and won them all. Several papers reported that most of the American League's managers predicted that the Red Sox would take the pennant. The team's record at the end of today, August 14th, was 75-34, a .688 winning percentage. Only the Giants are doing better; at .716, they lead the N.L. by 6 games.

Coincidental note: In the August 9th game in Detroit, league president Ban Johnson was on hand to present the great pitcher Wild Bill Donovan with a gold watch on behalf of the Tigers' fans. Donovan had been injured and was on his way out of Detroit, going to Providence to manage the Grays of the International League. Donovan would manage Babe Ruth in 1914 while leading Providence to the championship. (A decade later, Donovan would die in the wreck of the "20th Century Limited" train.)

Labels: 1912 Red Sox

Johnny Pesky dead at 92. Johnny lived quite a life. He will be missed at Fenway Park and throughout baseball.

His name came up yesterday. I was at an antique store and was flipping through a 1978 Red Sox scorebook, and saw him in one of his "window boys" ads.

My photos from the day his number was retired are here. I'm glad I put one of them into that Fenway fan-photo mosaic on the Fenway 100 site.

NESN has been effing up at a rate I can't even keep up with. (Joy of Sox has an extensive post up about their shoddy overall job.) So here are two recent gaffes. The first one is from when Ellsbury tried to stretch a double into a triple. While they were showing replays, you could hear the first pitch to the next better hit the catcher's glove. (0:25 of the clip.) Then they cut to Jacoby in the dugout before finally getting back to the CF camera for the second pitch--and the first one isn't replayed or even mentioned. Watch:



With all the downtime in a baseball game, it's hard to miss a pitch. But they do it all the time. Bonus: There are two other things that I don't like about that coverage:

1. I wanted to see Ellsbury's path around the bases. On the live shot we saw him for a second as he hit second base. There was a slight hesitation but he only did it to make sure he's hit second base, it seemed. However, it looked like he was coming in at a funny angle, as if he hadn't intended to round the bag and then decided to late. Either way, I would have liked to see if he had slowed up at any point (costing him, as he was out by a hair), or if he was thinking three all the way. But they chose to show the tag play over and over (so much that they, as you know, missed the next pitch entirely). I appreciate seeing multiple angles on a close play, but I was curious as to how Jacoby approached the whole thing.

2. Remy loves to say stuff, then be proven wrong, but not admit it. It's hard to tell on my video, but Ellsbury was out. Yet Remy says "almost a tie" while seeing the angles that prove him wrong. Instead of saying, "nope, barely out," he just sticks with his original call. Very close play, and maybe he just didn't see it like I did, but that's not the point--he'll do this and be clearly proven wrong with visual evidence right away, but he rarely says "oh, whoops, guess not." No wonder the older generation doesn't want instant replay in baseball--they have too much pride in their original call!

This next clip shows that NESN doesn't just deceive the audience with "live" overhead shots that are clearly not live in home games. They can do it on the road, too! This one I explain in the video:



It's just funny how I wasn't even looking for it. But they were dumb enough to show a paused version of one of their shots of Cleveland by accident, busting themselves. (Watch the spire of the building before and after the commercial--you can see it still before and slightly moving after. Along with the shot zooming out and the boat inching along.

Funny moment in Sunday's game when a foul ball landed in a vacant area. Jerry and Don were quite amused:



The weird thing is, on the original live shot, they cut it off right when the first guy relaxes for a half-second (about 0:06-0:07). I'm thinking, "the ball's right there, just go over the tiny fence into that big empty area and get it!" I actually rewound and watched again at that point--remember, this is before we ever see the big man. I was stunned the guy wasn't immediately going after the ball. Sure enough, as I kept on watching, they revisited it, and we see the competition come flying in. At that point I was rooting like hell for the big guy, but, well, you saw what happened.

In fact, I feel like after the slight relaxation by the first guy, when he springs into action, that's when he sees the other guy and suddenly he realizes he needs to move NOW.

Sox get 8 in the 5th and beat Tribe 14-1. Lester awesome.

Yanks lose in Toronto, as Rajai Davis scales the wall.