Nice tenth: Pedroia undoes his Shite Nite (he had grounded into two rally-killing DPs and popped out with 2nd and 3rd to end another inning) with a leadoff single. Papi walks. Middlebrooks lays down the perfect sac bunt. Then after an IBB, Jonny Wad Gomes does what he's supposed to do: he hits a fly ball. He even stood and watched it as if to say, "I knew what my job was, and it's done, mofo." Go-ahead run scores and we win, 4-3, to stay a game out in the A.L. East. Uehara gets the save. Alex "Damien Pratt" Wilson gets his first MLB win. Miller did a fine job, as did BucHHolz.

My usual routine lately is hearing the first few innings in the car on my way home from work. And I've noticed they're way more "rock" this year going into each inning. I even heard Andrew W.K.'s "She is Beautiful" on there tonight! (Turn it UP! Aw come on, at least make it till the point where Andrew makes himself a smoothie. P.S. Speaking of Damien Pratt and Andrew W.K., I once gave Damien a ride and was playing Andrew in the car and he said "it's a shame about the sound quality of that album." And I just nodded and grunted but I really don't know what he meant because I love the sound quality! P.P.S You probably don't know who Damien Pratt is unless you lived in Danbury or Brooklyn.)

Only three teams in baseball currently have a better record than the Red Sox.

I made a list of more to say but it'll have to wait. Partly because I spent so much time filling out a survey from the Red Sox that I assumed would take 5 minutes, and now it's two int he morning. I failed to notice where it said it would take 35 minutes! By the 15-minute mark I was in too deep and had to make it to the end before doing anything else, even though that progress bar was practically moving backwards. I'll tell you more about it and all the other stuff I wanted to write about later. (Spoiler: It's the same old shit.) Good night, folks!

Okay fine, I stayed up longer just to give you a comparison between Damien and Alex:



Damien photo courtesy his MySpace. Alex photo courtesy ESPN.

Two months ago, I wrote a post about how Jeter made a crazy slide and literally admitted he "forgot" about sliding in general. My point was that nobody cared about it--one paper even called it a "hard slide"--yet if Manny made a slide like that, he'd be called a clown and all the other usual stuff he's called.

Well it only took two months!

(I love the super-creative closing line too! Wow, I ain't neva hoid that one befawww...)

SOX @ Twins, 8:10, Clay Pigeon against Worley Bird

Down to our last strike, Middlebrooks comes through with a three-run double to turn a 3-1 loss into a 4-3 win! Rodney had walked the bases loaded, much as our pitchers had done earlier, leading to them being ahead in the first place. And how does genius Joe Maddon have his outfielders not playing deep enough to cut off any ball in the gap? Heart-attacky job by Taz in the bottom of the ninth, but he gets the job done. And Victorino continues to risk life/limb for us.

The Yanks had the tying run at third with one out in the 9th, but failed, with Cano ending the game. So we close to 1 game back.

Huge night.

A lot of opposite field hitting tonight. Napoli, Gomes, Papi, Pedroia, these guys are all going the other way. Drew's grand dong was pulled, but it wasn't too far right of center. It's almost like everybody realized that's what they should be doing and did it. And boom, 9 runs. Recent Jeopardy correct response* Dustin Pedroia had been trying to pull pitches that were way outside, and was hitting dribblers. He has stopped that and is hitting over .500 in his last five games.

Lester gave up 2 runs on 8 hits over 7 to move to 6-0.

The Yanks lost 12-2, and the O's lost this afternoon, so us and Balty are now 2 games back.

Okay, so tonight Don was talking about the foul poles at the Trop, and suddenly he's a genius when it comes to poles lining up if you're looking down the line but appearing misaligned from the left or right. Yet at Fenway he's completely oblivious to the exact same thing! With the foul pole and the line on the wall which. If you're a regular reader you remember my detailed posts explaining this simple effect to Don. Hopefully one day he figures out it's the same concept at both places.

*But nobody knew it! It was the college tourney. They gave the name, all you had to do was name the team. Come on, people. One kid was from MIT!

Every once in a while I see this really long local commercial for this place called Ocean State Cardiovascular & Vein Center. The whole time, they've got their logo on the bottom of the screen. Check it out:


Cardiovasular! Spelling your own company name wrong is already unforgivable, but doing it in your logo is...impossible, I would think. Guess not. This place calls itself "world class." But next time I need cardiovascular and/or vein work, I'll be choosing any other place. In fact, if you've got cardiovascular or vein issues, why not stop in to my brand new business:


Go to them, or come to the best. Jere's CardiovasCular & Vein. 117 N. Vine St., Hollywood, CA 90028. A Merv Griffin Television Production.

So I'm still obsessed with that cloud. I finally got a non-cloud/fog shot from a spot I photographed a few days ago. Here are the before and after pics. These are not altered in any way.


Lester v. Price, 7:10.

After the Red Sox lost thanks to a ball lost in the roof that may or may not have hit or gone over effing catwalks, I switched to MLBN and saw the last two pitches of the Yanks game. And to add insult to my still-aching injury, I see this pitch called a strike to end the game:


And I was about to make a video about 2001 and 2004 ULTIMATE CHOKER Mariano Rivera's Kardashian-butt-sized strike zone and how if the MLBN hosts had any guts they'd say what a travesty it was, they went and did just that! Or at least Billy Ripken did. He did a great job of letting the pain of seeing such bullshit come out loud and clear in his voice. Let's listen and watch:



I'd say "unbelievable" but I've seen it so many times I totally believe it. There was no K-Zone or whatever, but you didn't even need it on this one. To see the catcher set up slightly outside and have the pitcher hit the glove is one thing, but to have him miss even that target, with the ump positioned right behind the glove, that's a total joke.

Back to our game, did you notice how NESN, after the pop-up landed, cut away before we saw whether it rolled foul or not? And then on the replay, again they cut away early! It wasn't till later that obviously former major league infielder Jerry Remy and Don had someone whisper in their ear that it would have been a foul ball had it rolled foul without anyone touching it. Only then did they show us the full replay with Pedroia waiting on it and it stopping just shy of the foul line. Don called the play as if as soon as it landed fair, it was a fair ball and that was that. We should have been shown Pedroia waiting on the ball as it rolled, with the announcer saying "and it's rolling, rolling...". You know, something like that, but in an excited tone.

And we all know about the "Locked NESN Monster," which is what NESN sometimes turns into after a ball is hit. They stay on the pitch camera, meanwhile the fielder is fielding the ball and we're still seeing the hitter. I once saw a batter take 6 steps to first before they cut to the other camera so we could see where the ball was. Tonight it happened, granted, on a hard line drive, but if you can't show us the fielder catching the ball, can you at least show us a replay so we know if it was a routine catch or he lunged for it or....

Is this the first time Ellsbury's sleeve-thing was black/navy?

And can someone tell Don Orsillo that the host of The Gong Show was Chuck Barris, not Chuck Berry? (I almost linked to this pic for that second one, but I didn't think people would get the Marvin Berry reference.)

My mom recognized this as being a good Mother's Day shot so I took it. Mom/son on their way to the ballpark. Don't know who they are. Anyway, mom, Charlie, and I parked at a meter (free on Sundays) and walked a few beautiful blocks to Fenway, past the fools who paid $35 in the lot.

Went out near our seats, got a good view of Salty warming up Dempster.

Close-up of Salty's arm. Either he has a kid named Sidney, or he donated a kidney and commemorated the event.

Of course everybody had their pink stuff on. Here's Victorino's glove.

And Joseph Stix saying the Red Sox are number one.

The "I Like Baseball" guy (ILBert) had his mom-related sign.

Victorino's mohawk. In this game he slammed into the wall going after a dong, and oh my lord & taylor, it sounded like a gunshot when he hit the fence. It was right in front of us. I shot video of the aftermath but it's just a bunch of people standing around, with Shane himself hidden by the wall anyway.

Our view. Got seats in 42, row 11, that morning on redsox.com.

Another shot of the view, featuring super-photog Kelly O'Connor--I didn't know she was in this shot until I got home and looked. I thought "Hmmm, I wonder if..." and before I could finish the thought I spotted the red hair.

The Salty shift.

One for my broken bat collection. My goal is to always get a shot of the splinter before someone picks it up. It's tough!

The hawk. There are currently a pair of them that "live" at Fenway.

This was all you need to know about the game itself.

Nice look.

And yet another for the BBC!

Ellsbury catching a fly ball without using too much effort. Note the pink sleeve.

A pink bat from 400+ feet away.

Moms and their kids running the bases after the game. I took this just after my mom and I completed the circuit. We both agree the baserunning went by way too fast. It was a long wait before we got on the field, and as we walked the track from center, we made our move to the front of the pack. We were the first to start running. And a few seconds later, we were back in the stands. I kind of thought it would be a free-for-all out there, with people milling about on the basepaths. But they really did hustle you along, so it was a sprint around, and you were done. It worked out because my mom wanted to sprint around. And she did--I was barely keeping up with her as I tried to film her while running alongside.

On the way to the car there was a pink snowstorm. From the cherry blossoms. Didn't get that shot, but got a shot of them on the ground.

I've been in the dugouts. I've been in the clubhouses. I've walked the warning track. I've played catch in the outfield. I've taken swings at home plate. But I didn't complete the Sextuple Crown* until today--I have now run the bases at Fenway Park. Moms and "kids"--meaning me--were allowed to do it after today's Mother's Day game. So I filmed her as she sprinted around. We got to the front of the line and she was proud to be the first mom to reach home plate. I was the first adult kid to make it. Here's the vid:



If you pause it just before the end you see a kid with the t-shirt that I said right away should be a t-shirt.

I may post some pics from today's crappy game (we're now in third place) later.

*I guess you could include going inside the Green Monster as part of the Septuple Crown. I've never been in there! Only peered through the holes....

They gave us a fun 8th, but lost it in the 9th.

As I understand it, you have a better chance of scoring with a man on third and one out than you do with a man on second and no outs.* Maybe Farrell had Drew's brother swing away since he's been hitting well lately. But I was rooting for the sac. Get the guy to third, then score him on a fly ball and go to extras. You only need one run there.

Dempster goes against a guy making his season debut Sunday in the latex liaison.


*You have a better chance of scoring MORE runs when you DON'T bunt there, but again, we only needed one.