Top 8, 12:49 a.m. on the east coast, Sox up 3-2, Papi pinch hits with first base open, they elect to pitch to him...and he launches one. And the West Coast Sox Contingent goes crazy. I just turned up the sound and enjoyed. Even the visitors' dugout cop was lovin' it! That makes it 5-2, and we win 6-2, our fifth in a row. It's a 5.5-game lead! Biggest division lead in all of baseball!

In the inning before Papi's dong, we broke the tie when Josh Hamilton let a shallow fly bounce off his glove. That guy has problems. Now normally I think of "______, you suck!" as the least creative heckle in baseball. (The second worst is, "______, go back to [city he previously played in]!") But in this case, Hamilton missed such an easy chance, even as he looked the ball right "into" his glove, in such a key spot, allowing the go-ahead run to score, that I thought it was perfect when NESN cut to a shot of some Sox fans cheering, with the guy on the left so happily yelling "the line." It was so fitting. I loved it. Here it is:



Post-Papi dong, we had Tazawa in bottom 8 throwing to Trumbo with a man on and two out. It got to 3 and 2, and then Trumbo fouled off three in a row. Earlier, Taz had blown a fastball by him, so I called for a heater up high. I got it, Trumbo swing and missed, and that was your inning. Napoli tagged one to center for an insurance dong in the 9th, and Koji got a 1-2-3 save. The Doubie Brother went 6.66 for the win.

Earlier in The Bronx, Jim Johnson came in to close out a one-run game. After a leadoff single, he botched a sac bunt that went right to him. Easy play. But he effs it. Then Ichiro lays down the worst bunt ever where the guy should have been thrown out at third, but the O's had their third baseman charging, so they had to go to first with it. An intentional BB to Cano set up a potential game-ending DP, but Johnson goes and walks in the tying run. On four goddamn pitches. Does this type of Yankee "rally" sound familiar? Then Wells came up and got one through the left side to score the winning run from third. But despite my cursing and such, it was all a trick! The Yanks were fooled into helping us out, as we extend our lead on the division to 5.5. Suckers....

Saturday night at 10:05 it's Dempster against Jerome Williams, who gave up 7 runs in one inning three days ago.

Today was the mid-year Twilight Zone Marathon. And Syfy did that thing again: they showed The Midnight Sun at midnight. Which is a great episode--and also, I think Norma is hot. And cool. GET IT?

In baseballic news, it was close for a little while today, but the Red Sox eventually pulled away to complete the sweep of the Saint Dave Dads. Allen Webster's career win total was born on the 4th of July.

Balty lost, so our lead is now 4.5! We're just a half-game away from the best record in all of baseball. (When I turned on the radio to try and get some post-game action, I heard that know-nothing John Rider saying repeatedly that we have the best record in baseball. I have to assume he made that 2nd grade [and I mean the dumber kids in 2nd grade] mistake of looking at which number in the win column is highest and assuming that means "best." But yes, John, we do have the most wins, for what that's worth.)

So I guess the only reason that Puig wouldn't be an All-Star is if it's decided he just hasn't played enough. If he is named, shouldn't Iglesias, also a .400 hitter who's played a lot more, be named to the AL squad? I don't hear anyone clamoring to get him on there no matter what. Then again I don't listen to a lot of people. Iglesias did win Rookie of the Month, so that's cool.

Jonny Wad does it again! Gomes with a walk-off dong to lead off the ninth. It was the type of game you felt like we were gonna win, it was just a matter of when. Kim has been talking a lot about visualization lately. I told her how Dan Quisenberry made a career out of it. (See this Baseball Bunch video uploaded by me a long time ago.) Tonight she went to bed in the 8th and I told her it was shaping up to be a magical night at Fenway. She said "it WILL be," and we both visualized the hell out of it. And it happened. And then Eckersley said something about "this is magic" and noted that Gomes likes to talk about visualization! Bonus. I guess magic is as fake as mystique and aura, but you can visualize, and it can help. Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, this is fun.

Anyway, NESN initially missed the beginning of Jonny's third-to-home "thing," and from what we saw, I did a whole video surmising what he was doing was a "fake punt," as a response to his earlier actual helmet punt. Then about ten minutes into the pre-game, they "uncover" footage of the beginning part, and sure enough he did the fake punt before pulling the ball into his belly and running for the first down. So I erased my video. But you'd think they would have been ready for all of this. Glad they finally showed us that beginning part. Then he and Erdahl got doused.

Great job by Salty earlier tying the game. As soon as it hit the wall, I was rooting for that bounce that goes over the left fielder's head, and I got it. Carp scores from first and we tie it. It stayed 1-1 till the fateful 9th.

Volquez, who Remy calls Valquez, did a good job for them, and Lester did a good job for us after a really rough first.

Taz gets the something, UE gets the oddball win. And my mom and niece were at the game! This is Warner Wolf. Jim?

In "not showing the score at the end of the inning" news, NESN did that going to the bottom of the 9th. This is a spot where you really need to tell the audience the game is tied. Instead, we only see the batters who are due up, and, bonus, Don merely says who's coming up, in an excited voice, without saying it's tied. I was watching the whole game, I knew it was tied. But for anyone who just tuned in, or was at a bar or something not giving it their full attention, you gotta set the scene for a potential game-winning inning. Someone or something has to let people know it's a tie.

It's our 8th walk-off win of the year, so I definitely don't need to go crazy talking about my usual thing I've talked about so much. I especially won't say how I still can't believe Don can look right at a scene in which the team in gray is walking off the field while the team in white is running onto the field and claim that the team in white is walking off.

O's won to stay 3.5 back. Yanks beat the Twins again. I wasn't thinking the Twins had much of a chance in this series, as they love to wither and die at the sight of the Yanks. But here's why I'm not worried about the Yanks. They have to play the east more than anybody. And which of those teams would they be favored against? None of them. But it's still early July, we'll see who they acquire and who gets healthy. For now, they sit 6 back and I'm hearting it.

As Mayor Vaughn once said, tomorrow's the 4th of July. Those beaches will be open! And the Red Sox go for the sweep of San Diego at 1:35. After that it's 10 west coast games, 7 of which start at 10 p.m. eastern or later. Woohoo! I say this every year, but I love those late games. It feels like I'm keeping watch over the flame while the whining, complaining, "don't bother me, I haven't had my precious coffee" morning people sleep. I'll try not to steer us into an iceburg. Bonus note to morning people: I got up early for the games in Japan! Hell, I got up early for the Yankee games in Japan, you didn't see me complaining when I was forced to enter your bizzaro world!

I finally sent in some feedback to Google about this! Above is a screenshot of what happens when you search "Red Sox" on Google. Notice the defunct (2008) logo. Also note that the Padres logo they show went defunct in 2010. I didn't look at every single one, but be assured the Marlins and Blue Jays have their even newer, shiny, promoted, marketing department-backed, I guess, logos up there.

The worst part is, even if/when someone does notice the mistake in these cases, they often just think I mean they should change from "Circle Sox" to "Hanging Sox," and end up going the rest of their lives without knowing that Circle Sox changed from this


to this


The point is, it's okay to use the now-secondary Circle Sox! Just use the current version! I'm telling you, we're ruining the potential "retro" usage of the old one down the line. We're practically five years in to the new and nobody knows about it! How am I supposed to rock a retro Circle Sox t-shirt in 2022 if people still think that's the current logo?

[For new readers: I'm not this mad about just Google doing this, it's everybody, from the Boston Herald to every news station and web site to just about everyone else except for me and like twelve other people on earth.]

After getting the trivia contest e-mail (left) a few days ago, I was excited* to see another one (right) yesterday. As you can see, like the first one, it says "Test your knowledge for your chance to win!" at the top. (This also comes up in the "preview" in your inbox.) Then I opened it to find out there's no contest at all, it was just an ad. Turns out they just forgot to remove the line.

So we all thought we were getting another chance to win, but there is clearly no test of knowledge and no chance of winning. Terrible job.

All company names have been removed. Graphic also includes other fun notes.


*Excited about the chance to mock the inevitable errors in another trivia contest, that is.

Fine job by Lackey again! 8 innings. UE with a 1-2-3 save. Snyder with a 3-run double in the 4-1 win.

That Snyder ball was a rocket. But TC said it would be gone in any other park and gone in any other part of this park. Re that second thing: So it hit 30 feet up at a point about 375 feet away. Yet at the 420 mark, the wall is 17-ish feet high. To travel 420, that ball would have had to go 45 feet past the fence had the fence not been there. Just to land at the base of a wall 420 feet away. So you have to tack on even more distance to clear a 17-foot wall at that point. So TC should ask himself, would Snyder's ball have traveled 55+ more feet if it hadn't hit anything? I don't know. Maybe. Tomorrow, we examine the chances of the ball going out of the other 29 ballparks. But don't hold your breath.

Speaking of Snyder, he has two family connections to me. Kinda.

1. He was the guy the Rangers got rid of to make room for Mike Olt at the end of last season. Olt is the grandson of my mom's neighbor. Or nephew. Or something. I keep forgetting.

2. His father was also a major leaguer: Brian Snyder. This guy was in the dice-rolling league my dad and I had around 1989, which has existed on and off through the years. Snyder was a stud pitcher for, I believe, the Wichita Canes (I obviously confused tornadoes with hurricanes), though he could have been the guy Skip Quinn/Guinn replaced in the Denver Rockies' two-man rotation. I mentioned this league once before on this blog, and oddly enough, in the same post I mentioned Kyle Snyder!

I continue to set my "foggiest day I've ever seen" record almost every week. It's cool when the bridge disappears:


Yanks were down 4-3 headed to the 8th. A throwing error tied it, and then they added 6 more runs for a 10-4 win in Minny. Rays and Jays also won, so it's:

US -
O's 2.5
Rays 5.5
Yanks 6
Jays 7.5

So the standings look pretty sweet now as we head to July....

RED SOX 50-34 (--)
Baltimore 47-36 (2.5)
Tampa Bay 43-49 (6)
New York 42-39 (6.5)
Toronto 40-41 (8.5)

The Yanks were 11 games over .500 on June 10th, in second place, and now sit just 3 over, in fourth. Back then they were 10 ahead of Toronto, who are now 2 behind them. Joe Girardi was Manager of the Year then too, supposedly, but now he's thrown in the towel, literally, in a moment I terribly forgot to mention here. That was a great image. Who would have thought, "giving up" as the new Yankee Way?

It's funny, people kept saying "there isn't one great team in the division pulling away, so the Yanks don't have to worry." There may not be one great team, but there sure is one terrible team. So they might want to think about worrying.

What a win. As per my tradition, when UE blUE the save, I still said, Well now if we win it'll be in fun fashion. And we did, as Victorino's grounder goes off the leg of "the tool" in the bottom of the 9th for a 5-4 victory. We take 3 of 4 from the formerly surging team with the bandwagoniest fans north of New York.

If the O's can beat the hO's tonight, NYY will drop to 4th place. If not, we'll have a 3.5 lead over Balty.

So things are lookin' effin' good going into July! Fourth Red Sox team ever to have 50 wins in June. (Though using the calendar for stats is always weird since the season doesn't always start on the same date, etc.)

Fine job by the following:

Snyder. Guy comes out of nowhere and gets two key hits and makes a nice play at third.

Gomes. Another Esasky-esque Wall Ball for a key RBI.

All pitchers. Some minor eff-ups, and Uehara's major one, but overall they kept this one under control. Incredible job by Demp and Brez getting out of the bases-loaded, no-out jam in the 6th, with us up by 2.

Don Burgundy stuff:

Funny when he lost his monitor--but that's the last thing we need. Fortch it didn't last long, and his only error in that time was calling a bloop a liner.

Didn't you think Nava's problem on the messed up DP was that he couldn't get a grip on the ball? Don never saw that (since he's blind) and blamed the high hop, and Remy noted an "extra crow-hop step" but still didn't realize that was done because he couldn't make a clean transfer.

Classic Don--pop up that he calls foul, but it lands fair. Later, same thing happens, and he does it again. I gotta make a vid on that one.... And speaking of his trademark gun-jumping, once he did it on a grounder intot he stands. He said the ball went "in..." (he was gonna say it was in the dugout) "and over the dugout." He's always gotta do that awkward audible, right? But I'm like, Don, it's a grounder foul. It's bad enough you call actual fair balls before they happen and eff it up, why not just relax on the completely meaningless ones and then tell us where it went? Once you've got that down, use the same practice during real plays.

The Thole thing was funny, especially when Don admitted "I just called him a tool!" But come on, this guy's been in the league a while.

Don called Iglesias "Izturis," but I guess the names are close, and at least it was a play where both guys were involved. Still gotta give him a "TJ" on that, though.

And finally, it was a walk-off, so I gotta say a few things. Don fooled me into thinking he'd learned, but fell back into his old ways seconds later. (Of course he's not alone in this as nearly 100% of people involved in the sport are confused.) Then TC started noting things like "and the Blue Jays take the long walk back to the clubhouse" and "and Janssen walks off...". You'd think this would seep into his brain! "Hey, I keep describing the losing team WALKING OFF the field, I wonder if that's why.... nah, RED SOX WALK OFF WITH A WIN!"

So the guy who caught the two dongs in one game, Joe Procaccini, got to go to Fenway and meet Salty and Carp, and was interviewed by Jenny Dell just now on the pre-game.

What nobody seems to be talking about is the homer before both of the ones he caught, where another guy screws Joe by pushing a barrier into his path. People are missing out on a great story. But that's where I come in! In this post I made some videos showing the whole story. Check it out.

I only saw the middle innings. Saw all the missed chances. I had to go to work when it was 2-0 still. I then saw we lost 6-2. I prayed to Gedman that it had gone to 6-0 and we had two late meaningless runs, but no, we actually tied it up. And then blew it. Oh well, one more chance to win the series, starting....now!