July 01, 2009
As if this ceaseless crummy weather hasn't driven us all to our wits end simply by its nature: blocking out the sun and blanketing the region in a clammy, mildewy wet for who knows how many weeks now.
Now the rain's got to start messing with our baseball team?
I really still cannot believe what I saw happen last night. I was at Redbones around 8, tucking into some ribs, watching Smoltz cruise and our guys pile on runs. It was pleasant. Then, next thing I knew, there was a tarp on the field, dented by torrential sheets of rain.
Seventy-nine minutes later, I was across the street at the Sligo Pub, draining Bud after Bud and watching in utter incredulity as that tranpired in the seventh and eighth, slowly but inexorably.
A single to
right
Another single
to right
A double to
right
A homer to
left
A single to
center
Two ground
outs
Another
single to center
Another
single to center
A line-out
Six runs in.
Next
inning, even more of the same...
A single
A double
Another
single
Another
single
A sac fly
Another
single
A strikeout
Another
double
A walk
A flyout
Five more
runs in.
“What's
stunning,” wrote someone in
the SoSH game thread, “is that the Orioles didn't even need to hit in the
bottom of the 9th. I mean, wow.”
What’s also
stunning is that it was the @#$% ORIOLES.
More bons
mots from that thread:
* We're
up by 8. Let Smoltz just underhand it for 3 more outs. We'll probably still be
up by at least 3 runs after that. Its the fucking Orioles.
* This
is the baseball gods punishing the Sox for running off the field with 2 outs.
* I
guess that shows you how seriously they take the Orioles
* Masterson's
BABIP: .667 (fair balls .714)...
* How
can I be strong in times like these?
* The
title for this game thread [‘So far, so good!’] is pretty fucking funny right
now.
* If
I wasn't watching this with my own two eyes, I would not believe it.
* This
will be in chapter 3 of the 2009 World Series Video.
* The
Os are going to go on a tear and win it all this year?
The good news? These guys are paid to have short memories.
And Josh Beckett takes the mound in about 45 minutes.
So let's not do that again.
June 30, 2009
These are terrific. Craig Robinson, you are to be commended!
Some more:
* I'm actually surprised at how many of these are still "pure."
* North by northeast.
* Hey, could be worse.
* A lot. Perhaps one too many.
* A long distance.
* A longer distance.
* From the dove's point of view.
* Fantastic.
June 04, 2009
When you were throwing your own hitless gem in 1977, was there a guy up in the booth crowing "no-no" every few minutes throughout the middle innings? Didn't you learn anything from our old friend Hazel Mae?
I'm not as worked up about it as some.
But sometimes a little superstition has its merits. It's what makes this game of ours unique.
At least both Beckett and Granderson are on my fantasy team.
May 21, 2009
I teared up a little when he hit that home run last night.
And I'm not embarrassed to admit it.
Welcome back, friend. At long last.
May 18, 2009
The Boston Astros kick off their 30th
anniversary season tonight in Roxbury, feted by Boston sports legends such as
Tommy Heinsohn, Joe Morgan, and, not least, former Astros hurler Manny
Delcarmen.
The evening
will include a practice demonstration, silent and live auctions, cocktails and
dinner, all in honor of Astros founder Robert Lewis, Jr.
Since 1979,
more than 2,000 kids have played for South
End Baseball team, which competes at the local, regional, and national
levels and has done battle in years past with squads such as the Canadian
National Team, the Dominican Republic All-Stars, and Team Puerto Rico.
In addition
to Delcarmen, several other Astro alums have gone pro, including Juan
Carlos Portes, who plays in the Minnesota Twins organization, and Dorian
Rojas who’s played in the CanAm and Northern Leagues.
As
important as the Astros’ W-L record, however, is the team’s community service initiatives
and support for its players. More than 75 percent of its players have gone to
college — each with a laptop donated by the team.
Jim Rice
Field is at 1927 Washington Street
in Boston. Tickets
for “Opening Night At The Park” are $100. For more information, call (617)
346-6061.
May 12, 2009
A beer at the new Yankee Stadium.
It's
cheaper — a lot cheaper — to fly to Seattle
to watch the Yankees play the Mariners at Safeco field (including airfare, car
rental, hotel and food) than it is to watch them in the best seats at the new
Toilet.
From
Friday's New
York Post:
Option
1: Two tickets to Tuesday night, June 30, Mariners at Yanks, cost for just the
tickets, $5,000.
Option
2: Two round-trip airline tickets to Seattle, Friday, Aug. 14, return Sunday
the 16th, rental car for three days, two-night double occupancy stay in
four-star hotel, two top tickets to both the Saturday and Sunday Yanks-Mariners
games, two best-restaurant-in-town dinners for two. Total cost, $2,800.
Plus-frequent flyer miles.
(Hat tip to Kottke.)
May 08, 2009
“Joe was the best hitter, Dom the best fielder, Vince the best singer.”
— Gay
Talese, “The Silent Season of a Hero.”
His big
brother may have had the more famous hitting streak, but Dominic had one of his
own — 34 games, in 1949 — and it remains on Boston’s record books. It must have been a drag to live in his shadow (even the obits today have Joe's name in their headlines) but Dom was a superb player in his own right.
He led the AL in assists three
times, in putouts
and DPs
twice, in runs twice, and steals once.
“If they
hadn’t taken DiMaggio out of the game,” Enous Slaughter said of his mad dash, “I
wouldn’t have tried it.”
He was a
math whiz, and looked the part in his round specs. He played 1338 games in
center field for the Red Sox over 11 seasons — interrupted by three years in
the Navy — and then retired to a life as a hugely successful businessman.
And, by
unanimous acclaim, he was a kind and gentle soul.
In depressing
times like these, it’s nice to be reminded of — but sad to be losing — the
last of the greatest baseball generation. They really don’t make ‘em like
they used to.
If you haven’t
already, definitely read the late David Halberstam’s poignant The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship,
which follows DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky as they take a 1300-mile road trip to the
Florida Keys to visit their lifelong friend Ted Williams, who’s ailing and fading
fast. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
There’s a
scene in the book that gets me every time.
They visited
with Ted for two days, two visits a day, each one not too long, because he
needed his naps. On the last visit, Dominic suddenly said, “Teddy, I'm going to
sing you a song.”
It was an
Italian love song, the story of two men who were best friends, one of whom was
in love with a girl. But he was afraid to tell her, so he did it through his friend,
who then stole her away. “I Love Her, But I Don't Know How to Tell Her,”
Dominic called it.
Then Dominic
began to sing and the house was filled with the sound of his beautiful baritone
voice. Ted loved it. He started clapping, and so Dominic sang it again, and Ted
clapped again.
“Dommy, Dommy,
you did really well,” Ted said when he finished.
Condolences
to the DiMaggio family. And, of course, to Johnny and Bobby.
RIP, Little
Professor.
May 07, 2009
Of all the many words spilled so far (and yet to be spilled) about Mannygate, perhaps these are the most eloquent.
May 07, 2009
“Model
citizen” no more, apparently.
And A-Rod
must be giddy as a schoolgirl for the shift in attention.
Gotta say,
I’m pretty shocked by this. I suppose I shouldn’t be. But for whatever reason,
Manny’s always been one of those guys I just presumed had never juiced. He just seemed too natural of
a talent, too
hard a worker, just didn’t seem like the type. I dunno. Maybe I was naïve. Maybe I had simply convinced myself.
But
as we’ve learned over the past few years, there’s really no such thing as a type. All kinds of guys, at every level
of the game, are getting sullied by this, and he, apparently, is the latest.
But this is
huge. Another first-ballot Hall of Famer. But this time — rather than being
outed by some sports scribe’s shoeleather
reporting — he flunked the test outright.
How could
he be so dumb?
More to the
point: what precisely is the banned substance, and when will we find out? Will
Carroll says it’s not steroids.
Is there
any possible way on earth, at all, whatsoever, by any stretch of the
imagination, that Scott Boras could maybe, perhaps, just maybe, be telling the truth?
That the drug was legitimately prescribed “by a doctor for a medical condition”?
And if he’s
really got an excuse — something, say,
along these lines — why isn’t he appealing?
If he is
guilty, how long has this been going on?
Could this
be the trigger point for more bad news in re: Sox players current and/or former? Or more
of those 104 names? At this
point I’ve just got to steel myself for the fact that other shoes could soon be
dropping.
Damn.
I used the
be the hardest of hardcore Manny defenders. (Just ask Phoenix
cleaning guy Pat D, who, well, wasn’t.) But it’s true: all that bullshit on
his way out of town last summer — and
all the needling aftermath — have soured me on him. This, if it is indeed
what it looks like, is just another kick in the teeth for a Boston fan base that worshipped the guy for
seven and a half seasons.
Still, with
all due respect to my former colleague Dan Kennedy, I don’t
love this. It sucks.
Xavier
Paul, this is your moment!
But I
gotta wonder now if the Dodgers are still gonna “run
away with this thing.”
UPDATE: Manny's statement.
May 06, 2009
This is
getting pretty funny. I, like most, was a bit skeptical when I first heard the
Steven Soderbergh is planning to turn
Michael Lewis’s Moneyball into a
movie.
Unlike
many, however, I’m actually sorta looking forward to it. Soderbergh is
great, and I’m curious to see what he does with the thing.
But the
more I hear about it, the more weirdly intrigued I am.
Brad
Pitt as Billy Beane? A bit of a stretch, sure, but I can
see it — and I suppose one needs a few watts of star power if there’s gonna any
hope of making concepts like OPB, Range Factor, and Jeremy
Brown’s body type sing on the screen.
Demetri
Martin as Paul DePodesta??? Gotta say, that that one (so to speak) is completely
out of left field. But Demetri’s a smart guy. And I suppose he knows about
things like Games, Timing, and
Power.
But today
comes the best news yet.
Who plays Bill
James?
“My current
plan is to animate him,” Soderbergh tells MTV
News.
“We have
this sort of oracle character that appears throughout and declaims various issues
and he’s essentially supposed to be Bill James. He’s your host in a way…. The
background will be real but the person who is supposed to be him will be
animated.”
“It needs a
gimmick,” Soderberg explains. “It needs something to make it not Masterpiece Theatre.
His writer voice is so big, I thought to literalize it is going to actually
harm it. I need to make his voice funny and when he comes on you’re happy to
see it.”
OK. Officially
count me in for this.
In the mean
time, if Soderbergh hasn’t found a model for his Bill James cartoon, he could
do a lot worse than the drawing (above) by Phoenix illustrator Paul Hoppe, which accompanies my interview
with James last year.
And oh
yeah: if you haven’t signed up for billjamesonline
yet, you should do so. Three bucks a month.
Can’t be beat.
May 05, 2009
Take a look at their April schedule. Notice something missing?
Good for them and everything, and I agree that none of those teams looks likely to be genuinely terrible, but the only AL East team they've played so far has been Baltimore. I say this not to criticize, of course; teams just play their schedules. But let's just keep this in mind before leaping to any crazy conclusions.
May 04, 2009
It makes me pretty wistful to see David Ortiz on the cover of this one.
April 30, 2009
“...that
referenced an increased
pectoral size comparable to a woman's chest.”
April 28, 2009
To make this Javy Lopez look good by comparison.
Very glad we spent four-and-a-half-hours working inexorably toward that conclusion.
April 28, 2009
"I prefer things quiet."
Occasional loud noises are OK, however. Like, say, the sharp thwack of a 99-mph fastball screaming out of the park in the ninth inning of a scoreless game.
Oh, and Wake? Huge props. Looking damn good. Please keep it up.
Papelbon sure made things interesting, though, eh? (As did NESN ... thanks for cutting out in the middle of Francisco's fly ball. For several long seconds I wasn't sure whether to exhale contentedly or scream.) Hey, since Paps seems, perhaps rather ominously, to have changed his mechanics, maybe he can try the knuckleball? It would be nice to have him around for a while.
