I've got your 'fun' right here

Doug:
Ah, anothah day anothah sound bite from Johnny Shaman trying to convince himself that he's happy, not bittah, and made the right decision to sign with the Spanks.

 

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Bill:
Seriously, I haven't heard this much whining and lack of confidence in one's decision since that time you did the pre-emptive breakup with that supah hot chick from the Cayman Islands. Heh.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, well, at least I wasn't going around telling everyone I am the corporeal embodiment of "fun" and without my presence a dank dahkness descends over the fuckahs of Sombahtown.

 

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Bill:
What the hell is up with Damon's fascination with fun? Does he really think baseball fans sit around saying, "Fuck cowbell, what this team needs is more fun"?

 

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Doug:
Really, despite Damon's beliefs, I've nevah evah not once heard anothah Red Sox fan lament, "These bunch of bums, they just don't have enough fun."

 

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Bill:
Christ, fun isn't even a word I'd use to describe why I watch the friggin games.

 

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Doug:
And how could you? I mean last time I checked, when you look up fun in the dictionary it doesn't say "a feeling that at any moment one may shit himself, piss himself, or burst into flame."

 

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Bill:
Fun is a dad and son playing catch in the back yahd. Whereas rooting for the Red Sox is the fucking rapture.

 

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Doug:
I wouldn't even use the word fun to describe any paht of my emotions during the 2004 run, it's just too light, too lame, a description.

 

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Bill:
Fun is to winning the World Series as a rubbah band powahed balsa wood plane is to an F-18 jet fightah on full aftah burnah.

 

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Doug:
You know, to be fair, I'm totally willing to grant Damon that fun and/or the relaxed atmosphere in the clubhouse was a huge factah in the remarkable 2004 run, but it wasn't enough on its own … Or did I somehow manage to sleep through the 2002 and 2003 championships?

 

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Bill:
Absolutely, one of the things that put the 04 club over the top was the acquisition of a guy who not only doesn't have fun, he actually doesn't even like playing baseball — Keith Foulke.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, and the othah guy who was the difference between almost and all the way, Curt Schilling, is fun in the sense that Ghenghis Khan was fun.

 

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Bill:
What Damon doesn't get is Boston fans aren't looking for fun but extreme intensity from Red Sox players.

 

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Doug:
Right that's why there is fan site called "Boston Dirt Dogs" but not one called "The Boston 'Idiots'"

 

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Bill:
And this explains why even a guy as goofy as Manny is respected by the fans. No matter how many trades he demands or how many times his grandmothah dies, fact is, when the dude is at the plate there isn't a motherfuckah on the entiah plaent more intense and locked-in than Manny.

 

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Doug:
Truth is I will miss Damon, but not the "fun" Johnny so much as the play-through-pain Damon.

 

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Bill:
As I've said before, my numbah one memory of Johnny Damon and one of the most stunning images from my Red Sox fan life is the one of Damon being carried off in a stretchah with his fist held defiantly in the air.

 

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Doug:
And there's nothing idiotic about that.

 

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(untitled)

Hart Brachen (the dude who writes this thing):
OK, readers, all this non-stop action, stone on stone Olympic curling action has worn my droopy ass out, so I'm taking the day off.

 

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Hart Brachen:
I offer you another flashback to 2004 strip: "Fantasize a little."

 

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Hart Brachen:
One interesting thing about the flashback strip (well, to me at least) is I think it's the only occasion where the characters Doug and Susan appear together. (Susan, you see, doesn't much like Doug. I'll leave the backstory on that for another time.)

 

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Friends don't let friends...

Because we know he'd do the same for us …

Mike:
You know, at first I thought it was kinda cool in an ironic or a Dadaesque "found sports" kind of thing, but it has really gone too fah, and, frankly, I'm more than a little worried about his mental state.

 

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Doug:
I know, the guy's got a daily must read baseball blog, and he's a savant when it comes to sabermetrics, so how do you broach your concerns delicately, tactfully, indeed, safely? I mean we don't know just how close to a full breakdown he is.

 

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Mike:
I'm thinking a few of us are going to have to drive out to Springfield and gathah up some of his closest friends and family membahs and stage an intervention.

 

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Doug:
"David, we understand it's been a long off season and you've really been pushing yourself with your probabilistic modeling, so it's only natural that you'd seek a little relief — But the 'live' curling blogging has stahted to frighten us."

 

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Mike:
"David we're not here to bully you. It's just that we love you and your blog and we want what's best for you. You need some help, David, it's going to be OK."

 

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Doug:
It could be worse. I mean we all know curling blogging is a "gateway" to even more harmful behaviah.

 

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Mike:
Right, first comes some recreational curling blogging and then it's onto the biathlon. And when that no longah does it, well, then you're doing whatevah it takes to support your insatiable need to blog short track skating.

 

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Doug:
"Update 08:01:03: They're turning.

Update 08:01:10: They're still turning.

Update 08:01:21: They're still turning. [My God it's beautiful!]

Update 08:01:36: They're bunched up and continuing to turn. Amazing!"

 

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Mike:
First comes denial, then the angah …

 

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Doug:
I saw the best blogs of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the MSNBC channels at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded bloggahs burning for the wi-fi heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the CMS of night …

 

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Mike:
For his family's sake, we pray it nevah comes to that. I just hope that by not speaking out soonah we haven't been, you know, enabling Pinto's curling abuse problem.

 

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Doug:
Hey, this is no time to play the blame game. What's important is for us to focus on the positive and help one of our own.

 

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Always choose the future over the past.

Bill:
You hearing much buzz about this movie "Game 6"?

 

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Steve:
Nope. The blogosphere seems oddly quiet and I don't recall even Dirt Dogs giving it a mention. It's got a great cast, including the always humpalicious Bebe Neuwirth, but even after the catharsis of the 2004 World Series win, I'm not really comfortable revisiting '86.

 

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Bill:
Same here. On the one hand, being able to sit there stoically and dispassionately reliving October 25th 1986 would be what my evah hopeful therapist, Dr. Mezmer, would call a breakthrough,

 

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Steve:
You know I checked out the trailer and they seem to be really going with the expectation of doom angle, showing the Michael Keaton character in a bar saying "something bad is going to happen" or whatever, but isn't that revisionist history?

 

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Steve:
I mean I know I got to the Red Sox thing late, really only getting hooked in during the '86 season, but I was hanging out with plenty of people who were lifers and we all thought the Sox were going to win that night right up until they didn't, you know?

 

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Bill:
Absolutely. While there were undoubtedly some cynics out there, when the Red Sox had their first one strike away moment I thought they were going to put it away. Christ, we were all giving high fives and looking at each other saying "I can't believe it, the Red Sox won the World Series" with the champagne corks popping. Everyone tells a similar story …

 

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Bill:
Really it was what then transpired in Game 6 that was the nexus linking all the previously disparate mishaps into the "Holy Shit, God does have it in for us!" mythology.

 

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Steve:
Right even the infamous "Curse of the Bambino" phrase didn't come into existence until after Game 6 was in the books, and it really took Shaughnessy's subsequent book by the same name before the phrase and everything that comes with it entered the mainstream.

 

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Bill:
Ah, well, who the fuck cares, now? Whatevah psychic baggage we were carrying has been lifted.

 

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Steve:
So you're going to see the movie?

 

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Bill:
Fuck no.

 

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"There goes your no-hitter."

A moment of silence on the passing of one the greatest baseball announcers ever …

Bill:
Rest in peace Mr. Curt Gowdy …

 

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Bill:
I thank you for filling my childhood with the sound of your voice and schooling me on the absolute beauty of the game. You were an artist.

 

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Bill:
…

 

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And now back to shooting fish in the barrel …

Doug:
You know, one thing I'll say for the Globe is that they're consistent. I mean you've got the sports writahs unable to contain their glee when something goes wrong for the Sox and you've got Op-Ed writahs hoping the human race gets its ass kicked by the bird flu.

 

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Mike:
Hey, can you imagine James Carroll and Dan Shaughnessy having a drink togethah?

"Oh, Dan, we used to friends with birds …"

"I know, James, I know. Bostonians and our fine, feathered friends walked arm and wing through the Common until that bastard Harry Frazee traded Babe Ruth, the fool!"

"Now, Dan, my curly haired best friend, the rotten scourge of a human race recklessly eats birds wrapped in cellophane and they'll get what they deserve when their eyeballs start to bleed."

"John Henry could sink money into finding a cure for bird flu but he won't because he's greedy. Look he let Pedro walk, let Damon walk … "

"Everybody is so stooopid. Why can't they just smarten up and listen to us?"

"Because our readers are pieces of filth. I hate them all, especially the fanboy bloggers."

 

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Doug:
Heh, and how about Shank today? "David Wells won't talk to me. Whaaa whaa whaa."

 

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Mike:
As usual, you've gotta love the irony of the CHB dissing Wells for not putting in a good workout when he himself mails in a column that's one half admission that he's inept at getting guys to talk to him and the othah half a tired recap of the Wells offseason situation filling space as if it's breaking news.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, funny how the Red Sox management is often chided by the media for coddling players when the Globe has a guy like Shaughnessy who is the laughingstock of baseball fans, who is unanimously detested by the playahs, and who hasn't had the newspaper equivalent of a hit in many years, yet he still gets his regular column space and collects his fat paycheck week aftah week.

 

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Mike:
Absolutely. And heaven forbid we expect the MSM to, you know, report on something we don't know, like the Red Sox signing Franklin Nunez; luckily, we have SoSH membahs vacationing in Ft. Myers to provide the news.

 

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Toeing the Hog Line

Bill:
So when curlahs say "Nice rock!" I now know what they friggin' mean*. Jumpin' Jesus Mohammed!

[*NSFW]

 

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Doug:
All these years I had no clue that curling chicks worldwide are totally hot.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, now we know why Manny says he's going to jump the next flight to Turin. And people dare think the guy's a few stones short of a bonspeil, jeez, Manny's smahtah than all of us.

 

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Doug:
Meanwhile, memo to Bob "Look, mom, I dye my hair!" Costas and NBC: more high-def curling and less, er, camel knuckle, M'kay?

 

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Bill:
Oh, holy shit, now that gives a hold new meaning to "Hold the pickle."

 

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Doug:
So the sight of Janet Jackson's nipple is a national crisis, but a spandex nut sandwich is okey fucking dokey?

 

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Bill:
I mean think of the children for fuck's sake.

 

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Doug:
Talk about your lousy role models … "Mommy, when I grow up I want to pack my sack like an Olympian."

 

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C'mon get happy (kitty!)

Susan/Circle:
So why am I not surprised that Albert Belle is a stalkah?

 

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Mike:
I don't think there's evah been a playah who scared me as much as Albert Belle. And I don't mean just in his offensive capabilities, but just scared the living shit out of me in general, like when I'd be watching and Indians v Red Sox game he'd somehow know I was thinking ill of him and that he'd come through the TV screen and beat this shit out of me with a pillowcase full of oranges kind of scary.

 

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Susan/Circle:
No kidding. If Albert Belle were stalking me I'd be like one of those teeny chicks in a baby sittah slashah flicks all wide eyed and jumpy ready to piss my panties with every clap of thundah.

 

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Mike:
Yeah and then the phone rings: "Susan, this is the police. The call is coming from inside the house. Albert Belle is inside the house!"

 

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Susan/Circle:
Insert sound of my blood curdling screams.

 

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Mike:
Well, by the will of Allah (may peas be upon him), we've got pitchers and catchers in camp.

 

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Susan/Circle:
I stahted to hyperventilate when I first read this: "The bio says Beckett is 1 inch taller than Papelbon, but it doesn't mention anything about distribution of those 77 inches, and Beckett's torso rises noticeably higher than Papelbon's." Ah, somebody crack a window because it's getting hot in herre.

 

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Mike:
"This kid shakes your hand, and your whole body shakes"

 

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Susan/Circle:
Ohmigod. Let's just say I can't wait for my Happy Kitty to arrive from UPS any day now and the shit bettah be ready for the rigahs of the 162 game season.

 

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The pause that refreshes

Lisa the Temp:
As usual, it is the temp who gets stuck with the jobs nobody else wants to do, like telling you The Soxaholix are on a so-called temporary hiatus.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
But cheer up, people, you should all be grateful to live in an epoch were medical advances continually leave one, er, agape, sort of.

 

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Hold the sickle, hold the regress, your holy orders do upset us

As they wait and wait and wait for a Manny, or a Papi, or a V-Tek to idolize, The Soxaholix continue to make do with The King … (Yes, it's sad, of course it is, but whatcha gonna do?)

Doug:
Gammons has some good news in his latest, you seen it? Jonathan Papelbon voted 8th most likely rookie to contribute in 2006, Crisp voted 3rd most likely to have a breakout season, Lowell 8th most likely to have the biggest comeback.

 

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Mike:
You know after 3 and half months, I'm so tired of effin' supposition. I want to see some action for reals.

 

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Doug:
Christ, tell me about it. This happens to me every year: I get all pissy pants excited ovah the mofo Truck Day and then I remembah, it's still the middle of February.

 

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Mike:
I know. There's nothing to do but troll the web looking for young Canadians on broadband.

 

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Doug:
So in these Muslim cartoon riots they've blown up the Colonel and bitch-slapped Ronald but I don't see nobody messing the the King.

 

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Mike:
Hell no you don't. You know why? Cuz the motherfucking King would go all reverse-jihad on their sorry free speech hating Dhimmi lovin' asses that's why.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, the King's all I don't need no stinking 72 black eyed virgins — I've got the Whopperettes and Brooke Burke for fuck's sake.

 

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Mike:
Righteous.

 

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In charity there is no excess

Bill:
Ah, what a teah jerkah of a story this is about Steinbrennah and kid from Arkansas who gave up $1000 he'd been saving to visit NY to put it toward grassroots effaht to keep his school from closing aftah a district budget shortfall.

 

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Steve:
Yeah, that Steinbrenner is one hell of a guy, even the esteemed blogger David Pinto lauds him for walking the walk when it comes to "giving back to the community"

 

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Bill:
Absolutely, the Boss is all about taking the high road, you know? Like that time he funneled corporate funds illegally into the 1972 reelection campaign of Richard Nixon.

 

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Steve:
Right. Steinbrenner lied to the FBI and prepared false backdated records, destroyed other records, and coached the employees to lie to the FBI — now that's what I call good fucking citizenship.

 

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Bill:
Ah, yes, and then there's that great example of "charity" Steinbrennah-style when Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Inouye and House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha provided $58,000 to bail out Steinbrenner’s American Ship Building Company as a quid pro quo for Steinbrennah’s generous campaign contributions and the hiring of two lobbyists with close ties to both legislatahs.

 

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Steve:
Well, Christ, yeah, I mean what do people think the taxpayer's money is for, schools and shit? Get real.

 

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Bill:
Seriously, if you want to keep a school open, don't look to the government for a handout, but get your shit togethah and give up the money you've been saving for vacation and hold a fucking bake sale or something. I mean, c'mon, think outside the box people.

 

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Steve:
That kid in Arkansas is so lucky to have a positive role model like George Steinbrenner in his life.

 

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