Too close to home, too near the bone

Mike:
Holy fuck, now Jon Lestah is being tested for cancah? Fucking cancah?

 

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Bill:
What stahted as an innocent sweep by the Royals has in a few short weeks gone totally motherfucking apocalyptic.

 

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Mike:
We joked that the Red Sox were bad for one's health, but that joke isn't funny anymore.

 

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Bill:
The injury thing is escalating exponentially. We go from heart irregularities to the big C in just a couple of days? At this pace it'll be leprosy on Friday, plague on Sunday, and spontaneous combustion on Monday.

 

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Nut gathering time

Doug:
Anothah day, anothah lineup where you half expect to find Lisa the Temp penciled in.

 

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Mike:
While we're still a ways from the official mathematical elimination, you don't that math guy from Numb3rs to compute the situation.

 

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Mike:
The Sox would need to go 21-9 in the remaining games while all three competitors would have to play .500 baseball or worse. If any of the mofo Yankees, Twins or White Sox do better than 15-15, then the Sox are out of the playoffs. Quasi erastus demonstratum, baby.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, and if that isn't enough to convince you, it looks like the Front Office is ready to staht shipping out the veterans in return for prospects.

 

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Mike:
I dunno, there's something oddly comforting in just letting this season go and facing forward toward the future.

 

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Doug:
Absolutely. At times like this you just try and find joy where you can: Beckett looked good last night despite the loss; Ortiz is going to be OK, and maybe we'll get blessed with being on the good end of a Jeff Bagwellesque deal with an irrational club in the throes of full blown pennant fevah.

 

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Mike:
Right, like trading Cla Meredith and Josh Bard for Mirabelli … Oops, wrong end again.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, it's going to be a long fuck of a wintah for Mr. Epstein.

 

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So it gets worserer

Steve:
I went to bed last night with the Sox down 2 nothing …

 

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Steve:
Now it wasn't so long ago that I'd put my head on the pillow confident that I'd awake and find that the Sox came back late to win it.

 

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Mike:
Right, but now you wake up, see the score and think, 'fuck, only 9-0? surprised it wasn't 12.' you know?

 

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Steve:
Just when you think it can get worse, you find out Ortiz is having heart issues.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, well, what do you expect? The Red Sox are simply detrimental to one's health. Even a monstah like Ortiz can succumb to the bad mojo surrounding these guys.

 

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Steve:
Seriously, prolonged exposure to this Red Sox team will make you go sterile.

 

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Playing out the string

Mike:
Ah, fuck, you know, anothah weekend, another ass sweeping.

 

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Bill:
Massarotti speaks for wondahs if the club has just given up.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, the Red Sox need to be reminded what it means to have integrity.

 

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Bill:
I'm feeling like a faded beauty queen myself, maybe it's time to call it a year?

 

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Mike:
It's times like this when you've got to pity the baseball bloggahs.

 

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Bill:
What the fuck for?

 

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Mike:
Well, while the non-blogging fan can just step back from the season, start looking toward Foxboro and put the Red Sox on the back burnah, we bloggahs still have to to get up and address the dire situation game aftah game aftah game.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, well, nothing stopping you guys from quitting, you know.

 

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Mike:
Are you kidding me? Once you get your lips suckling on that ad revenue teat, it's not so easy.

 

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Bill:
Ah, jeez, you're really breaking my haht ovah heah.

 

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"No liquids, no shaving cream... no thinking about liquids even."

Your omniscient author in absentia:
I'm on travel today, so no strip until Monday. Meanwhile, the Sox win "streak" continues, heh, and Bob Ryan gives us a column with much to consider about being a fan.

(FWIW I agree with Ryan but don't think the "it's all about me" attitude is unique to Red Sox fans but rather it's endemic to our culture in this era in which we find ourselves. You don't have to look very hard at all to find numerous examples beyond baseball of the need to assign blame and misplaced angst. Hint: Read the blogs on politics and the comments therein.)

 

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Is that a pickle in your pocket, or are you just happy the Sox lost 10 1/2 games in the standings since July 4?

Steve:
You know the weirdest thing about Shaughnessy is the guy gets more obvious glee out of bad spells for the Sox, like this most recent one, than a typical fan gets from Sox win streaks.

 

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Mike:
Seriously, with every consecutive Sox loss the CHB gets a little more wood in his pants (emphasis on little).

 

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Steve:
Yeah, now he's spooging all over the page with a couple season's worth of pent up frustration.

 

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Mike:
I mean think about, the past few years had to have been tough on the guy. He lost his Curse, Sox won it all, everyone's been so happy that even his occasional barbed column did little more than elicit smirks from most fans.

 

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Steve:
Can't you just picture the Curly Haired Boyfriend in the pressbox at Anaheim last night squinting up his eyes and peering at Papelbon while wishfully thinking "Blow it! Blow it! Blow it!" with every pitch?

 

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Mike:
Absolutely. I'm willing to bet today's column, totally focusing on all the bad of the last week or so, was actually written well before the first pitch last night.

 

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Steve:
Oh, don't you know it. And the opening sentence originally read something like, "Now, at last it's happened. Your Red Sox have lost 7 straight. Even more than when Joe "The Nutty Professor" Kerrigan manned Boston's Southbound Train in 2001" and he just reworked it after Paps shut 'er down.

 

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Mike:
But tonight he'll be right back in the pressbox like a vultchah circling, circling, hoping, praying, he'll be able to peck out some eyeballs and then tell us all how it tasted the next morning.

 

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Steve:
With a big grin on his face and a pop tent in his Dockers.

 

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Lowering the bar

Mike:
[Sings] And they went down, down, down, into a burning ring of fiah.

 

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Susan/Circle:
3rd place is not only a possibility, it's within our very grasp.

 

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Mike:
Meanwhile, you can forget about next because none other than Gerry Callahan tells us all hope is futile because, you know, "all the Yankees’ big guns are back, which means another 19 games against a lineup that devours wild and/or weak-minded pitchers."

 

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Susan/Circle:
Run away! Run away!

 

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Mike:
What's more, if you listen or read the Boston Media, you'll soon realize that Bobby Abreu is not only the second coming of Babe Ruth but also Ty Cobb and Mahatma Ghandi.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Bobby Abreu knows where to find the lost civilization of Atlantis for fuck's sake.

 

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Mike:
And Jimmy Hoffa.

 

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Susan/Circle:
You know, Bud Selig should just cancel the remaining games this season, and the next season, and the one aftah that because the Yankees cannot-be-beaten™.

 

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Mike:
All that "when the going gets tough" bullshit is so antiquated.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Absolutely, if a task seems too challenging and too momentous, well, dude, it probably is. Best thing to do is just give the fuck up.

 

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Mike:
Seriously, these days we're totally trippin' to "retreat with honah."

 

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Susan/Circle:
All that "never say die" stuff is way ovahrated.

 

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So now what?

"You've reached the office of Bill Callaghan. At the tone, please leave your name, number, and a brief message."

Marty:
Oh, c'mon Callaghan, don't tell me you're afraid to take my calls now? What an absolute pussy you are. I mean what next, putting on a catcher's mask and then throwing some punches? Heh heh.

 

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Marty:
Anyway, no matter. I'll just leave you with this:

Nah Nah Nah Nah

Nah Nah Nah Nah

Hey Hey Hey

Goodbye

 

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Meanwhile, elsewhere in the office …

Doug:
Let me get this straight. Hezbollah can defeat the mighty Israeli Defense League. The talentless Keven Federline can convince some fucktahd to cut him a record deal. But the Red Sox can't win one game, not a single game, against the motherfucking Yankees?

 

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Mike:
I know. I didn't see this coming at all.

 

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Doug:
We went from league contendah with a few questions mahks to crime scene cadavah covahed with slash mahks in one series?

 

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Mike:
And we don't need to wait for the babes from CSI to give us the cause of death: only 2 reliable pitchers, no lefty in the pen, no legitimate numbah 5 hittah … I could go on.

 

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Doug:
Meet the new Red Sox, same as the old Red Sox …

 

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The Eye, watchful and intent

Mike:
Well, I've got to tip my cap to the Yankees for making it easy on us Sox fans.

 

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Steve:
Easy? How so?

 

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Mike:
Well, 2003 hurt so bad because you knew deep down the Red Sox were the bettah team and should have beaten the Yankees …

 

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Mike:
And getting down 0-3 in the '04 ALCS was the nadir of Sox fandom because, as a fan, you knew they were so much bettah than that and being in that hole seemed cosmically unjust and was totally unbearable to contemplate.

 

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Mike:
But the last 4 games are enough to convince me the '06 Yankees are just a a far superior club than the '06 Red Sox. I mean it's not even close is it?

 

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Steve:
Yeah, there's something to be said for and old school ass whooping that leaves all your hopes pooled up in a gob of bloody snot on the curb.

 

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Mike:
Absolutely. Though, of course, this does beg the question: Why are the 2006 Red Sox unable to compete with the 2006 Yankees?

 

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Steve:
Theo blames payroll.

 

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Mike:
Well, he would, wouldn't he?

 

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Steve:
Wait a second, am I sensing that regarding Theo Epstein the gild is off the lily, the bloom is off the rose?

 

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Mike:
I'd say that right now The Eye of Sauron that is Red Sox nation is ominously focused on young Theo Baggins and one World Series ring isn't going to render him invisible.

 

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Fording da Nile

Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
Hey, you know, it ain't so bad. I mean we beat the Yankees once.

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Yep.

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
Yep. Kicked their asses.

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Hell yeah. Pimp slapped the mofos.

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
[Sigh]

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Mmmmm …

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
Oh, there's more to life than the Red Sox, you know.

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Yeah, but not much more. Not much more.

 

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