Warm, touchin warm

Doug:
Who'd have seen this coming: Batshit Tavarez has to face the Yankees in order to get his first win of the 07 season.

 

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Bill:
How do you think The Boss is feeling right now? Aftah decades of micromanaging the Yankees he finally relinquishes total control to his minions and this is the thanks he gets?

 

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Doug:
Right up the Bronx poopah. 6½ back, dead last in the AL East.

 

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Bill:
Of course, one must issue the standard disclaimah … Information relates to April only and should not be relied upon as the sole source of information related to the 162 game regulah season. It's early yet and additional circumstances may arise that altah current perceptions. No warranty, eithah expressed or implied, is made with respect to the final outcome of the AL East.

 

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Doug:
Now that we got that out of the way can I just say that the only othah seasons in which the Red Sox led the league or division by three games after the first month of playing were 1904, 1918 and 2004.

 

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Bill:
Hmmm … 1918? 2004? Those dates sound familiah somehow … like they have some sort of significance that I just can't seem to place right now …

 

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Doug:
So good, so good, so good.

 

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Heavy on the mustard

Doug:
Cancel the forensic scientists, l'affaire de la chaussette has been resolved.

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
What amuses me most about the call for DNA testing and to some extent Schilling's own terse response is that it wouldn't necessarily prove anything.

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
I mean why would Schilling use paint instead of his own blood if he were to fake it?

 

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Doug:
Seriously, as many a 14-year old girl can tell you, blood letting isn't especially difficult.

 

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Doug:
So are you ready for another weekend sweep, Arturo?

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Beware the reverse sweep is what I'm thinking.

 

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Doug:
Jeez, who put the sour in your kraut? The Sox are rolling.

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
You're still too wet behind the ears to get it: The Yankees are not going to drop numbahs 7, 8, and 9 in a row. It just doesn't happen.

 

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Doug:
OK, so they are facing Batshit Tavarez in this series, 2 out of 3 then for us.

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
I'm thinking if we get out of there with 1 we'll be lucky. Wakefield has been very effective against the Yankees, Aaron Boone notwithstanding.

 

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Doug:
What, no love for Matsuzaka?

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
To me it looked like the Yankees had a good read on him last week, now facing him for the second time 5 days latah? Tonight could get really ugly really fast.

 

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Doug:
Jeez, it's bad enough I'm going to ingest mystery meat products stuffed into a synthetic collagen casing, but I've got to take your doom and gloom, too? Jeez.

 

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Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Hey, you can always go visit the fish taco guy instead. No one's got a gun to your head.

 

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Don't eff with "The Sock"

Susan/Circle:
It's been said so well befoah but in light of recent events it's time to say it again, Baltimore is without a doubt the biggest bungholiest city in the entiah U S of A.

 

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Mike:
Absolutely. It's once again time to dig out the "My girlfriend went to Baltimore and all I got was this lousy STD" t-shirt.

 

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Susan/Circle:
You know, it's one thing to have doubts about Schilling's bloody sock, but it's quite anothah thing entiahly to straight up lie.

 

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Mike:
Belli ought to sue that whoah mongah Gary Thorne.

 

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Susan/Circle:
No kidding, even Rosie O'Donnell has better journalist standahds than this douchebag.

 

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Mike:
You know what's friggin sad? This tool is from New England, too, a Bangor native.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Senile old faht should stick to hockey.

 

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Mike:
I tell you, I'm not going to take this disgrace.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Me neithah. I'm gonna be like mace in his face all ovah myspace.

 

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Mike:
I'm gonna blog and text and post and hoax and podcast that bastahd's ass from coast to coast.

 

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Warts and all

Bill:
They may want to considah slapping an "M" for Mature Audiences rating on Red Sox games if those guys continue to muff it up like that.

 

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Mike:
Really. I mean think of the poor kids fercrissakes.

 

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Bill:
Seriously. Even the ones who are rude, thoughtless little pigs don't deserve being subjected to a team committing four errors and getting swept by Toronto.

 

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Mike:
It's bad enough for the adults. Seeing Wily Mo dropp Adam Lind's line drive with two outs in the 6th very well may have scarred me for life™.

 

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Bill:
You know, even though Wily Mo P plays outfield like a crash test dummy and couldn't lay off a pitch if the fate of the free world depended on it, I can't help but really like and root for the guy.

 

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Mike:
Absolutely. Because we project upon Wily Mo our own aspirations and childhood dreams of being contendahs before the reality of our own flaws and weaknesses grounded us.

 

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Bill:
Hmmm … You don't say? And here I thought it was just because I liked seeing his colossal homerun shots.

 

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Mike:
Same thing, bro, same thing.

 

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Anything But Down

Bill:
Hey, you know, while this one offahed scant remindahs of their three-game weekend sweep, in light of the come from behind gut checks of the previous 4 games, I'll grant a mulligan.

 

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Doug:
Careful now. With the Yankees returning to full strength with Matsui and Posada back in the line-up they'll be stomping the tah out of Tampa Bay and gaining serious ground. Oops.

 

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Bill:
Two moah dingahs from A-Rod, though. He continues to be on supah fiah.

 

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Doug:
You may have heard he's now on pace to hit 126-homahs, 306-RBI pace and cure cancah.

 

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Bill:
To be faih, at least A-Rod himself is being circumspect in all of this and is letting his bat alone do all the talking. I can totally respect that.

 

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Doug:
Seriously, do you know how lucky we are that for the most paht ballplayas, despite saying some stupid things, don't get all holiah than thou on us?

 

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Bill:
Yeah, the day an A-Rod or a Pujols staht remonstrating me on how much papah to use to wipe my ass is the day I drink the hemlock.

 

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Nothing to add. You saw it. It's in the books.

Bill:
I'm speechless, people. I am without speech.

 

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And in Boston there was a great rejoicing. In New York, not so much.

If a reliever falls in Fenway and everyone is there to see, it makes one frig of a sound …

Unknown Yankees fan:
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

 

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The pox is on both houses, not just one up north

Doug:
I really like Bob Ryan and all but this dumping on Red Sox fans is totally fallacious.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, Ryan's sports knowledge is so deep that he's probably forgotten more about baseball than I'll ever know, but his idea that only Red Sox fan behavior is boorish while all things Yankees fan related are gilded with sang froid is so absurd it's laughable.

 

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Doug:
Seriously, the notion of the noble Yankees fans is about as credible as the primitivist's myth of the North American Indians sitting around smoking peace pipes and getting all lovey dovey with nature.

 

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Mike:
Maybe it's time for Ryan to climb down from the self-centered prism of his lofty press box and actually sit among the great unwashed in The Stadium to get a healthy dose of realism.

 

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Doug:
Absolutely. Then he can discovah the irony implicit in his theory that Yankees fans have "othah things on their minds besides the Red Sox."

 

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Mike:
Yeah, those Yankees fans are just so classy.

 

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We are all on notice: Give Wakefield more love

Bill:
The knuckleball was unbelievable last night!

 

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Doug:
Dude, I'm so friggin' pissed.

 

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Bill:
Huh? Wakefield surrendered only one run on four hits in seven innings, while striking out four and he's now allowed only one earned run in each of his three stahts.

 

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Doug:
That's just it. The guy is effin-A awesome, but  think about it: when is the last time you recall Tim Wakefield's name coming up around here?

 

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Bill:
Ah …

 

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Doug:
See, what I'm sayin'? It's all Matsuzaka this and Beckett that and Schilling this with ne'er a word about our crafty and reliable Knuckleman.

 

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Bill:
Christ, we've talked about Batshit Tavarez more than Wakefield!

 

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Doug:
Dude, it's even worse than that … we've talked about the talent-starved, hula hipped Idol contestant Sanjaya more than we have Wake.

 

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Bill:
If there's an exile island for Red Sox Nation, we should be sent there to do penance.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, well, what's really sad is we wouldn't be alone. I mean look around. We've got beautifully designed, inspirational t-shirts paying homage to Varitek and Papi and even long since retiahed Jim Rice gets some swell ink on cotton.

 

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Doug:
But 13 friggin' seasons with the Red Sox and God knows how manny innings in every mound role imaginable and Tim Wakefield doesn't even get a t-shirt?!?!?

 

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Bill:
I hate myself right now.

 

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Doug:
As Red Sox fans, we should hang our collective heads in shame.

 

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Sharks, blood, water

Somewhere deep in the bowels of Gotham, a bravado mounts …

Unknown Yankees fan:
So I guess the Red Sux should have saved a bit of the cash they showered on Matsuzaka to buy themselves some hits. Bwahahahaa.

 

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Marty:
What's not to love. The supposed second coming of Cy Young suffers his second straight loss due to an anemic offense, while our double-A guy Chase Wright is shaky but gets the win due to the glory that is our Yankees offense.

 

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Unknown Yankees fan:
Of course. It's the Yankees way.

 

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Marty:
You know who I really feel badly for in all of this? The people of Japan.

 

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Marty:
As each day the sun rises on the 162 game season they'll gradually discern the horror of their national pitching hero having the inordinate misfortune to sign with Beantown Bozos.

 

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Unknown Yankees fan:
Yes, despite the Dunkin' Donuts ads in Japanese and the sushi at Fenway, what somehow got lost in translation is the story of how the Red Sox have for generations defined pronounced suckitude in sports.

 

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Marty:
At least the Japanese fans have Matsui to remind them rooting for a major league baseball team doesn't always have to be a one-way kamikaze mission into oblivion.

 

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Do they have basements in Japan?

Mike:
Well, you know things must be going well for the Sox when the media pushes the meme that "the most entertaining moment" of yestahday's game was Drew's beeah splattering foul ball.

 

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Doug:
What the frig, though. Dude throws a pizza slice at a guy who was "giving him shit." Aren't Red Sox fans supposed to be toughah than that?

 

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Mike:
Worse, the dude does while the othah guy is already preoccupied with the foul ball and ensuing beeah spill. You know all sneaky fraidy cat like.

 

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Doug:
I assume, of course, that everyone involved is now scarred for life™.

 

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Doug:
You know, one nation easily trod, divisible, with sniffling and cowardice for all.

 

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Mike:
So did you read this bit about the difference between baseballs heeah and Japan and how that may be effecting Matsuzake?

 

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Doug:
Yeah, but even more surprising than the sand vs. mud pregame ball rub prep was that the Globe actually credited and linked the blog Matsuzaka Watch as a source.

 

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Mike:
Now word yet, though, on whetheah Mike Plugh, the bloggah, lives in his mom's basement or not.

 

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Doug:
Heh, if you listen really closely, you can hear Dan Shaughnessy's world collapsing.

 

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Happy (Soggy) Patriots Day

Mike:
The meteorologists believe the STEADIEST RAINFALL WILL BEGIN TO TAPER OFF TO SHOWERS BY AROUND MIDDAY.

 

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Bill:
So with the push back to a noon staht, we may get in aftah all.

 

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Mike:
Christ, I hope so. It's bad enough to have cold and rain, rain and cold day aftah day, but when you don't have baseball neithah? Total suck.

 

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Bill:
Imagine how Batshit Tavarez feels. He hasn't pitched since game 5 back in Texas.

 

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Mike:
Well, Tavarez says he's "not mad at all, not at all" and that he's "having fun" and it "doesn't bother" him at all.

 

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Bill:
Which, of course, translates too: "I'm going batshit crazy and if I don't pitch soon I'm going to go Aztec ritual on the first mofo who looks at me crosswise!"

 

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Mike:
Heh. Best paht of these rainouts is now it's Schilling, Beckett and Matsuzaka against the Yankees this weeked.

 

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Bill:
I still feel that having a series with the Yankees in April is like the stores putting out the Christmas stuff in before Halloween is even ovah, but, yeah, if we have to play those guys this early, let it be with the meat of the rotation.

 

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Bill:
And the Yankees pitching is looking vulnerable, eh? Mussina and Pavano on the DL and Rivera coughing up a save?

 

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Mike:
Yeah, well, don't get your hopes up. The Yankees have struggled in previous springs … 11 and 17 in May 2003, only 11 and 10 in April '04, and an awful 10 and 14 April in '05, yet each year aftah the 162 they were on top.

 

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Bill:
And a helluva lot of good that's done 'em. Oh-fer-the-21^st-Century.

 

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Mike:
You know, I nevah tiah of hearing that one.

 

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It is no night to drown in

Rainouts often leave one feeling moody and introspective …

Bill (thinking to himself):
Whither the "suffocative nature" of Red Sox fandom?

 

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And gravity lashes us to the earth

Bill:
Guess we didn't see this Haiku coming …

 

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Bill:
Giddy crowd gathahs
Awaiting Dice-K's parade,
Hernandez pours down.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, well …

Wind blown spring blossom
Tenuously clings the gnarled branch:
Ripe summah cherry.

 

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Bill:
Absolutely. It's a long growing season.

 

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Mike:
So keep your tabi Sox on.

 

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Our flag to April's breeze unfurled

Mike:
Like Sanjaya, Josh Beckett just keeps getting bettah.

 

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Doug:
May the ghosts of Coopahstown smite your freckled Irish ass for having the gall to juxtapose those two names in the same sentence.

 

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Mike:
Heh, yeah, instead of Beseme Mucho Beckett was singing No Hitta Me Mucho.

 

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Doug:
Christ, Beckett pitched six 1-2-3 innings and retiahed 15 in a row aftah Betancourt's double in the third.

 

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Mike:
And how about Lugo reaching base in four consecutive innings?

 

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Doug:
The whole offense was on fiah.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, I only wish they could have saved some of those runs for today. Wink.

 

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Doug:
Speaking of today, we are now mere hours away from the most anticipated and important event to hit this area in April since the Redcoats marched on Lexington Green.

 

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Mike:
The pitch heard 'round the world.

 

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Doug:
Check this Ichiro quote on facing Matsuzaka: "I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul."

 

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Mike:
Wow, that's so beautiful. Love the way the Japanese playahs elevate the language surrounding the game.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, well, as for that fiah Ichiro wants stahted, hope he likes the smell of his ass being sweated.

 

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Mike:
Ah, so much for the eloquent imagery.

 

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Doug:
Game on, bitches!

 

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No place like home

Bill:
At last, the 2007 Home Openah is upon us.

 

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Doug:
Peanuts? Check. Red Sox Media Guide? Check. Red Sox cap? Check. Mittens, Parka, and Electronically heated pants? Check. Check. And Check.

 

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Bill:
OK, Mr. Beckett let's win one for the Saugus Dinosaur.

 

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Doug:
Screwin' with our Boston iconography is so not funny.

 

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Bill:
The sacrilegious sonzabitches.

 

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Doug:
He shall be risen!

 

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And he knows how to play the game

Mike:
This is overdue, but we need to give a shout out to Vanilla Dong who simply eviscerated the competition for the 2007 NOTY.

 

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Susan/Circle:
As I predicted, natch.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, the NOTY was Dong's before Dong was the NOTY's.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Absolutely, just like with Papelbon being anothah gift outright: The closah role was his before he was the closah.

 

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Mike:
The Papelbon we were withholding made us weak …

 

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Susan/Circle:
But not anymore. As Schilling writes, "Papelbon was incredible last night. It’s not what he did as much as it is how he did it and who he did it against."

 

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Mike:
One out and men on first and third in a one-run game against the Rangahs' best hittah Michael Young.

 

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Susan/Circle:
94-mile-per-hour fastball for a swing-and-miss. A 96-m.p.h. fastball for a swing-and-miss. Oh, and then a 97-m.p.h. fastball taken for a strike and leaving Young motionless.

 

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Mike:
Combine that with Schilling's improvement over Opening Day and Papi's two homah's and last night was just about perfect.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Well, except for having to endure Joe Morgan, of course.

 

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Mike:
Christ, and with the new radio broadcast team leaving much to be desiahed, muting the TV and going with the radio feed isn't as good of an option.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Yeah, when the Sox are on the national broadcast only, we are totally stuck between Scylla and Charybdis.

 

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Spring morning marvel

Bill:
Is it safe to believe the hype now?

 

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Mike:
Six hits, 10 K's and held the Royals hitless in three at-bats with runners in scoring position … Believe, brother, believe.

 

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Bill:
He notched first-pitch strikes on 20 of his 26 batters.

 

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Mike:
The performance was so strong even the CHB gushes, "in his first game Matsuzaka delivered on all the expectations that accompanied his celebrated journey to America's major leagues"

 

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Bill:
As David Pinto wrote after the Matsuzaka's fourth inning, "My advice to the AL after watching that inning: Be afraid, be very afraid."

 

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Mike:
Red Sox set them up the bomb!

 

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You are on the way to destruction

Mike:
Well, Josh Beckett threw more balls than strikes and was a bit out of tune at times, but still he managed to get the job done.

 

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Doug:
And that's all the mattahs, a win is a win regahdless of how you got it.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, just ask Sangina. Dude wasn't even in the bottom 3 this week.

 

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Doug:
How is it we live in a world where Sangina is in the top 8 on AI but Jim Rice, Jim freakin Rice, isn't in the Hall of Fame?

 

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Mike:
Don't go all negamatory on me … Don't you know what today is?

 

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Doug:
It's Gyroday!

 

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Mike:
Royals, make your time.

 

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Do you want to play a game?

Bill:
Well, just when we thought Rob Bradford was the MSM's bloggah MVP, he goes and chews on the hemlock that is "live blogging."

 

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Mike:
I don't get it. I don't know a single person who gives a rat's ass about reading a live blog, yet, they persist.

 

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Bill:
Live blogging is like Paris Hilton. I don't give a shit about what she does or what she says, and yet she's always on the friggin' TV.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, I heard Amnesty International is all up in ahms because down in Gitmo they force the enemy combatants to read live blogs as a form of torture.

 

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Bill:
Go ahead and flush my Koran, mofo infidel, just don't subject me to that!

 

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Mike:
So Diamond Mind's 2007 projection where they simulated the season 200 times doesn't do any favahs for the Red Sox. The computer predicts 3rd place and only 86 wins.

 

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Bill:
Screw that. This is baseball with all its infinite variations and not a game of tic-tac-toe.

 

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Mike:
Of course, if the Diamond Mind's algorithm predicted, say, 98 wins for the Sox …

 

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Bill:
Yeah, yeah, in that case I'd be all "Woo-Hoo, I'm Alan Turing's bee-atch!"

 

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Bill:
Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds and all that, you know …

 

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Well alrighty then

Bill:
Ah, frig, it's now apparent I didn't use Spring Training to properly get myself into a game-ready state …

 

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Bill:
Not only am I emotionally unprepared to handle an Opening Day thrashing at the hands of the lowly Kansas City Royals, but I also have a hangovah to beat the band.

 

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Doug:
Are you kidding me? I've got a hangovah so brutal that before beating the band it first humiliates it, degrades it, and then ass rapes it.

 

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Bill:
Well, at least we got Schilling's blog to delve deep into the innah workings of what went wrong.

 

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Doug:
You've got that right, because unless I read it from the big guy himself I'd have no way of discerning that "Inconsistent command and horrific execution cost us the game."

 

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Bill:
Looking at the brightside, this now gives Josh Beckett a chance to step up tomorrow and be the kind of staff stud who stops losing streaks dead in their tracks.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, well, let's hope Mr. Beckett learned his first year lessons well and now understands the A.L. food chain — A diet consisting only of fastballs creates a predatory feast for the hittahs …

 

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Doug:
But leaves the guy on the mound looking like an emaciated gazelle on the sub-Saharan plain during the dry season.

 

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At the still point of the turning world

Bill:
It's showtime!

 

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Doug:
There's morning wood and then there's the morning of Opening Day wood.

 

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Bill:
100 wins here we come.

 

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Doug:
101, brothah, one-oh-effin-one!

 

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