Give me a name

The Red Sox beat Cleveland, but barely …

Doug:
Man, I could really do without the blow outs turned into  nail bitahs in the late innings.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, whenevah you find yourself saying, "Whew, good friggin thing Belhorn made that great slide in the 5th to get the 9th run" you'll get a bit wiggy.

 

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Doug:
It's a win that feels sorta like a loss, but I'll gladly take it … Hey, Manny did OK for a guy who "does not care this season."

 

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Bill:
You know I might take Tomase a bit more seriously if he didn't lead off with the pecuniary obsession, you know, counting up how much money Manny makes per second and all that.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, it's a tad disingenuous to castigate playahs for being overly focused on salary while being obviously obsessed with dollahs and cents yourself.

 

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Bill:
I love that anonymous sourcing, too, you know, the "According to a clubhouse source …" stuff … in this day and age that shit don't fly with the news seeking public.

 

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Doug:
Absolutely. I half expect to read that according to an anonymous source Manny was seen flushing a Koran down a clubhouse toilet.

 

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Comments

[Tessie]

Went to the game last night! We had em all the way... ;) There were LOTS of Sox fans there and I enjoyed the Jake so much more with intelligent fans in the stands.

Got Johnny's autograph and told him, "Johnny I read your book after reading Hemingway. You've got different styles..." He laughed. Damn, he's hot.

Anyway, thank goodness for the out at home the Indians made early on. And thank God, Johnny Damon decided that he shouldn't put his bat away until after the game, unlike some of his teammates.

[josh blue]

hard to call foulke a dominant closer. when we get schill back (if), and he is effective -who do we move into relief? then can we get rid of embree and halama? move timlin to closer. foulke would get the "you are going on the disable list until you get head into the game" treatment

[Jake]

If it wasn't for the lousy pen, I was sure today's strip would feature some mooning (pardon the pun) over Tek's man ass. His homer should have put that game in the bag.

[RonF]

A win is a win. The good teams win even when they play poorly; no apology needed for this one. Not every game will be a classic.

And the Orioles and MFY both lost, so a good day all around.

[deepsub]

Word, Ron. I felt like crap this morning after staying up late to watch the game, whilst drinking beer. The added stress did NOT help me get to sleep. However, I was given a boost of energy this morning with the win, even though I had to listen to D and C arguing about Damon's contract.

I really thought Embree was gonna get through it last night until "the pitch" reared it's ugly head. Sacre bleu!

[Devine]

I think it's important, also, to remember that the Sox ran into a team on a 9-game winning streak. I think the Indians believed they were never out of the game, in part at least because they were riding the momentum from those previous 9 games. We're just lucky the Sox brought their offense against Sabathia and squeezed a run out of that oh-so-good Cleveland bullpen (perhaps "squeezed" isn't the best term for what Johnny did, though). It was scary, but they stopped a team on a roll. And that's always nice.

Besides, Embree had worked the previous two nights, right? For two innings, in one case.

So who's available in the pen tonight? Halama and Mantei? Hmmmmmm. I hope Bronson's feeling 8 innings tonight.

[BigBri]

h.b - let me get this straight - it's ok to obsess about the Yankees, their payroll and how that translates into wins and losses, but it's NOT ok to obsess about how much money Man-Ram makes and compare that to his productivity this year? Sounds a tad hypocritical to me...

[pudge]

Tomase is an idiot. Really. He is trying to fucking read the mind of Manny Ramirez. What more needs to be said?

Not much, but I am gonna say it anyway.

You cannot read Manny's mind. First, because Manny is impenetrable to outsiders (which includes sportswriters, despite what they may think). Second, because YOU CANNOT READ MINDS.

And saying "a player who cares does not act like Manny Ramirez" is like saying "a serious basketball player doesn't play a Sleestak in Land of the Lost." OK, not quite, but I just like that reference.

Maybe more like, "a good musician doesn't write songs like 'Be True To Your School.'" Brian Wilson is a fucking genius and can write any shitty song he wants to. You know why we don't care that Manny didn't try to even get safe at second after foolishly trying to stretch a single into a double, maybe pulling a Marty Barrett by stopping short of the base and sneaking his leg under the tag? Because Barrett, God love him, didn't hit four homers in the last week.

But oh, Manny is contributing to the high ticket prices, so he owes us. You'd think giving us a World Series championship we never thought we'd get would be worth the high price of tickets. It sure is to me.

I want to suggest that Tomase should volunteer to have his ankle hit in the exact same spot with the exact same force as Ramirez, and then to run around the bases a few times to see how it feels ... but that would be cheap.

[h.b.]

BigBri,

You mean that Bill and Doug are being hypocritical in your eyes.

But I don't agree, since it's an apples to oranges comparison. Today's discussion is about the media playing both sides of the "money" angle and is totally seperate from two Red Sox fans discussing the Yankees payroll. Different issue entirely.

[h.b.]

Well said, Pudge.

[RonF]

See, here's what makes long-time Sox fans nervous when they see a game like last night:

A team uses pitching, hitting, and defense. Sometimes, one of those three falls down on the job. At that point, you can still win if one of the other three picks up. Last night, the pitching fell down, the defense had a problem or two, but the hitting picked it up and the Sox won the game.

The problem is that over the years, this was the only way that the Sox would win a game if they weren't hitting on all 3 cylinders. It used to be that if anything was going to pull an iffy game out, it was the hitting. If it was the hitting that was failing, we couldn't look to the defense or the pitching to pick it up. What made last year's team different from all the others that I've watched in the last 40+ years was that the pitching was the best I've ever seen play a home game in Fenway. Last year, if the bats were struggling, we could actually look at pitching and defense to pull the game out. That was a new thing.

But a game like last night fits the old pattern, which makes one nervous. For many years, that was the only way the Sox would win a close game. But let a well-pitched game carry us over to a 2-0 victory and we will be comforted that last night was simply filling out the pattern, not defining it.

[pudge]

Yeah, our pitching is nerve-wracking. But it had bad stretches last year, too. One thing is for sure, they can't win it all with pitching like this.

Though, I don't expect the Sox to win it all this year. Sense the arch-slapping pattern:

The Celtics win their first championship ever against St. Louis, 1957. They win their next championship in 1959.

The Bruins win their first championship in many years against St. Louis, 1970. They win their next championship in 1972.

The Patriots their first championship ever against St. Louis, 2002. They win their next championship in 2004.

The Red Sox win their first championship in many years against St. Louis, 2004.

Sorry, but I am putting my money down for 2006.

[birthofasoxfan97]

Most days I can get into the nuanced analysis of this and that, so perhaps this is a tad over-simplified, but I had a crappy day yesterday and enjoyed the hell out of the adrenaline pumping respite-from-reality of that game. Nobody delivers a kick-ass nailbiter win, however ugly, like the Sox and that's why I keep coming back for more.

[pawsoxpop]

Manny sure looked like he cared last night. Comase should not write such lame pseudojournalism and then be surprised that a guy who's at the TOP of his chosen profession makes a lot of money.

As for the Spankees, Big Bri, they sure looked like they were earning their big salaries last night against the mighty Casey Fossum and the Tampa Bay City Rollers last night didn't they?

I'll take a 10-9 win "that feels like a loss" against a team coming off a 10-game winning streak any day. Hey, even the World Series Champs get banged up when they're trying to stop a runaway train once in awhile.

[illegitimate son of dwight evans]

Good strip today. Saying a guy "doesn't care" because it's not written all over his face every day is just plain B-S. If Manny didn't care, he wouldn't have gunned down 9 runners from left, he would have lazily tossed the ball to the cutoff man. He wouldn't show up early for BP or spend his winters watching tape. In short, he wouldn't be worth the money he's earning.

I'm also with Ron on this one - a win is a win is a win. With Baltimore and New York losing, it moves us in the right direction - closer to first and farther from New York.

[AJM]

The Sox were just not gonna lose that game last night, because it was my birthday and a 'W' is preordained.

As for Manny, his salary is not the reason for astromically high tickets prices, astronomically high demand is the reason.

As for LilBri, it may not necessarily be hypocritical for a guy so obsessed with his hatred of the Sox and Sox fans that he started a crappy little blog on the subject to call us hypocritical...but it sure is ironic. And great comedy. Here's a hint: we're not obsessing over your payroll, we're laughing about it. How do you spend $200mm and have such a mediocre roster?

[pudge]

AJM: let's not kid ourselves. If we could get Manny (and others) for less money, ticket prices could (and probably would) be lower. That said, yeah, Fenway is a bad example, as they could raise prices and still sell out every game (and thankfully, they don't).