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Doug:
Thank Christ. Now I can focus all my psychic energy on effahts to avoid the flu.
Steve:
So at the bottom of the Snow piece on Theo's extension, he tosses in this bit about Manny wanting to get to Anaheim because "Ramirez remarked that no one bothered him during a visit to a local mall." And I'm like what the fuck.
Doug:
Holy shit, you're kidding me? That's what this "trade me talk "all comes down to?
Steve:
What the frig do you think Manny goes to the Mall for? Does he all of a sudden get a craving for Auntie Anne's Pretzels or something?
Doug:
Yeah, Manny, you don't need to go to the Discovery Store to play with the remote control toys for free. You can afford to, you know, buy the whole fucking store.
Steve:
Let's see Manny wants a trade so he can go to the mall without being bothered, Wells wants a trade so he can go to bars without being bothered, Theo needs to be among the highest paid GM's partly to compensate for the nuisance of being a celebrity in Boston … Am I sensing a pattern here?
Doug:
Heh. You'd think grown men would have biggah balls than Lindsay Lohan when it comes to dealing with their celebrity status, but I guess not.
Doug:
No kidding. Listen up Manny, Wells, Lindsay Lohan, Cameron Diaz, et cetera, as someone who leads a normal life I'm telling you it's way the fuck overrated.
Continue reading "To be a barracuda in the guppy pond" »
And although this season didn't end as we'd have liked, let's consider the words of Jorge Luis Borges, "To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god." …
Susan:
Togethah forevah! Happy Anniversary.
Bill:
All my life I've seen playahs come and go and while I may have had triste moments in their departure, I've nevah had thoughts of, you know, that's it, I'm done, piss on the Red Sox …
Doug:
Well, as they say, "Anyone is replaceable."
Doug:
Some anniversary, eh?
Bill:
Ah, Christ, you're so right. Original courage is so dead these days.
Mike:
Absolutely. Look at Cindy Sheehan. Does she opt for the human torch thingy? No effin way. It's all "I'll tie myself to the White House and, you know, get arrested. W00T!" Hell right, that'll teach "da Man."
Bill:
Can't even get a good ol' hungah strike these days.
Mike:
Ours is a culchah gone soft, lightweights one and all.
Bill:
In ten million places in America it is the same — stale lives propped against each other and no place to go.
Mike:
Average people eating average food at average prices manifesting average civil protest in hopes of being seen on average TV news by millions of other average Americans who sit in their average living rooms waiting for Christmas or Labah Day or Sunday or something.
Continue reading "Stale as it ever was" »
Mike:
Is it me or is this offseason moving at a glacial pace?
Susan/Circle:
I'm dying ovah heah. You know it's not even officially the offseason yet, and I'm already reduced to paying $14.95 for the MLB Bulge Report just so I have something to occupy myself with.
Mike:
You know what they say, "The Devil will find work for idle hands to do."
Susan/Circle:
The Devil's a friggin' pussy. You evah see that old movie Rosemary's Baby? Of all the hot bitches in the world "da Beast" goes for that mousy, mealy, milquetoast Mia Farrow? Gimme a break.
Susan/Circle:
Seriously, what's the fucking point in being Lucifer, Lord of the Dark World, if you can't scare up some A-List poon?
Mike:
Speaking of possession, Manny's being called in front of the media inquisition yet again, this time the accusation is he's just too damn niggardly.
Mike:
Well, really, we wouldn't want to hold public servants to as high a standard as we do celebrity athletes now would we?
Bill:
So this season's World Series is down 31% from last year. The second lowest rated Game 1 in history. Imagine that?
Mike:
You know for shits and giggles I tuned into Game 1 and, as luck with have it, the first thing I heah McCarvah say is that Ozzie Guillen's "hand gesticulations are fascinating." Aftah that the only sound you could heah was my head pounding against the wall.
Bill:
I pity the White Sox and Astros fans who have to put up with that inanity a couple hours a night.
Bill:
Ah, yes, Shaughnessy and his nevah fail new age angle of destiny, lahgah forces, and planets aligned … Christ, I thought the guy was a graduate of Holy Cross and not fucking Hogwarts.
Hart Brachen, strip author:
On this one year anniversary of one of the most momentous and glorious events of our Red Sox fan lives, let's rejoice again in being part of the "The Greatest Comeback in the History of Sport."
Doug:
Thank you, Christ! Anothah season of "send 'em sveum" and I'd flip out like an au pair and staht shaking the baby.
Doug:
Ah, jeez, Carlos Beltran? Hello, Front Office? Why do you want to commit crapicide?
Bill:
Rumahs like this combined with the $50 million for Damon talk and it's like call the CDC, dude, we've got a national jackhat pandemic on our hands.
Bill:
Why do I get the feeling the 2004 World Series team is going to be like the Pyramids of Giza — you know, "We built it once but now, for the love of Isis, we can't friggin' remembah how we did it"?
Doug:
Right now Shaughnasty is ringing up his book agent, "Dude, let me pitch an idea to you … While a happy Red Sox Nation basked in the warm glow of the blood red moon that hung ovah Busch Stadium, little did they know it was the eye of the god Thoth looking down and waiting to unleash the 3500 year old 'Curse of the Mummy!!!'"
Bill:
Yes, the great Thoth, "the Reckonah of Times and of Seasons," must avenge the victory … Staht cranking the presses. Curly Haired Boyfriend's back in the green. Kaching! Kaching!
Mike:
I'm cautiously optimistic. I like that he's more or less an unknown. Like that he looks tough yet refined. And, of course, good to see a blonde getting into the action.
Susan:
Yeah, the Dyson dude could be all "I've reinvented the shoelace," and I'd be like "Sign me up for that shit!"
Mike:
Then you'd find out how much they are and your jaw drops but again you remembah the smooth clip of the Brit accent and "the proprietary Dyson designed tungsten aglets" and it's all, give me a dozen of those mofo pricey laces.
Susan:
I wish the British played baseball just for the chance to have Major League managah with the accent and mannerisms. Can you imagine the postgame press conferences?
Mike:
[In Brit accent] "I'm abashed at our utter lack of gamesmanship. But, tally ho, chaps, tomorrow we shall be brilliant. There you are now, right. Now be a sport and pass me the claret, would you?"
Susan:
Only thing is I can't see an Oxford or Cambridge type willing to wear the declasse baseball uniform.
Mike:
Are you kidding me? The Brits love crazy get ups. Their ahmy guys wear shorts and kneesocks fercrissakes. And their judges still put on those crazy wigs. And, hello? Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?
Susan:
[Laughing] Ah, so true. The nuttiah the costume the bettah for that lot.
Bill:
Really! "BAMBI STEADILY STRENGTHENING AND BEGINNING TO DRIFT WESTWARD."
Doug:
Heh. "CHERRY HAS VERY TIGHT EYEWALL AND IMPRESSIVE OUTFLOW. INTERESTS IN THE GULF SHOULD BEGIN TO MONITOR DEVELOPMENT."
Doug:
Holy Shit! First edition published in 2005, aftah the World Series win?! The duplicitous bastid.
Bill:
You know, all things considihd, I'm surprised he stopped there. I mean what about the "Legend of the Bambino Bedsheets" or the "Legend of the Bambino Board Game"?
Doug:
I always love it when MILFalicious Madonna talks dirty.
Bill:
Absolutely. Whenevah Madonna goes on and on about "the beast." I find myself getting aroused.
Doug:
Papa's got some preachin' to do, bee-atch!
Continue reading "He's livin' in a Bambino world (And it makes you wanna hurl)" »
Mike:
So if the White Sox go on to win the World Series, is it like the formah vengeful Yankees cap wearing God has decided to kick ovah the money changahs tables and staht spreading that victory wealth to the formah have nots?
Bill:
Seriously. How does a Supreme Being compete with last year's Miracle of the Greatest Comeback in the History of Sport? Oh, how 'bout getting a team into the World Series for only the second time since they pissed everyone off by playing Judas in 1919?
Bill:
Amen. It's Yahweh or the highway, baby.
Mike:
The Yankees fall from Grace is quite a story, and, with the clarity of hindsight, the whole Contreras dealio from December 2002 might have been the first fissure in the wall of the Bronx Jericho.
Mike:
But after all that Contreras gets off to a good staht yet anything but stellah in the Pinstripes, particularly when facing the Red Sox, so they ship him to Chicago for Esteban Loaiza at the deadline last year.
Bill:
And now Contreras is the "Titan of Bronze" again on his way to one of the greatest postseason pitching performances of all time, but not with the Yankees.
Mike:
And don't forget El Duque, anothah Yankees castoff.
Bill:
'Tis easiah for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich ownah to buy a pennant it seems.
Hart Brachen:
Hey, readers! It's Hart, your humble (and by humble I mean attention seeking and arrogant) author here to say I've got nothing new for you today …
Hart Brachen:
I probably couldn't pick a worse time to "pull a Manny" and take myself out of the lineup, what with the Wall Street Journal article hitting earlier in the week and then yesterday's "Best Red Sox Blog" anointing by Deadspin. (See there's my boastful/arrogant side coming out.)
Hart Brachen:
But that's just the way it goes sometimes. If you're new to the strip/blog or are a regular reader needing a Soxaholix fix, I suggest one of my fave strips from all of last year, "He pitched his ass off," or you could poke around the archives and see what randomly pops up.
Mike:
So we're always reminded by the major media how important they are and how we fans and bloggahs can't live without them because of their club sanctioned "access" to the playahs …
Doug:
Yeah, why aftah reading of hundreds of inaccurate, dumb, or otherwise mailed in with zero effaht stories am I not surprised to hear "9 times out of 10 they’re not doing crap"
Mike:
I know you often have take Schilling with a grain of salt, but can't you just pictchah the scene Schilling describes, "They’re watching TV, grabbing a bottle of watah, reading our papahs …"?
Doug:
And Schilling confirms something we've all suspected, "You’ll see a story written by a guy who was standing in the clubhouse and didn’t do an interview."
Mike:
Thanks for the heavy lifting, guys. Thanks for putting that frickin' "access" to work and giving your readahs content worth reading.
Doug:
And this is the gang that salivates at the chance to pen a "playa so and so isn't hustling enough" or "playah x disrespecting the game" Physician, heal thyself.
Doug:
Yeah, can't wait to renew my subscription.
For many Red Sox fans, the baseball season ends with the last out at Fenway and anything is better than discussing the postseason fortunes and misfortunes of other baseball clubs …
Bill:
When exactly did all the weathah people stop saying, you know, "it's going to rain" to saying "we are expecting a significant rain event"?
Bill:
I mean is all this "rain event" and "snow event" crap just a lame attempt to make the weathah forecast seem more, I dunno, scientific rathah than the wild ass guesses they really are?
Doug:
Yeah, and why is percipitation singled out for the "event" treatment? Why don't we evah hear of a "sunshine event"?
Bill:
Really! By a failing to "eventize" the temperate weathah, aren't they suggesting that there is some default idyllic state, some sunshiny Edenic stasis and rathah than the dynamic and constantly fluxing atmospheric phenomena that is the quintessence of what we call "weathah"?
Doug:
Damn you Jim Cantore! See the mess you've stahted?
Bill:
Well, if this conversation is any guide, I'm forecasting an inauspicious staht to the offseason.
Doug:
It's like being on a trawhlah in the North Sea.
Bill:
It's days like these that I most regret failing to pursue my childhood dream of becoming the greatest scrimshaw artist in the Bay State.
Doug:
A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy!
Bill:
All noble things are touched with that.
Continue reading "dull torpor pulling downward" »
The Angels move on to the ALCS which can only mean one thing for Red Sox fans …
Bill:
I'm really disappointed though … ovah 162 regulah season games and 5 in the postseason, I nevah once caught a glimpse of A-Fraud's promised wicked scary "dropping the shouldah move."
Mike:
Yeah, who knew Pay-Rod's "killah move" is grounding weakly into a double play?
Mike:
Never in the field of baseball conflict has so much flowed to so many for so few.
Continue reading "Oh fer 21st Century Drought Continues" »
There really isn't an "offseason" for Red Sox fans, but just a period when games are played or not played. Today we begin the abrupt, though not unwelcome, transition into the "hot stove" period …
Doug:
Our honeymoon with God is ovah.
Doug:
Drive thru the T.W. Tunnel across narrow evah-dahkening roads, a bandwagon bus packed with rollicking ids, bumping ovah the countryside, seeking pitchahs, seeking hittahs …
Mike:
The sky opens its accordion pleats and it's the New Year, but we haven't escaped anything, in fact, we nevah wanted to.
Doug:
Suddenly it's "Truck Day" and we barely have time to say good-bye or wish ourselves luck.
Continue reading "untitled, number 434 in the sequence" »
The Red Sox were swept and eliminated from the ALDS by the surprisingly formidable Chicago White Sox …
Marty:
Ah, Callaghan, you're at work on a Saturday … What did you do, burn your house down in a fit of angry remorse over your pathetic Sawx and are now living in your office?
Bill:
It's called a work ethic, something you wouldn't know anything about.
Bill:
Hahd work is good for the soul, Mahts.
Marty:
Right, like back in college when you'd be in your dorm room each night lucubrating while I was out lubricating with one of the hotties from Alpha Chi Blowmega. Heh. Now I'm make mid six figures as a corporate lawyer in the City while you toil in anonymity shuffling paper clips in your little "Bahstin" backwater.
Marty:
Wow, it's so, so sad that even when your team is eliminated, your little hopes and dreams are still in the hands of the Yankees. Bwahahahah … Bwahahahah …
Susan/Circle:
The supreme irony, of course, is that if Giambi or anyone else had admitted to, say, hitting the 420 chronic bud aftah every game, the feds, the fans, the MLB would throw the war on drugs book at him.
Mike:
But cheat by using a performance enhancing drug and it's all "Juicy Giambi come on down and see what you've effin won! Whoo hoo, America!"
Susan/Circle:
If there's one consolation in this screw job it's that at least Giambi didn't thank the Almighty Jesus for his miraculous recahvry.
Susan/Circle:
It's the Parable of the Prosthesis.
Mike:
Ask, and it will be given you; Seek, and you will find clean, dehydrated urine for the righteous ones.
Susan/Circle:
Let him who has nevah tested false positive, cast the first whizz.
Mike:
Things are good because I am not dead yet and the rats move in the beer cans and the papersacks shuffle like small dogs …
Mike:
Finally, down oh-and-two, we have them right where we want them.
Doug:
Absolutely. Last year's ALDS sweep was the anomaly. This is how we do it. Take gut; death, at last, is no headache. '99 against Cleveland, '03 against Oakland.
Doug:
Dude, you're so flippin' right. Besides who wants to win easy anyway?
Mike:
Nothing like riding back into the opponent's house for game 5 with a stick of dynamite in your teeth.
Doug:
When we chose to, nobody does hope bettah than a Red Sox fan.
Mike:
Our banjo screams sing sing through the darkened dream, green grow Fenway green …
Continue reading "To the finish" »
Doug:
Ain't no big thang … We'll bounce back.
Doug:
Yeah, I'm all Rosy the Rivetah ovah heah thinking the beat down was the perfect staht … I mean what happened the last time the Red Sox lost by a double-digit margin in a postseason game? I'm just sayin' …
Bill:
Yeah, well pahdon me if beat my head on the wall a few more hours this morning trying to figure out 1) How Matt Clement got the staht in the first place and 2) Why he was left in so long when he was throwing so much gahbage he now owes a kickback to the Gambino crime family.
Doug:
Ah, you know Tito, he's loyal to his rostah and wants to give everyone a chance.
Bill:
Yeah, that's all well in good, but we're not talking about, you know, something trivial like nominating a Supreme Court Justice. You actually need a good track record and experience to pitch in the postseason. Clement had neithah.
Doug:
Guess we now know why Clement was riding the bench when he was with the Cubbies and the games were on the line.
Bill:
So it's up to the David Foamy Gel Wells tonight.
Doug:
I love it when Posada says, "You can't see it, you can't feel it, you can't smell it …"
Bill:
Yeah, something that can't be detected by human senses yet can help in "improving both his grip and the movement of his pitches." Somebody should call in the FBI. This could have military applications.
S
Today at 4pm it begins anew …
Mike:
Playoff baseball is the most awsometastic time of the year with one glaring exception: Having to enduah the dipwads in the national TV broadcast booth.
Susan/Circle:
Oh, no! Today's game is on ESPN. Does that mean Joe Morgan? Joe frickin' Morgan! Please. I am a good person. Why does God hate me?
Mike:
Er, actually, you are neithah a good person nor a theist.
Susan:
Well, while both of your claims may be objectively true, my point still stands.
Mike:
Absolutely. Joe Morgan is so shockingly dumb that by his very presence in the booth he numbs the entire country.
Susan/Circle:
It's not just that he says something stupid any time his lips move … I was out of town this weekend and was forced to listen to Morgan during Sunday's game. Morgan could hahdly contain his hatred for Red Sox fans.
Mike:
Morgan can't even be original or profound in that regahd, since we are universally hated. You know for being so condescending and literary.
Susan/Circle:
They remind me of eunuchs in a harem. They know how it's done. They've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.
Continue reading "HDTV volume muted, AM radio on " »
The Boston Red Sox are the American League Wild Card Champion for the 3rd consecutive year …
Mike:
What a sweet relief. And what a way to punctuate the season with a solid 10-1 victory over the Yankees.
Bill:
You know, I don't have a problem with celebrations at this point in the season, but it really depends on the circumstances. If the club hasn't been in the playoffs for years or some great trauma like somebody dying during the season was overcome that's one thing. But the Yankees winning the AL East for the 8th consecutive year? Not so much.
Bill:
Christ, I so missed the memo relaxing the rules for when its appropriate for men to break down and cry in public.
Bill:
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying men should never show emotion, it's just that if you're crying ovah how "emotionally satisfying" it is to just make the playoffs with the richest salary in baseball, what do you do if you win it all, sacrifice a goat or something?
