April Hiatus (Day 2 of 4)

Your omniscient author in absentia:
However much your are enjoying a book you are always flicking to the end, counting to see how many pages are left, looking forward to the time when you can put the book down and have done with it.

 

---

Your omniscient author in absentia:
At the back of our minds, however much we are enjoying a book, we come to the end of it and some little voice is always saing, "Thank Christ for that!"

 

---

Author's Notes
Quote from Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage pages 107-108.

Comments

[vermonter]

All's well that ends well, and we are off to a great start. But my Papelbon For Closer..., um, make that my Anyone Except Foulke For Closer club is up and running. Every single batter tattooed the ball. I say he gets two more chances.

[vasoxfan]

>>I say he gets two more chances.
Agreed!! If it weren't for an excellent catch by Crisp ... maybe we are still there and an excellent performance by Schilling and Papelbon goes for naught. I know its the first game and all but I got this feelin.... I want to be wrong, cause ya know he was the guy on the mound during the last out of the World Series in Oct 04, but now is now.

[Devine]

The words are true! I do that with books, movies, videogames. Count down to the end and breathe a little sigh of relief when it's over, even if I had a good time.

However, call me dense, but are the words supposed to be about the season or something? I think I've missed the boat.

[Pond]

Foulke scarred the crap out of me but it looks like we have a hell of an offense and the best news: absolute domination by Schilling. Yankee fans everywhere should be soiling themselves.

[GaryGeiger]

Is the metaphor that we were waiting for Foulke to close the damn game out, breathing our "Thank Christ for that" when it was finally over?
At best there'll be more than a few white-knuckle saves because he's a soft tosser, but I'll give the guy the benefit....for now.

I'm happy for Lowell launching one...he seems like a decent guy, not unlike Meuller.

[IkeG]

Oddly the Yankees win looked similar to the Sox win:
1) Aged ex-2001 World Series MVPs looked fantastic in easy wins
2) Key bullpen guys (Papelbon, Sturtze) pitched solid inning each
3) Other key bullpen guys (Foulke, Villone) struggled
4) 2005 MVP candidates had big games
5) AL West teams got stomped

[Monty]

Im the opposite, after ive invested hours of bathroom time on a good book, getting to know the characters, I dread the end of the book, usually wanting it to go on and on. Unless the book wasnt any good, like Foulke.

[Jason O.]

Yankees fans probably are a bit soiled. Similar to how Secretariat's jockey was soiled by the dirt from his hooves as he exploded from the starting gate....

[tessie]

"However much your are enjoying a book you are always flicking to the end, counting to see how many pages are left, looking forward to the time when you can put the book down and have done with it."

Sorta like how I read Soxaholix...j/k.

[NV in SD]

Easy there JO. One game does not a season make, especially when you've yet to see exactly what your "pitching staff" is made up of. The story of last night's game was the yankers capitalizing on Zito's AA level performance. 59 pitches in 1.1ip, 4 h, 4bb, 7r? The D-Rays would've had a 7-run inning off of him last night. That said, the NY lineup is, modestly put, potent. Still, I'm calling a bunch of 10-8 games with the MFY on the short end.

[GaryGeiger]

An awful lot of John Harper's NYTimes column space devoted to the goings on in Tejas....complete w/observations by reporter cum center fielder Damon.

"Yes, before the Yankees even arrived at the ballpark yesterday, old friend Schilling had sent them a rather ominous message. By shutting down the potent Rangers at that launching pad in Texas, the Sox's ace may as well have been speaking directly to the Yankee hitters.
As in:
"Hope you enjoyed pounding me last year, because that ain't happening again. My ankle's fine, thanks for asking, I feel like it's 2004 all over again, and by the way, we may have a lot of new faces in our lineup, but as long as I'm dealing again, we're not going away. See you soon enough."

None other than Damon seemed to get the message after watching his old team on TV from his hotel room yesterday.

"I was just watching a baseball game," Damon explained with a laugh, fending off any notion that his heart was still with the Red Sox. "I was doing my scouting. It looks like Schilling's fastball is back. He looked good."

In that case, the Red Sox figure to be as formidable as ever, even after an off-season of change that seemed to lower expectations for them, judging by media predictions around the country that favor the White Sox, Yankees, and the A's as playoff teams.

"I know they're going to be a tough team," said Damon. "They're younger in some places, but they've got pitching, and with Manny (Ramirez) and (David) Ortiz, they've still got a lot of offense.

"Right now I think we need to pay attention to ourselves, and not worry about them. But the rivalry is definitely going to be there."

The rivalry took a year off in 2005, at least from the postseason, and the Red Sox still have a lot of pitching questions to answer this year. But if Schilling is back, well, it's a reminder that this is why the Yankees wanted Johnson so badly, to match the Red Sox at the top of their rotation.
He looked up to the task last night, holding serve from a distance against Schilling, his old teammate. But not even this Arena Ball lineup the Yankees have assembled can make it this easy for him all the time.