Too close to home, too near the bone

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

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

Nut gathering time

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

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

So it gets worserer

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

Playing out the string

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

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

Bill:
What the fuck for?

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

"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.)

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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?

 

---

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.

 

---

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.

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

Lowering the bar

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

 

---

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

 

---

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."

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Run away! Run away!

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

Mike:
And Jimmy Hoffa.

 

---

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™.

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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

Nah Nah Nah Nah

Nah Nah Nah Nah

Hey Hey Hey

Goodbye

 

---

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?

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

Steve:
Easy? How so?

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

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?

 

---

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.

 

---

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

 

---

Steve:
Theo blames payroll.

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

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.

 

---

Fording da Nile

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

 

---

Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Yep.

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

---

Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
[Sigh]

 

---

Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Mmmmm …

 

---

Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

---

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

 

---

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

 

---

How dearly Bill would love to kick with the fray

But time is against him now …

Bill (thinking to himself):
I think, no, I know something's wrong with me …

 

---

Bill (thinking to himself):
I mean I could never say this publicly, but here we are on the brink of "The" Series, the one back in March I couldn't wait for, yet here I sit in a total malaise.

 

---

Bill (thinking to himself):
Fuck at this point the Sox could sweep the Yankees and I'd still feel little confidence in their ability to even make the postseason, let alone thrive it it.

 

---

Bill (thinking to himself):
I hate myself for feeling this way. Did I learn nothing from the 2004 season about not giving up?

 

---

Bill (thinking to himself):
I feel like such a fucking fraud.

 

---

Bill (thinking to himself):
I'm the Taylor Hicks of Red Sox fans for fucksake.

 

---

Feast or famine

Doug:
In honah of David Wells gutsy performance last night, gimme 3 dogs and paint 'em red, 'Turo.

 

---

Doug:
And maybe I'll chase 'em with a shot a whiskey, because the Fat Man gets it done.

 

---

Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
With a little help from Coco, Hansen, the P-Bon and, of course, the Big Papi.

 

---

Doug:
Only 2 back of the Yanks with a 5 gamah coming up, there's hope for these bums yet.

 

---

Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Are you kidding me, if they can find the Jon Benet Ramsey killah aftah 10 years, anything's possible.

 

---

Doug:
That fucking creep's a school teachah, too. Can you imagine?

 

---

Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Yeah, fucked up world. How 'bout that crazy bitch who forced the plane down at Logan.

 

---

Doug:
No shit. Said she was gonna piss in the sink. What kind of "threat" is that anyway?

 

---

Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Yeah, this country beat the shit out of the Japs and the Huns in DubDub2, now we're downing planes ovah some nutjob with a piss fetish?

 

---

Doug:
You know she was from Vermont, right?

 

---

Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
No kidding? Hmm. Well, you know what they say. You can take the hillbilly out of Vermont, but you can't take the Vermont out of the hillbilly.

 

---

That game stung a bit

Yankees fan Marty in his penthouse lair:
3 games up and 4 in the loss column … Time for a phone call … Heh, heh.

 

---

Marty dials up Bill …

Marty:
Jeez, Callaghan, I was looking forward to a pennant race, your Sawx can't even get that right.

 

---

Bill:
Why don't we wait until we play the weekend series first before you staht running your mouth, hey, Marts?

 

---

Marty:
Series? By the time Friday rolls around those games will be meaningless. It's over. Snakes on the Plane, Billy Boy, 'cept you don't have Sam Jackson to save your sorry asses.

 

---

Bill:
Oh, and by "ovah" you mean, of course, like being up 3 games to nil in a playoff series ovah?

 

---

Marty:
I don't blame you for bringing up 2004, Bill, because we both know deep down all you Sawx fans pine for that roster. Those guys were a winners while your current club, not so much.

 

---

Marty:
And speaking of, you remember Johnny Damon, Bill? I think he had a couple of big hits in the 2004 run, didn't he? Kinda like what he's doing now for the greatest sports franchise in human history.

 

---

Marty:
So how's Coco Crisp working out for you? Nothing like saving a few payroll bucks is there?

 

---

Marty:
And Wily Mo Pena … What can one say? I'm watching ESPN highlights and Wily Mo comes on and I'm wondering, what the fuck, is there a new Fox reality series called "So You Think You Can Play the Outfield"?

 

---

Yankees fan Marty in his penthouse lair:
Bwahahaha. Bwahahaha …

 

---

Bill slamming phone with thought bubble:
Grrr‰ ‰$%%&&XXXrrrr!!!

 

---

Hung for the Holidays

Mike:
Putting on my magnanimous "for the good of the game"cap for a moment, I will say the one positive takeaway from last night's game was seeing the once perennial cellah dwellah Tigahs come in with some first place swaggah.

 

---

Mike:
You know, in baseball there's hope for any team to turn it around and all that, good news for the Detroit fans.

 

---

Doug:
Yeah, yeah, that's great in the abstract and all, but on the solid ground of reality you have to wondah how long are we going to wait for Beckett to get his shit togethah?

 

---

Mike:
No kidding, if you were only to watch Beckett in the first inning all season, you'd think this was some dirty William Hung trick.

 

---

Ready to rumble (or slap balls, depending)

Bill:
What a difference a weekend makes.

 

---

Doug:
Abso-effin-lutely. The sweep wasn't pretty but a sweep it was.

 

---

Bill:
Yankees' lead cut to one. This is what you call a pennant race.

 

---

Doug:
Yeah, but wait a second. Everyone's favorite Yankees, Alex Rodriguez, "feels as if he 'just finished spring training' and is ready to tackle the season."

 

---

Bill:
20 errors, 105 strikeouts, and 17 groundball double plays latah, A-Rod is now ready to bring it.

 

---

Doug:
Scary. Scary. Heh.

 

---

Time to pick blueberries. (Just watch out for bears.)

Steve:
Guess we're really seeing the value of having Tek behind the plate.

 

---

Mike:
No doubt. But, you know, it's not just the pitching.

 

---

Steve:
Tell me about it. This 1 and 5 road trip is a total horror show pretty much everywhere you turn.

 

---

Mike:
Go to the pen, they blow it. Leave in the starter? He blows it. Load the bases with one out? Hit into a DP. Get a runner to third with one out? Yeah, right.

 

---

Steve:
The thing is I don't get the feeling at all that this team is as bad as they appear right now.

 

---

Steve:
I mean even the '04 club dropped 5 consec once, right?

 

---

Mike:
Sure they did. But in May not August, and the 04 club only lost 7 games the entire month of August, but, you know, who's counting?

 

---

Steve:
Has the chance to watch a Pats preseason meaningless game ever seemed so comforting?

 

---

Mike:
Yeah, rather than dig Kevorkian's suicide machine out of my attic, I'm going to just chill on the Red Sox for a bit.

 

---

Steve:
Totally. Step back. Relax. Let the club work through it.

 

---

Bring out the comfy chair

Susan:
So I was watching a Red Sox game last night when a Milli Vanilli concert broke out.

 

---

Mike:
Wait. In that analogy who are the impostahs? The all of a sudden dominant Royals, or the slumping home boys?

 

---

Susan:
You tell me. But evidently Theo thinks pretty highly of the Royals as yestahday he said the "we're facing the most adversity we've faced." What the fuck, Theo? The last place Royals? Adversity? C'mon, dude.

 

---

Mike:
Thank Christ and Mohammed for that 'closed door meeting' before last night's game.

 

---

Susan:
I've nevah understood the concept of the closed door meeting. I mean we're incessantly reminded that Major Leaguers are professionals who can tune everything out yada yada, but, fuck, just closing the clubhouse door has some sort of double-secret motivational effect?

 

---

Mike:
Yeah, Tito's all, "See that closed door, fellas? Well, you know what to do. W00T!"

 

---

Susan:
I guess one purpose is to give a slumping team a chance to get away from the meddlesome media, but, you know, all things considered with a 4 game losing streak and all, the Keyboard Knights are being remahkably restrained.

 

---

Mike:
Seriously. I mean Shaughnessy serves up his second Us Magazine style celebrity puff piece in consecutive days? I was expecting much worse.

 

---

Susan:
Well you know, that's just it, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."

 

---

Mike:
Right the Boston Media's chief weapon is surprise … surprise and fear … fear and surprise … Their two weapons are fear and surprise … and ruthless efficiency … Their *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency … and an almost fanatical devotion to the Yawkeys … Their *four* … no... *Amongst* their weapons … Amongst their weaponry are such elements as fear, surprise….

 

---

Hey, at least Wily Mo P is looking good

Variation on a theme began yesterday …

Bill:

Three in a row now. Kansas City? Kansas fucking City?

 

---

Bill:
---[sigh---

 

---

Bill:
To be dead in the summahtime is lucky.

 

---

Bill:
Summahtime is the best inceratah there is.

 

---

Bill:
I'm easing in.

 

---

Summer, do your worst!

Susan:
Only just over a week into August and it's already killing me.

 

---

Mike:
People say, 'It's not the heat, it's the humidity.'

 

---

Mike:
But I say, 'It's not the humidity, it's the fucking pitching.'

 

---

Susan:
Why does August always seem to suck for us?

 

---

Mike:
Seriously, where's our late rose that ravages the casual eye, a blaze of being on a central stem?

 

---

Susan:
Really. Where's our blackberries hung swollen in the wood in the branches nobody owns? Where's the cramming the black honey of summah into my mouth?

 

---

What ever happened to beating up on the bad teams?

Doug:
Look, I'm not pushing the panic button, but the bullpen is giving me a case of the shits.

 

---

Mike:
Seriously. Who besides Paps do you trust out there?

 

---

Doug:
The early season conventional wisdom was that the team would be bettah this season by avoiding all the 2005 craptitude of Embree and Foulke. But in reality, er, not so much.

 

---

Mike:
The stahting pitching isn't much to cheah eithah. Schilling's the only one you can count on every 5 games.

 

---

Doug:
Christ, nothing quite like dropping 2 in a row to the Tampa Bay Suckaneers.

 

---

Mike:
Hey, but you've got to smile at Tampa's ball busting with the Sweet Caroline over their PA system.

 

---

Doug:
Yeah, poor fuckahs … When you play baseball in a mall that also has a ballpark in it and have never had a winning season you've got to get your jollies somehow.

 

---

Mike:
Hey, did you see our pals from The Red Seat have hit the big time with their t-shirts?

 

---

Doug:
Yeah, their new tagline should be "If our shirts can make a dipwad like Affleck look smaht, imagine what they can do for you?!"

 

---

The lead is lost (for now)

The strip will return to normal on Monday, meanwhile …

Lisa the Temp:
Listen, people, do you have any idea what it's like to be a temp worker in Boston office when the Red Sox fall out of first place and trail the Yankees? Do you?

 

---

Lisa the Temp:
Lisa the Scapegoat. Bet your asses.

 

---

Not another hiatus? Frig.

Yes, once again the hoary hand of commerce has beckoned Brachen and interrupted the day …

Lisa the Temp:
Deal with it, people.

 

---

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Bill:
Well, they're all a fluttah in New York this morning.

 

---

Mike:
Man, have times changed or what? Used to take nothing less than a pennant to stir up the New Yankahs, but now moving into first by percentage points the first week of August is enough give 'em all a collective hard on?

 

---

Bill:
It'd be sad if it wasn't so funny.

 

---

Mike:
Want anothah example of how things have changed since the Red Sox upended the cosmic order? Here's Buckley, a journo like the CHB with a rep for yelling "Fiah" in a movie theater with his acerbic attacks, instead penning a glowing tribute to Papi's respect for the game's history.

 

---

Bill:
No shit, the morning aftah the Sox picked up just one hit in nine at bats with runners in scoring position in a loss to the Indians and with the news that Tek's going to get his knee scoped and be out a month and the Yankees move into a tie for first, yet there isn't a single "We're all gonna die!" hit piece in the Boston media.

 

---

Mike:
I'm loving the new world ordah.

 

---

Are you sure? Yeah, I'm Saussure

Mike:
In life there are certain things you can count on … David Wells sucks when skipping a rehab staht, Mel Gibson hates Jews, and David Ortiz hits walkoffs.

 

---

Susan:
I no longah have any words to describe Big Papi. He's entered some super semiotic realm that exists beyond mere signifiahs and their measly signified.

 

---

Mike:
Are you kidding me, Papi dwells in the ancient ethah before light and dark were separated. He's the fucking Big Bang, cosmic launchah of the universe.

 

---

Susan:
You know I was feeling all mopey yesterday, all feeling like Lindsay Blohan after a 3 day coke binge over the Abreu to the Yankees news …

 

---

Susan:
But then David Ortiz knocked the skanky feeling right out of me.

 

---

Mike:
Yeah, it's worth remembering: David Ortiz has fahts with more powah than Bobby Abreu.

 

---