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.

 

---

Author's Notes
Today's title is a reference to McCloskey's classic kid's book Blueberries for Sal.

Comments

[FarmBoy]

Yep. That's about how I'm feeling too.

[David B]

I had forgottten my Kevorkian machine! A Pat's game is just what the doctor oredered :)-. I appreciate the dim ray of hope, because they aren't as bad as they look today.

[soxdownunder]

Hey, consider this. If you are me each August you have to endure stuff like this losing sweep in Kansas City while (with the inversion of the seasons) the football team I suffer for (okay love) does more or less the same thing in Australia: it folds. A local comic said:
'A young migrant to Australia, I met Collingwood through a Catholic nun at my new school… After three Grand Final losses in a row I learnt a horrible truth about life: dreams don't come true, nothing good ever really happens and life is essentially one episode after another of pain and misery until you end up in a nursing home, daring your family to snuff you out with a pillow.'

Still, pigs flew in 2004 and, for Collingwood, in 1990 (after 32 years and nine grand finals).

So we'll just have to 'chill' ... but Collingwood lost a critical game to last place Essendon tonight so the sychronicity remains creepy! :-(

[yazbread]

I think it will take more than a day of Pythonesque humor to shake off last night's loss. Mel Brooks perhaps? - ala 'could be worse, could be raining'. At least we are not Royals fans. The three game sweep of the Sox was apparently the highlight of the Royals season as several fans in the stands were waving brooms.

[COD]

I've found that 04 totally improved my ability to take losing streaks in stride. I just don't get worked up about it like I used to.

[Rob in CT]

<>

Rob, referring to h.b.'s apologea for the current suckitude: "'Scuse me while I whip this out..."

BB to the Yanks dugout: "Is it twue what they say about the way you people are 'gifted'?"

[Matt]

This team may not be as bad as they appear right now, but the Twins, White Sox, and MFY's aren't waiting around to let them work through it.

49 games left- just sayin'.

[Jay]

Try being a transplanted sox fan in KC right now. This is the worst day of my professional life here in KC so far. I work in a plant and have to walk by the production line to get to my office. People I don't even really know are waving brooms at me from the line. This is not fun.

[Jason O.]

Empathy is in order. Last year the Yankees were swept in KC in June, and the memory is still fresh of the feeling of my colon being ripped apart by 6 frenzied monkeys.

[Dusty'sglove2006]

Jay,
Even though I'm depressed about the suckitude. The scene you describe about a bunch of Kansas hick factory workers waving brooms at you is pretty funny. This was indeed the world series for the KC fans. Let them have it.

We have 11 at the friendly confines comming up. We will bounce back.

[Devine]

Here's hoping.

I think I might just take a weekend off of baseball and see where things stand Monday. My mood swings too much with crap like last night's eighth inning.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'll be watching just like any other night.

[Kaz]

Can we sue Yawkey Way for Battered Wife Syndrome?

[Kaz]

h.b., did you and Red over at SurvivingGrady work out the blueberry theme ahead of time?

"When the anchors of your staff come up short against the worst team in baseball, where do you find the solace?

Myself? I find it in a six pack of Strohs. And the knowledge that Remy and D.O. will be there to guide me through the darkness. And that dream of me and Kelly the Ball Girl sharing a tiny Italian villa (where every morning I'm greeted with news of a Red Sox win, and the Kelster making blueberry muffins in a thong-and-Ortiz-jersey combo)." ( Surviving Grady )

In the meantime, can we sue Yawkey Way for Battered Wife Syndrome?

[Kaz]

Ay caramba! Typepad, why do you hate me so today?

[yazbread]

I am too lazy to actually figure out who the KC TV combo is, but they make Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver look pretty good. Looking forward to the RemDawg and Orsillo tonight.

[NV in SD]

"Blueberries for Sal"

Great fucking book.

That's all I've got today.

[yazbread]

I am too lazy to actually figure out who the KC TV combo is, but they make Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver look pretty good. Looking forward to the RemDawg and Orsillo tonight.

[yazbread]

Really - what's up with TypePad today?

[tessie]

Go Browns!

[Kaz]

Let's see how this goes:

The new "World Trade Center" movie debuts today. What's your take? I think it's going to be too far over the top (even though it's Oliver Stone and not say Spielberg) that I'm just not going to feel any good emotional attachment. I went through quite a harrowing experience on Sept. 11, 2001, having just left Logan Airport hours prior to the hijackings and waking from a jetlag nap in France with CNN World on my hotel TV right as everything began to go down.

I'm just not sure why I'd want to revisit everything I experienced then and for months afterwards as we learned more about all of the stories surrounding that day. I also don't know that you can bottle all of that into a 2 hr movie and make any of it mean anything. The critics seem to like it (if they didn't would they be seen as "un-American"). I just don't think I'm very motivated to go watch it.

To bring it full circle, I guess I'm feeling the same about the Sox right now. Too much good (man, I called that Wily Mo blast last night) and bad (man, I called Schilling's destruction and Tito's inability to pull him too) all rolled up into 9 innings each day... I'm just not motivated to keep going through that each game right now.

[NYSoxfan]

Jay in KC, I feel your pain. I feel your pain... Yet as bad as this team is playing right now, the Sox are amazingly only 3 games back in the division. They get hot at the right time and they're back in this thing. Goddam.

[Aaron]

Jay,
I can totally empathize. These are not good times for Sox transplants out in the hinterlands. I've got tickets for all three games of the August 25-27th series here in Seattle, and my coworkers are already talking smack. Normally, they're a placid, docile bunch, but the recent slide has them all primed to put a serious beating on their betters. The Sox need to get this turned around quickly, lest they give the natives too much hope.

[Natalie]

Okay, if yesterday was a Milli Vanilli concert, was last night (the final straw in the broom of the sweep by KC) akin to the one guy--Milli, Vanilli, not sure which-- committing suicide?

I am not ashamed I know that piece of trivia. I Love the 80s rocks.

Blame it on the rain, it was fallin' fallin'...

[Jay]

Kaz,
Couldn't agree more with you about the movie. For sure all of our experiences that day and the months afterward left an impression on us that will last forever. The documentary pieces that followed were equally stirring. I can't see a 2-3 hour movie meaning nearly as much. Not to mention the whole exploitation aspect of making millions of one of the most devastating events of my lifetime. I'd most likely be a lot more accepting if all the proceed were donated to a relative cause.

By the way I think us transplants do have it harder, at least you hometown fans can lick each others wounds. The long distance group therapy here does help though. repeat after me "ONLY THREE GAMES, ONLY THREE GAMES"

[Kaz]

Do you intentionally walk the 10-year-old who hits like he's 18 just to get to the 9-year-old who's a cancer survivor with a shunt in his head? Does it matter if it's the championship game? Can you believe that the two teams that made it were the Yankees and the Red Sox?

Utah Little League Controversy

[Mike]

Only lightweights back off. Something good is going to happen.

M

[Bob]

Sorry for the late post. Just finished digging myself out of the grave I buried myself alive in last night.

[Ghengis Ortiz]

Gotta agree with Yazbread. After the Monty Python thing (enjoyable, of course), all I could think about was Slim Pickens saying "Horses? Don't send the f*king horses!..." Anything else by Mel Brooks would have made my day, especially given the fact that I see the games first thing in the AM (I live on the other side of the world, and Keep the Faith).

I have a funny feeling that this is gonna get turned around...Timmy's back soon (I pray), Wells is going to take some pressure of the young'ins, and All Will Be Right in the World Again (I just wish Coco had an arm...)

And what about that piece by the curly haired freak with John Henry? It was like he's writing about his dream date with Kristy McNichol following some "After School Special"...yuk...make it stop, please.