Yep. This is what we've been reduced to discussing.

Bill:
So is Theo looking prescient for not signing Pedro now that it appears Petey is wearing out just when the Mets need him going into the playoffs?

 

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Mike:
Well, any fleeting sense of vindication is erased once one recalls that Theo also signed Batting Practice Beckett. How's that working out as Pedro replacement?

 

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Bill:
Fucking Beckett. I'm feeling like going all King Henry on his ass. "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

 

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Mike:
Why can't Beckett be more like David Beckham, you know?

 

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Bill:
You mean with a bendy pitch or something?

 

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Mike:
No, I mean with a hottorific wife. I mean if Beckham totally muffs up on the pitch, at least the fans can be distracted by the exploits of Posh.

 

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Bill:
You might be on to something. All this talk of VORP and OBP blah blah blah, but what the Sox really seem to be lacking are more spanktastic hot wives.

 

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Mike:
Once again, Manny seems to be pulling his weight at least.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, and then some. Heh.

 

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Don't look back, er, or up. Something might be gaining on you.

Bill:
We're numbah 2 again! Whooo!

 

---

Doug:
Fucking-A right. Nobody does second place bettah than the Red Sox.

 

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Bill:
OK, maybe it's because I'm just wicked pissed at how this season ended. Or maybe I'm just a cruel A-hole, but this totally cracks me up.

 

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Doug:
Bitch needs to learn to move her ass out of the way.

 

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Bill:
And if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: Wearing a trash bag rain coat won't protect you from flying spears. OK, people?

 

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Doug:
Hey, did you see Schilling's slip of the tongue? Says "if" he comes back next year.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, well, I feel the same way myself.

 

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And Nobody Mentions the 3rd Place Situation. (Well, Would You?)

Doug:
So watching the Saints Falcons game last night, the Manning Idolatry reached new heights.

 

---

Doug:
For instance, last night we learned ovah and ovah again from Joe Theisman that Drew Brees is one fuck of an awesome fella because, you know, he bought a house in New Orleans on the same street as … wait for it, wait for it … Archie Manning.

 

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Doug:
W00T!

 

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Mike:
"Football Royalty" they are now calling the Manning Clan.

 

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Doug:
Hey, maybe if Manny bought a house next to Archie Manning the press would staht saying nice things about him?

 

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Mike:
Yeah, right. More likely the headline in the Globe would be "There Goes the Neighborhood: Residents Complain Superstar Neighbor Is Aloof and 'Strange.'"

 

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Doug:
Interestingly, Horrigan has a piece in the Herald today quoting doctors saying that with Manny's type of injury you want to first try and give it time to heal and that "being sidelined for the better part of a month is normal."

 

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Mike:
Should we expect an apology from Gordon Edes for his weekend "Manny quit on his teammates" smeah job?

 

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Doug:
Yeah, and right after that the Muslims will apologize for conquering and occupying Spain for 800 or so years. That's so not gonna happen.

 

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March of the Jack Boots

Mike:
Well, Gordon Edes transformation from being one of the few level-headed membahs of the Boston Media to a total Shaughnessy/Buckley clone is now complete with his Manny-as-scapegoat piece from the weekend.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, to be fair, though, Manny himself is back asking to be traded for the umpteenth time.

 

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Mike:
Christ, at this point, I'd like to be traded myself. Being a Tigers fan is looking pretty sweet just about now.

 

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Mike:
But I don't see how getting rid of Manny's 28 win shares not to the deleterious effect Manny's absence in the order would have on Ortiz is the answer to the club's woes.

 

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Bill:
I dunno. If trading Manny meant a solid boost to the pitching staff, I'd be on board with that.

 

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Mike:
True, but when's the last time the Red Sox were on the bettah end of a trade?

 

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Bill:
Whoa, guy, sounds like you're no longer drinking the Kool-Aid Theo's serving, eh?

 

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Mike:
Yeah, I'm off the Kool-Aid, but I'm still living in the compound in Waco.

 

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Bill:
The problem with that metaphor, of course, is that David Koresh and the Branch Davidians got in trouble for stockpiling arms. Theo? Er, not so much.

 

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Bill:
Then again, maybe what the Sox front office needs right now is for somebody to go all Janet Reno on their asses and blow the shit up.

 

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Mike:
I'm sure the Boston Media will be lined up to drive the tanks.

 

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Take anything you want

Mike:
C'mon, guy, 52 dinghahs!? Feel the joy. Viva el Papi.

 

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Bill:
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for Ortiz, but jeez, being 10 plus back and locked out of the postseason has taken the warm and the fuzzy out of this cuddlefest for me.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, well, if it weren't for Papi's 52 it'd be more like 20 plus back and hope would have withered in June rather than September.

 

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Bill:
True, but still the way this season went down so abruptly it was like a mugging, you know? Like one minute you're skipping home at night aftah a few beahs with a smile on your face and then it's all whispahs in the shadows and there you are jumped by a couple of thugs.

 

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Mike:
Who smelt of pubs and wormwood scrubs?

 

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Bill:
Exactly. I first felt a fist, and then a kick, my life spun around me.

 

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Mike:
You know when it comes to preparing yourself for mugging, we have much to learn from the Japanese.

 

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I'd have a lot more readers if I wasn't, you know, so awesome and shit.

Doug:
So in a moment of introspection A-Rod wondahs aloud if one reason people don't like him is because he's "good-looking."

 

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Doug:
!!!!

 

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Mike:
I know, unbelievable. I read that bit five times ovah as it just didn't seem possible anyone could be that clueless. It's like some whacked out reverse zen koan or something.

 

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Doug:
I find myself in the in the bizarre circumstance of actually being embarrassed for the guy.

 

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Mike:
Absolutely. As much as I enjoy busting A-Rod's balls any chance I get, the truth is, I could nevah come up with anything even half as damning as the shit talk that comes out of A-Rod's own mouth.

 

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Doug:
I think this Verducci piece finally pushes A-Rod bashing into a jumping the shahk moment.

 

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Mike:
Seriously. It's one thing for us Red Sox fans to pile it on, but when his own teammates can't stand him or suggest that he might be afraid of the ball. Wow.

 

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Doug:
And, the coup de grace, Reggie Jackson, Mr. Octobah fercrissakes, thinks A-Rod's a pussy. I mean how do you top that?

 

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Mike:
Dave Pinto thinks all it'll take is one World Series victory and all this A-Rod Agonistas talk will fade away, but I'm not so sure.

 

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Mike:
I mean if anyone can totally fuck up the simple joy of victory by saying and/or doing something witless, it's Alex Rodriguez.

 

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Doug:
All I know is A-Rod ought to be thankful he's not a Red Sox fan. I mean as much as he's hated at least God still loves him.

 

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Mike:
No shit. After cutting us some slack once in 86 years, Yahweh's gone all Old Testament on our asses again.

 

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Doug:
David Ortiz hits 50 homahs with the Sox 11 back and on the same night the Yankees clinch their 11th consecutive division title? Can't wait to genuflect on that, I tell you what.

 

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Can we clone Peter Gammons?

Tara:
In these days of little good news, it's heartening to hear that Gammons is healthy enough to return to work.

 

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Bill:
And how cool is that after his brain rebooted baseball was the first thing on he thought about.

 

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Tara:
Yeah, and not just baseball but baseball trade minutia.

 

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Bill:
That's why he's 'The Commish' and everybody else isn't.

 

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Tara:
Absolutely. I mean can you imagine what the CHB's first words would be after waking up from aneurysm?

 

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Bill:
"Where's my wallet? Which one of you fanboys stole my friggin' wallet?"

 

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Tara:
Yeah, and in his first column back, there's no way Shaughnasty would be content with just a positive, life affirming list of all that he's grateful for without at least one potshot at the Red Sox.

 

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Bill:
Seriously CHB would be all, "And I want to thank the excellent doctors and medical staff, not a 'Manny being Manny' among that hardworking team for whom a day off is not in their vocabulary, thankfully."

 

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Day-Job Interruptus

Your omniscient author in absentia:
The Soxaholix will return on Wednesday, September 20^th. (I'm away on a business trip.)

 

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Put Some Meat on the Bones

Bill:
You know this whole celebrity anorexia has fashion statement trend has just gone too friggin fah.

 

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Bill:
I mean when an errant nipple slip goes from an occasion of titillated merriment to one of sheah revulsion you know something's terribly amiss.

 

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Doug:
Same goes for the damn Red Sox. This lets be skinny by avoiding the luxury tax and filling out the rostah with a bunch of cheap castoffs is no longah whetting my appetite.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, while Cashman is out shopping at Dean and Deluca with daddy's credit cahd, Theo's trolling the aisles of Stah Mahket looking for the orange "Manager's Special" stickahs.

 

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Doug:
At least Schilling says he thinks "there will be less attention paid to the payroll number this winter than there has been in the past."

 

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Bill:
Well, if Schilling says it, then it must be true, being the man of few words and all that he is.

 

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Doug:
All I know is if they don't open up the bank in the offseason, then somebody in the front offices got some serious splainin' to do.

 

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Bill:
Yeah, getting Fenway Park on the revised Monopoly is cool and all, but we want some more World Series bling for our Community Chest.

 

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Love is the saddest thing when it goes away

Steve:
This whole deal with the team being out of it in September, the games meaningless, yet you feel this guilt about turning away and not watching when the team still has to go out night after night and play through …,

 

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Steve:
Well, it's just like the feeling of end of a love affair, isn't i? You're just going through the motions but the love is gone, the passion is gone.

 

---

Bill:
Yeah, it's like the Jobim song. "What was I to say? What can you say when a love affair is over?"

 

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Steve:
Or the Beatles' "For No One" … "And in her eyes you see nothing/ No sign of love behind the tears/ Cried for no one / A love that should have lasted years"

 

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Bill:
At least it hasn't got quite as bad the DB's song "Amplifier."

 

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Steve:
Well, not yet.

 

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Fate is going to go all Medieval on our asses (again)

Mike:
Ah, as you might expect, Ortiz-MVP-gate continues.

 

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Doug:
Stah athlete says something regretable to the media and dog bites man! Extra, extra, read all about it.

 

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Mike:
I love this line from Edes: "Whether the controversy distracted Ortiz from the task at hand is unknown, but he grounded into a double play in his first at-bat last night before thrice flying out harmlessly to left …"

 

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Doug:
Yeah, Edes doesn't have a clue, but that isn't going to stop him from making the cause and effect inference. God how I love the hahd reporting and professionalism of the media.

 

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Mike:
"We have no evidence that David Ortiz is considering converting to Islam, but thrice your humble reporter saw him facing in the direction of Mecca during last night's game."

 

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Doug:
Speaking of thrice, I think the following loathsome threesome is inevitable: Derek Jetah gets the MVP, the Yankees win the World Series, and Johnny Damon comes out with another offseason book but this time it's titled Bride of the Yankees: How I Shed My Idiocy and Fell In Love With Mystique and Aura.

 

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Mike:
No kidding. It's going to be an offseason in which Red Sox fans resemble the poor condemned fuckers  in the third panel of Hieronymus Bosch's 'Earthly Delight' triptych.

 

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Doug:
Yep. We are going to learn there's a whole other meaning to the term "pokah face."

 

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When even metaphor turns its back on you

Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
You know even though I've written this season off, it's not like I'm over it.

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
How did it happen that the Sox need to go 9-10 in their remaining games just to win 85?

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Wound meet salt.

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
I suppose we should just roll with it.

 

Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
'Spose so …

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
I mean this playing out the string and all.

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
It gives me time to think

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
About the leaves gathering in corners,

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
lichen greening the high gray rocks,

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
and the world sailing on beyond the dunes —

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
huge, oceangoing history bubbling in its wake.

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Yeah, the whole world sailing off on the SS 2006 Yankees Champion Ship while we're in our little sailboats getting tossed in its wake and throwing up over the sides …

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Nice image that.

 

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Two guys walking, no words exchanged:

 

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Two guys walking, tall guy speaks:
Fuck.

 

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Two guys walking, short guy speaks:
Yep.

 

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At the end of the day, this strip is not about a banana.

Hart Brachen (author of the strip):
Hey, Hart here. I had to take an early morning airport run (yes, on 9/11, of all days), so my routine got jammed.

 

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Hart Brachen:
I'll leave it to the rest of you Soxaholix to carry on the day's dialog in the comments.

 

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Hart Brachen:
Here's something to get things started. What was the biggest surprise for you regarding the '06 season?

 

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MVP's of a different sort

Susan/Circle:
So I'm like totally disappointed that I only got to see one Peyton fucking Manning commercial per every commercial break during lasts night's Steelers Dolphins game.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Because, you know, nothing quite whets the consumer appetite to purchase a product like it being shilled by a guy most famous for failing when the game is on the line.

 

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Mike:
Seriously, I know I speak for everyone when I say that, really, an NFL broadcast would be all the sweetah if only every commercial gave us the opportunity to behold his slit eyed, hillbilly countenance.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Too funny. When I first saw the commercial featuring not one, but two Mannings, I thought. 'What the fuck is this? A casting call for a remake of Deliverance?'

 

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Mike:
The thing is, as menacingly retahded as Peyton Manning looks without his helmet on, the dude looks just as stupid with it.

 

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Susan/Circle:
I swear dude wears the most ginormous helmet in the NFL evah.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, he can totally pick up Al-Jazeera with that thing.

 

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Susan/Circle:
I don't know if it's just a result of the Sox being out of it and my mind drifting to football, but I'm stahting to think Peyton Manning has surpassed A-Rod for the Most Vile Player Award.

 

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Mike:
There's a case to be made for that, certainly. I mean with A-Rod, despite his pretty boy, blue-lipped, ball slapping, "dropping the shoulder move" absurdity, you at least get the sense that he'd prefer not to be a dick and that he's really trying, some would say overly trying, to compensate for his negative image.

 

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Susan/Circle:
But Manning, on the other hand, seems to relish in being a dickwad. Shit, he's even a turd to his own teammates. How bad is that?

 

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Mike:
Absolutely, and as far as I know, A-Rod has nevah shoved his naked ass in some woman's face.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Ah, hold on …

 

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Susan/Circle:
– – –

 

---

Susan/Circle:
OK, I just puked in my own mouth.

 

---

I feel dirty, Sanchez

In a season filled with more bad news than good, you never know just what may cause an otherwise stalwart Red Sox fan to lose his or her marbles …

Bill:
In Anibel Sanchez's MLB debut he pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings against the motherfucking Yankees.

 

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Bill:
Last night he pitched a no-hitter.

 

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Bill:
Bronson Arroyo? Cla Meredith?

 

---

Bill:
Who in truth does not love the pitter-patter of The Sick on their picturesque way to an automatic Mommy?

 

---

Bill:
Seriously.

 

---

Bill:
It's so foreign, so breathtakingly inconsequential.

 

---

Bill:
And it seems everyone is going that way.

 

---

Bill:
Where's my fucking crazy pills, Doctor? Doctor?

 

---

My boyfriend's back and there's gonna be trouble

Doug:
So the long national nightmare is ovah …

 

---

Mike:
Absolutely. Ortiz is back and Pap's rotahtah cuff is fine.

 

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Doug:
Well, yeah, there's that …

 

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Mike:
Dude, what else is there?

 

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Doug:
Ah, c'mon, get out from undah your rock and behold the at long last unveiling of Suri Cruise! Alas, now I can get on with my life.

 

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Mike:
Heh. So true. Meanwhile Shaughnessy has found his meme and he's sticking to it: The Red Sox front [cough] Theo Epstein [cough] office gave up on the club too soon and now we are totally fucked.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, totally gotta give the CHB credit for his gamble paying off. I mean back ovah two weeks ago, in the midst of one of the nastiest tailspins evah, he floats the idea that the Sox management is living for 2007 and forsaking 2006.

 

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Doug:
I mean at the time, most everyone thought the season was sunk, so that "why are they quitting now?" angle was a real deviation from the conventional wisdom.

 

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Doug:
Now with the club showing glimmahs of a revival of sorts, taking it to the Chi Sox and gaining games in the Wild Card race, the CHB can really shake his curly locks and get his total fucking gloat on. Brah-vo.

 

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Mike:
Yeah, you go Dan-O, whoop that bitch Theo for "raising the white flag."

 

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Doug:
Fuck yeah, because if anyone can teach us a lesson in being hopeful and nevah evah giving up on the Red Sox, it's Dan 'Sunshiny Day' Shaughnessy.

 

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Poking the embers

Bill:
Well, I'll be damned, there's some fun left in this season aftah all.

 

---

Mike:
Yeah, what an unexpected Labah Day treat.

 

---

Bill:
No kidding, when I saw Bat Shit Tavarez scheduled to staht, (to staht?!) I was like, 'Fuck, this is going to go about as well as Mel Gibson showing up at Shabbat carrying two bottles of Cuervo and one's already half empty.'

 

---

Mike:
Good to hear that Papelbon isn't ready to toss in the towel.

 

---

Bill:
Ah, the wine of youth.

 

---

Mike:
Hey, with Manny, Trot and V-Tek back and Ortiz on the cusp, it's not crazy to hope.

 

---

Bill:
Well, A drunk in bed with a cigarette might cause 5 fiah engines and 33 men, so, yeah, anything can happen I suppose.

 

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Mike:
Jeez, guy, that's the spirit.

 

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If we can't enjoy the fruits of the Red Sox labor, at least we can enjoy our own.

The Soxaholix are jump starting the Labor Day Weekend. And so should you. Despite the CHB's lame-oh agitprop suggesting otherwise, there's really no value in being angry or demanding answers (or heads) or otherwise going ape shit over the denouement of the '06 season. It is what it is. Now, without further adieu, I give you Lisa the Temp …

Lisa the Temp:
Everybody but the temp gets to start the long weekend early. Well la-dee-fucking-da. May your sorry asses all get stuck in mind numbing holiday traffic.

 

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Lisa the Temp:
By the way, I know you talk about me when I'm not here, bitches.

 

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