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Bill:
How do you think The Boss is feeling right now? Aftah decades of micromanaging the Yankees he finally relinquishes total control to his minions and this is the thanks he gets?
Doug:
Right up the Bronx poopah. 6½ back, dead last in the AL East.
Bill:
Of course, one must issue the standard disclaimah … Information relates to April only and should not be relied upon as the sole source of information related to the 162 game regulah season. It's early yet and additional circumstances may arise that altah current perceptions. No warranty, eithah expressed or implied, is made with respect to the final outcome of the AL East.
Bill:
Hmmm … 1918? 2004? Those dates sound familiah somehow … like they have some sort of significance that I just can't seem to place right now …
Doug:
So good, so good, so good.
Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
What amuses me most about the call for DNA testing and to some extent Schilling's own terse response is that it wouldn't necessarily prove anything.
Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
I mean why would Schilling use paint instead of his own blood if he were to fake it?
Doug:
So are you ready for another weekend sweep, Arturo?
Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
Beware the reverse sweep is what I'm thinking.
Doug:
Jeez, who put the sour in your kraut? The Sox are rolling.
Doug:
OK, so they are facing Batshit Tavarez in this series, 2 out of 3 then for us.
Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
I'm thinking if we get out of there with 1 we'll be lucky. Wakefield has been very effective against the Yankees, Aaron Boone notwithstanding.
Doug:
What, no love for Matsuzaka?
Arturo, the hot dog vendor:
To me it looked like the Yankees had a good read on him last week, now facing him for the second time 5 days latah? Tonight could get really ugly really fast.
Doug:
Jeez, it's bad enough I'm going to ingest mystery meat products stuffed into a synthetic collagen casing, but I've got to take your doom and gloom, too? Jeez.
Susan/Circle:
You know, it's one thing to have doubts about Schilling's bloody sock, but it's quite anothah thing entiahly to straight up lie.
Mike:
Belli ought to sue that whoah mongah Gary Thorne.
Susan/Circle:
No kidding, even Rosie O'Donnell has better journalist standahds than this douchebag.
Susan/Circle:
Senile old faht should stick to hockey.
Mike:
I tell you, I'm not going to take this disgrace.
Susan/Circle:
Me neithah. I'm gonna be like mace in his face all ovah myspace.
Mike:
I'm gonna blog and text and post and hoax and podcast that bastahd's ass from coast to coast.
Continue reading "Don't eff with "The Sock"" »
Bill:
They may want to considah slapping an "M" for Mature Audiences rating on Red Sox games if those guys continue to muff it up like that.
Mike:
Really. I mean think of the poor kids fercrissakes.
Mike:
It's bad enough for the adults. Seeing Wily Mo dropp Adam Lind's line drive with two outs in the 6th very well may have scarred me for life™.
Bill:
You know, even though Wily Mo P plays outfield like a crash test dummy and couldn't lay off a pitch if the fate of the free world depended on it, I can't help but really like and root for the guy.
Mike:
Absolutely. Because we project upon Wily Mo our own aspirations and childhood dreams of being contendahs before the reality of our own flaws and weaknesses grounded us.
Bill:
Hmmm … You don't say? And here I thought it was just because I liked seeing his colossal homerun shots.
Mike:
Same thing, bro, same thing.
Bill:
Two moah dingahs from A-Rod, though. He continues to be on supah fiah.
Bill:
To be faih, at least A-Rod himself is being circumspect in all of this and is letting his bat alone do all the talking. I can totally respect that.
Doug:
Seriously, do you know how lucky we are that for the most paht ballplayas, despite saying some stupid things, don't get all holiah than thou on us?
If a reliever falls in Fenway and everyone is there to see, it makes one frig of a sound …
Unknown Yankees fan:
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Mike:
Yeah, Ryan's sports knowledge is so deep that he's probably forgotten more about baseball than I'll ever know, but his idea that only Red Sox fan behavior is boorish while all things Yankees fan related are gilded with sang froid is so absurd it's laughable.
Mike:
Maybe it's time for Ryan to climb down from the self-centered prism of his lofty press box and actually sit among the great unwashed in The Stadium to get a healthy dose of realism.
Mike:
Yeah, those Yankees fans are just so classy.
Doug:
Dude, I'm so friggin' pissed.
Doug:
That's just it. The guy is effin-A awesome, but think about it: when is the last time you recall Tim Wakefield's name coming up around here?
Doug:
See, what I'm sayin'? It's all Matsuzaka this and Beckett that and Schilling this with ne'er a word about our crafty and reliable Knuckleman.
Bill:
Christ, we've talked about Batshit Tavarez more than Wakefield!
Bill:
If there's an exile island for Red Sox Nation, we should be sent there to do penance.
Doug:
But 13 friggin' seasons with the Red Sox and God knows how manny innings in every mound role imaginable and Tim Wakefield doesn't even get a t-shirt?!?!?
Bill:
I hate myself right now.
Doug:
As Red Sox fans, we should hang our collective heads in shame.
Somewhere deep in the bowels of Gotham, a bravado mounts …
Unknown Yankees fan:
So I guess the Red Sux should have saved a bit of the cash they showered on Matsuzaka to buy themselves some hits. Bwahahahaa.
Unknown Yankees fan:
Of course. It's the Yankees way.
Marty:
You know who I really feel badly for in all of this? The people of Japan.
Marty:
As each day the sun rises on the 162 game season they'll gradually discern the horror of their national pitching hero having the inordinate misfortune to sign with Beantown Bozos.
Unknown Yankees fan:
Yes, despite the Dunkin' Donuts ads in Japanese and the sushi at Fenway, what somehow got lost in translation is the story of how the Red Sox have for generations defined pronounced suckitude in sports.
Marty:
At least the Japanese fans have Matsui to remind them rooting for a major league baseball team doesn't always have to be a one-way kamikaze mission into oblivion.
Doug:
What the frig, though. Dude throws a pizza slice at a guy who was "giving him shit." Aren't Red Sox fans supposed to be toughah than that?
Mike:
Worse, the dude does while the othah guy is already preoccupied with the foul ball and ensuing beeah spill. You know all sneaky fraidy cat like.
Doug:
I assume, of course, that everyone involved is now scarred for life™.
Doug:
You know, one nation easily trod, divisible, with sniffling and cowardice for all.
Doug:
Yeah, but even more surprising than the sand vs. mud pregame ball rub prep was that the Globe actually credited and linked the blog Matsuzaka Watch as a source.
Mike:
Now word yet, though, on whetheah Mike Plugh, the bloggah, lives in his mom's basement or not.
Mike:
Christ, I hope so. It's bad enough to have cold and rain, rain and cold day aftah day, but when you don't have baseball neithah? Total suck.
Bill:
Imagine how Batshit Tavarez feels. He hasn't pitched since game 5 back in Texas.
Mike:
Well, Tavarez says he's "not mad at all, not at all" and that he's "having fun" and it "doesn't bother" him at all.
Bill:
Which, of course, translates too: "I'm going batshit crazy and if I don't pitch soon I'm going to go Aztec ritual on the first mofo who looks at me crosswise!"
Mike:
Heh. Best paht of these rainouts is now it's Schilling, Beckett and Matsuzaka against the Yankees this weeked.
Bill:
I still feel that having a series with the Yankees in April is like the stores putting out the Christmas stuff in before Halloween is even ovah, but, yeah, if we have to play those guys this early, let it be with the meat of the rotation.
Mike:
Yeah, well, don't get your hopes up. The Yankees have struggled in previous springs … 11 and 17 in May 2003, only 11 and 10 in April '04, and an awful 10 and 14 April in '05, yet each year aftah the 162 they were on top.
Bill:
And a helluva lot of good that's done 'em. Oh-fer-the-21st-Century.
Mike:
You know, I nevah tiah of hearing that one.
Rainouts often leave one feeling moody and introspective …
Bill (thinking to himself):
Whither the "suffocative nature" of Red Sox fandom?
Bill:
Guess we didn't see this Haiku coming …
Mike:
Yeah, well …
Wind blown spring blossom
Tenuously clings the gnarled branch:
Ripe summah cherry.
Bill:
Absolutely. It's a long growing season.
Doug:
May the ghosts of Coopahstown smite your freckled Irish ass for having the gall to juxtapose those two names in the same sentence.
Mike:
Heh, yeah, instead of Beseme Mucho Beckett was singing No Hitta Me Mucho.
Mike:
Yeah, I only wish they could have saved some of those runs for today. Wink.
Mike:
Wow, that's so beautiful. Love the way the Japanese playahs elevate the language surrounding the game.
Doug:
Yeah, well, as for that fiah Ichiro wants stahted, hope he likes the smell of his ass being sweated.
Mike:
Ah, so much for the eloquent imagery.
Doug:
Peanuts? Check. Red Sox Media Guide? Check. Red Sox cap? Check. Mittens, Parka, and Electronically heated pants? Check. Check. And Check.
Bill:
OK, Mr. Beckett let's win one for the Saugus Dinosaur.
Bill:
The sacrilegious sonzabitches.
Mike:
Yeah, the NOTY was Dong's before Dong was the NOTY's.
Susan/Circle:
Absolutely, just like with Papelbon being anothah gift outright: The closah role was his before he was the closah.
Mike:
The Papelbon we were withholding made us weak …
Susan/Circle:
But not anymore. As Schilling writes, "Papelbon was incredible last night. It’s not what he did as much as it is how he did it and who he did it against."
Mike:
One out and men on first and third in a one-run game against the Rangahs' best hittah Michael Young.
Mike:
Christ, and with the new radio broadcast team leaving much to be desiahed, muting the TV and going with the radio feed isn't as good of an option.
Susan/Circle:
Yeah, when the Sox are on the national broadcast only, we are totally stuck between Scylla and Charybdis.
Mike:
The performance was so strong even the CHB gushes, "in his first game Matsuzaka delivered on all the expectations that accompanied his celebrated journey to America's major leagues"
Bill:
As David Pinto wrote after the Matsuzaka's fourth inning, "My advice to the AL after watching that inning: Be afraid, be very afraid."
Doug:
And that's all the mattahs, a win is a win regahdless of how you got it.
Doug:
How is it we live in a world where Sangina is in the top 8 on AI but Jim Rice, Jim freakin Rice, isn't in the Hall of Fame?
Mike:
Don't go all negamatory on me … Don't you know what today is?
Mike:
Royals, make your time.
Mike:
I don't get it. I don't know a single person who gives a rat's ass about reading a live blog, yet, they persist.
Bill:
Live blogging is like Paris Hilton. I don't give a shit about what she does or what she says, and yet she's always on the friggin' TV.
Mike:
Yeah, I heard Amnesty International is all up in ahms because down in Gitmo they force the enemy combatants to read live blogs as a form of torture.
Bill:
Go ahead and flush my Koran, mofo infidel, just don't subject me to that!
Mike:
So Diamond Mind's 2007 projection where they simulated the season 200 times doesn't do any favahs for the Red Sox. The computer predicts 3rd place and only 86 wins.
Mike:
Of course, if the Diamond Mind's algorithm predicted, say, 98 wins for the Sox …
Bill:
Yeah, yeah, in that case I'd be all "Woo-Hoo, I'm Alan Turing's bee-atch!"
Bill:
Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds and all that, you know …
Bill:
Ah, frig, it's now apparent I didn't use Spring Training to properly get myself into a game-ready state …
Doug:
Are you kidding me? I've got a hangovah so brutal that before beating the band it first humiliates it, degrades it, and then ass rapes it.
Bill:
Well, at least we got Schilling's blog to delve deep into the innah workings of what went wrong.
Bill:
Looking at the brightside, this now gives Josh Beckett a chance to step up tomorrow and be the kind of staff stud who stops losing streaks dead in their tracks.
Doug:
Yeah, well, let's hope Mr. Beckett learned his first year lessons well and now understands the A.L. food chain — A diet consisting only of fastballs creates a predatory feast for the hittahs …
Doug:
But leaves the guy on the mound looking like an emaciated gazelle on the sub-Saharan plain during the dry season.
Doug:
There's morning wood and then there's the morning of Opening Day wood.
Doug:
101, brothah, one-oh-effin-one!
Continue reading "At the still point of the turning world" »
