Getting the party started

Al:
There's hahbingahs and then there's friggin hahbingahs.

 

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Doug:
Are you kidding me? Pedroia put the mofo "binge" in hahbingah.

 

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Mike:
"Hello, my name is MVP!"

 

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Doug:
And what about Beckett? He gave as dominant a regular-season performance as he has in a Red Sox uniform.

 

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Mike:
Hell, even Tek opened with a bang.

 

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Al:
Yeah, Tek showed he's still got a big stick to match his beefy man glutes.

 

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Mike:
!

 

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Al:
Did I just say that out loud?

 

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Doug:
Hey, way to put the "Ho" in homoerotic, Al.

 

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Al:
No bigs. I'm secure in my heterosexuality enough to make statements like that.

 

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Doug:
Yeah, you know what I'm secure about? Red Sox pitching that's what. Ace numbah one yestahday. Ace numbah two tonight. Ace numbah 3 tomorrow aftahnoon.

 

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Mike:
Then inning eatah, knuckleball dazzlah, and all around good guy Timmah.

 

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Doug:
Oh, yeah, and then followed by Brad "Back to throwing 96mph Penny" as the 5th, that's right the 5th!, stahtah.

 

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Al:
Meanwhile, our dear friends in the Bronx continue to have some, er, questions.

 

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Doug:
Mystique and Aura — Ur not doin it rite. Heh.

 

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Comments

[louclinton]

See, the best thing about Tuesday's game is that it replicated the game we all played in our head every day of the off-season: Beckett dominant and dealing, Masterson bailing out Oki, and then Paps closing the door. Tek hitting a blast and My Little Pedroia jumping on the first pitch he saw (was it a high inside fastball?). The game could have been 9-3, but the Sox didn't close the deal a few times.

Meanwhile, the MLB Network. Sorry, folks. The MLB Tonight experiment is not good. Apparently sensitive to the notion that it's hard to fill up 8 hours a night with aimless nattering, the show had a lot more drop-ins, "special moments" and other fluff to fill things out last night. But it's a concept rich in possibilities but lacking in execution.

A case in point: A gentlemen by the name of Causey was pitching for the Jays and sailed an intentional walk pitch to the backstop during a live cut-in last night. Finally something interesting happened. The baseball savants proceeded to "break it down" for the next 20 minutes, during which time the errant pitch seemed to be on a continuous loop on the screen. Too much time was devoted to a nothing event, but the MLB Network seemed desperate for something-anything-out of the ordinary that they beat it into the ground.

[Bob]

Funny as shit.

I actually told Abby this morning, "H.B. is either going to title his strip "Harbinger," or "Omen Part 3."

I can live with about 99-105 more of those games.

[Bob]

Oh, going to the game tonight. Tha sneaky little craphead Cashmere Sweater is pitching against us.

Copperfield's Down Under, 5:30-ish if anybody else is going.

[SAC]

Sham-WOW!

[Jeff in NC]

lc - I must agree with your MLB tonite assessment. I watched, er, tried to watch and had to quit. The show made my brain functions stop. Lots of possibilities, but whoeverwhicehever team is in the production booth is smoking the kind. They can't keep up with the discussion on the set. At one point, Harold Reynolds is trying his damnedest to explain why the cutter saved so and so's career and after about every 2 1/2 sentences the screen cut to some who gives a shit live update of a meaningless middle inning at bat. The host has to interrrupt to intro the off point stuff on the viewer's screen, with HR huffing in the background about constantly being interrupted.

How am I supposed to smoke the good stuff and keep up with the show when the show can't keep up with my addled brain? I, the viewer, am the one who is supposed to drift off to space every few minutes and then get brought back by a lively discussion.

Now - the REDSOX. Oh Baby! Its only game 1/162, but sooooo much better to start off this way than the CC Yankee way.

[COD]

I'm looking forward to hanging on to first place for the next 161 games. It would be perfect if the $190 million payroll doesn't spend a single day in first place this season.

[h.b.]

I'm willing to cut the MLB network a little slack. Running a network like that is a difficult task. It'll take some time for them to figure it out.

Anybody here old enough to remember the early days of ESPN? OMG talk about amateur hour. It was years before they turned it into anything resembling its current form.

More recent, remember MLB.com's first forays in web audio and video streaming? It was teh suck. But it improved dramatically each season.

[RonF]

Loved following the game at work on MLB.com. Loved 7 innings, 2 hits, 3 walks, 1 run, 10 Ks. Not so much love for Oki, but much man love for Papelbon.

Thank you gentlemen, may I have another?

[COD]

I can remember when ESPN wasn't all sports. They did a 3 or 4 hour CNBC style business news program in the morning.

I still think $15 for streaming audio of every MLB game all season is the greatest deal on the web.

[Bob]

Double reverse goouch (reverse-protected by another reverse):

Beckett will win 24 games, but miss a week in August due to an unnamed malady involving puss and one testicle.

[Soulie]

I'm with you on the MLB Network, HB. The NHL network is still young, and evolving at a pretty good clip. Plus, if the bar to get over are the clowns on Baseball Tonight, the MLB folks should pass them by the all-star break.

[yazbread]

Listened to the game on XM on the drive home. Caught the final out with Remg Dog and Orsillo. The off-season is my version of a Lenten fast and it is officially over.

[Scott]

Nice way to start the season.

ESPN sucks. Anything else is better than that biased network. I wish nothing but the worst for them. MLB.com is where I catch highlights now. Box score and game recap.

Here's to hoping that the pitching trend continues for game 2.

[Jeff in NC]

But I feel like MLB Tonight should already be further along in its production quality. The early days of ESPN were rough - agreed. But the technology available to them at the time and the fact that they were the first to ever do this type thing makes the rough going very understandable.

I very much want MLB Tonight and the whole network to succeed, but they need to go get some better production folks on the payroll. If NESN, a small network with far less resource can do a decent highlight show, couldn't MLB have done better right out of the gate? I'm just sayin'...

Perhaps if they put Hazel's nice attributes there in the studio, the production fubars would be less noticed?

[Kaz]

I was twittering the game live while at work with the Gameday Audio, MLB Gameday web app, and my fantasy team stattracker running on one screen, and some really really uninteresting work on the other.

It was glorious.

You can use http://search.twitter.com to search for #redsox during the game and see everyone's tweets as the game goes along. It's like a virtual Fenway fan section in there.

If anyone wants to find me on Twitter, I log in as DrKaz

Also, if anyone had my GamedayAudio login information from last year, it's still applicable this year. If you lost it or don't have it and want to listen to all of the games online all year, let me know at: [email protected]

I get a lot of spam at that particular email address, so I'm sorry if I don't see your request right away.

BTW, If you have an iPhone, free Gameday Audio is even included in the purchase of the MLB 2009 application (as well as tracking all the games live and highlight videos streamed to your phone).

[h.b.]

That's great info, Kaz. Thanks.

I'm going to try to do more with Twitter and the characters this season. That game time tweet follow opens up all sorts of possibilities.

[Bob]

Oh God.

I love you H.B. and Kaz. But Twitter is driving me crazy lately.

I suppose when it's used properly (actual important news, info, fun entertainment, etc.) it would be good, but 99% of the tweets I get are along the lines of: "brushing my teeth and one of the bristles came loose in my mouth."

I'll alert the media.

[h.b.]

Bob,

I hear you. One of the reasons why my "all the characters will tweet" idea is how much trouble I'm having just with the trial bit I've done with Doug.

I just don't enjoy it the way I enjoy doing the strips, so it's days/weeks between Doug's tweets.

I'd still like to try adding at least two more characters though before I give up.

If only Soxaholix and all things related *was* my day job... Ah, a man can dream.

Meanwhile, back to the Dutch Rudder....

[Harwich Rich]

YIKES :))

[Kaz]

I follow Doug on Twitter, and a few times you write something as Doug and I catch myself getting ready to tell you off for quoting shitty statistics for political gain, etc...and I remind myself how dumb I think it would be to argue with a make-believe character and don't bother.

Also, just to be clear, I don't know what those subject hashes (like #redsox or #sxsw09 or #obama) are "officially" called. I call them "channels". So, to make sure your tweets get into the "channels" for others to aggregate in a search (or their personal Twitter feed viewers), you actually have to use the channel name as part of your 140 characters.

Sample:

Goes only to people following me::
DrKaz: "Pedroia just put one over the Green Monster!!"

Goes to anyone reading the #redsox search/feed::
DrKaz: "Pedroia just put one over the Green Monster!! #redsox"

[sonomasox]

Forget Twitter - try Flutter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeLZCy-_m3s

T-minus 5 days & counting: Sox @ that shit-stain stadium in Oak. Get to see two old heros (OC & Nomah) and a roid monster - Juiceambi.

[Harwich Rich]

Forget Flutter-try Fluffer :)

[louclinton]

@sonomasox

we are jealous. Maybe you will be there for $1 beer night. I've told the story a few timers before. Let's just say it's no place to take you 15 yearold son and your lovely spouse

lc

[louclinton]

oh man, there's a great fluff... reference on Urban Dictionary, but it's too disgusting even for me to post. Hey kids, here's a game search UD for fluffer and see if you can figure out which one I'm talking about.

[Kaz]

It's ok, lc, I'm sure Mani Martinez knows what they call him.

[Kaz]

A little Jobafreude:

The dashcam footage of his DUI arrest

[sonomasox]

//it's no place to take you 15 yearold son and your lovely spouse//

Agreed - although we did take our 19mos and 1mos boys there last May. And we usually attend w/ two good friends weighing in at a combined 495lbs.

[pseudosanity78]

Fan-figgin-tastic game, but...

Can I just pipe in with a comment about MLB.com's rubbish service?

Being in Blighty I have no choice but I'd like to kick their webmaster(s) in the spunkjunk.

[Jeff in NC]

OK lc - I played your game. You suck:) I was mildly grossed out by the fluffer butter and the fluffer sandwich, but having previously seen 2 girls 1 cup, they weren't all that awful. Then I came to Fluffer Nuttinher. Good lord. I quit this game - I'm going home to wash my mind out with.. well.. I'm sure I can find something that'll work in one of those bottles by the rocks glasses.

[paddy24]

Did you hear the news? Out of three right-handed hitters, Rocco Baldelli is the best among Jason Bay and Mike Lowell. Yeah, better than Jason Bay who has over a .500 slugging percentage lifetime. Thank you, Tito, for more of your stupidity. Yes, you heard right. Rocco Baldelli hit 5th tonight. Is it any wonder the Rays finished ahead of the Red Sox? Tito has become such a tool. At least he can't do any thing worse than leaving a starter in for eight runs in a competetive game that would have seen us go up 2-0 after two road games in the ALCS.

[da kine]

Nobody goes 162-0.