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Doug:
So is the ass still half-full this morning?
Mike:
You know, I really want to believe this is going to end in a comeback fantasy.
Mike:
My gut says we can catch and surpass the Rays between now and game 162.
Doug:
Yeah, daunting, right?
Doug:
The Sox have to not just play well, but a very good Tampa team has to collapse a bit.
Mike:
Yeah, otherwise come Octobah it's going to be the time of mists and bittah fruitlessness with nothing but a coupla shrunken gourds in our hands.
Doug:
Seriously, we'll look back at 2010 chase for the pennant and think, "That was a real glum hunt."
Mike:
Seriously, the perennial CHB "The Sox look like they are ready for a big stretch run" column is always ominous.
Doug:
Yeah, it's like your phone showing you've got a voice mail from Mel Gibson waiting for you.
Mike:
To be fair, though, Shaughnessy's onto something when he writes, "There's nothing crazy about the notion that this team can make up 4 1/2 games on Tampa Bay over the final two months of the season."
Lisa the Temp:
Oh, hello my lil' runts.
Lisa the Temp:
Wait... Why so glum?
Lisa the Temp:
5 games back in the wildcard got you down?
Lisa the Temp:
Oh, I know what'll blunt the glum...
Lisa the Temp:
Wanna see Lisa in a bikini!?
Doug:
Well, yeah, everyone likes to hear that.. well, expect maybe Mel Gibson.
Bill:
Seriously, Mel would say it something like this:
"You want a nice trade deadline pickup? Fuck you. You don't know what it takes to make a fan happy. I'm so sorry I ever shared a world series with you, you fucking fake. Switch-hitting catcher? Well you should go and fuck him. You glum cunt."
Doug:
Note to self: Increase personal, daily use vocab to include regulah use of the word glum.
Doug:
Nobody watches the Red Sox anymore, they're too populah.
Bill:
Seriously, though, there's definitely a palpable sense that things are less intense these days.
Bill:
I mean look at the drop off in SoSH?
Bill:
And I know for a fact (on background) that one creepy fan site is down 20% in visits and 17% in page views year ovah year, and don't even ask about the ad revenue decline.
Bill:
Hell look around, even here in the office trips to the water coolah for Sox talk are on the wane.
Doug:
Yeah, well, conversely, my trips to the watah bong are at an all time high.
Doug:
And my watah bong enhanced wisdom says don't fret ovah ratings and popularity.
Doug:
Well, it's like this —
"If a homerun is hit in an empty stadium and nobody is there to to see it, where did I put that bag of Doritos?"
Bill:
That reminds me... when and the frig is Frito-Lay going to introduce the Sriracha flavored Dorito?
Doug:
Seriously, we're dyin' up heah!
Mike:
A postgame pressah
So many questions asked –
Sound of falling snow.
Al:
Yeah, somebody call Ma Joad because we've got one fucked up Oki.
Mike:
Despite all this, the Sox still have one of the best records in baseball.
Al:
Yeah, I'm trying to get my head around how it might feel to finish with the 4th best record in baseball and *not* make the playoffs.
Bill:
Hey, I went to a no-hittah and a hitting stampede broke out.
Doug:
Now I know why they friggin call it a bullpen – Last night's bottom of the 9th felt like I was running down the streets of Pamplona with the sound of hooves on cobblestone gaining on me.
Bill:
Hey, Seattle, is that a bull's horn in your pocket are you just glad to see the Red Sox pen?
Doug:
Seattle's the worst offense in all of baseball and yet that's how it plays out?
Doug:
Talk about a cry for help. Theo are you listening?
Doug:
Seriously, noir is fine for film and photography, but keep it away from the Red Sox, mmmmm-kay?
Doug:
So, is it possible to be a realist, and by realist I mean someone who doesn't think the the Red Sox have a Budweiser's chance in Saud to make up ground, and *still* be on the bandwagon.
Mike:
Well, I think that's a case of not so much thinking of a metaphorical bandwagon as thinking more in terms of, say, a depression era jalopy loaded with all your earthly possessions as you drive West with the the Dust Bowl at your back.
Mike:
Exactly. On the bandwagon? Ah... not so much. On the old, dilapidated, rickety and lurching truck for a long journey? Hell yeah, slide ovah and make room for my waxed smooth ass.
Mike:
Heh. I nevah knew George Wendt was in The Grapes of Wrath?
Doug:
Dudes, don't fuck with Ma Joad.
Doug:
Ma Joad may not be too pretty, but Ma Joad would nevah wear a pink hat neithah.
Mike:
Well that was tough loss.
Susan/Circle:
Yeah, things were going swell until the ump went all Judge Marsha Revel ovah Lindsey Lohan on us?
Mike:
Except the Red Sox didn't deserve that fate.
Susan/Circle:
Honestly, do any of deserve our fates when fate whacks us?
Susan/Circle:
You know, it's bad enough having to live through the most racially divisive times in decades...
Susan/Circle:
But at the same time we also have to live through one of the best Yankees teams in decades?
Susan/Circle:
I know they say instant Karma's gonna get you but I nevah heard anyone say instant Karma's gonna ass rape you.
Mike:
Hey, quit your bitchin', at least we're not living through the worst ecological disastah in decades.
Bill:
Behold the Lunah Mothra!
Mike:
"He was tremendous," Francona said. "First-pitch strikes, 19 of 24. Power to his pitches, slider, cutter. Two walks."
Bill:
Two walks? Two walks? Srsly?
Mike:
Dude, Dice is 5-0 this season when walking two or fewah battahs.
Bill:
Hmmm... call me crazy but maybe, just maybe, there is some sort of, I dunno, "pattern" at work here?
Mike:
From the artist's brush
A nature scene, growing grass –
Look! It's almost dry.
.
Al:
Yep, it's ominous alright, like watching the blue gray line of German troops crossing the Rhine.
Doug:
Still the the best looking uniform in the history of human conflict.
Mike:
No way. Nothing beat the Afrika Korps shorts.
Mike:
I mean you step out of tank in a pair of shorts? Fuck yeah. You're basically saying to the enemy, "I'm so fucking not scared of you that I can't even be bothered to put on long pants."
Doug:
Hey, it's good to see the 2nd half is stahting out just like the 1st half.
Al:
Texas sent nine men to the plate in the first?
Al:
7even runs — 6 of them earned — and 8 hits in two-plus innings.
Doug:
Seriously. That ain't no Wake and Bake.
Al:
Good thing there's still a whole lotta season left.
Mike:
Yeah but if the 2nd half goes by like the 1st, I'm going to all of a sudden wake up and find it's the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
Doug:
And swelling of the gourds, don't forget that paht.
Al:
Right. Nevah forget the gourd.
Your omniscient author in absentia:
I'm working from home today as my wife has to attend a workshop; consequently, I'm on puppy duty.
As things go, the little bugger has been bouncing off the walls (quite literally) the past 3 hours and only recently tuckered out and fell asleep.
As a result, I've got nothing this morning.
Bill:
In the famous words of Doctah "Bones" McCoy, "He's dead, Jim."
Mike:
Aftah all that has been texted, tweeted, facebooked, blogged, commented, crawled, and ESPNified is there anything left to say?
Bill:
Seriously. The only thing left is for Suzyn Waldman to summon her innah LaToya Jackson batshit and call a press conference saying ol' George was murdered.
Mike:
All I know is that we've come to bury The Boss and not praise him.
Mike:
Ah, the unctous warblings of the sycophant. How sweet.
Al:
Hey, at least the Sox are winning something. Helps me shake off the DL-induced blues.
Doug:
Woot! Next up — A Nobel Peace Prize.
Mike:
Nevah happy are we, Doug?
Bill:
But these days I'm just resigned to the fact that in the end it really doens't friggin mattah.
Doug:
What I can't believe is how Shaughnessy hasn't managed to weigh in.
Doug:
I figured he'd be like a Curly Haired Great White with all that bloody chum getting tossed ovahboard into the watah.
Bill:
Does he go with the Ellsbury is a whining, Boras manipulated, pansy who lied to the team and doesn't fit in angle?
Bill:
Or does he go with the eeevil Red Sox and their extra eeevil medical staff who don't care for a player's overhaul in their ends justify the means quest of the filthy lucre?
Doug:
Yeah, he's probably just out there circling with his lifeless eyes, doll's eyes ...
Bill:
More like rheumy eyes I think, but in eithah has case, here's to the 35th Anniversary of Jaws release in theaters.
Doug:
Yeah, and here's to hoping the Red Sox season doesn't go down like the Orca.
Doug:
Yeah, but if the Red Sox can somehow be like Michael Caine's character Hoagie Newcombe in that scene where he falls off the boat and then it cuts to him getting back on the boat *compltely dry* well, that'd be a good omen.
Mike:
You know things aren't going well when wake up and are grateful it was a off day and there is no game to reflect on to staht the day.
Al:
But here's the deal — even with nothing to say this morning aftah a travel day, I still refuse to discuss anything about Lebron James.
Doug:
Are you kidding me, if I was at a sports bah on a deserted island and every channel was turned to LebronTV, I'd still have nothing to friggin' say.
Mike:
For fuck's sake, I'd soonah listen to Justin Biebah and Miley Cyrus covah Clash songs as duets than listen to l'affaire James.
Doug:
Meanwhile, the only downside to the off day coming when it did it meant we didn't get to take advantage of the "Wakefield Hangovah Effect."
Al:
Now see, I've been telling my wife for years that there can be positive associations to a hangovah.
Bill:
I'm not saying I'm resigned...
Bill:
But with this many injuries and the team not really the team, it's hahd to do anything but just accept it.
Mike:
There are beasts in the salt shakah...
Mike:
From the backs of spoons come the cries of tiny tortured animals.
Mike:
And somewhere buried under the Fens is a suffocating angel with flaring nostrils.
Bill:
Wearing a Red Sox jersey.
Bill:
So ... hot enough for ya?
Doug:
Oh Bejezus Hussein. People are commenting in astonished, resigned tones about the heat every 10 minutes. Apaht from the heat, nothing else happens.
Doug:
For some people it seems the sum total of their destiny is to mop their foreheads and remahk on the heat.
Doug:
I can't take it anymore I tell you.
Doug:
Is there no justice in this world?
Doug:
What's with this guy?
Mike:
The mental errahs, the ongoing first inning hiccups...
Al:
Seriously, that's not a hiccup that's more like the dry heave I got the first time I saw the "2 Girls, 1 Cup" video.
Doug:
The next time Dice-K pitches they should coordinate it with a 2 Girls 1 Cup Bobblehead Giveaway Night.
