Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Well, I didn't want to have to break this out again so soon, but apparently I must.
THINK OF THE KITTENS, RED SOX. Please! Think of the kittens!
Matty, kiddo, I am well aware that there is such a thing as 'effectively wild'. That, however, was not effectively wild. It was wild, yes, very, but the effective bit, not so much. Contreras, sadly, was pretty much what I had feared, after having watched him methodically dismantle the Tigers mere days ago.
It was lovely watching Varitek throw out Podsednik at second... the pitch was high, so 'Tek just sort of stood up into it and had the ball winging its way to second base almost as soon as he had caught it. After that it was the Podsednik Show out there though, so alas for small moments of glory. And here I had been thinking I would be upset about having to duck out at 6:30 and miss most of the end of the game.
Beth called as I was getting onto the bus to North Campus... I think she was calling around to either gauge everyone's reactions to the game, or just to make sure that none of her Sox fan friends had actually hurled themselves out of the windows yet. We chatted morosely for a few minutes before I returned to the terribly important task of glaring out the window and trying to not think about Clement dancing away from a baseball cracking him in the leg.
The girl sitting next to me, whom I hadn't even really noticed, made a timid gesture and asked if I knew the score. It had been 12-2 when I left, and I relayed this news, still glaring at the traffic surrounding the bus. The girl made a little noise of disgust, and, sort of hopelessly, asked if Clement was still in the game, or if he wasn't, who was pitching. I had the sad task of telling her that Clement had not lasted past the 4th, that Bradford had come on, and last I had seen it was Jeremi Gonzalez, and upon hearing this she merely sighed deeply and we both spent the remainder of the trip staring out the windows broodingly.
It wasn't until I was getting off the bus that I noticed that her hat, which was white and on backwards and which I hadn't really given a second glance, had a blue Boston B on it.
Red Sox fans: our pain is legion.
Of course the class I was going to has a Yankee fan in it. Smug bastard.
And of course Bartolo Colon couldn't get anything much done against the Yankees. I mean, of course. Why would he be good at all now, of all ridiculous times?
Oh, and perhaps you've heard, but good ol' Charles Rogers did NOT break his collarbone for the third straight year in the row. Unaccustomed to this much playing time, he had to find some other way to shoehorn himself out of games.
Rogers suspended for 4 games.
He violated the NFL's drug policy. Not steroids, mind you, 'street drugs', which probably means marijuana. And the fact that he's been suspended means that he's tested positive three times before this one, which I think legitimately constitutes a serious problem. Way to go, Charlie. I'm a little bit disgusted with him but, after all, he's a Michigan State grad. We shouldn't expect anything other than this.
And a few random bits:
Well, we never thought the Padres were going to make much of a run of it anyhow. Now they've gone and lost Jake Peavy. The whoosing sound you're hearing is the Padres' postseason hopes swirling down the toilet. Apparently he broke his rib in the postgame celebrations when they clinched the division... that big scrum where the players all jump on each other on the field? Yeah. Broke their star pitcher. I will now watch every single such Red Sox celebration until the end of time with a crazed fear in my heart.
Man, it was not a good season for Carlos Almanzar. First his mother dies back home in the Dominican. Upon hearing the news, his brother commits suicide. The Rangers granted him two back-to-back bereavement leaves, which was unprecedented, but probably well-warranted. Then the guy gets back and his elbow, it turns out, is shot to hell, and he ends up having Tommy John surgery and missing the rest of the season. Now, at the very end of it all, he's been suspended 10 days for violating the steroid policy. I guess it goes into effect at the start of next season. He's not contesting it. With the fact that he's a pitcher and his injury and subsequent surgery, this is almost certainly a 'it'll help me heal faster' sort of steroid consumption.
There isn't really a moral to the story, except that it really sucked to be Carlos Almanzar this season.
I love when the MLB websites let the players write (or dictate) their own little columns in the postseason. So of course I'm even happier to see that they're compiling them all on a blog this postseason, as they happen. Kevin Millar already has one up from a bit ago, it's quite boring, but I love this kinda crap.
Alan Trammell: gone. Tigers players: upset (now, sure. Before he was fired only Brandon Inge was saying anything). Jim Leyland: hired. My head hasn't really stopped spinning yet.
Of course we were going to get a Dmitri Young quote out of this.
"It's unfortunate, because he's a Tigers legend," Young said, "and the same people that revere his jersey growing up are talking mad trash. It was ridiculous. We do badly as a team. People who were yelling bad things to Tram weren't yelling bad things to him during the '84 World Series, were they?"
Talking mad trash. Just let that one sink in.
And how creepy is it that the only thing in all these articles about Kirk Gibson's reaction to Tram's dismissal was one single sentence at the end of this Detroit News article...
"I'm sorry they lost confidence in us," Kirk Gibson said, before heading up north to harvest some crops on his ranch.
That was it. No preamble, no follow-up. Just that one stand-alone sentence. I'm pretty sure it means he's going to go up north to rip the heads off of live bunny rabbits and smear the blood all over his face while screaming, "ARE YOU READY FOR THE GIBBY LEEEYYYYLLLAAAANNNDDD!" into the cold northern air.
Bye, Tram. I never did think this season was your fault and I'm sorry to see you go. Best of luck wherever you may end up, unless it's the Yankees, in which case, dude, no.
Because I'll never get to sleep if I end on such a down note, I would like to present to you, the reader, a fun interview with Zach Duke, Pittsburgh pitcher whom I covet. He used to show sheep in state fairs, you guys. He used to show sheep.
3:01 AM
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