Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Well, that game sucked. Many photos to come, but really the highlight of the evening was the extremely drunk/irate guy in the right field box section behind us who decided that he hated Rays relief pitcher JP Howell.
This particular bit of right field box, if you're not familiar with the area, happens to have a good view down into the Rays bullpen, and it was not too unreasonable to expect that the Rays could hear a particularly strident crowd member from that section. In fact the very first time this guy stood up and screamed, Hey Howell!11!, Howell made the mistake of actually looking in his general direction. Regardless of the truth of the matter, the drunk guy was then dead convinced that JP Howell could hear his heckling, and so proceeded with due gusto.
Things this dude yelled at JP Howell over the course of the game:
"Hey! It's six-tee three dahgrees! Hey, nice gloves, ya pansy. It ain't 32 dahgrees out!" [Howell was wearing a sweatshirt and batting gloves while stretching in the bullpen.]
"Hey, ya big fairy! It don't matter, 'cause at the end'a the day you go home and yer still a fairy!"
"Yer sister sez hi!"
"Keep wavin' those arms, Howell! You just keep on doin' that!" [Howell was doing that windmill-arm stretching thing.]
"Must be hahd to stay warm, sittin' on that bench!"
"JP! You suck! You suck! Yer terrible!"
"I don't care what the score is! Yer still a bum!"
"Howwwwww-ellllllll! Hoooowwwwww-elllllllll!"
"Yer a custodian! Jan-ih-terrrrr!"
And a number of other things in a similar vein that I did not note down around the edges of my scorecard.
The best part is the fact that this guy didn't heckle ANY other Rays. Not the right fielder, who could certainly hear deranged drunken rants from the section if the bullpen could. Not any of the other relievers, including guys who warmed up in the 'pen and actually got into the game (something Howell did not do). JP Howell and JP Howell alone was the target of this determined fan's ire. You just have to admire that level of dedication, detail-orientation, and insanity.Labels: baseball, Devil Rays, in attendance, JP Howell, MLB, surly Red Sox fan
1:17 AM
Sunday, September 02, 2007
I'm hoping that writing about this will be sort of therapeutic. Or something.
By now you're probably all well aware of the historically horrific Michigan football game that took place on Saturday, when Appalachian State became the first 1-AA team in the history of ever to defeat an AP-ranked team. It was every bit as bad in the stadium as you probably imagine.
Usually the first game of the season is a time for fun and happy good times. The opposing team is always some non-conference school with a definite fluff factor, and while of course there's the Any Given Saturday factor and all that, it's still THE MICHIGAN WOLVERINES playing against SOME LOW-DIVISION SCHOOL, so the odds are not exactly squared up. If you're a Michigan fan, it's stress-free. All you have to worry about is how hot it's going to be in the stadium at gametime, and if you're watching at home, well, no worries at all.
This year already got off to a bad start, because most people who wanted to watch at home couldn't-- thank you, Big 10 Network. Bad karma for sure.
It was pretty warm out, but I've experienced worse in the Big House before. We also weren't sitting in the student section for the first time in my life, which meant that instead of balancing precariously on a narrow bench with a bunch of drunken frat boys swaying dangerously into me, I actually got to sit down for much of the game. That and the fact that there was a seat or two vacant in my row (so we weren't packed in like sardines) makes the heat shockingly easier to bear. I still managed to get sunburnt, but that's par for the course.
Still, it was a pleasant sunny day, with one of those "high skies" you hear about sometimes in baseball. You know the kind: that endless vault of blue without a scrap of cloud in it, bright enough to look perfectly collegiate against anyone wearing maize. It was hard to imagine that the game was going to have any outcome other than the expected one.
When Michigan first drove down the field and scored on a Mike Hart touchdown run, it seemed even more like things were going to progress in the usual manner. Mike Hart looked great, a force of sheer unstoppable Mike Hart-ness. Who does not love Mike Hart? Is this a thing which is possible? I think not.
Appalachian State scored soon after that, though. It was a little deflating, especially because it came on a great big 68-yard pass, the kind of thing that it would later seem impossible for Henne to throw. Chad Henne apparently prefers little dumpy passes that may travel 30 yards sideways, but only ACTUALLY go 2 yards up the field. We know Henne has the arm; when he does go long, part of his problem is actually going TOO long and overthrowing his receivers. So I'm not sure why the coaching staff sticks with this wee-pass scheme when it has failed to work so many times.
But the point is that even though the game had been quickly tied up, we weren't too upset yet. A little pissed off at the defense, sure. Grumbling a little, sure. But no one in the stands ACTUALLY believed that we were looking at a straight-up defeat. This kind of stuff has happened to Michigan before. We've had a TON of trouble with mobile quarterbacks the past few years, and Armanti Edwards is very, very mobile (or at least we sure made him look that way).
(Why yes, that IS a hole the size of Alaska that has obligingly opened up in the Michigan defense for Mr. Edwards to saunter right through.)
I guess this is a kind of arrogance, but honestly? We win these kinds of games. We may do so annoyingly according to the fans, especially in the Lloyd Carr era, where the win would likely be just enough and not a whit more, but we win. This isn't an arrogant statement; it's a statement of FACT.
The whole game slowly became a series of unbelievable occurrences. Surely we wouldn't be down this much by halftime. Surely we wouldn't be down in the second half. Surely we wouldn't be down so close to the end of the game.
When we came back in the last minutes of the game to squeak ahead, it was like everyone in the crowd said, "Ah ha!, so THIS is how it will go!" We would sneak ahead of the Mountaineers and it would be an ugly, ugly game that would get the attention of the team, so they would hopefully be extremely motivated to learn from their mistakes... but we would still WIN. It seemed impossible that we wouldn't. And then when we came back AGAIN, with that great pass from Henne and the great catch from Mario Manningham... when we got into field goal range...
That was ugly. That was an ugly, ugly blocked kick, but holy freakin' cats, it should not have even come down to that. Is it inexcusable for Gingell to be kicking the ball that low? Yes. Of course. What the hell. But it is MORE inexcusable to be depending on a field goal with the clock ticking down to prevent a defeat at the hands of a 1-AA team, even if that 1-AA team is the best 1-AA team to ever put on its little 1-AA pants.
I am not sure that I can accurately describe the feeling in the stadium after the Mountaineers ran that blocked kick back and dogpiled on the Michigan sideline.
It may best be summed up by the older guy sitting in front of me, who, as soon as the game ended, sat down heavily on his bit of bleacher and immediately pulled out and lit up a cigarette. This is a clear violation of probably 50 different and equally strident Big House rules and regulations. You'll see people sneaking alcohol into Michigan games all the time, but I had never seen someone smoking; that always seemed to be a much worse offense.
This guy was so obviously stunned and traumatized that he did not, in that moment, care. At all. He stared into space, motionless except for the little motions needed to smoke his cigarette. He looked so utterly lost that people coming up the stairs past him kept patting him consolingly on the back. It's possible that he didn't decide to ignore the rules; it looked like he might have just forgot where he was altogether.
Were there any good moments? Sure. Of course.
One of the best moments was after the bands had come off the field at halftime and the kickers were warming up. Jason Vitaris, the Appalachian State place kicker, was kicking down at my end of the field. They had only managed/bothered to get the net about halfway up, so when he boomed a kick way high, it ended up in the crowd, maybe 10 or 15 rows up.
Vitaris gazed patiently into the crowd, waiting for the ball to get thrown back. The Michigan fans of course immediately started passing the ball backwards, farther and farther up into the stadium, yelling at people who didn't understand what was going on. This took a while, since the ball had a long way to go and its passage was pretty erratic. The whole time this was going on Vitaris was just staring at the crowd, like he couldn't quite believe that he wasn't getting the ball back.
This continued until the crowd collectively managed to get the ball all way to the top row, where it was ceremoniously hurled out of the stadium entire. Vitaris kind of looked around furtively, like he still could not believe that the whole thing wasn't some sort of colossal joke and he would be getting his ball back shortly, before he finally had to give up on it.
The other best moment was when we were walking back from the stadium and one of the kids hanging out of a window along the way was screaming to everyone, "Drink the loss away! Drink the loss away! It's the only way!" in a truly brave and heroic manner. That's the good ol' collegiate spirit right there, that is.
The rest of the photos from the game are right here, if for some sick masochist reason you want to look at them all.
(Watching Sportscenter. They're talking about BASEBALL. The Yankees/Devil Rays game, to be exact. The Sportscenter announcer says something along the lines of, "Nobody expected much out of the Devil Rays here, but they're at least as good as Appalachian State". Of course the D'Rays went on to win. Yuk yuk yuk. We're a catdamned joke now. People will for years talk about some rinkydink team upsetting a powerhouse and they'll use Michigan and Appalachian State as a metaphor. This may never die and I hate that fact just as much as I hate the game outcome itself.)Labels: Appalachian State, football, history, in attendance, loss, Michigan, NCAA, photoblog, record, terrible, Wolverines
5:39 PM
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
This is somewhat belated, but I've been busy, so. Yeah. I was at the Sox/Royals game on the 18th, and naturally took a bunch of photos, all of which you can see here. I wanted to get into some of them, though.
First off, I was very excited to maybe see Real Live Royals Fans at the park. I know that they're a rare breed, and while I have seen some of them on the magical internets, I had never seen one in person... kind of like how I've seen photos of giant deepsea squid online, but I've never seen one in the flesh. The arrival of the Royals at Fenway was a kind of challenge: would any Real Live Royals Fans show up? Do any of them live in Boston? And if so, could I see some?
The first Real Live Royals Fan that I spotted was wearing a Red Sox hat, it is true, but she was also sporting a classic John Buck jersey (I think he stopped wearing #2 and picked up #14, his preferred number, when Tony Graffanino left the team in 2005. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that seems to actually be signed. I (obviously) can't knock someone who loves two teams, and if this girl remains a Royals fan even with the sweet, sweet temptation of Red Soxdom on hand all the time, more power to her.
The second Real Live Royals Fan was all Royalled out. I don't know if his seats were up at field level here, or if he had just snuck down to take some close-up shots of his beloved Royals. Either way, hardcore, man. Major props.
At this point the game started, which made Real Live Royals Fan viewing a secondary pursuit (presumably it would've been better had I gone in for BP, but it was so rainy that day, I didn't end up heading in early, and in fact I don't even know if they took BP).
Real Live Royals Fan #3 was sitting a few rows in front of me, showin' off another classic Royals jersey: Joe Randa, last seen in KC back in 2004. I guess you have to be pretty dedicated to a) be a Royals fan at all and b) be willing to pay Fenway prices to see the Royals in Boston. I guess there aren't too many bandwagon Royals fans. In fact, I would boggle at the level of recently unrewarded dedication it takes to be a Royals fan and actually pay real money for a Royals shirt these days, but I'm a Lions fan who owns a Joey Harrington jersey, so I can't exactly talk.
Real Live Royals Fan #4 was merely a tantalizing fly-by as he walked past my section. I only got a haunting glimpse of his mesh-backed Royals hat and all the royal blue suffering that it entailed.
This was the game that the Royals won 6-5 (with Manny stranding Ortiz/pinch runner Alex Cora at first to end the game), so I hope that all these Real Live Royals Fans thoroughly enjoyed their Real Live Royals Victory in Fenway Park. It wasn't very enjoyable for Red Sox fans; if there were at least a few Royals-faithful in the crowd, we can take solace in the fact that someone had a great time that night.
A few more highlights from the game itself:
Julian Tavarez digging in his pants. It wasn't a little grope, like most ballplayers enjoy; he very deliberately tugged his belt away from his body, plunged his hand down his pants, and did whatever ferocious adjustment he needed to do.
Dustin Pedroia had himself a nice night, both offensively...
(cruising into second with a double here)
...and defensively.
Manny homered.
Mike Timlin's back to wearing his camo glove.... again.
Julio Lugo has magical powers.
And, just for the heck of it....
This was the first game at Fenway to which I brought my wide-angle lens. To see the difference this makes, you can compare it to this photo, which is basically the same shot, from the same seats, but with a non-wide-angle lens. You can see how much more I can get in the wide lens. It's definitely a neat bit of equipment.Labels: baseball, in attendance, MLB, photoblog, Red Sox, Royals
2:06 PM
Monday, July 02, 2007
So, I went to Yankee Stadium yesterday. That photo you're looking at is, of course, former Sox Mike Myers, whom I still can't bring myself to dislike even though he now wears the Pinstripes of Great Evil.
I will freely admit that I went to Yankee Stadium expecting to hate it. It's the Lair of the Beast, the Den of Foulness, the place where iniquity and depravity are nurtured until they are hatched and spewed forth all over the AL East. You don't expect much from a place like that.
Yankee Stadium, however, refused to live up to my expectations, instead turing out to be fairly pleasant, as ballparks go. The place is architecturally bland, without the charm of a Fenway or the innovative interest of a Comerica. The seating, at least in our section, was roomy compared to Fenway (then again, everywhere is). The section numbering was, if I may be so bold, absurd. Half the stadium is odd numbers, and half is even numbers... this means that section 28 is not next to section 27, it is directly across the field. Does that make sense? No. Why not have them consecutive? It's not hard. Who sets up a building like that? Just plain old weird.
ballpark as Captain Obvious
The fact that EVERYWHERE YOU TURN are NY symbols and pinstripes is extremely unnerving. I liken it to the first time I ventured into East Lansing... green and white and Spartans helmets everywhere. I felt like I could barely breathe. SURROUNDED BY THE ENEMY. I didn't want to touch any surfaces for fear of getting the Spartan stench on me. And the thing of it was that I KNEW it was irrational, but that was my gut reaction.
Anyways. That, only with Yankee stuff. Let me tell you: the merchandise stands? With row upon row of Yankee hats and nothing else? The human body can be trained to react with a physical sense of revulsion to a simple symbol. 100% of fact.
With all that said... the park just wasn't as bad as I was expecting. While it lacks any particular personality beyond those arches 'round the top, it also manages to avoid the "inexplicable design elements because we can't think of anything better to do" sickness that afflicts US Cellular in Chicago (random pinwheels for the win!). There were a lot of food options, the hot dogs were (horror of all horrors to a seasoned Fenway-goer) cooked through, there was even a catdamned bakery in the ballpark (did not partake, mostly due to horror at the sight of... cookies frosted with the Yankee symbol. Shudder-inducing).
I didn't see one single rat.
many Yankee fans, no rats
The pitching matchup was to be Pettitte/Haren, which sounds good on paper. It turned out to be not so good. Haren wasn't as sharp as he usually has been this year, and Pettitte got creamed. The A's batted around on him in the 2nd inning, and in that inning managed to score SEVEN RUNS. After having already put up a run in the first inning.
ahhhhh I'm fallliiiinnnngggg
You know how lovely it was to see Pettitte get lit up like that? We're supposed to fear him. And here he was, throwing all the hell over the place. A Yankee meltdown, like a fine wine, should be savored.
i am bobby abreu. i am sad. i make error. crowd make fun of me for rest of game.
i am andy phillips. i play first base because everyone else dead. look at my silly walk.
i am derek jeter. i have owie. i get hit in hand because i lean over plate like homeplate is magnet for my nose.
Oakland, on the other hand...
i am jack cust. i get congratulated because i am perpetual backup who suddenly showing power. i hit 3-run homer against big bad yankees. i da man.
i am kurt suzuki. i am baby. i play almost never. i get RBI single and two runs in this game because yankee pitching really IS that bad.
It was exactly as fun to watch as it sounds.
The entire photo set is here, for your viewing pleasure. I just have one more thing that I want to draw you attention to.
We are all, of course, familiar with the catcher ass pat. It's a time-honored baseball tradition, as everyone knows that a pitcher's sense of courage and stamina is directly tied to his ass, and patting of that ass will ease his pitching woes. Normal. Baseball-y. Imagine my surprise, then, to see that Jorge Posada has taken this tradition a step further.
You're probably going to have to click that to get to the larger version to see this, but Posada is TUGGING ON MIKE MYERS' PANTS. Like, he has a bit of pants material between his fingers, and is pulling on it. This would be totally unremarkable except that baseball pants are so tight... it's like walking up to someone wearing spandex, grabbing a bit of it (probably having to pry it up off their thigh), and tugging. I mean, imagine that. Am I wrong in thinking that's a little... weird? I can't imagine doing that to my friends (whereas ass pats, depending on the friend, I can see in a joking context), so... yeah, I don't know.
Posada has DEFINITELY upped the pitcher/catcher love ante on Pudge Rodriguez, the previously acknowledged king of such displays. Pudge has to step his game up now. All Star Weekend is a prime opportunity, so be on the lookout for that.Labels: Athletics, baseball, in attendance, MLB, photoblog, Yankees
11:19 PM
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Wow. That was something to see.
Now, don't get me wrong, I was prepared for the Matsuzaka Madness. They do have TVs out there in Michigan, after all. And computers. And newspapers. And anyone with access to one or more of these things is probably aware of Matsuzaka Madness to some degree, regardless of where they are.
But I was still, as I made my way into Fenway for my first Sox game of the year, a bit taken aback by the length, breadth, and depth of the insanity. I suppose that's not what's so surprising; it's how something this massive has taken hold in so short a period of time. Dude just got here! Yet there are signs and billboards in Japanese welcoming you to Fenway, the scorecard I bought outside the park came with a "Welcome to Boston Daisuke Matsuzaka-san" headband, there were kids everywhere with "Dice-K" tshirts and people with Dice-K signs and jerseys with Japanese on the back (which is interesting, because I think the Japan League uniforms, for whatever deranged reason, use English). All this for a guy who's barely been in the country two months. We don't mess around with our baseball crazy in Boston.
The one thing I was looking for that I did NOT see was someone with a Matsuzaka Seibu Lions jersey. I did see some guy in an Expos Pedro jersey, which was impressive, but nobody seems to have dipped into the Dice-K past just yet.
Insanity or not, I then got to see the kid pitch.
Early on it looked like the Tigers might have a chance. The swings they were taking weren't bad, and although Nate was struggling to hold onto batters, he seemed to be more or less up to the task. The thing is, while Nate tired and had to be removed in favor of Tim "I just got here I don't even know if I have the right uniform on ahhhh where are my shoes ahhhhhh" Byrdak and Bobby "O" Seay "can you see how bad my pitching is", Matsuzaka actually.... seemed to get.... stronger.
I noticed it in the 6th inning, when the Tigers started taking cuts so hard they were spun around at the plate. Yeah, Sheffield was one of them, and that's how Sheffield swings, but it was happening to other, less jerkasaur-bat Tigers too. I'm talkin' huge swings, the kind of swing a guy takes when he's SO SURE he has a bead on the ball... only they didn't, and the bafflement upon their faces was extreme. It's like he started REALLY moving the ball around later in the game. "Oh hi, yeah, those first 5 innings were just warmups! NOW YOU SUFFER."
Matsuzaka is not a particularly imposing figure out there on the mound. He's not some giant elongated freak like Randy Johnson and he's not some enormous mountain of a man like Roger Clemens or CC Sabathia. He doesn't seem like he's going to leap off the mound and eat your liver at any moment like Carlos Zambrano. He doesn't even have the same feel as a small guy with a huge mound presence, like a Pedro or a Tim Hudson. He reminds me most (in mound presence, not necessarily pitching style) of Johan Santana.
You see him (Santana or Matsuzaka) on the mound and you think, "Huh. Not as big as I expected. Kinda sweet-looking. Kinda quiet-looking." Then they start pitching and you think, "Well, that's not too overpowering. Maybe this won't be so bad." Then they continue pitching and eventually you realize, "Wow, we're getting our kidneys carved right the heck up." It's a little scary and a lot disconcerting.
Anyways. I obviously took a great many more photos than just the one heading up this post, but I'm still processing them. I'll link you when I'm done.
For the Tigers side of my brain and its view on this one, you can check out my Roar of the Tigers post about it.
For the foreign angle, you can see Iain's post about it, since he's in town and is getting to see all these insanely good games. Obviously the Red Sox love him. For MOAR MOAR MOAR, you can see Jere's post, since we ran into him pre-game and he has a photo of us obsessing over Tigers BP in his post (or, OK, in his shot I'm obsessing over the Tigers while Beth and Iain taunt me about Brandon Inge).
Oh, and Ian of Bless You Boys has an "interview" with me up 'cause he likes getting other blogger opinions. I opine about the Red Sox and swear a lot. It's ace.Labels: Daisuke Matsuzaka, in attendance, Red Sox, Tigers
12:29 PM
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
This was, I think, my third time seeing Bonderman pitch in person, and I have yet to see the poor kid get a win. Once was a game early in the 2005 season, where he got lit up; once was this season's home opener, which he lost; and last night, where he pitched SO FREAKIN' WELL and got the no decision. Alas.
The previous night had seemed like a slower game. Part of it was probably that we showed up for BP and were thus spending two extra hours in the park to start with, but it was also the fact that there were all these quick innings interspersed with ridiculously messy long ones. Last night was fast. It seems like we got there, and suddenly it was the 5th inning, and then all of a sudden it was the 9th. Bondo and Schilling of course were responsible, and it was one of those relatively rare times where a big pitching matchup lives up to its billing.
I was at this game with Beth, which led to a rather amusing little tableau. Anyone who's ever gone to a game with me knows how I tend to sit there glued to the camera screen. Usually I'm with someone who is not a camera fiend. But Beth is just as intent on photographing the game as I am and the two of us put together probably took enough shots to fuel the AP photo wire for a week. The people sitting near us probably thought we were insane-- two girls with their faces smashed into the backs of cameras for most of the game, occasionally showing one another a shot on their screens and sniggering at the poses Mike Lowell gets himself into.
Don't let her very gracious post mislead you, though... at the time, there was a lot less cheerful resignation from her and rather a lot more tooth grinding and dolorous insistence that the Red Sox bullpen couldn't hold a lead if it was duct taped to them and saying to me, when I started really getting down to the business of praying the Tigers would pull it out, "Do you really want to make all the little blue-eyed Bostonian children cry?" Well, I'm from Massachusetts, and I've got blue eyes, so screw those kids, that's what I say.
Great night for a game too. It could've been cooler, but it wasn't oppressive, and we got some nice skies before the light went. I do love the seats we were in (THANKS COUSIN BETH!) because they're pretty close to the field and you can shoot the opposing team in their dugout when they stick their heads out AND straight into the Red Sox dugout. Nothing too exciting doing in the Sox dugout last night, but this would be important on the Tigers end later.
But the game! Ah, the game. Both pitchers came out of the gate strong, although Coco absolutely destroyed that ball in the third. That's Bondo, though. He's a classic example of the power pitcher who, because of his power, gets smashed by the long ball every so often. He settled down after that, thanks in part to some great defense from Placido Polanco, who turned a tidy ground ball in the 5th off a very difficult hop the ball took when it caromed off the back of the mound and made a ridiculous diving catch to end the inning in the 6th.
WOE TO US ALL HOWEVER, because he did not get up from that spectacular catch. Talk about a rollercoaster: one second I was screaming and thrilled beyond belief, the next second I was sucking in my breath and saying, "Oh shit. Oh shit."
Ugh. Just... urrrrgggh. I never want to see that again. Placido in that same awkward half-crouch, not moving... Magglio the first guy over, kneeling down and then frantically waving the trainers in... INSERT GIANT FROWNY FACE HERE. In a testament to either the closeness of the Tigers as a whole or the popularity of Placido, the trainers were unable to shoo the team away from him while they checked him out. Magglio and Carlos were closer to him than the trainers were for most of the time, bending down to put their faces on his level and talk to him. Granderson and Monroe hovered nervously by. Todd Jones came out of the bullpen to peer in.
Eventually of course Placido got up, gingerly holding his wrist (I thought at the time he'd broken his wrist against the ground; turns out he was just cradling it to hold up his arm so it wouldn't put pressure on his FREAKIN' SEPARATED SHOULDER) and slowly made his way into the dugout. I was suitably upset. Of course, because that is how these things work, he was supposed to be up first in the next inning. Omar Infante, who had started the day at third, had already been taken out of the game in favor of the defensive whiz that is Brandon Inge.
So out on deck came... Vance Wilson.
What! Why were they taking Pudge out of the game?
The horrible truth came out an inning later, when Vance took his spot behind homeplate and Pudge trotted out onto the field. To second base.
OH SWEET AND HORRIBLY UNFANCY KITTENS WHY.
Another thing I never want to have to see again. Carlos was directing him on every. single. play. Pointing, yelling, and who knows if Pudge was listening or not. To start off the 9th inning he made a catch on a Youkilis popup, staggering all over the infield like a newborn foal and nearly flattening Sean Casey. I was in a frenzy of despair.
Even more so when Ledezma came in to face Papi (why not Walker? I guess I don't know his numbers against Ortiz, maybe they're not very good) and gave up an RBI single to tie it. You can't really blame 'Fredo on that one. He's not a situational kinda pitcher, and David Ortiz is, well, David Ortiz.
Then there was that play, which everyone has seen and dissected by now. I thought the ball was heading foul to start with, and it was hard to tell how much of a chance Wily Mo had on it from our seats. Then there was vast confusion, because the run scored, maybe? But had it been foul? And was Craig out? And what was Leyland arguing? One of those things that's actually better to see on TV than in person, I guess.
Another uncharacteristically clean inning from Jonesy and that was that. Of course I nearly had 8 HEART ATTACKS through it all, hunching over in my seat and giving Beth even more reason to think I'm psychotic than she already has. But wow. What a game at the end of it.
In case you missed it (and you probably did, you lazy sods), the post from Monday's game is up at Roar of the Tigers, right here. It's more about the glorious Tigerness that was BP than the game, but that is just because I am a huge dork. The photos from that game are right here. Photos from Tuesday's game to come soon; I'm a little backlogged.
In a few hours I'll be at tonight's game, watching Verlander do his Verlander thing, and then I will probably be dead for a month.
edit: Damn, I nearly forgot. I had on my Michigan Baseball tshirt, and on the way out, as we were stuck in the crowd, a guy behind us said, "Heeeeeyyyy, Michigan baseball!" Turns out he was an alum, who claimed he had played on the team (I dunno. I guess it's possible. Or maybe he meant club baseball). His drunken friends yelled, "Go Big Blue!" and he had to admonish them and tell them that it's just "Go Blue". They also characterized my camera as "one serious camera, that thing ain't messin' around," which, as we all know, is 100% of FACT. Just a fun little cap to the night, that was.Labels: baseball, Beth, in attendance, injury, Jeremy Bonderman, MLB, Placido Polanco, Pudge Rodriguez, Red Sox, Tigers
1:10 PM
Monday, July 31, 2006
Game 1: Rally Monkey invades Boston, spreads ebola among populace, laughs evilly.
Game 2: David Ortiz miraculously cures ebola using nothing but his mango salsa recipe and the advanced enzymes in his own saliva.
Game 3: Rally Monkey has radioactive Boston Harbor water dripped onto it, mutates into horrible hairy behemoth, terrorizes city anew.
No need to say more, I reckon.
Strange things are afoot. We picked up Bryan Corey for Luis Mendoza, and Corey is intriguing in the sense that he stands a reasonable-to-good chance of being less exciting than Julian Tavarez and/or Rudy Seanez, where 'exciting' means 'likely to induce cardiac events'. Mendoza had been riding a low level of suck with the SeaDogs, so whatever. To put Corey on the 40-man they had to move Clement to the 60-day DL, a move we can all live with, since half of you have no memory of who Matt Clement is anymore beyond the lingering salty tang of his nervous tears.
Trot somehow managed to hurt his arm by swinging too hard at a baseball. He missed too, just to add to the indignity of the whole thing. Suddenly Wily Mo is looking like less of a trade chip and more of a huge guy with pointy facial hair who'll be seeing some quality plate time in the near future, unless of course he's a trade chip to get us someone who can fill that niche even better. I mostly hate this injury because it's so freaking stupid and so typically Trot; instead of landing funny on his shoulder and popping it out of the joint or getting hit in the nuts with a pitch, he has to go and pull a muscle by swinging like some kind of uncontrolled greenie-addled nut. Awesome.
The Yankees picked up Bobby Abreu for what is basically the baseball equivalent of a frozen bag of snow peas. The Phillies, because apparently salary-dumping Abreu was just a gateway drug to further insanity, threw in Cory Lidle too. I don't understand how this happened. The last rumor I had seen was that the Yanks were going to send Melky Cabrera or something to Philly for Abreu, not the variety pack of minor league wastewater.
Strange things, like I said. Let us not dwell upon them. Let us instead dwell upon that joker up there at the top. His name is Bryan Morse and he's a left-handed starting pitcher with a tendency towards sidearming. Or, at least, he's a starter now, for the North Shore Spirit. When he was drafted by the Marlins, he pretty much only relieved in their minors. He pitches with his mouth open and his tongue lolling out. He's 27 years old now so this is probably about as good as it gets, but he's had flashes of brilliance; today, for instance, or the time in high school that he pitched a no-hitter. And he's a lefty, so you never know when someone might decide he's worth taking a flyer on and bringing him up.
He threw 7.2 innings of perfect ball on Sunday, retiring the first 23 batters in a row before Québec Capitales catcher Olivier Lepine singled in the 8th inning. Morse went on to complete the game for a 3-hit shutout of les Capitales. For a while there I thought I was going to get to see my first perfect game in person, although my dad, ever helpful, kept saying things like, "That's 12 in a row now!" and "Wow, he's 6 innings through it now!"
Yes, I finally, after rainouts and vacations and much rescheduling, hauled myself down to Fraser Field to take in a Spirit game. I had not been there since it was the Mad Dogs' park, and it is indeed much improved. We sat in the first row ($12 tickets! Thank you independent league baseball) just to the right of directly behind homeplate. Great view, especially for a game that's all about the pitching, as this one was. I was initially concerned about the net being so close to our faces, but it turns out I could pretty much shoot straight through the netting with the teleconversion lens on, and it wasn't much of an issue.
Photos from the game can be found here. It's a pretty good photoset for the same reason a lot of the college ones came out well... you can get right up close to the action and the players. Plus it was a day game, so the light was good.
David Wells starts tomorrow (today). I expect him to get rocked, because it's his first game back in a Galapagos tortoise's age, and he'll probably be rusty as all get out. The Indians may be stuck behind some serious winning percentage in the AL Central, but they can hit if they get it in their minds to do so. Who knows, maybe if everyone in New England eats a cupcake at work in solidarity, he'll somehow pitch beautifully.Labels: Angels, baseball, Bryan Morse, in attendance, independent league, MLB, North Shore Spirit, random, Red Sox
5:36 AM
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
I'll admit it. I fell asleep during the game yesterday.
Not because it was boring (it wasn't, at least not the bits I remember) and not because of the lateness of the hour (most of you are well aware of my nocturnal habits), but because I was feeling the lateness of the hour much more keenly than usual, having just returned from Toronto, and having failed to consume my usual amount of delicious and life-giving coffee.
Yes, I, the blogger who routinely is typing merrily away at 4:30 in the morning, was tired. It happens. Usually when I don't have enough coffee. And when I'm faced with Travel, which I do not take to particularly well.
Tired.
Tired like Curt Schilling, when he's pitched a solid game on the road, and they got in really late because the plane was delayed the night before, and he's stayed up playing some Everquest over the hotel internet connection, and he just really wants to go to sleep because it's awfully late, and he's got the chain on the door (of course he's got the chain on the door), but he hasn't closed it all the way, so just when he's about to go to sleep Manny Ramirez wedges his arm through the door holding a bunny that he made out of complimentary shampoo bottles and jelly beans that he has to show Curt RIGHT NOW, and Curt has to go open the door to tell Manny how great his bunny is, and he doesn't get to sleep for four more hours because SOMEHOW Manny slipped away from his babysitters for the night, and Curt just wants to sleep so badly, he's so tired, and that is how tired I was last night.
Not that that exact scenario has ever happened, of course, but it could.
In any event, Toronto was good, if somewhat tiring, and if you ignore the fact that we got rained on twice, once by hysterically awful downpours. Very much a walking city, and while the architecture leaned much more towards brutalism and wasn't nearly as nice as that of, say, Chicago, it was still sufficiently interesting to make wandering around fun.
The Jays/Yanks game was OK. Of course the only game of the series that the Jays lose was the one I ended up at. It was my first time in a dome, too... very odd. Our seats were in the second deck, and the whole concourse up there was CARPETED. And the seats were PADDED like movie theater seats. It didn't feel very much like a baseball park, more like, I dunno, a football stadium or something else. Of course the Argos do play there, so it is a football stadium, but it was still odd.
There were a TON of Yankees fans there. In the second deck, I would venture to say that 90% of the crowd was rooting for New York. In our section there was me and my family (rooting for the Jays), and maybe two or three other Blue Jays fans. Everyone else was rooting for the Yankees. It was probably not entirely unlike being stuck in Yankee Stadium itself, except these fans, while extremely drunk and loud, were not actually dangerous, and were generally inoffensive aside from a few anti-Boston remarks and shirts.
I must give them their due: we had no problems with Yankee fans in our section, and we actually sort of held a conversation at one point with the large and communally trashed family behind us. I think they were from Syracuse. They were all staying at a Holiday Inn with, inexplicably, a Red Sox fan, who was drunker than all of them put together and left the game early after the stadium security started trailing him to make sure he wouldn't buy more beer. Evidently he and one of the Yankee fans had split an entire bottle of vodka between the two of them in the (short) ride over to the ballpark. Where they then proceeded to add to their alcohol tally by buying a bunch of beer. Jolly good times.
The highlights of the game itself were Kyle Farnsworth hitting 101 mph (on the stadium gun, anyhow), and ARod striking out swinging in each of his four at-bats in the game. That was a beautiful line in my scorecard, let me assure you. There are few things in baseball more satisfying than writing K after K next to ARod's name.
Top of the 7th in tonight's game and I'm still awake. Good sign. Manny and Trot going back to back was fun, but Curt then sucking it up on the mound was not. Oh well. Still ahead for now. Oh, and if someone can tell me why Manny and Lowell have taken to greeting each other during celebrations by touching the tips of their forefingers together, I'd enjoy hearing the explanation.
ETA: Man, that 8th inning about killed me. I do have to wake up for work tomorrow, guys. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a huge lead as much as anyone, but Oakland could've at least had some consideration and not sucked quite so badly. Yeesh.
Mad props to whoever runs the video stuff out in Texas at Ameriquest, by the by. They have a Kiss Cam that they run between innings, and tonight they put ARod, in the dugout, up on it. Too perfect. Ameriquest Field video dudes, you are awesome. ARod, when he realized he was on Kiss Cam, pulled Andy Phillips (who was nearest) to him and kissed him on the top of the head.
Also, I swear that Hazel Mae, in the postgame highlights, just called Ian Kinsler 'Michael Young'. Of course it's probably the prompt card writer's fault, not hers, as I wouldn't expect her to know Kinsler from Young if they were standing in front of her with their jerseys on.Labels: baseball, Blue Jays, in attendance, MLB, Yankees
11:51 PM
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Ugh. Royals.
At the game on Saturday, I was keeping an eye on the out-of-town scoreboard to see how the Tigers were doing, of course. This happened to be the night where Verlander did his awesome Verlander thing and the Royals were shut out, but just the night before the Tigs had had to resort to a walkoff homerun in order to win, so I kept saying things like, "Yeah, Tigers still ahead! Woo! Look at that score! Woo!" over the course of our game.
SOME of the people I was with (not gonna name names or anything...) responded to these sentiments with mirth. "That's nice," they would say, "but it's the Royals." "Yeah, I saw that Guillen walkoff on Sportscenter... they were calling it [insert overexcited praising ESPN-used adjective here]. You can't have a [insert overexcited praising ESPN-used adjective here] hit against the Royals." Chuckle chuckle, giggle giggle, what good fun.
Of course the Royals went on to win the last game of the Tigers series and took a close one into the 8th inning against us today.
Point is, no one goes 0-for-162. Everyone's got to win sometimes, even the Royals and the Pirates of the world. So on the other side of the coin, someone's gotta get taken to task by the Royals on occasion. It's never fun and it's always a deeply shaming experience but, over such a long season, it happens.
The lineup we fielded yesterday had 5 guys hitting over .300 in it. The Royals had one. DeJesus. Dougie hitting a bomb is always cause for celebration and hilarity in Red Sox Nation, but when you get right down to it Dougie shouldn't ever have to hit a bomb to save the game for us. I'm sure he enjoys it, because then he gets to trot sedately around the bases instead of struggling to race his ponderous, square-shaped self onto the basepaths for a hit. But if it's his hitting that stands between us and a loss, we probably didn't play a very good game.
Wake's injury, or whatever the heck it is, is pretty troubling. He is up there in age, although no one thinks he's anywhere near retiring yet, not with the knuckleball. But if he's got a tweaked muscle in his back, well, he's not at an age where that sort of thing is going to heal quickly and elastically. I hope it turns out to be nothing much; he is after all signed to a contract with us for the rest of his natural life, and I'd like to get as much out of him as we can in that time.
Anyways. Photos.
Thursday's game against the A's was the one we lost in extra innings. Photos here, 'tho here are some highlights for the terminally lazy among you.
Zito looks back into the crowd.
Lester and Al Nipper looks like they're about to make out. They aren't, of course, but it looks that way.
Huston Street kisses his hand and looks up to the sky before taking the mound.
Go see the rest and enjoy.
Saturday's game, as luck would have it, was Schill's dominant outing and the only win of the series for us. Photos can be seen here.
Definitely a highlight. You can see Papi going in for his patented 'down low hug' on Craig Hansen near the middle there.Labels: baseball, in attendance, loss, MLB, Red Sox, Royals
4:19 AM
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
So, it's been a few days, and I think I've mostly recovered from Monday's game. Directly after it my ability to think was limited to things like "David Ortiz=happy tiny kittens" and "I am going to be so sunburnt tomorrow". Both of these things are still true today.
You know, having been rained out the day before and being determined to get my money's worth out of the goddamn T, I decided it would be a good idea to meet up with Friend Annette at the park right when the doors opened so we could watch BP. Of course, nearing the end of the 12th inning, something like 7 hours later, this no longer seemed like such a great idea.
The other unintended consequence of coming in early was the life of my camera batteries. I always have two sets with me, and I usually run them both down in the course of a game, but with enough to spare on the last set, so I can flip through them if I want, and download them into my computer on the same batteries.
As the game went into extras, I started nursing the batteries. Turning the camera off. Ignoring Phillies players. I didn't really have a feeling that something special was gonna happen or anything, but it just seemed, well, prudent, you know? We have David Ortiz. Unlikely as it seemed (when he came up in the 12th I said, shaking, to Annette, "He can't, right? I mean, there's no way, right?"), you just never know.
I'm really glad I nursed the batteries along. You've gotta click especially that first one for big, by the way... Alex Cora snugglehugging Papi in the middle of the happy little group is the best bit.
All of the photos are right here and I would recommend going to see them, but because I know some of you are LAZY SODS, here are a few.
David Ortiz scoring the first run of the game past Chris Coste's attempted tag. This was the run that got the Officially Mad Crazy 6th Inning started. The inning where the Sox batted around and 3 guys batted twice (Ortiz, Manny, and Trot).
This game, by the by, ended up being a pain in the coccyx for people scoring the game. Not only did it go into extras, causing me to dig into the designated AB, R, H, and RBI columns, but because both teams batted around once I had to scratch out and change the inning numbers too. Still, it woulda been fun if only the Sox had done it.
I have no idea what Manny and Gonzo are doing here. I mean, they're waiting out a pitching change, I know that much, but beyond that.... no, I won't even speculate. That could be heading into dangerous waters.
It's pretty much impossible to hate Jimmy Rollins, right? I mean, how can you fail to love that?
One of the best things about my cousins' seats (the ones I, obviously, had for this game-- a thousand thanks cousin Beth!) is that you're seated so as to have a good view into, and therefore a good shot at, the Red Sox dugout. And you get to see things like this.
We all know Curt and Beckett have been inseparable this season, standing together on the dugout rail at every game when neither is pitching, chatting the game away. We all know that Curt is taking this opportunity to share his vast and no doubt long-winded wisdom with the kiddies very, very seriously, and very, very happily. He's probably the kinda guy who leaps at the chance to talk to (at?) a captive audience.
This particular conversation, the one I have photographed, went on for several innings, with Annette and I checking back every so often to say, "They're not still talking, are they? Who's Curt bugging now?"
Perhaps it was the heat, perhaps it's the scuzzy facial hair, but whatever it was, Beckett looked like a goddamn mess. He seemed zoned out most of the time, too... I have other photos, that I didn't upload, where he's sitting elsewhere in the dugout, also staring vacantly into space and possibly trying to see if he could feel the individual bristles of his beard grow. With Curt talking and talking and talking and talking, it seemed for the first time, so far as I could tell, that Beckett was not listening. At all.
Jon Lester, on the other hand, was gazing at Curt the entire time with a look that I can only really describe as 'awestruck". He seemed unable to tear himself away. At one point in the 'conversation' Curt started pointing across the field, indicating something. Beckett turned his head in a half-hearted kind of way, but Lester didn't even look up. He could not take his eyes off of Curt for one moment, lest Curt in that moment drop some priceless pearl of wisdom that he would regret not picking up for the rest of his life, or something.
It was great.
Anyways. Things that are pretty:
Gabe Kapler. Pinch hit for Trotter in the 9th.
Mr. Varitek. Pinch hit for Dougie in the 10th, although, as Annette pointed out at the time, Tito was obviously trying his hardest to give Tek a whole day off.
Things you don't notice at the ballpark, but learn upon getting home and perusing your photos of the day's event:
1. Aaron Rowand thinks he's a college frat boy.
Everyone wears the armbands. Most guys have either blank ones, or bands with their number and the logo of whatever sportswear company makes them embroidered on. But Rowand here has his own special pair. When I loaded the photo in I thought, "Hmm, he's got an awful lot of writing on those armbands, I wonder what they say." Zoom proved the horrifying truth.
Yes. Aaron Rowand is wearing armbands that say "BEER PONG CHAMP" on them. Which is not only the sort of absurd, vaguely distasteful and classless yet utterly hilarious sort of thing I would normally expect from AJ Pierzynski, it is also a load of wank. Everyone knows that it was a pair of Wolverines who won the World Series of Beer Pong. Our finest moment, indeed.
But really now, Aaron. You have a Baseball World Series ring. Stop pretending that you have any sort of claim to a Beer Pong ring as well.
2. Mike Timlin has finally gone off the deep end.
We all know he's a hunter and he has a strange, almost manic love affair with the camo pattern. Camo Red Sox hats, clever. Camo shirts under his jersey, acceptable.
But a camo baseball glove? MIKE TIMLIN YOU CRAZY. I didn't even know they made such a thing.
What's next? He paints his face camo and claims it's some new application of eyeblack? See, I shouldn't even have said that, now someone's going to get Ideas.
So yeah, I do recommend checking out the rest of 'em, because there are plenty more and the only reason I don't post them here is I don't want to bust anyone's weakling computer or anything.
That was the second David Ortiz walkoff I've seen live (I saw his afternoon walkoff blast last summer), and man, they just don't stop being awesome.Labels: Aaron Rowand, baseball, David Ortiz, extra innings, in attendance, Mike Timlin, MLB, photoblog, Red Sox
4:20 AM
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Sadly, that is a photo that I myself took. Yes, I had the dubious priviledge to witness Clement's possible ticket to the DL, and certain ticket to mental anguish. Come to think of it, last season I was at the game where Wells drove his foot through a rabbit warren on the field or something and tweaked his ankle. I dislike this pattern.
The rest of the photos from the game can be found here and, y'know, go see. It's all very exciting. I had good seats, again, because my family loves me.
As for all the recent news I've conked out on due to The Internship and, uh, deranged sleeping hours. Let us see.
-Barry Bonds passed Babe Ruth. I couldn't care less, and really the only thing I have to say about it is that I'm glad it happened in San Francisco, because at least then the only people who actually have an honest, uninhibited enthusiasm for the guy got their jollies in. They support him well enough, the least they deserved was to have the homer hit in their own house. And now let us never speak of him again.
-Oh wait, the best bit about Bonds' homer? He hit it off of.... *insert dramatic drumroll here* our very own BH Kim. This photos shows it happening, and Kim's pose cracks me up indefinitely. It's a great shot, by the way, really catches the moment at the perfect time. This is why I love Flickr.
-Freakin' Yankees. Here's what they're like. My brother just finished up his last regular season of high school tennis. They ended up splitting the conference title with our rival town, Marblehead. While my brother is happy that we won a share of the title (since Swampscott hadn't won it since cats know when), he was still bitter. As he put it, "We had the best team Swampscott's seen in ages and we still couldn't win it outright. Marblehead didn't even have their best team in years, and they still got a share."
And that's exactly what the Yankees are doing right now. They're not even fielding that great a team right now. Their pitchers are hurt, or hurting, or old, or some combination of the three. Their lineup is patched together from injuries and AAA callups. And I'm pretty sure they just tonight swiped first place in the division from us. The Sox, while I wouldn't go so far as to say were fielding their best team in ages, were running some pretty good people out there up until everyone decided to get injured like a week ago, and it was just enough to barely stay ahead.
That's bleedin' annoying, is what that is.
Congrats to Swampscott tennis, by the by. SEE WHAT A GOOD SISTER I AM
-Scott Sauerbeck hides in bushes! Scott Sauerbeck hides in bushes! It's a story to make you laugh and wince. I mean, it is hilarious, and it's not surprising that they all fool around, but I'm sure it's another thing entirely for his poor wife to have to hear about her husband driving around and crouching in bushes with drunken 28-year olds.
-Kyle Farnsworth threw a fastball during Monday's game that was so hard, it broke the laces on Posada's glove. Can you say MEEP?
-Jermaine Van Buren's delivery, and I feel like I've said this before, is the most violent damn thing I've seen in ages. It doesn't just look like it strains his arm when he throws, it looks like the whole limb is going to come unscrewed and fly off at the shoulder. I know Tigers fans were worrying about how allegedly violent Joel Zumaya's motion was/is, but compared to Van Buren I think Zoom even at his most wild was mere tiddlywinks. I can barely watch this guy pitch. It's like watching a car crash over and over and over again, occasionally, when NESN sees fit, in gory slow-motion.
-I maintain my stance on Gustavo Chacin, that being: he looks like a praying mantis, and his delivery is extraordinarily mantis-like, from the way he stands in his set position to the range of motion his arms go through over the course of the pitch.
Oh, and to the UMass Boston folk radio station that I have to listen to at work all day: tell your early afternoon lady DJ that it's pronounced shah-SEEN, not CHAY-sin. Because I understand that someone working at a college folk radio station is not going to be the biggest baseball fan ever, in all likelihood, but if you have the poor woman reading a promo for the game 20 times over the course of her show, it would be nice if she didn't embarrass herself every time she did so.
-Is Mike Timlin the most unexpected DLing ever or what? And if you say 'what', you lie. I didn't even know he was sore, let alone under consideration for the List of Woe. And do we know precisely what's wrong with him and I've just missed it? Bruising? Muscle tears? Ligament damage? Colony of beavers building a small inexplicable dam in his shoulder joint? Anyone?
-Manny Delcarmen! Kiddo! What happened? Did you get head lice? He had this glorious head of curls and now they're ALL GONE and it is shockingly sad. Someone needs to tell him that Youk isn't shaving his head as a fashion statement, he's doing so because he has incredibly bad male-pattern baldness and presumably it is less painful to go bald on your own terms than on those of your genes. Now, I'm not saying he should venture into post-concussion Damon territory or anything, but if he's capable of growing that hair, he should take advantage of it while he can.
If he did have head lice, I'm very sorry and wish him the speediest of recoveries from arthropod parasites.
-Reed Johnson has the weirdest freaking batting stance. He does a series of bat wiggles beforehand, then squats down very sharply, and then the weirdest bit. Right before he brings his bat around, his front leg kind of points forward and twitches around complexly. It's so bizarre looking and I can't help but think that it must throw his timing off something awful, but apparenly it's not too detrimental to his hittting. Or he wouldn't be on the team. Right?
-Clemens is allegedly going to Houston. Good. If we can't have him, you can't have him either! I bet Steinbrenner kills a chicken in rage.
-Coco's back, but suddnely Manny is hurting and Wily Mo is gone and Loretta got whacked in the foot last night and WHY ARE WE ALL BROKEN RIGHT NOW
-There were more of these, but I am tired. So. You are spared.Labels: baseball, in attendance, injury, Matt Clement, MLB, random, Red Sox
12:34 AM
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