Friday, August 17, 2007
Oh, Wily Mo. You may have been a lovable hug machine and a friend of miniature ponies everywhere, but it was time to face facts. Facts like your .218 batting average. Facts like your .676 OPS. Facts like your complete and utter inability to field the baseball, possibly related to the fact that you are about as quick on your feet as an overfed dead sea lamprey.
In case you hadn't heard, Wily Mo (and cash) was traded today to the Nats for a player to be named later. A lot of people are going to be pretty happy about this; it was often near-agonizing to watch Wily Mo stagger around the outfield, and while his homeruns were majestic, they were also too rare to make waiting around for them worthwhile. I mean, come on now... Dustin Pedroia, who is about a third of Wily Mo's size, has the same number of homeruns (one more, actually, since he just hit one out).
At the age of 25 Wily Mo's still got some potential left, but there just wasn't enough room on a team that has Jacoby Ellsbury waiting in the wings to see if he still might develop. Ellsbury's bat might not end up being any better, but at least he's got speed on the basepaths and in the field, making him valuable in two ways that Wily Mo can't even dream of.
Anyways.
This has been a weird game. Clay Buchholz made his debut, and ended up doing OK: 4 runs (3 earned) on 8 hits over 6 innings. He looked like he had good movement on his pitches but wasn't overpowering or anything like that. Doug Mirabelli did something heinous to his calf while rounding third (looking a mess as he did it, 'tho that's SOP for when Dougie tries to run), meaning that Varitek had to come into the game, meaning that the night game is going to be caught by... well, nobody knows just yet.
I guess they kind of HAVE to call someone up from one of the minor league teams, but can someone get here in time? In a dead emergency I suppose they could have Alex Cora catch... I'll be at that game, and would LOVE to see that happen, just for the comedy factor. I mean, surely Beckett's enough of a pro that he can pretty much call his own game and throw to a terrible catcher if he has to, right?
(edit: Looks like Dougie's heading to the DL, and the Sox are trying to get Kevin Cash up from wherever he is, Pawtucket I think, in time for the night game. Oh well.)
We also learned, thanks to Don and Remy's interrogation skills, that Eliza Dusku is dating Brad Penny. At least, I learned it. Some people may have known it before (apparently they've been known to show up places wearing mildly classless matching outfits) . I tend to not follow these things, and it seems that Don and Remy don't either, but when Ms. Dushku dropped a hint that she followed one Dodger in particular, her fate was sealed. There was no way she was getting out of that booth without telling all to the NESNites.
Thank cats for our hard-hitting announcing crew, eh?Labels: Brad Penny, Clay Buchholz, injury, trade, Wily Mo Pena
3:38 PM
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Gold Glove for Coco!
It's plays like the one he made tonight that are the reason we continue to watch the game, even 'though the Red Sox are doing... whatever it is that they're doing right now. Thanks for making things at least marginally interesting, Coco. And hey, Josh Beckett didn't let his gently sliced fingertip keep him from pitching a quality game. That was nice to see. Of course he was paired with Dougie again, which indicates that maybe someone up there is paying attention finally?
The problem was, and is, offense.
Which is to be expected. Check this out.
The lineup we had on Opening Day had a payroll of $60,306,830.
The lineup we're fielding right now has a payroll of $23,33,000.
That's a difference of $36,975,830. Nearly 37 million dollars in difference.
The Red Sox are a $120 million team. Figure their starting lineup to be about half of that, as it was on opening day, and we've gone from having the players you would expect to find on the team with the second-highest payroll in baseball to fielding the financial equivalent of the ROYALS. I'm not even kidding. The Royals team payroll is about $47 million. $23 million, what our starting lineup tonight is collectively making, is about half of that.
The guys we have on the field have been whittled down by 37 million dollars'-worth of baseball player meat. The difference between what our lineup made when healthy and what our current lineup makes is, in and of itself, still higher than the overall payrolls of two teams: the Devils Rays ($35 mil overall) and the Marlins (an unreal $15 mil overall... Manny Ramirez by himself is making more this year than the entire Marlins roster. Boggles the mind).
Now I know that salary is not an indication of how good or bad a player is. Some guys are making way too much and skewing it; some guys are making the league minimum* just because of their age, not their ability. Heck, the Marlins, with that puny payroll, are playing some darn good ball right now.
But the fact of the matter is that the Red Sox are not hitting like a $120 million ballclub right now, and it's at least in part because they are no longer fielding the equivalent of a lineup that is on a $120 million team. Just something to think about.
And, incidentally, another reason why all this mess isn't Tito's fault. You show me the manager who has the ability to prevent about 43 million dollars'-worth of injuries to his players and I'll show you someone who's really lucky, or has magical powers.
*I got all the salaries off of ESPN.com and the team payrolls from the Hardball Times. For a few of the Sox ESPN had N/A as their listed salary; I'm assuming that means they're making the league minimum? Two of them (Carlos Pena and Dustin Pedroia) were in the lineup tonight, so obviously my numbers will be off a little if that assumption was incorrect.Labels: baseball, Coco Crisp, injury, MLB, numbercrunch, Red Sox
2:52 AM
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
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
THE CATCHER IS DEAD.
LONG LIVE THE CATCHER.Labels: baseball, Doug Mirabelli, humor, injury, Jason Varitek, MLB, Red Sox
1:19 AM
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
That is it. That is IT. The glutes, the elbow however many moons ago, now the knee. It ends here. Varitek is far too important to be left vulnerable to these injuries. Dougie is not a viable longterm backup and who the blibberin' heck else do we have? We traded Shoppach away and tonight he was tagging Dougie out at home (and then forgetting how many outs there were in the inning, much to Don and Remy's amusement). We have nothing*. We need 'Tek.
FROM NOW ON, HE PLAYS IN BUBBLEWRAP.
I know that Kristen will heartily approve of this measure. It is necessary and not in the least bit hysterical. After all, I could be demanding that he swaddle himself in high-impact foam rubber and flak jackets, but I am not. I only wish to see him covered lovingly, head to toe, in bubblewrap. And yes, that's with clothes on underneath, you sick freaks.
Bubblewrap is flexible, so he can move with relative ease. Bubblewrap is tranlucent, so he can see through it. Bubblewrap is fun, so Manny can play with it in the dugout. Bubblewrap protects from damage. It is the solution.
Secure the bubblewrap with duct tape and he'll never break again.
In happier Red Soxish things, Kyle Snyder did valiant battle once again with his inherent Kyle Snyderness, and once again emerged the victor. He's really gutting it out, lately. It must be exhausting to have to continually fight your basic nature of suck, but there's no denying it, he stepped up big today after Boomer did pretty much exactly what we were all expecting him to do. Tito was so proud of him it almost sounded like he was about to cry in the postgame interviews.
And David Ortiz is not human. Seriously, what can you say? WHAT CAN YOU SAY? How do you even begin to quantify what he's doing? And don't tell me it's his 7th walkoff homer or whatever this season, because I know you can quantify things with numbers, and I'm a big fan of the numbers, trust me, so long as I don't have to crunch them and I only ever have to see their delicious, meaty end result stats. I'm a big believer in baseball as logically-run affair and winning as a science and I know that Moneyball is a book about a business scheme and not really about OBP.
But there comes a time when you have to go beyond all that and look at baseball as a human endeavor. And there are some times when baseball as a human endeavor simply cannot be conceived, and it's then that you have to regard baseball as a superhuman endeavor. And then you get someone like David Ortiz who takes it to a level above even that, and you have to just sit back and go, "Holy cats, he did it again."
How does he do it? How? I don't know; none of you know. Ortiz himself may not even know, and maybe that's best, because it might be the sort of thing that, the more its understood, the harder it is to do. For some guys hitting is a very intellectual pursuit but for a lot of them it's like an electron: you can know its location or its directional spin, but you can't know both at once. You can be thinking about hitting or you can actually be hitting, but you can't be doing both at once, the moment you start to do one you have to stop doing the other or it just doesn't work.
I don't believe Papi is thinking very deliberately when he comes up to the plate with a couple men on and a two-run deficit in the bottom of the 9th. If he was he would be paralyzed by the pressure of it all and he'd strike out or lose control of the bat and watch it go flying into the crowd or something. I don't know what he's doing. He doesn't know what he's doing. But everyone hopes he just keeps on doing it.
If he stays on this pace of awesomeity, there can be no sane way to deny him the MVP.
As for the trade deadline, screw that. I never liked trade deadlines anyways.
*Actually, this concerns me. 'Tek is on the wrong side of 30 and not getting any younger, Theo's attempts to find an age-reversing formula fermenting in the bottom of the Atlantic notwithstanding. Who are we grooming as his replacement? Cause I know the market for catchers is thin over all of baseball. I'm not asking for a Joe Mauer or a Brian McCann ('tho that'd be awfully nice and I'd take it in a heartbeat), but we need something going on in the minors.Labels: baseball, David Ortiz, injury, Jason Varitek, MLB, Red Sox
2:11 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
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
A most glorious fact came to my attention tonight.
Watching the game, I saw a ball bounce past the Yankee leftfielder… the… the Yankee… leftfielder… the… who the devil is that?
Then it became clear.
You guys, the Yankees are playing Terrence Long in left field.
Terrence Long.
I mean, you know, last I heard, he was still drowning in the Kauffman Stadium fountains or something.
Seriously. Terrence Long, who had one sort of good year for San Diego because the National League hadn’t seen him in ages. Terrence Long, who was so aggressively mediocre that not even the Kansas City Royals felt any particular need to hang onto him. The Kansas City Royals, who right now are running people like Esteban German and Emil Brown out onto the field.
The Yankees, you guys, the proud and exalted New York Yankees franchise is grubbing in the scrub player heap like a wild hog rooting for mushrooms.
*insert obligatory reminder of what Mike Timlin does to wild hogs here*
Now, I identify myself as a fan much more strongly by positive impulses (the activities of the Red Sox (and Tigers)) than by negative impulses (the activities of the Yankees). But that does not mean that I will not take immense, wide-ranging joy from their sufferings. They have four pitchers on the DL… four! Octavio Dotel is allegedly coming of it in the realm of soon, but Chacon just went on, WOTS just had his shoulder surgically torn to bits, and Pavano has a permabruise on his rear or something.
Sheffield is out, Crosby is out, Matsui is missing an entire hand and is having a replacement fashioned out of silver metal as we speak, a la Harry Potter.
And those are just guys on the official DL. The Chinless Wonder has a sore back, and who knows how thoroughly that can heal during an active season for a catcher. The Farns has a sore lower back, something he pitched through at times last year with varying degrees of success. Damon has a cracked traitorous bone in his little traitorous foot. Small and Villone are about a month away from being severely and irreparably overworked. Bernie Williams is probably one giant mass of overly-ripe ache by now… he shouldn’t even be playing, this was supposed to be his year of occasional DH duty and graceful exit, and instead they’re asking him to hurl his withered husk of an outfielder’s body around out there like some, well, some AAA call-up.
And Randy Johnson? You know that boy ain’t right these days.
That isn’t to say, of course, that the Sox aren’t also banged up to some degree. David Wells has been a loud but absent member of the staff so far this season. Varitek’s most closely-coveted anatomy has been stiff and sore since the spring despite the sincere offers from every female (and no doubt many male) members of Red Sox Nation to help massage it out. Coco Crisp went down with what looked like a relatively minor break and stayed out with crystallized business in his viscera. Foulke has knees made of chicken gristle. Mike Holtz is on the DL which, um, right, well, I’m sure it’s severely detrimental to the team somehow or other.
And that’s just the thing. Both their corner outfielders go out and they’re throwing Melky Cabrera, a kid who needs more time at the AAA level and whose development is probably being horrifically stunted by this; the ghost of Bernie Williams; and Terrence freaking Long on the field. Our centerfielder breaks himself into a fine powder, and suddenly Wily Mo Pena is hitting .327 and lumbering around the outfield like he actually belongs there.
Pavano goes out early, and no one new really steps up. Wells goes out early, and Josh Beckett decides to be the next coming of dominant Schilling. Hell, Schilling decides to be the next coming of dominant Schilling.
I don’t even have to mention what Papelbon has done in the ‘stepping it up’ department.
The Yankees get injured, and they bring in people who are either too old or too inexperienced. The Red Sox seem to, at least for now, have a better handle on the situation. The guys who are stepping up are young, but not inexperienced—Beckett, Pena, Papelbon. The unexciting, not at all flashy offseason acquisitions are hitting .295 (Loretta, and admittedly with no power), .333 (Lowell, with power), and, uh, .197 (Gonzo, with, er, defense?).
Youks’ OBP is a very Greek god-like .424.
Even Little Alex Cora was getting fanwank from Jim Rice after the game today for being SO GODDAMN FUNDAMENTAL.
So, yeah, I’m going to relish this point in time a little bit. Because everyone’s falling apart some, but the Yankees are handling it with all the elegance of Arod if a dead sea lamprey were to be hurled into his shower stall while the Red Sox are trucking along.
Also, travel and weather and all that permitting, I’mGoingtotheGameTomorrowi.e.TodayEeeeeeeeee!
Oh, and I would just like to point out that Jake Peavy struck out 16 Braves in his outing tonight. And the Padres still lost.Labels: baseball, injury, MLB, Terrence Long, Yankees
5:11 AM
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
We'll get to that image in a second.
By now you've probably all noticed the change 'round these parts; that is, the new banner. It was a sad day when I realized it was pitiably anachronistic to have Joey Harrington and Bill Mueller as the visual focal points of a site covering the Lions and the Red Sox. So now we have a blue cat (of the appropriate species) wearing red socks, which should withstand the test of time. Or something. I may tweak that banner a bit (if you were swift on the day I first put it up you might've briefly seen a version without any borders), but that's how we're gonna do things here at BCRS nowadays.
And by 'we' I of course mean me, my computer, and Mortimer, the collective cactus being that lives on my windowsill. He's very helpful.
But anyways. It's been a bit, and during this time of year that means that I've missed quite a lot. I blame education. I see that Coco Crisp has done something shattering to his hand and/or finger, the official word being "a non-displaced fracture at the base of his left index finger," which, for us nonmedical sorts, is a hairline fracture (see, non-displaced, the bone hasn't moved).
Doesn't sound too bad in the grand scheme of awful and terrifying possibilities, but I don't like the location. The base of his index finger... ugh, that's something he's gonna need for both fielding and batting. It's a part of the hand that gets a lot of pressure put on it, if you think about how much you use your index finger (even on your nondominant hand) for. But the front office doesn't seem panicked, and it's early yet, and it's not like Adam Stern is a horrible replacement. More Red Sox Jews for Passover, huzzah!
In happy good yay-making news, however, David Ortiz has been signed to a 4-year extension, with a club option tacked on at the end. I'm sure if you tried hard enough you could find some someone who is unhappy with the deal, because no matter what it is there will always be some Red Sox fan who finds something about a deal to be unhappy with, but in this case that person is a bitter, bitter soul who lives out their days in the darkness of their parents' basement, pecking away at their computer and cursing the sun like Gollum and generally hating life and joy. Or maybe they're a Twins fan and they feel ever so shafted.
Also, the presser gave us this image, which is clearly one of the greatest AP photographs to ever exist and in a way validates the entire signing all by itself. Seriously. LOOK AT HOW COOL HE IS. And the bling! And the SMILE. And the FUZZY THEO BENIGNLY PRESIDING OVER ALL IN THE BACKGROUND. His hat kind of looks like a bicycle seat but even that is OK because it's David Ortiz and if he wants to wear a bicycle seat on his head, you damn well best sit back and whistle at how sharp he manages to make it look.
The home opener is in a few hours but I, of course, will not be able to see it, as I'll be frantically painting away in my last (official) painting studio of the year. Beckett's going and I'm just a wee bit annoyed that I won't be able to get a good look at him, but it's OK.
Why is it OK, you ask?
This is why it is OK.
I almost didn't want to say anything beforehand, because I hardly believed we were actually going until we were walking up past Ford Field and into the park. The weather was perfect and Bondo was pitching and we had prime Brandon Inge viewing seats (although not necessarily the best seats for photos, what with my telephoto-lens-less camera and all, but I tried). The Tigs lost but it was an amazingly good time and you should all go look at the photos so that you may enjoy it as well.
For more detail on it you can check out my exhaustion-crazed and vaguely incoherent post about it over at RotT.Labels: baseball, blognews, Coco Crisp, contract, David Ortiz, injury, MLB
10:59 AM
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