Friday, October 10, 2008
It's on.
All photos by Samara Pearlstein, obviously.Labels: ALCS, baseball, Devil Rays, MLB, photoblog, Red Sox, rivalry
5:12 PM
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Mmmm, losing, how it has consumed my football.
I of course attended the Michigan/Ohio State game, which was a disaster. A total disaster. It was freezing cold out, but just warm enough to keep the rain rain and not snow. I don't know how it was possible for the air to be as cold as it was while we were still getting rained out, but apparently Ohio State bewitched the air to make us just that much more completely miserable. I was soaked through by the end of the game, and I had rain gear on. Some people were worse off. And of course there's no shelter in the Big House.
Part of the problem was that, while the game didn't ever really 'feel' close, and even though it definitely never seemed like Michigan (and more especially Chad Henne) was going to make a comeback, the score technically WAS close enough to keep most of us in our seats. Of course leaving a ballgame early is despicable behavior, but in this case it would have been perfectly justified by the soul-destroying nature of the loss and the potentially health-destroying nature of the weather, and if this had been a blowout I would've been out of there before you could say, "Jim Tressel eats babies."
ALAS, IT WAS NOT A BLOWOUT. The score at the end was only 14-3. That's a surmountable score even in the NFL, and it's easily surmountable by college football standards. Hell, I've seen Michigan overcome much bigger deficits in that very stadium. You can't leave a college game when the score's that close, you just CAN'T, because if the losing team makes a comeback and you aren't there for it you can NEVER FORGIVE YOURSELF.
I mean, look at that MSU game in 2004. We were down by 17 with 8-some-odd minutes to go in the 4th quarter. As the game wore on, the mid-70s temperature of the daytime gave way to the mid-30s temperature of the night, meaning that we had all showed up wearing tshirts and were literally freezing. It seemed like the perfect time to leave, and Michigan ended up coming back and winning in triple overtime. It's one of the most epic games in recent memory and a classic in the UM/MSU rivalry.
Can you imagine being at that game and leaving early? Lots of people did. (I almost did, but my seatmate said we should wait for at least the 5-minute mark, and Michigan started the comeback around the 6-minute mark). I know some people who left. THEY HAVE STILL NOT FORGIVEN THEMSELVES.
So, with Michigan only down by 11 at the most, I just couldn't leave. Not even with the pervading air of hopelessness, not even with the weather that threatened to end both me and my camera. This time around, Michigan did not reward me with a win. The defense played well (witness the fact that OSU was held to 14 points), but the offense doesn't even rate mention. Suffice it to say that the offense was Bad, and the capital B is intentional.
Photos from the game are here. I went early to take a bunch of stadium shots, as it's my last game as an undergrad. Thankfully the rain did not start until the game did. I got some nice player shots from warmups too. Not so many good shots during the game, due to the aforementioned and much belabored weather. YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW TRULY MISERABLE IT WAS UNLESS YOU WERE THERE. The weather for that game: also Bad.
In happier news, I was also at the Thanksgiving Day Lions game! Oh wait, did I say 'happier'? I meant 'equally sad but less overtly miserable because at least the Lions play indoors'.
This was, by far, the highlight of the game. Dippin' Dots. In a miniature Lions helmet. I think you will agree with me that this is awesomeness made solid and incarnate, yes? Yes.
As for the game itself, whatever. I literally spent parts of it thinking to myself, "Hey, this isn't half as bad as the Michigan game! I'm inside! It's climate-controlled! I have a real seat instead of a small section of bleacher! The Lions are playing with some hope here at the end! I have Dippin' Dots! Altogether a superior losing experience!" And all that was TRUE. It made the Lions game just seem so whatever-esque. Brett Favre and the Packers are on a streak of vicious football prowess. The Lions have been winning, with the exception of the Denver game, by the skin of their pointy feline teeth. Whatever! At least it wasn't an absurdly bad blowout like the past two Thanksgivings. This game was close! So, whatever! See?
Photos from that game are here, in addition to some shots from before and after, as we trotted around the city.
At least it looks like the Patriots are going to win this game. If you listen carefully, you can hear my feeble, beaten-down cheer as I muster the little enthusiasm I have left for football right now.
Oh, and PS, check out this downtown Detroit bar:
Yes, it is called "Jacoby's". I had to take a photo of that. Who wouldn't?Labels: Buckeyes, football, Jacoby Ellsbury, Lions, loss, NCAA, NFL, OSU, rivalry, terrible, Wolverines
10:48 PM
Monday, September 17, 2007
Red Sox
Saturday: good. Sunday: bad. For once I have a lot of support out here in Michigan when I pay attention to the Sox, because every Tigers fan with half a brain realized that we badly needed the Sox to beat some Yankee posterior in this series. I actually got a couple high fives on the strength of my Sox hat at the Michigan game.
When David Ortiz came up in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded and two outs and the Sox down by one, it seemed inevitable that the game would be won, or would at least go to extra innings. David Ortiz! Situation of ultra-clutch! Clutchiest situation to ever grasp the world of clutch hitting since Derek Jeter last had to clutch at his underpants to keep them from falling down! EPITOME OF CLUTCHIFIED MOMENT.
We're talking about a David Ortiz who had just walked off a ballgame, and a Mariano Rivera who was visibly struggling.
Alas, it was not to be. Although these games did live up to their epic Red Sox/Yankees Rivalry to the Death billing (The Beast from the East vs. Roger Clemens' Personal Pool Boy! Matsuzaka vs. Pettitte! Man vs. Myth! Beckett vs. Wang!! Battle of the Ancients! Schilling vs. Clemens! Games to Test your Endurance!), the end result was not what we wanted.
It doesn't matter so much for the Red Sox, if you discount the whole 'insane rivalry' thing. It's probable that they'll just coast into the playoffs (although really, if they keep on losing... and the Yankees keep on winning... ugh, it doesn't even bear thinking about), and then we can start worrying. But, as everyone today is going to tell me-- man, this SUCKED for the Tigers.
Blue Cats
Forward down the field,
A charging team that will not yield.
And when the Blue and Silver wave,
Stand and cheer the brave.
Rah, Rah, Rah.
Go hard, win the game.
With honor you will keep your fame.
Down the field and gain,
A Lion victory!
GOOOOO LIONS!
Shock. Amaze. It wasn't just a Lions victory-- although it WAS a LIONS VICTORY!!-- but it was a Lions victory led in large part by Jon Kitna. The Lions looked energized when Kitna was in the game, and Kitna looked energized in turn. Let me just repeat this, so that you may more fully savor it.
Jon Kitna was the spark that fired the offense.
Jon Kitna led the Lions offense.
Jon Kitna. Good things. Quarterback. Detroit. Good.
You know what he looked like? He looked like Joey Harrington did in the game where Joey had the flu and the scruffy beard and the bloodshot eyes and, because he didn't give a damn, he threw for a bazillion yards and looked more like a real live quarterback than he ever had before. Nobody remembers the game for that; they instead (quite rightly) remember it for the horrific end, but if that series of completely ridiculous and tragic events had never taken place, that game would have been remembered for how Joey looked. LIKE A LEADER OF MEN.
(As an aside, Joey Harrington was sacked 7 times in a Falcons loss yesterday. I wonder if the offensive line is really that bad [in which case, why pick up Joey, someone that everyone in the universe knew could not run an offense with a weak line, as so manifestly proven by his time in Detroit?] or if something like the anti-Joey behavior that infested the Lions has already started to take hold in Atlanta. Poor guy. Who can tell if he's effective or not in a new offense if he can't stay on his feet long enough to get his bearings downfield?)
Point being, that's how Kitna looked this past Sunday.
Now, I've heard a lot of the "pundits" saying that the Lions are basically being liver flukes right now, and they're "pretenders", and cat knows what else. On the one hand, I tend to agree. These are, above all, the Lions, which means that they'll be managed poorly and will find exciting new and previously unexplored ways to lose. On the other hand, how many of those so-called football experts do you think ACTUALLY sat down and watched the Lions game? I would guess not very many.
Michigan
Finally won. Woo. Thanks, Irish.Labels: baseball, football, Lions, MLB, NFL, Red Sox, rivalry, Vikings, Yankees
9:01 AM
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
My excitement for the upcoming Yankee series is only heightened by having seen what the Tigers just did to them.
Traditional baseball thought indicates that the Yankees can react in one of two ways. They can be crushed by these epic defeats and wither away to a mere memory of a ghost of a team, OR they can be fired up and energized by the way they were dispatched, leading to an overwhelming surge of victorious marching. Real-life baseball thought indicates that their offense is great, but it's only as good as their pitching. If Pettitte, the Clem-bag, and Wang all pitch really well, the Yankees have a damn good shot at taking the series. If Pettitte, the Clem-bag, and Wang pitch less-than-spectacularly, the Red Sox will come down on them like a sack of overweight capybaras tied to anvils.
Obviously we are all hoping for the capybaras.
When you think back to the start of the year, it seems insane that we're worried about the Yankees now. They've shown that they can be the most annoying team on the planet, though (as if we've forgotten), and the scariest thing is that if by some catastrophic chance the Sox drop in the division, the wild card is by no means ensured. As the Tigers grapple with the Indians from afar, all Tigers fans view with wild card race with deranged and immense fear. I would be pretty happy to not have to do this with the Red Sox as well.
It is true that the Yankees have a juggernaut offense.... but they do not have overweight capybaras tied to anvils. That kind of "knock 'em down and out and then laugh 'cause they got flattened by a giant hamster" power will hopefully only reside with the Sox. We just saw it against the White Sox (admittedly not that hard a team to capybara-paste, these days) and hopefully the Sox will have got a taste for it now. I know I have.
Let the capybara-wrangling begin!Labels: baseball, capybara, MLB, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
11:52 AM
Monday, June 04, 2007
I was commiserating with Beth about this game, and the bloody UNFAIRNESS of it all. "How could this happen?" we sulked. The Red Sox are playing good ball these days! The Yankees are cellar-dwelling gnomes whose supposed savior is an old man with a case of muscular crotch rot! The standings say that this series should have been ouuuuurrrrssss!
Maybe so. But Red Sox/Yankees games exist outside of the "real" world. If the standings represent the space-time continuum, a Red Sox/Yankees series represents a parallel plane of existence where none of the usual physical rules of the universe apply. In the NORMAL world, the Red Sox should have at least taken 2 of 3. But in the RED SOX/YANKEES world, records go out the window and anything at all can happen. In my deranged little Red Sox fan mind, I firmly believe this.
The Nation did its collective best. Chants of "Where is Roger?" and screams of "MINE!" or "HA!" every time a ball came near ARod... blonde wigs and masks, also directed at ARod, and all the usual range of anti-Yankeedom that unites Fenway for such games were out in full force.
There was the usual dash of Sox/Yanks drama. All the hit batsmen in the first game, and then Lowell and Mientkiewicz colliding... Yankees saying Lowell's play was maybe dirty, Lowell immediately snarking back that he learned that sort of thing when he was on the Yankees... just a mess. A glorious, typically frenzied rivalry-fueled mess.
It all came down to those moments of ridiculously perfect drama that characterize Sox/Yanks matchups. Who should hit the game and series winning homerun but ALEX FREAKIN' RODRIGUEZ, the brunt of every joke in both cities for weeks. Of course, right? Like it could come down to anything else. And then Mariano Rivera had to remember that he's Mariano Rivera, and shut us down. The rest of the league has been discovering that he's human, but of course in the strange parallel world that is Sox/Yankees, he has fully regained his alien powers.
It's tiring. It's hard being in an alternate universe where up is down, black is white, and the Yankees are an actual threat. I'm sure everyone will be glad to head to Oakland for some hopefully normalized baseball, even if it does mean Wrong Coast times and prolonged exposure to the sheer horror of Danny Haren's facial hair.Labels: ARod, baseball, loss, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
1:05 AM
Friday, May 11, 2007
Sox Suck
Originally uploaded by Yankees Man.
This is the scariest damn thing I've ever seen. The dog looks like a person.... in fact he looks more like a person than Jason Giambi does. I am loathe to blog someone else's photo but honestly, I could not resist this one, even if it is wearing a hat of sin.
If I had a dog like this, I would take photos of it in different outfits ALL THE DAMN TIME.
Labels: photoblog, rivalry, Yankees
2:40 AM
Friday, April 20, 2007
Hideki Okajima: talk about an IN-FREAKIN-SANE introduction to the rivalry. Yeeeeesh. Could that have BEEN more dramatic? I posit that it could not.
Welcome to the Nation, Hideki-san.Labels: Hideki Okajima, rivalry, save, win
11:34 PM
Thursday, March 22, 2007
 Labels: ARod, Bronson Arroyo, drawn, rivalry
12:38 AM
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Hour and a half 'til we get going. Damn. What do you even say? The entire state's kind of stunned right now; the campus is simultaneously boisterous and subdued. There were loud drunken choruses of Hail to the Victors all up and down my street around 2 am last night, but it's silent right now.
Someone put some yellow flowers on top of the little University sign in front of Schembechler Hall.
You want to say that if we lose now it doesn't matter any more than if we had lost before this happened, but of course that's not true. We'll feel worse. Because it's already hard to feel great going into a game when something like this has just happened. There's a reason Ohio State is ranked number 1 and we're ranked number 2. The game's in Columbus. I don't feel great about it. I was OK with that, was just hoping we could keep it close enough to make a case for getting another shot at them in the BCS title game. Now? It's going to be hard to take any kind of loss with such equanimity.
I don't know. Heading over to my tailgate soon. It's at the same house we've been going to all season.... right across from the Stadium. I wonder if they have something up on the big signs. Probably do. If there's some kind of memorium, we can probably see it from the back porch.
I'm sure there'll be more to say after the game.
Go Maize. Go Blue. Win.Labels: Bo Schembechler, Buckeyes, football, in memory, Michigan, NCAA, OSU, rivalry, Wolverines
2:02 PM
Monday, November 13, 2006
OK, this is priceless.
The University just sent us all an email about the Michigan/OSU game this weekend and how you can go to their big sponsored tailgate if you're in Columbus for the game and whatnot. That was just the very beginning of the email, though. The rest of it was a list of things to do and not do if you are a Wolverine going to watch the game in Ohio.
I shall reprint the list here, for your amusement.
We know that it can be uncomfortable being in an opposing team's environment, especially when the stakes are so high. We would like to offer a few suggestions in order to help you stay safe and have a positive experience this weekend:
--Try carpooling to the game; if possible, drive a car with non- Michigan license plates.
--Keep your Michigan gear to a minimum, or wait until you are inside the stadium to display it.
--Stay with a group.
--Know and obey the laws regarding alcohol use.
--If you are of legal age to drink, use alcohol in moderation. Stay in the blue.
--Stay low-key; don't draw unnecessary attention to yourself.
--If verbally harrassed by opposing fans, don't take the bait.
--Avoid High Street in Columbus.
If at any time you feel unsafe, you should call 9-1-1 for assistance. U-M campus police also will be available in Columbus to support our fans. You may call them with non-emergency concerns at (734) 216-9159.
I think this mostly speaks for itself, but still.
Now, I won't say that if the roles were reversed, the game was this big and it was in Ann Arbor, some of these things being warned against wouldn't happen to OSU fans. It's a college campus, there are ALWAYS going to be at least a few kids acting like wankers. A car with Ohio plates might get keyed, a guy wandering around near the frats wearing red and gray might get a beer tossed on him-- ESPECIALLY if the Buckeyes were representing after the game and Michigan had just lost.
But this list... man, I just could not help it. I cracked up. Try to blend in!! Don't wear attention-getting colors!!!! Stay with a group!!!!!! DO NOT STRAY ALONE! OHIO STATE FANS, MUCH LIKE THE BLOODTHIRSTY LION, PREY UPON THE WEAK AND THE ALONE!
My friend Meg called me earlier to bitch about the art school (an activity we have occasion to indulge in all too often out here) and asked if I'd read the email. "Can you believe that?" she asked. "What the hell is all that about?"
"They're Ohio State fans, Meg. They're animals."
We laughed, but dude, reading this list? Seeing the fear for their students (and alums) stamped across the faces of University officials? I'm not so sure I can call that a joke.
Also, the injunction to simply AVOID AN ENTIRE STREET? Freaky. I've never been to Ohio; what's this mysterious "High Street"? Is it like a warzone? Is there some red-and-gray-clad gang that's claimed that street for their own, ruling the black market organ trade, drug flow, and prostitution rings based there with a meaty, cabbage-scented fist? I am frightened, but intrigued.
Oh, and that image up at the top there is something I drew for a Chanukah card one year. I just use it here because, well, it's a Wolverine, and festive, if inappropriately so. I'll try to whip up some UM vs. OSU kind of drawing soon, if the work I have to do doesn't destroy my soul beforehand.Labels: Buckeyes, football, humor, list, Michigan, NCAA, OSU, rivalry, Wolverines
10:12 PM
Saturday, August 19, 2006
I love how not only is it Red Sox/Yankees, not only is it a 5 game series, not only is it a day/night doubleheader, NOT ONLY is the next day's game in the afternoon, but they have to go ahead and have THE LONGEST 9-INNING GAME IN BASEBALL HISTORY. At some point, doesn't this become overkill? At some point doesn't someone step in and say, STOP THE BAD MOVIE, I WOULD LIKE TO INSERT A SLIGHTLY MORE BELIEVABLE PLOT HERE? Seriously. You can't script this stuff. It's ridiculous.
Bobby Abreu is a freak muppet of a man. This is my intelligent, 4 am baseball analysis. When he grins really widely, he looks something like a bullfrog, and when his face is slack he looks like his head is felted and owes its existence to Jim Henson. He looks like he should be about as fast as Dougie but somehow he is a stolen base threat. His middle name is Kelly. When he came to town with the Phillies he was an amusing, heartwarming reminder of Detroit's Home Run Derby; now he is evil and I hate him and I want him to go away.
Good riddance to Jason Johnson. It's hardly his fault though, he's exactly as advertised: a mediocre-to-solid first half pitcher who falls to pieces in the second half. We picked him up in the second half. I don't know if someone in the front office actually expected him to reverse his career trends in one of the most stressful environments in baseball, or they just badly needed a warm body to trot out there and he was willing and techincally able.
Eric Hinske, though. He can stay. Talk about welcoming yourself to a new city the right way. I can't help but wonder if he's really going to accept a bench role, though. He's been an everyday player before this and now he's gonna hafta sit behind Youk most of the time, or at least I'd assume so, because he's definitely no better defensively (and might even be worse) and is certainly no Greek/RomanianJewish God of Walks. I just really don't want to see another Jay Payton situation, because that doesn't end well for anyone in the Universe.
Oh, and if there were any last vestiges of Johnny Damon love lurking in the seedier corners of New England, they should have all been ferreted out by now. I hate that he's so comfortable hitting in Fenway. It's like having Osama Bin Laden hit us with our own weapons that we gave him, and our own training that we offered him. Except I bet Osama still has the beard.
The longest 9-inning game in history. Ugh, freakin' unbelieveable. Somewhere, as the clock ticked over and the record was set, an ESPN employee died in a seizure of delight. ESPN and FOX could team up and write cheesy, attention-grabbing stories about the Red Sox and Yankees for a year and even they wouldn't come out with this shit.Labels: baseball, Bobby Abreu, Eric Hinske, Jason Johnson, MLB, record, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
4:12 AM
Friday, May 26, 2006
This is so typical.
I've never been, in person, to a Red Sox/Yankees game in my life. And suddenly I had tickets to two in a row.
And then they go and lose both.
At least they were both (eventually) close games... it would've been incomparably depressing to sit through a Yankee blowout at Fenway. And the weather, although cool later in the game, was nice both nights. And the seats were really good both nights, and I was in really good company both nights. And it was LIVE BASEBALL at FENWAY PARK against the YANKEES so, you know, I have nothing in the world to complain about.
Anyways. The first game. That being Tuesday's Wakefield/Wright matchup.
I met up downtown with my cousins Beth and Leah, their friend Deb and her son Sam. Sam is a kid who has the uncanny ability to imitate the batting stance of any number of major leaguers, which naturally led to a discussion of stances and who batted left- or right-handed. Beth tried to imitate Ichiro's stance and nearly got it right, but she held the straw (bat) out horizontally, whereas Ichiro holds it vertically. I mention this only because it's something I always notice, and not just because I love Ichiro (preemptive 'shut up'). I think Daryl once said it reminded him of holding up a sword, but it's always unavoidably reminded me of an artist holding up their pencil, vertical and at the end of a fully extended arm, to gauge the proportions of a figure they're trying to draw. Every time I see Ichiro bat, it looks like he's judging to proportions of the pitcher. And I realize full well that 0.2 of you actually care about that, but I wanted to mention it anyhow.
As for Sam, well, to demonstrate for those of us who had not seen it before (me), he stood in a wide, solid stance, holding his hands together at a high angle to his head, slowly rotating them at the wrists.
I swear to cats, it was Jason Varitek, only significantly smaller.
He also does a dead-on Papi Face.
Those necessities dispensed with, we headed into the park.
Now, this being Fenway and all, the park is technically exactly as crowded for a Yankees game as it is for a Devil Rays game, because sold out is sold out. But just like at Michigan Stadium when Ohio State comes to town, the sold out big game crowd looks somehow larger than the sold out 'nonconference' game crowd. Maybe more people who have tickets actually show up (although, again, the no-shows at Fenway don't make a significant dent in the crowd even on a normal night) and maybe they manage to squeeze in a few more at the corners.
There is, however, a certain singlemindedness of purpose in the crowd. We're not just there to watch baseball. We're there to watch Red Sox/Yankees. We're there to (with a few exceptions) boo Johnny Damon. We're there to remind Sheffield (in his first game back from the DL) and Giambi (he didn't play in the first game, 'tho he did in the second one) that we know what they did and we haven't decided it's OK. We're there to make ARod's life a living hell.
So of course the very first thing that happened was Johnny Damon hitting a leadoff homerun.
Sort of put a damper on things. I don't think the crowd was ever quite the same after that, although Manny's homer perked people up a bit. But the loud, brash, excited nature of the park had beem tamped down, and the carefree attitude that allowed for multiple "Yankees suck!" chants the next night just wasn't really as present on Tuesday.
Early on, Jaret Wright fielded a ball with his stomach or something similar, causing the coaching staff and trainers to come charging out and the whole infield to come charging in, their usual Pavlovian response when Torre emerges from the dugout. Leah and I were pleased. Surely he was rattled now, all Matt Clement style (ooooo foreshadowing!), and the knuckleball's failure to locate would be rendered painless.
And, true, he only went 5 innings. It was the damndest thing, though. At no point did he look particularly dominant, but somehow he worked his way into something resembling a dominant outing. Four hits and two walks were left on the bases.
I know we do that every so often, that whole "not bringing runners around to score" thing, but it felt like we hadn't for a while and so it was a little shocking and painful to watch.
Gary Sheffield, fresh from his little rest, proceeded to go 2-for-4 on the night, much to the displeasure of everyone within a 20 mile radius of Fenway. There were the usual "Baaaaaalco" and "Steeeeeroids" chants, along with a new, more direct call: "YOU take STERoids!" *clap clap clapclapclap* Present tense too and everything. It's only a small alteration of a classic, but it cracks me up.
Later in the game it was with great joy that we watched Jon(athan) Papelbon strike the snot out of Sheffield. I know he's a free swinger to start with, but it's really impossible to not enjoy the sight of Sheffield swinging around so hard that he collapses back on his heels and hits nothing but air.
In fact Papelbon was one of the best bits of the whole game. The last time I saw him, he got his first loss, which kind of sucked at the time but we knew wasn't representative. Tuesday night was real Papelbonning. It was the kind of pitching that makes you sit back in your seat and go, "Awwww hell no!" in wonder. Which I did, naturally.
Our seats were down the third base side, right where Manny directs his glassy-eyed stare before every at-bat. Tons of people in the section (Leah included) stand and point at him and holler and Manny never ever bats an eyelash. I understand that he's often in his own little world of puppies and birthday cakes and rainbows, but you'd think he would notice that staring into the same section every time causes that section to go batshit insane.
Some other snippets from the game:
Leah: See if you can use your zoom to see who's sitting in the owner's box.
Me: No... no way...
Leah: What? Who is it?
Me: TOM FUCKING BRADY.
And, it seems, Matt Cassel on the left. We saw Tommy leaning over to get someone, I think Curt Schilling, to sign a ball for him between innings.
Mike Myers came back. He was booed on Wednesday night, but not so much during this game, probably a sign of how sullen the crowd was. Although, personally speaking, I would never boo Mike Myers. They played Austin Powers music for him, which was a cute acknowledgement without resorting to the more appropriate entrance music of Halloween.
Ugh.
The opposite of ugh.
I took so many photos of The Farns. When it came down to it, I just couldn't help it. I'll insert another preemptive "shut up" here.
It was another solid night for Youk, who I have to admit is surpassing even my expectations of him right now.
And I must say, it was a ton of fun going to my first Sox/Yanks game with Leah, mostly because you know you're at a Sox/Yanks game. There was none of this "ho hum a baseball game I shall watch impassively" business. She was on her feet at the right times, giving Manny the double point or ARod the business. Although some members of the family had led me to believe that going to game with her was something like going to a game with a rabid wolverine, I found her to be no more embarassing than, well, me, and certainly less so than, oh, let's say a full third of the bleacher sections.
That's my altogether inadequate recap of the game. The rest of the photos are right here and I highly suggest you have a look because, as you may have been able to tell, the seats were fairly freaking awesome and I got some tolerable shots.
Photos and tales from Wednesday's game soon.Labels: baseball, in attendance, MLB, photoblog, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
12:55 PM
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Mmm. Turtle soup, anyone?
What a win. I mean, it's one thing to win a game. It's another thing to win a game against the Yankees, in New York. And it's another thing ENTIRELY to win a game against the Yankees, in New York, with Randy Johnson stripped impotently from the mound while the entire crowd boos him and his visible salivary glands, and with A-Rod fumbling around the infield like a newborn baby deer.
I mean, come on now. We ALL know what the Sox do with newborn baby deer. Mike Timlin, hello.
The Moment, though, all decisive and whatnot, for all of us I think, was Alex Gonzalez' 3-run homer. It was not just a little pop that stayed up. He, as Remy so eloquently said, "golfed it". The ball was in the park, and then WHAM NO IT IS NOT. Just a tremendously powerful-looking shot, and you could see the same thing when Manny homered to leadoff an inning a bit later. But we expect that out of Manny. Manny and homeruns are hand in hand, skipping through the flowering fields, braiding daisy chains together, making Matt Clement's allergies act up. Gonzo? Gonzo is a GONEB kind of player: Glove Only, No Expected Bat. When he gets an extra base hit it's a marvel to me; this gigantic homerun? Blew a fuse in my brain.
Of course that's assuming my brain fuse hadn't been blown by the stroke commercial. The animation. Where the guy's face freezes and melts down and the woman's arm drifts and oh my god it's all in cartoon form with a song. Please tell me I am not the only one to have seen this and also not the only one to find it to be in incredibly poor taste somehow.
Bernie Williams got tossed from the game. Oh how I chortled. In all fairness, the ump had a very generous strikezone going there, and a lot of guys were obviously not agreeing with him, on both sides. But poor Bernie Ked 3 times, and then as he was walking away from the last one he flipped his batting helmet backwards towards home plate. It was about a ruler's length away from making Bernie the next Delmon Young. If all this had come from, I dunno, Giambi or A-Rod or even one of the kids, Cano or something, it would've been more ho hum, but Bernie's usually so mellow that it was just strange and hilarious.
Mike Lowell. Should just get "doubles" tattooed on his ass by now. Something like his last 8 consecutive hits have been doubles. Remy and Orsillo wondered if there was some kind of record.
The meltdown of Tanyon Sturtze: is there any more enjoyable disintegration to watch in baseball right now? He's been plugging his way towards the minors all season. And he just couldn't stop giving up runs here. At one point I thought they might actually have to dig into their pen and get someone else to finish it out.
And, possibly I'm missing some basic Yankee fact here, but why Melky Cabrera? Is his bat really that much more highly developed than that of Bubba Crosby? Because I know Crosby's deceptively young-looking-- he's actually a few months shy of 30, and therefore not what you'd call much of a prospect anymore. Cabrera is a few months shy of 22. Creepily enough, it turns out they have the same birthday-- and he's pretty much not going to be anything more than AAAA kinda guy, and he had that awful play last season where he, Sheffield, and the wall conspired to badly misplay a ball, but. But. From what I've seen, he's more polished in the field than Cabrera, which isn't HARD because Cabrera appears to SUCK LIKE A LAMPREY in the field, and his bat isn't particularly better or worse.
And they already had Crosby up with the big club. So why Melky, New York? Why?
I'm about to crash, but this story just showed up in my inbox and I can't let it pass.
It absolutely disgusts me to read that. Like the guy says, you sit in the bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium in Sox gear, you expect you're gonna hear it. And as many of those commenters say, I'm sure there are Sox fans who are just as bad as all that. But, and perhaps I'm naïve, I have never heard of ENTIRE SECTIONS at Fenway behaving like this. Localized idiots who can be very abusive and can 'detract from enjoyment of the game', the usual fare, yes. But this sounds so far above and away from anything anyone should experience at a ballpark that I half expect it to be written by a Michigan fan who ventured into the Horseshoe for an Ohio State football game.
The alleged behavior of the cops, as he describes it, is disturbing at best. I dearly hope there's some histrionic exaggeration there.
There are people commenting on that story saying, "well, it's the bleachers at Yankee Stadium, if you don't like it don't sit there". Holy freaking cats. What if some family wants to go to a game and all they can afford are bleacher seats? What if they love baseball and don't have the luxury or the choice of sitting somewhere other than in the bleachers? Are they saying kids should be exposed to that kind of behavior just because 'hey, that's where they're sitting, that's how it goes here'? That stuff shouldn't occur in any section of any ballpark. Or maybe the kids just shouldn't go at all, because hey, if you can't afford anything other than bleacher seats, you have no right to expect decent behavior.
I realize in my last post I was extolling the intensity of the rivalry and saying it shouldn't get watered down. But what this guy and his friends experienced is leaving 'intense baseball fan' territory and entering 'psychotic soccer fan' land. Even I get a kick out of some of the verbal taunts launched from the Yankee Stadium bleacher creatures, because hey, right back 'atcha when you're in our house. But this is, to put it simply, fucking ridiculous.
OK. Whatever. We won, we won big. We need to do it a couple more times, and it's the Moose tomorrow. The Moose troubles me. And then we've got Wake going, which is the ultimate baseball crapshoot.
Oh, one more thing. Did anyone else think that, with Beckett on the mound, Schilling looked all lonely standing by himself at the rail? I hardly noticed how inseparable they've become until they had to watch the game from different places.Labels: baseball, MLB, Randy Johnson, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
6:48 AM
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
To everyone who complained about the Damon booing, and who will, with this upcoming series, continue to complain about Sox fans' treatment of him:
We're not Italian soccer fans. No one's thrown FLAMING FLARES at him. Until such time as this or a comparable event occurs, no one is allowed to say that Red Sox fans are overreacting. Because the Yankees are our rivals. RIVALS. Yes, SHOCKING. We are bloody lucky to be in the midst of one of the best rivalries in sports instead of trying to halfheartedly get our dander up for matchups with some mediocre team we're vaguely aware we're supposed to dislike. Can people stop pretending that the fans are not supposed to care about the rivalry? It's occasionally irrational and always passionate and it makes the sport WORTHWHILE AND INTERESTING instead of THE FLORIDA MARLINS.
Johnny Damon played well for the Red Sox. The people loved him. Johnny Damon was quoted as saying he would never play in New York. Johnny Damon signed with New York. The Yankees are rivals of the Red Sox. He was not traded to the Yankees, he signed with them of his own accord. The people hate him. I don't think that's unreasonable. I also don't think you can say a person deserves praise because of their past if they've done something nasty in the nearer present.
"But all he did was sign with New York! And back in Boston he won you a World Series! What a fickle city!" Indeed. And if he'd signed with, say, Toronto, we'd still be cheering him. He knows as well as anyone what the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry is, and he should know as well as anyone that Red Sox fans root for the laundry more than anything else. He made a decision, now he can marinate in it.
We're not overreacting. We're reacting exactly as we should. Anything less would be an insult to the rivalry and one of the most exciting aspects of the game; a game that, in much of the country, needs all the excitement it can get, quite frankly.
Anything more, and we'd be Italian soccer fans.Labels: baseball, Johnny Damon, MLB, rant, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
4:44 PM
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
 Yeah, so, uh, I'm home and, uh, omfgJohnnyDamonandDougieisbackandYankeesandPapiandPapelbonandomfgdead.
I don't really want to talk about the previous series, mostly because looking back on it is rather like looking back on the sheet of newspaper you put under your cat's litterbox. All I'll say is that we lost a series to Tampa Bay, freakin' Tampa Bay, and I know they're supposed to be marginally better right now, and I know they've given the Yankees hemhorroids too lately, and I know Scott Kazmir, despite whatever Curt might say on the matter, can sure as heck pitch.
But. The Devil Rays? Even the 9-6 win was awful. I was watching it thinking to myself, literally, "There's no way we can be this bad of a team." Yes we came back to win it, but it was still disgusting baseball and had me questioning all sorts of things, from the front office on down to the chemical composition of the pine tar used, and on up to the air currents around the roof of the Trop. It had me questioning whether I might not have been better off hanging out in Michigan a bit longer and watching the Tigers some more (when they bothered to televise the games, of course).
And then came today, against the Yankees. And the big news was that Doug Mirabelli had been retrieved from the farm system Padres, prompting me to grumble irritably about the fact that, instead of just signing him for cash (which we've got, you know, in principle) we had to trade away players for him. Stupid. Never shoulda got rid of him in the first place. Bard is fine, we weren't going to use him or the shattered wreck of his psyche anyways, but I'm steamed that our own inability to recognize how vital Dougie was to Wake resulted in us having to lose Cla Meredith, who would've lent himself to a plethora of awful name jokes, if nothing else.
I had the following (approximate) conversation with SG board denizen and fun chick Annette over AIM--
Annette: I just never realized how well they work together. Dougie and Wake are like peanut butter and jelly.
Me: I guess. And Josh Bard was like that awful apple butter stuff that everyone always says goes with jelly just as well, and in theory it should taste just as good and look similar and all that, but in reality it TASTES LIKE ASS.
Apparently Mirabelli only barely made the game, running into the park from a police van like 10 minutes before gametime. He was cutting things so close that they put his uniform in the van and he had to change in the car on the way from the airport to the park, prompting Remy to say, "Glad I wasn't in that car!" Considering all this, he played remarkably well, even if he did go 0-for-4 at the plate.
Other highlights of the game included:
-The money that came raining down on the centerfield warning track when Damon was out there. You have to be really, really, really bad to get Bostonians to chuck the wages of sin down on your offending head.
-The tops of the first three innings, which went like this: Damon flies out to Trotter. Jeter grounds out, Lowell to Youks. Giambi flies out to Pena. ARod walks. Matsui strikes out (looking a damn fool against the knuckler). Posada flies out to Trotter. Cano flies out to Pena. Cairo grounds out, Cora to Youks. Crosby singles. Crosby is thrown out at second trying to steal. You don't steal on Dougie in his first game back, bitch. Damon grounds out to Wake, who falls the hell over fielding it and covering first, making me panic mightily, but showing his awesome Wakeness by just bouncing back up. As tidy a first few innings as you could like.
-The picture-perfect pitchout that snagged Crosby at second base in the third inning. I repeat, you don't steal on Dougie in his first game back, bitch.
-Every time someone with a thick Boston accent said LORETTER instead of Loretta.
-The way I love when Jeter leans his torso backwards out of the box, as though the pitch is way inside and is in fact threatening his precious self, and the pitch is called a strike.
-Two older-looking ladies (by which I mean, older than me) holding up a sign that read "WE FLASH 4 REM-DAWG". Momentary horror. Then NESN zoomed in on their faces and it became evident that they were both wearing big sunglasses with frames that had flashing lights in them. Horror dissipates into glee.
-"Do they count like when the other team leaves the field and then you steal?" Jerry Remy, on the fact that Mirabelli had 2 stolen bases last season.
-Dashing to check on the Tigers game between innings and seeing that Bonderman went 8 scoreless, with 9 Ks. Jeremy Bonderman is better than you. 100% of FACT.
-The bottom of the 5th inning, period. It went like this: Cora bunts. Don and Remy praise the almight inning-starting gutsy scrappy buntarific bunt. I note that it is not all that and a bag of bunt chips, but it is in fact a pretty beautifully executed bunt. Youks singles. Loretta grounds into fielder's choice, Wang to ARod, Cora out at third. Ortiz singles. Manny singles, Youks scores. Trotter grounds out, Cano to Wang (covering first), Loretta scores. Lowell flies out to Matsui on the thousandth ball of the day killed by the in-flying winds. Four hits, two runs, and one very very sad young Yankees pitcher.
-Loretta's crazygood catch on a squealing Giambi liner to make the first out of the 6th inning.
-Whatever the hell that double play was in the top of the 8th. Giambi grounded out, 4-3, but it was weird because Youks dove for it and missed. Loretta for some reason was in position behind him and he dove for it, and came up with it. Someone he managed to scramble up off his face, and Youks scrambled up off his face and covered first and made the out. And then they looked over at secondbase, which was being tightly covered by Cora, so they threw the ball down there and Jeter dove back but not in time and he was out. So the play went 4-3-6. It was weird and complicated but awesome.
What I wonder is, if two guys had to drag themselves up off the turf just to make a play, how in the hell did Giambi not beat them out? Was he strolling nonchalantly down the basepath or something?
-The bottom of the 8th inning, where Aaron Small faced three batters and got a ground out, a walk, and a HBP (Youks, on the elbow... looked an awful stinger). WOTS pitched to one batter, and gave up a run-scoring single. Myers faced one batter and Ortiz hit it out of the park. Proctor came in and got the last two outs. 4 pitchers in one inning.
-The fact that Aaron Small looks about 5,000 times goofier with his ears sticking out all the time and no hat on.
-Don talks about Torre waking up in the middle of the night during the spring and having nightmares about Ortiz at the plate.
Remy, in response, says, "I woke up a couple times in the offseason, but I wasn't dreamin' about David."
-PAPELBON!!! (warning: don't click that link if you're at work and haven't got your headphones plugged in)
-The number of homeruns today: 1, by Papi, which is as it should be.
-The number of passed balls today: 0.
-The number of Ks thrown by a combined 5 Yankees pitchers today, over 8 innings of work: 1.
-The number of Ks thrown by Jonathan Papelbon today alone, over 1 inning of work: 2.
-The number of Ks thrown by Jeremy Bonderman today alone, over 8 innings of work: 9. (sorry. I can't help it)
-The number of times Ron Guidry had to go talk to his pitchers on the mound: 119,003
-Attitude about the team? Slightly better.Labels: baseball, Doug Mirabelli, Johnny Damon, MLB, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
3:01 AM
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