Here’s 50% of the items that came in the mail today (in the most nondescript envelope ever, with an indication that it contained “your requested dated material”)…
Yes, it’s vertical, which I had previously thought was an orientation reserved for football and hockey season tickets. (Bleacher section 36 is in dead center field, if anyone’s curious. Looking forward to seeing Johnny Damon’s back!)
The first tickets have been purchased, bleacher seats for the Red Sox vs. Tigers at Fenway Park. Up next, Phillies tickets, which go on sale on Thursday the 19th. Those may end up being the only tickets we get in advance, although we’re pretty sure we can use our connections to get free Cardinals and Pirates tickets.
I guess I should make mention of the fact that the Boston Red Sox are the Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year, which I guess makes sense, since as of now, the Sox winning is the feel-good sports story of the year. The story in Sports Illustrated is about Red Sox fans, which means it’s heartwarming and tearjerking, not to mention heartjerking and tearwarming.
The problem is with the timing, since this issue came out at the beginning of December (I guess it was tied to a TV special where they revealed the choice). What happens if, for example, Brett Favre thwarts an invasion of Earth sometime between now and the end of the year? Well, maybe now that the Sox won the World Series, it won’t matter so much if we’re enslaved by aliens.
I may have a new favorite non-Cardinal player.
Last night, we had a couple of people over to watch the opener between the Red Sox and the Orioles. We settled in, started the TiVo, and the first image of the season caused everyone to gasp in sheer, unadulterated awe. Johnny Damon, over the winter, turned into a god. He grew out his already shaggy hair so that it hangs over his shoulders, trailing out of his batting helmet or cap. And he grew a beard. It was hard to concentrate on what he was doing during his first at-bat, because all anyone in the room could look at or think about was all that hair. Then, on his first play in the outfield, he was coming in for a ball, not too fast, and it looked like there was no hope of his cap falling off. Everyone was disappointed. Then, like a silent prayer being answered, the cap popped off his head and his glossy locks floated free. There was much cheering in the Rocketship.
I apologize for not having a link to a photo. I haven’t seen one today, which just tells me, once again, that the majority of sportswriters have been doing their jobs so long that they no longer really love sports. Otherwise, today’s headlines would be along the lines of: Damon’s Hair, Beard Open a Glorious Season.
You know it’s going to be a great year now.
P.S. While looking up links for this post, I discovered that the Baltimore Orioles own neither www.baltimoreorioles.com or www.orioles.com. The latter hosts a site for the United States Beer Drinking Team, with a link for Beer Radio.
I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is how the Red Sox victory was portrayed by television shows taking place in Boston. I haven’t heard anything about a special “Cheers” reunion, so all we have is David E. Kelley’s “Boston Legal,” which treated it in typical David E. Kelley fashion on Sunday’s episode. Turns out William Shatner’s character Denny Crane wanted to do two things before he died: see the Red Sox win the World Series, and have sex with a one-legged woman. After the first one came true, he was driving down the street when he saw a limping woman on the sidewalk, pulled over, ended up offering her a trip to Belize, and found out she was an undercover cop with two legs. Later, Denny and his colleague Alan Shore (played by James Spader) are in the chambers of judge Bill…
Bill: You thought she had one leg.
Denny: A trip to Belize is a fair and square deal, Bill. Hell, if I had a nickel for every woman I promised to marry in exchange for sex… Actually, I do.
Bill: I’m supposed to believe this? Your father told you the best sex was to be had with amputees, you saw this woman limping, and you were simply overcome?
Alan: You’re leaving out the most important fact here, your honor.
Bill: Which is?
Alan: The Red Sox. For years, many years, they have, at one time or another, made each and every one of us insane. Last October, when they lost the seventh game to the Yankees, crime went up in this city. It’s already predicted we’ll have a flood of August babies next year from celebration-induced pregnancies. The Red Sox make us lose ourselves, and in the wake of that team giving us what our hearts have yearned for all our lives, our parents and grandparents’ lives, we have fallen victim to a delirium that makes us believe anything – anything is possible, including, but not limited to, the notion that God put a fetching one-legged woman in this man’s path to commemorate the end of a wretched, horrible curse.
Denny: You know me, Bill. I have hookers all the time. They come to my house. Why would I pull over to the side of the road?
Bill: Go. Beat it.
Alan: Thank you, sir.
Denny: Buy you a drink, counsel?
Alan: I’d love to, but I have to tend to some business with a much less reasonable judge.
Denny: Thank you, Bill. (Pause) Who’s your daddy?
Near the end of the episode, there’s a touching scene in which Alan brings a one-legged woman to Denny’s office, and they toast the Red Sox.
Lucas: That was a pretty good episode.
Steve: Lots of good “baseball-related” stuff from the past few days. Wonder who will be the first to weigh in….
Levi: This week is one of my busiest of the year, but I hope to get to at least a roundup on Monday. Cause you’re right: lotsa stuff happening. Like the White Sox being interested in Carlos Beltran!
Dan: I’ll repeat this, I’m sure, with the roundup. But leave it to Denny Neagle and Jose Lima to make Jason Giambi’s admission of sticking a needle in his ass seem boring. Best offseason week evah!
This is an Associated Press photo of Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney removing a sign in Boston that is supposed to read “REVERSE CURVE,” but has often been graffitied to read “REVERSE THE CURSE,” and which has on this occasion been graffitied with a slightly different message…
According to the AP’s caption, the sign has been up for at least 33 years. Now, here’s the good news about it being removed: it’s nonstandard. It’s a warning sign, so according to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, it should be black letters on a yellow background. You know, like one of these. So let’s hope the Massachusetts Department of Transportation or the city of Boston (I’m not sure who has jurisdiction over that sign) is going to replace it with better signage.
Well, Levi, aside from the fact that you had a rooting interest in the team that lost the World Series, I would hope you can agree with this statement: overall, this was a great baseball season. Maybe you wouldn’t use the emphasis, but I would (and did).
Lucas: My condolences, Levi.
Toby: Sorry, Levi. When are you coming home? I have a CD for you.
Dan: Levi, I feel your pain — ’twas me in ’00. I didn’t speak to anyone for days. And I still don’t like talking about it.
Steve: Even though it didn’t turn out right for the Cardinals this year, thanks to Levi and Jim for making this one of the most enjoyable interactive baseball seasons ever. This blog was like an angioplasty in the artery that led to my black baseball loathing heart. There are many things that still bug the hell out of me about baseball but this is neither the time nor the place. Thanks again.
“People ask me what I do in the winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do: I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
— Rogers Hornsby
Here’s hoping the Cardinals stave off winter one game at a time until at least Sunday.
Luke, hanger-on: Only 129 days until pitchers and catchers report.
Levi: I was counting on someone knowing the number. I was consoling myeslf that it’s about four months.
Thanks, Luke.
Don’t worry, Levi; my co-worker Joe and I spent our lunch break on Tuesday coming up with horrible “curse” scenarios that would cause the Red Sox to lose in spectacular fashion. Among them: Curt Schilling has a perfect game going, until his legs fall off. Also, Tim Wakefield gets hit by a truck.
Jason: Other curse scenarios:
Johnny Damon gets lost during a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.
David Ortiz loses his shirt at one of the local riverboat casinos, so he has to serve as a greeter for the rest of the series until his debt is paid off.
Bill Mueller gets married to Bill Buckner’s daughter, and decides to take her last name.
Manny Ramirez gets stuck atop the Gateway Arch.
Terry Francona turns into Terry Francenstein.
sandor: Of the three post-game Red Sox interviews I’ve seen in this series, all three players spent their first moments behind the mic profusely crediting God for all of their good fortune.
So it wouldn’t seem totally unreasonable to me, if in fact God is responsible for the Sox players’ success, for Him to suddenly… change his mind. Who better to put on a curse than the cursemeister Himself?
Levi: Or, if Satan is responsible for their good fortune, I could see him getting really pissed and pulling the plug.
We’ll know that tonight when Jason Marquis, with a freshly-grown goatee, hits three home runs and throws a two-hit shutout.
In Sunday’s game, Bill Mueller had the potential to become the next Bill Buckner, but a funny thing happened: the Red Sox won in spite of his errors. Well, also, it was only Game 2, so the Sox didn’t have a chance to win it all the way they did in Game 6 in 1986.
Anyway, perhaps this is a sign that Babe Ruth’s ghost has finally stopped haunting the Red Sox. Hopefully, he is now haunting Horatio Sanz for doing the worst Babe Ruth impression ever on this week’s “Saturday Night Live.” It was such a horrible impression that they had to start playing the wrong lip-sync track for poor Ashlee Simpson in order to distract the viewers from its horribleness. (The Babe Ruth impression, I mean, not necessarily Ashlee Simpson’s lip-sync track.) It also doesn’t help that Horatio Sanz is incapable of doing a comedy bit lasting longer than 90 seconds without cracking up for no good reason.
Jason: I didn’t know anyone still watched SNL.
Jim: But it’s so easy to TiVo through the boring parts, and occasionally there’s something that makes it all worthwhile.
