Language lesson

In light of last night's game - and in the interests of linguistic accuracy - I suggest that the Red Sox change the name on Huit-Trois' jersey from Gagné to Perdu.

I didn't see the game, so I can't comment on what went wrong and how, but I can ask one very simple question:

"What the fuck is going on?"


Answers on a postcard, please, to the usual address...

Liar, Liar

Or: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

Well, that whole 'take a couple of days off' thing lasted about about 12 hours. In my defence, it was only 10pm and the game was on TV - what else could I do? Deciding not to get up at 2am to watch is one thing, but not watching a game that is on during normal waking hours just struck me as silly. The Sox made the whole process easier for me by sending Commander Kick Ass of the F@#k Yeah Brigade to the mound and scoring 10 runs in reply to the Yankees' 1 (thank you Mr Ellsbury).

I said yesterday that I hate the stress of Yankee games, but I'd like to amend my statement: I hate the stress of Yankee games when I'm watching in the middle of the night. If you've ever had to get up at 1am/2am/4am to do anything, you'll know that it's not a time of day when you're at your best. Obviously your body is tired, but more importantly your mind is tired, so every little irritation (a 6-run Yankee rally, for example) is magnified a hundred times. Even if you're doing this because you love it, there's a limit to how much you can take, and I think I'm reaching my limit right about now. I've watched more games this season than ever before, at all times of the night, weekdays and weekends, but with hindsight, it might have been good to establish some Joba Rules to avoid burnout:

• No consecutive weekday night games
• No West Coast games, unless they're day games
• No 3- or 4- consecutive game streaks
• No Sunday night games if I'm working on Monday

In application of Rule 4, I'll leave Schilling vs. Clemens in the capable hands of the rest of Red Sox Nation and I'll see you tomorrow, hopefully 6 1/2 games up and with a magic number of 7.

Grumpy Old Man

In the movie Keeping The Faith, there's a scene where Ben Stiller's Rabbi Jake Schram is quizzed about a date the previous night, and his reply is: "Well, it was mostly horrible, but with a few, brief moments of excruciating agony. But at least it was long..."

Well, that pretty much sums up last night's game.

Let it be stated for the record: I hate Yankee games. They make me nervous, even when the Sox are ahead. And if things should start to go pear-shaped - as they did last night - depresson sets in quicker than you can say "Okajima gives up four earned runs."

Though I will always qualify myself as a Red Sox fan, I watch baseball as a leisure activity. And even if the majority of games I watch are at unsociable hours, it's still what I do to relax after, say, a crappy week at work. When I sit down to watch, I know that the Sox aren't going to win every game, and that's OK - I'm watching because I'm interested in those famous 60 games that make or break a season (the theory being that every team will win 60 games a season and lose 60 games a season, and that what happens in the 60 others is what decides a team's fate). Losing isn't enjoyable, but it is part of the whole fan package, so I can deal with it.

However, for some reason, I can't deal with Yankee games - I derive no enjoyment from them whatsoever, even the ones that the Red Sox win. Last night I felt more like someone waiting for root canal work at the dentist's than a guy enjoying a game of baseball. When the Sox went ahead 4-1, I found myself grimacing at the TV like some escapee from a lunatic asylum, yelling "C'mon - let's get some more runs and bury these motherfuckers!" Niiiice...

Even with the Sox ahead by 5 runs I felt nervous, aware that the Yankees are aways only a couple of hits away from a big rally. When things went spectaclarly bad, it felt like getting punched in the face by that smug little bastard at school that you'd always hated. And suddenly, at about 5:45am, as the Sox were failing to rally at the end of the second-longest nine-inning game in the history of baseball, a simple question occurred to me: "Why? Why the fuck am I sat here trading a much-needed good night's sleep for five hours of anxiety and stress?" Life can be crappy enough as it is wthout voluntarily adding to mess.

So further to that dawn revelation, here's the deal: I'm still Red Sox through and through, but I'm not watching any more games this weekend. If Beckett throws a perfect game today and the Sox score 27 runs off Clemens tomorrow, then so be it. I need a couple of days to put baseball on the back-burner and spend my time and energy worrying about more important things.

All thing consdered, this is probably not a bad thing, since real life - specifically, work life - is going to change radically in a couple of weeks. In my present job, I can afford to have days where I drift along on cruise control after a 4am game aganst Oakland. However, on October 1st I'm starting a new job, which is going to require 110% of my attention and effort, so it's unlikely that I'll be as free to watch as many games or write as many blog posts as I do right now. In that sense, this Yankee series will have served as a useful wake-up call and reminder that, as much as I love the game of baseball and the Boston Red Sox, they are an accompaniment to life in the real world, not a substitute for it.

Rule check

Just wanted to be sure this is how it works:

If I didn't see the game, it didn't happen. Right?

The Million-Dollar Arm / Ten-Cent-Head Club

Members: Calvin 'Nook' LaLoosh and Daniel Cabrera.

There are certain things that you just can't do on a baseball field, and Cabrera stepped way over that line last night. Not even the Orioles broadcasters* were prepared to defend Cabrera after he threw behind Pedroia. The whole thing looked like it was going to get ugly, but in the end it didn't, thanks in part to...Julian Tavarez?? (Was that really him I saw out there talking to Cabrera and calming him down? It was 2.30am and I'm not sure my mind wasn't playing tricks on me...)

The Sox eventually took the high road, led by Pedroia himself:

"It just made him look even more stupid doing that. I was hoping he stayed in the game. I was just concentrating on hitting another line drive off him."

In the end, it didn't really matter, because by the time Cabrera was ejected, the game was all but over and the magic number down to 15, thanks to some good pitching from Jon Lester and some timely Sox hitting.

Speaking of timely hitting, I'd like to point out that MLB.com has this graphic up on the game recap page:
I've been giving J.D. Drew a hard time lately - I think at some point in an IM conversation with Beth this week I suggested trading him for a new lawn-mower - so it is only fair that I do point out when he makes a valuable contribution. I just hope it's more than just a statistical anomaly.


*Given that I have to watch the non-NESN TV feed around half of the time, I have to say that the Orioles team (Gary Thorne and Jim Palmer) come top of the list of broadcast teams I like to listen to. They're not too intrusive, are knowledgeable about the game (outside of the occasional 'Manny being Manny' generalisation, and there isn't a broadcast team in the country not guilty of that) and although they root for the Orioles, they don't do it in a Hawk 'You can put it on the board.....YES!' Harrelson manner.

As an ex-player, Palmer is insightful without drifting off into nostalgia for the good ol' days or pointless musings on nothing at all. I love me some NESN, but - and forgive the heresy here - Don and Jerry can be a little too, erm, 'distracted' from time to time. Not so with the Orioles team (at least from my limited experience). Watching the Orioles has not always been a lot of fun recently, but their broadcast team makes the experience as enjoyable as possible.

Thumbs-up to MASN from the Baseball Desert.

Crisp performance

I know that it's all Buchholz around Red Sox Nation today - three innings of one-hit relief; bases loaded, nobody out, nobody scores! - and rightly so, but as the President of the Society of Under-Appreciated Center Fielders, I'd like to point out that without Coco's contribution, Buchholz is probably still sat on the bench at that point, watching Kyle Snyder eat up some innings.

Not content with a three-run contribution in the fourth, Coco then got on in the ninth with an infield hit. I don't know what the NESN team said about it, but the Orioles broadcasters were convinced it was a drag bunt à la Ichiro, and it sure looked like it from the highlights. So Coco got on, stole second by a mile and scored the winning run on Varitek's single.

Game, set and match: Covelli Crisp.

Edit: A swinging bunt, not a drag bunt, obviously.

Lost in translation

Well, the Sox won last night, but I'm damn pleased I wasn't there to see it. Daisuke and Lopez giving up 9 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings would not have been good for my health.

I have to admit that, as much as I like watching him pitch, Daisuke drives me crazy. After 15 years of life in a foreign country, I know that cultural differences can play a major role in any professional context. But in Daisuke's case, I have trouble dealing with those differences.

It's somewhat ironic, because the trait that I have the most trouble with is one which people - especially here in France, where everybody wears their emotions on their sleeve - readily associate with me. The comments are always along the same lines: "We're never know what you're thinking", "You never get worked up", "You always seem so calm." For the most part, I like that. I don't think it'd be enough to make me an overnight success on the World Poker Tour, but there are plenty of situations in which it's good not to show your cards all the time.

Daisuke's poker face, however, always seems to be taken to the extreme. My annoyance began in earnest last week, when he kicked off the Yankees series by giving up 5 runs (including 2 home runs) and taking the loss. It's bad enough getting kicked in the nuts by the Yankees, but seeing your starting pitcher watch the ball fly out of the ballpark without showing a hint of anything is too much.
Boston Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, of Japan, adjusts his cap after giving up a three-run home run to Toronto Blue Jays' Troy Glaus during the sixth inning at Fenway Park in Boston, Monday, Sept. 3, 2007. (Photo: AP; Caption: Yahoo Sports )

I don't necessarily want him throwing at guys, destroying water coolers or punching dugout phones, but I need something to work with. I want to sense he's taking this beating as badly as I am.

Of course, this is not going to happen, just as I'm not going to start leaping around the office as soon as anything starts to go wrong. Daisuke is a package. The culture and history that mean he remains stone-faced on the mound are the same culture and history which mean he can, say, throw 130 pitches on 3 days' rest, so I'll just have to take the rough with the smooth and deal with it. And if the smooth means 18 wins by the end of the season, I think I'll probably be able to handle it pretty well.

Texas Hold 'Em

This was an historic game that almost got away, in more ways than one.

It almost got away from Buchholz, but Pedroia - and Coco - came to the rescue. It also almost got away from me, but this was a night on which the baseball gods were looking down on me.

The superstitious romantic in me would like to think that the gods were evening things up a little, since 4,000 miles away there were Sox fans who'd decided not to watch the game. After three straight lossses to the Yankees and Friday night's close-but-no-cigar game, I have to admit I was feeling much the same way as Beth, so much so that I didn't go to bed at 9pm as I usually do in preparation for a 7pm ET start.

So I'd made up my mind - an old Alfred Hitchcock movie on cable, and then off to bed for a good night's sleep. The movie finished around 1.15am, and I should have been heading for the bedroom, but something - those baseball gods? - made me switch on the PC to see how the Sox were doing. Of course, once you switched the game on, it's pretty damn hard to switch it off, so 2.30am rolled around and I was still sat there watching, fighting tiredness almost on every pitch. I decided that if the Sox were still up 4-0 after 4 1/2, I'd call it a night, but as I went to click off the MLB.TV window, it suddenly hit me that Buchholz had put up a bunch of zeroes. Now there was no way I could go anywhere.

Through innings 6 and 7 I kept getting up out of my chair to pace around, because 1) I was starting to get nervous, and 2) I was desperately trying to stay awake. Superstition finally kicked in in the 8th, when I sat back down again clutching my favourite old baseball, and did not move until Buchholz retired Markakais to end the game. By the time he did that, I was wide awake, despite the late hour, willing every pitch to be a strike, and every batted ball to be caught.

In the end, I didn't get to sleep until about 5am, but it was worth it. The gods don't often give you games like that. When they do, you have to grab them and store them away in the memory bank, so as to be able to bring them out whenever you want and savour them over and over again.