October 24, 2004

• Oh! I forgot. I'm rooting for the Sox, and I prefer to watch with a few friends and an adult beverage or two. Welcome, friends! (The nachos are on the stove, beer's in the fridge.)
• Uh... did Steven Tyler come up with some new lyrics for the Star Spangled Banner, or was that my imagination?
• I think he did. He also did that... interesting harmonica bit.
• Since he was doing it acapella, I got the impression he did the harmonica thing as a sort of a stylized pitch pipe. A lot of soloists have hung themselves by starting too high on the piece.
• That's true. I guess a pitch pipe would be too dorky for him. He did do an excellent job on hitting the high notes.
• Go Ortiz!
• Boston draws first blood with one out in the bottom of the first - a three run homer that stayed just fair.
• HELL YEAH FUCK Y'ALL CARDINAL NIGGAS
• Being from So. Cal, I was hoping for an Angels vs Dodgers series, but seein that aint gonna happen, I want Boston to win. um, er, fuck y'all cardinal, um....negros...
• I was hoping for a Sox/Astros series, but what can you do? I have nothing in particular against the Cards. They're just not the Astros.
• What is your favorite way to watch the Series On TV. I wish I could get one of the stations that broadcasts ESPN radio so I can turn down Tim "a walk is as good as a home run" McCarver.
• What? McCarver is the best broadcaster in the game; I was extremely pissed at the Mets for canning him because he told too much truth for them. Goddamn, Wakefield sure fell apart in a hurry: 7-5 all of a sudden. *sweats*
• Which boy band did the Red Sox get Arroyo from?
• Honestly, I think the announcers will be better since they don't have the Yanks to drool over.
• ...and Arroyo's cute, in an "I'm 12" sort of way.
• List of white people who have ever looked good with cornrows throughout the history of the universe: 1. Bo Derek. End of list.
• You forgot one (shudder)
• Well, I seem to be in the minority, both here and across the country, but I'm rooting for the Cardinals. I know that there are people in Boston who might die without ever seeing their team win the Series, but I think that's a good thing for baseball. It makes every Sox fan constantly aware of the past, aware of Babe Ruth and Bucky Dent and Carlton Fisk and Bill Buckner in a way that fans in other cities aren't. If the Sox win this year, it will make history, but it will also destroy that sense of almost mythological perspective and one of the best stories in the game. That said, I think the Sox are the better team, and as long as Schilling is physically able to pitch, they will be the favorites. But it's still pretty even, and hopefully there are still some ghosts lurking around to help the Redbirds out.
• Jeez. What is the record for the number of errors in a World Series game? We have to be getting close at 5.
• Who's your daddy?
• Reporter: "First talk about the homerun." Player: "I hit it, and it went really far."
• a capella = literally means "in the chapel". /pedantic musicy nitpick :-) /Go Sox!
• joynonymous, I can see your point. I do wonder what will happen to the Sox (or the Cubs') fan base if and when they do win the Series. When your whole identity as a fan is built on a curse, what happens when it's gone? I'm a Rangers fan, and we never win, either.... but neither do we have the sheer *history* of not-winningness.
• I'm a Sox fan. Over the last two years, I've really been impressed by this team's ability to score at will. I can remember watching them in '95 and '99 when their pitching was pretty good or even great, but they just couldn't score runs when their defense was holding them together, and they never made it beyond the ALCS for that reason. But tonight, the #9 batter, a nobody picked up for cash from Colorado, hit the game-winning home run. Of course, this team has been built to win at home. I'm much more concerned with how they do in St. Louis. Ortiz at first base? Hmm. It's all too easy to see this series going to seven games. The other piece of strategy I'm curious about involves the following tradeoff: Boston has good starting pitching, but questionable fielding. (Although poor Wakefield couldn't do much tonight either.) It's the reverse for St. Louis. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
• Hey, Mark Bellhorn isn't a nobody. I've been watching him since he was stuck in Triple-A Sacramento behind Frank Menechino, and I remember when Dusty Baker discarded him after a 27 HR year as soon as Dusty arrived at Wrigley. Theo Epstein knew what he was getting when he made that deal. I don't mean this as a knock on you, dead quaker, but it's interesting how Boston fans claim every player who ever dons a Boston uniform as a Red Sock For Life. (I guess Yankees fans do the same.) Not only that, but it's like nothing else those players ever did even mattered. Bill Mueller hit 2nd for my Giants for like five or six years, but no one will remember him for anything besides leading the AL in average for the Sox. But my own bitterness aside, it actually is really cool that Sox fans do this, that they create this huge and open club for so many players. It shows how passionate all those Boston fans are, that they care and know so much about so many different players from so many different eras. I hope they stay like that if they break the Curse, but I have a bad feeling that a lot of them would devolve into Yankees-style fans, who spend all offseason talking about spending more money to buy even more good players.
• jononymous, sorry to diss Bellhorn, I assure you I appreciate his many contributions this postseason. And even though Bill Mueller wasn't on the same hitting tear that he was last season, he's one of my favorite players--that guy is old school. I totally agree with your worry about something changing if the Curse is broken. I'd argue that something already has. It's great that Boston beat the Yankees, the team with the highest payroll in baseball. But Boston has the second-highest payroll. And the way the team is put together is looking more and more similar to the way the Yankees are built. For a while Boston had a core of players who came up through the minor league system, people like Mo Vaughan and Nomar Garciaparra. As each year goes by, those core players get traded. The only ones left, in my book, are Varitek, Nixon, Lowe, and possibly Wakefield. I think Varitek and Lowe's contracts are done after this season, and it's not clear if they'll offer Lowe a new one. These core players are being replaced by solid ones from other teams, and they do seem to be jelling together quite well. But this points to my biggest concern about baseball--even some of the major league teams seem to be just farm teams for the bigger ones. The (ex-) Montreal Expos are to me the biggest example. Not only did Pedro Martinez once pitch for them, but Larry Walker and Vladimir Guerrero were outfielders, and Orlando Cabrera was their shortstop. I'm sure I'm missing others. Minnesota also seems to be playing a similar role, having provided both David Ortiz and Doug Mientkewicz (sp?) to the Sox. At some point, as much as you want to have a winning team, it seems strange to build one piecemeal, rather than having it develop over time within the organization. Plus, winning would encourage a sense of entitlement among Boston fans, that same thing you see in Yankees fans that was just crushed in the aftermath of the ALCS. But people have suffered so much, for so long, in Boston--including me. Basically, I think one championship would be good for the city, but more than one would cause people to forget about the history of the curse.
• Oh, and regarding: I don't mean this as a knock on you, dead quaker, but it's interesting how Boston fans claim every player who ever dons a Boston uniform as a Red Sock For Life. Mmm....not quite that simple. Two words: Roger Clemens. But in general I agree with you about the history thing. We're obsessed.
• Well, Clemens is sort of the exception that proves the rule. Sox fans wanted so badly to enshrine him as one of their all-time greats along with Ted Williams, Jim Rice, and Yaz, that when he left, all that love turned sour. Actually, I can't think of any other star player, ever, who generates anywhere near as much hate in the city he started in.
• Shit, I'm still trying to work out the rules to American Football, and you pull this shit on me?
• BBF - it's all MUCH easier than American football. So you've a diamond, you've got nine men, you got a hat and a bat, and that's not all - You've got the bleachers, Got 'em from spring 'til fall,You got a dog and a drink, And the umpire's call Waddaya want? Let's play ball! Okay, (Okay!) Blue Jays! (Blue Jays!) Let's (Let's) Play (Play) Ball! Ahem... well, it is simpler than American or Canadian football, and definitely simpler than cricket. Basics are that you hit the ball with the bat and try to run as far around the four bases as you can before someone throws it back to get you "out" by tagging you. But if you're on a base, you're "safe", thus the sliding into the base. So you get one, two or three bases, or even a homerun, if you hit the ball so far that it went into the stands or out of the park, or just took so long for the other team to catch it and bring it back. Then the next guy comes up, and you continue running from where you are, until you are caught "out" by the other team tagging you with the ball, or you get into home, and your team gets a "run". The other team is all set up defensively, a man of each base, men in the field beyond, a catcher at the plate, and, of course, a pitcher, who has to throw the balls where the batter can hit them (the strike zone), but in such a way that he isn't able to (too fast, curved, etc). There are some funny rules - the ball has to bounce at least once - if it doesn't, it's a "pop-fly" and you are out. (But nothing half so weird as the off-side rule, which I remember having something to do with mustard and sea salt.) But that's the basic strategy - teams switching off trying to hit the ball and run around bases, versus the other team who are trying to keep them from doing so. Personally, I like "three-pitch", the grade school variety, which, in recognition of the fact that few 8 years olds can throw, and almost as few can hit the ball, the teacher is the pitcher, and you get three tries.
• 'World' Series? Despite the Toronto Blue Jays, this is a misnomer. How about we let in a team from Cuba and one from the Dominican Republic to kick the fat asses of all these spoiled millionaires. Then you can call it the World Series.
• Yay, go Sox!
• I would love to see a Series with teams from Cuba and the Dominican Republic, coppermac. I don't know that they would necessarily win (in all of the US's embarrasing play in the Olympics, they use minor leaguers and college kids since the MLB's season is going on), but there would be some awesome games! Didn't the BlueJays go down to Cuba for some games a few years ago? I seem to remember they split that series.
• Also Japan. And I wouldn't mind seeing a "misc Latino" team comprising Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, etc., either.
• So this 'World Series'... It vibrates?
• If they tested for steroids, meredithea, the U.S. team would consist of only minor leaguers and college kids.
• coppermac, which team would the spoiled cuban or dominican millionaires play for?
• Eight frigging errors in two games, and we still don't win 'em. *bangs head on table*
• Sorry, middleclass tool. *hands over asprin*
• dirtdirt, both Cuba and the Dominican Republic have national teams. I highly doubt that any of the players are millionaires. Feel free to prove me wrong, though.
• Coppermac, I was referring to the many foreign-born players drawing large salaries for their high-level play in the MLB. Were there to be an all world World Series (ala the World Cup of Football) the Dominican team would have a FEARSOME lineup including (off the top of my head) Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano. Amazing players all, but millionaires all. Some are no doubt spoiled, too. I don't doubt that the Dominican National team can play great baseball. Nor the Cuban, Panamanian, Columbian or Mexican teams. Not to mention Japan. I would simply include the USA on this list of countries that have a cultural love for baseball and a proud tradition of producing talented players. Regardless of their salaries.
• But an all-world World Series would not be like the World Cup -- the Series is between teams, not countries. So it would be the Yankees against Industriales or the Tokyo Giants or whoever. (Much as I hate them, I'd bet on the Yankees.)
• So is anybody watching tonight's game? Sox up 2-0 in the fourth. Of course, if they win they can't comfort themselves with the thought that the Cards can't possibly come back from being down three games to none...
• Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
• To translate, I am decidedly unhappy with the performance of the St. Louis Cardinals in this World Series. Our best hitters and pitchers are exhibiting arguably lackluster performance.
• sorry, mct, but you're up against the underdog rooting of the world for the Sox. It still might not work, but all that psychic pressure must have some effect.
• I feel like I slipped into this weird, alternate universe sometime last week. The Red Sox rally from an 0-3 deficit to beat the Yankees, then take a 3-0 lead in the World Series? This doesn't seem to be my reality. *sweats*
• Understood, dirtdirt, but I still think the term 'World' Series is a misnomer.
• What is up with the Cardinals? They haven't led ONCE in this series, not for a single inning. All their big bats have been basically asleep, they couldn't capitalize on 8 (!) errors in the first two games and made a few boneheaded baserunning gaffes in game 3 that cost them at least an out or a run or two but more likely the whole game. Note to Larry Walker: Manny might not always get to the ball to catch it but, once he has it, he sure as hell can throw it. Granted, coming back from down 3-0 is not at all impossible (anymore?), but as a Red Sox fan I really have to like the position that we are in. OF course, also, as a Red Sox fan I am not at all comfortable with even THIS lead. Coppermac: Agreed.
• Yeah. Pujols is doing all right, I guess, but Renteria, Edmonds, and Rolen are damn near comatose offensively. And our pitchers can't make it through five innings. I have no idea what the fuck is going on. The only comfort I have is the possibility, however remote, that we can still come back and win this. No offense to Sox fans, but if there is one team in all of baseball that could become the first team in history to win a postseason series after a 3-0 deficit and then become the first team to lose a World Series after a 3-0 lead, it's the Red Sox. Whether you believe in the curse or not, you can't deny how remarkable their history in postseason is. But honestly, I don't see how we can come back from this. We'll probably win at least one or two before it's over, but I'll be shocked if they take 4 out of 4.
• Sure it's a misnomer. It's marketing that was dreamed up decades ago to make it sound more exciting.
• I thought it was called the World Series after a one time sponsor, the New York World. But just now I read that that's a myth! FUCK YOU, "WORLD". YOU MADE ME LOOK STOOPID.
• I'd like to be the first here to congratulate the Boston Red Sox and their loyal Monkeyfans on their historic victory. Game's not over yet, but it's over. You know what I mean. This is almost unsurpassed in historical significance for the game of baseball. Only Jackie Robinson's first major league game beats it, IMO. You all have reason to be proud. You've all earned it. *sigh* I'm going to bed. 'Night, all.
• Got your cinder blocks ready, Bostonians (Bostonites? ).
• MCT, it's not nice to bait those poor Sox fans: "Heh heh, just six outs away... it's a sure thing! Just like '86..."
• HUZZAH!