So the Yankees run up a monster 7-0 lead against the Rays.

Then they give up six runs in the eighth, and with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth with a 7-6 lead the asshats gave up a pinch hit home run to tie the damn game.

Screw you, Yankees.

In Red Sox news, they are clinging to a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the eighth. They have had two runners thrown out at second and in the top of the eighth had a runner thrown out AT HOME!!! Granted the Orioles had a runner thrown out at home too, but… Jeeze guys, could you stop running into outs?

Please, beat Tampa Bay you asshole Yankees.

Please, beat the Orioles you Red Sox whom I love dearly but who scare the hell out of me and royally piss me off all the time.

Please?

PS, the Sox just got out of the bottom of the eighth. On to the ninth they go, still up 3-2.

Please win? Please?

Screw you, Devil Rays.
Go Red Sox!

This is what I do at endless stop lights.

On this day in 1941, Ted Williams did what hadn’t been done since 1930 and still hasn’t been done since:  He finished a season with a better than .400 batting average.

The story of the last day is a great one.  The Sox were scheduled to play a double header against the A’s (the Philadelphia A’s… Moneyball was still many years away).  Before the games started his average was .3996, or something like that, high enough to round up to .400.  His manager gave him the option of skipping the final two games in order to guarantee finishing the year at .400.  Williams turned down the offer and got six hits in eight at bats over the two games, finishing at .406.

You would think that hitting .400 would make you a lock for the Most Valuable Player award, right?  Wrong.  Some asshat named Joe DiMaggio had himself a little 56 game hitting streak that stole some of Teddy Ballgame’s thunder.  Joe’s brother Dom had an all star season playing centerfield for the Red Sox that year too.  I bet the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry made things odd at the DiMaggio’s house on Thanksgiving.

In a related story, on this day in 1960 Ted Williams came to the plate for the last time in his baseball career and slammed a home run over the right field wall at Fenway Park.  He wrapped up a career that was nothing special.  A .344 lifetime batting average (really, most great hitters go their whole lives without even sniffing at .344 and he averaged it for his career), 521 home runs, and, keeping with the Moneyball theme, a .483 lifetime on-base percentage.  Ya, nothing special.  Oh, and he missed five seasons in his prime while flying planes for the Marines in World War II and Korea.  Ya, nothing special.

If that doesn’t inspire the Red Sox to win tonight, nothing will.

Go Red Sox!!

The Red Sox pulled out a skin of the teeth win last night.  They tried desperately to blow an 8-4 lead in the last two innings, but somehow failed and held on to win.  While we were trying and failing to lose, the Rays pulled out another victory over the Yankees.  When we need the Yankees to lose, they win.  When we need the Yankees to win, they lose.  Damn you, Yankees!  Another in a long line of reasons why we freakin’ HATE YOU!

Today is the final day of the season.  Game 162.  Boston and Tampa Bay are tied at 90 wins and 61 losses.  One game left for each team, and the wild card clinching magic number is two.  If the Sox win and the Rays lose, the Sox are in the post season.  If the Rays win and the Sox lose, the Rays are in the post season.  If they both win, or both lose, they play a one game playoff in Tampa Bay tomorrow.

I have, on this very site, on a few occasions compared this season’s disasterous collapse to that of the 1978 Boston Red Sox.  In ’78, the Red Sox at one point had a 14 game lead in the division, only to blow it and lose the division in a one game playoff with the Yankees.  That’s the infamous Bucky Effing Dent game.  I remember that game.  I really don’t remember the September collapse that preceded it.  This year on September 3rd or 4th (not sure which) the Sox had a nine game lead over Tampa Bay in the wild card race only to blow it when Tampa Bay tied them on Monday with two games left.

Doesn’t it just seem like the universe is going to force that one game playoff this year?  Can’t you feel the deja-vu?  I can smell it and it does not smell good, let me tell you.

Please, Red Sox… Puh-Leeeze win tonight.  You know those jerkwad Yankees are going to roll over and give the game to Tampa Bay, so you just have to win tonight to have that one last shot.

Go Red Sox.
Screw You, Bucky Bleepin’ Dent.

After some major surgery, a new mother board and a new processor and a new box, Jen’s Windows desktop machine has come back to life.

Thanks Microcenter and newegg.com.

Reason Number 8367 why I hate Summer’s ending:

Last night, out of nowhere, my bottom lip started chapping and peeling.  This is a start of Autumn tradition for me that requires me to go drug store hopping, looking for the one type of lip goop that works for me.  I think I have a tin of it at home somewhere, leftover from last year’s lip goop crusade. 

Stupid chapped bottom lip.

Someone hit a bunch of the pictures from Quechee Gorge in VT today. They were taken on the first day of our honeymoon. What a great day that was!

My wife has just requested that I inform the interwebs that I, Robert have just eaten sushi.

I would like to add that I have not yet died from it.

Thank you

Addendum: I ate a few pieces of fried shrimp top. Still not dead, and no Rob was not abducted by aliens and replaced by some weird replicant.

Thank goodness. A new alarm clock means we have a snooze button again!