My wife bought a new ornament for our christmas tree. It’s a cardinal. She said that cardinals can represent people who have passed away trying to communicate with us. Having a cardinal on our christmas tree is a way to have my mother be with us this christmas. I nearly teared up when she gave it to me.
I love my wife so much. She is amazing. She is my rock. I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the past few years without her.
So I guess we can all agree that the Red Sox aren’t going to make the post season. It’s time to start thinking about which teams I want to root for during the playoffs. My allegiance will of course be temporary. It will only last until the World Series ends. Then it’s 100% Red Sox again.
I usually go for the A’s when they’re still in it. Right now they are in a three way tie for the two wild card spots in the AL, along with Kansas City and Detroit. I’m hoping Detroit is the odd man out of that race. I like Oakland and Kansas City. The Tigers? Not so much. There’s also the Angels, but I don’t think so. Too obvious, with Mike Trout and all. Baltimore? An AL East team? Oh hells no. I think in the American League I’ll go with the Oakland A’s for as long as they’re in it. Then when Jon Lester resigns with Boston over the summer it will be even nicer. (not going to happen though)
In the National League? San Diego! My second favorite city! But wait… they suck again? Oh yeah. So not them. Washington, maybe. Then when the Red Sox lure away their whole roster next year I’ll be more familiar with everyone. St. Louis is an option, but only in the World Series and only because their total World Series Championship count is second only to the Yankees. Any team that can knock the Yankees off of that perch is worth support (although they have a long, long, looooooong way to go) The Dodgers? Hell no. The Giants? Nope. Both teams are still too New York for me. Pittsburgh? Maybe. Atlanta or Milwaukee? Maybe and Maybe.
I guess when the Red Sox season ends I’ll throw most of my fanboydom over to Oakland, and maybe a little to St Louis. At least that’s how it would be if it all ended today. First things first, the A’s need to clinch one of those wild card spots and get themselves into the dance.
I just shoveled the end of the driveway. Pardon me a minute while I die of exhaustion…
…okay, I’m back.
The yard is most definitely a winter wonderland today. I saw three deer playing in the snow in the woods. Of course, they may have been bouncing around because the snow was too deep for them to walk. That would mean they weren’t exactly playing, but possibly struggling for survival. Still, they looked like they were playing.
I’ve seen two of my favorite back yard wilderness birds today. Cardinals and woodpeckers. All we need now is an owl and a red tailed hawk and the day will be a jackpot all around.
Apart from the horrors of the snow removal, of course. I’m going to take a fist full of aspirin now. Talk to you all later.
I’d like to say something about the game, but I won’t because I’m afraid of jinxing it.
I will say that while driving home tonight I got the goofy idea of printing out a blank score sheet so that I could keep score of the game. I was thinking that it would be a nice distraction from the constant heart attacks and vomit fits that were sure to result from the stress of watching game six of the World Series.
What I didn’t expect was that my step son would get super excited about keeping score and want to do it with me. It turned into a really cool male bonding experience. Complete with my step daughter thinking we were being total nerds.
It made tonight’s game 100000000 times more enjoyable than it already was.
Thanks, buddy! I love you!
This may be the ultimate baseball nerd move.
I figure I need to do something to distract me from the nine innings worth of heart attacks that will be kicking off in about an hour.
Go Red Sox!
I can’t help being from Boston. I can’t help being a Boston sports fan. It’s just the way I am. I was born this way, you know?
Game six starts in a touch more than six hours and damn it if I ain’t terrified. I was too young to know what was happening in 1975. I know I watched the Bucky Bleeping Dent game in ’78, but it wasn’t until a year later that I was fully engrossed in what would be a lifetime of baseball fandom.
I remember 1986, although I wasn’t watching when it fell apart in game six. I couldn’t quite get why everyone was just assuming that game seven was lost even before it started, even though deep down I felt the same way. I watched the start of the game. I got excited when the Sox took the lead against the Mets. Still, I wasn’t surprised when the Mets came back and won the game. I didn’t see the end. I was 15 and had to go to school the next day. I remember the pain though. I clearly do.
Back in 2004 there were questions being asked. Even after the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years, there were still questions. Would it ever be the same? Now that the eons of suffering were over, would we ever really feel the same way about baseball? The answer is no. Think about it. If you are a Red Sox fan, is there anything about the 2007 World Series that sticks out in your mind? I remember those idiotic Tacoby commercials, but that’s about it. 2004? Even thought he World Series paled in comparison to the ALCS win against the Yankees, I still can clearly see Suppan rounding third. I can still clearly see Wakefield and Schilling and Lowe on the mound. (not Pedro Martinez though. I wonder why?) So would it ever be the same? No. Not really. Two championships in four years removed all of the pain and suffering we’d gone through over the previous 86 years.
Then we got to 2011 and all of that crap came flooding back. The September collapse was a harsh reminder of our not so distant past. When we lost on the last game of the season, and then listened to the end of the Yankees game as they blew a huge lead and we lost our post season spot, it was devastating. It shouldn’t have been. 2004 cured us, didn’t it? Not completely, I guess. There was the same 1,000 yard stare we’d felt in 2003, and 1999, and 1995, and 1990, and 1988, and 1986, and 1978, and 1975, and 1967, and so on, and so on. Last season’s last place finish was just salt in the wound. It just hammered home that Boston was once again a place where we felt the pain of defeat. I don’t want to say we feel it more than other places, but somehow it’s not hard to believe that the sting is at least different here. I know Chicago is dealing with a much longer string of futility, but as was the case during our 86 years, we can always argue that it was worse for us because we consistently came close where the Cubs pretty much always blew.
I’m getting off topic. I’m afraid of tonight’s game. The Cardinals are an awesome baseball team. So are the Red Sox, but we can’t just assume victory is ours. Overconfidence is a killer in a game like this, and if we need a game seven tomorrow then another epic collapse is right on the door step.
The absolutely positively without questions MUST win tonight’s game. I’m going to be chewing my nails and shivering with fear and hiding my head every time anything happens. Even if we jump out to an 86 run first inning lead, I am still going to be on the verge of panic right up until the moment it ends in our favor.
Despite 2004 and 2007, I am still far too accustomed to disappointment at the hands of the Red Sox to ever truly feel confident. Please don’t let us down again, Red Sox. Win tonight.
Go Red Sox!
Game five of the 2013 World Series was a win of gigantic proportions for the Boston Red Sox. It was also an epic collapse for me.
Jon Lester was amazing. David Ortiz came into the game hitting .727 and actually saw his average go up. Stephen Drew continued to be the worst hitter on Earth, but drew a key walk and scored a run and also continued his fantastic play at shortstop. David Ross had the game winning hit. Did I mention that Jon Lester was amazing?
Of course I fell asleep around the sixth inning. I tried to stay awake, but three nights of midnight finishes in a row was just too much for me. I did my best, but I failed. I missed all the Ross heroics. It was still 1-1 when I fell asleep. I feel shame.
My failure aside, the Boston Red Sox are one win away from a World Championship, and they have two chances at clinching. The Cardinals will pitch Wakka Wakka tomorrow. Fozzy Bear’s catch phrase has been all but unhittable in this post season. It will be a huge challenge to avoid a game seven, but the Sox have done screwier thing this year. Lackey will pitch for the Sox. He’s been awesome and we’ll need him to be awesome again.
The mentality for Boston must be that game seven is out of the question. Game six is our must win game. We cannot give them any life. We have to finish them. As my dad used to sing to us, “when you’re in a fight and you’ve got ’em down… kick em!”
Go Red Sox! Follow my father’s philosophy! Win game six!
Go Red Sox!
World Series? More like the WTF Series.
There have been four games played in the World Series so far, and each team has made plays of inexcusable stupidity in two games. As a result, we’re tied at two.
I had to eat my words twice. The Red Sox were trailing one to nothing and Stephen Drew came to the plate. I was begging the baseball gods to have Farrell pinch hit Napoli. What happened? Drew hit a sac-fly and tied the game. Thanks, Steve! Later, I was calling Gomes an automatic out. What did he do? Nothing, just hit the game winning three run home run. I will gladly eat my hat on that one. Thanks, Johny!
And the play of amazing stupidity? Two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Cardinals down 4-2. There’s a runner on first, and Carlos Beltran, arguably the best post season hitter ever, is at the plate. The Cardinals put in rookie Kolten Wong as a pinch runner.
And he gets picked off.
W. T. ever loving F?
As if the obstruction buffoonery in game three wasn’t bad enough, game four ends with the tying run at the plate on a pick off! At least the winning run didn’t score as a result of the pick off. The Cardinals have that going for them at least. The Red Sox idiot play is still the idioter.
Game five is tonight. We’re back to the game one starters. I have a lot of confidence in Jon Lester’s ability to hold St. Louis down.
As for the Red Sox pitching last night. Buchholz pitched four solid innings. He gave up one unearned run, thanks to an error in center field by Ellsbury, but otherwise he was very good. He was clearly less than 100%. His fastballs only topped 90mph a couple of times, if that. His location and movement was excellent though. Many of us here in Boston were fully expecting to see Buchholz scratch himself from this start and would have (rightfully) flayed him alive for his pussitude. It didn’t happen though. He came through. Felix Doubront came in and was lights out for two innings. He now leads in the race for mayor of Boston by a huge margin. Workman came in after that and sucked again. It’s time to nail his ass to the bench. He has to be done.
That brings us to the eighth inning. Who came in to pitch? None other than John Fricken Lackey. Your game two, and now scheduled for game six, starting pitcher came out of the pen and put the Cardinals away, bridging the eighth inning gap to Koji. Koji pitched the ninth. He did let a runner on, but then picked his ass off first base in a move for the ages.
Somehow, despite their mountain of errors and dumb ass plays, the Red Sox are in a 2-2 tie in the 2013 World Series.
Game five is tonight.
Go Red Sox!
Here are a few thoughts on the horror that we all witnessed last night.
I wasn’t watching. I was sitting on my bed, listening to the radio through a really sweet pair of cans, with my laptop on my lap, reading everything coming across the old twitter feed. At this point I refuse to watch a replay. If the Red Sox manage to survive and win this thing, then I’ll watch the play on the victory DVD. Until then, I’m done with it.
The one thought that keeps coming back to me is that Saltalamacchia has to go away. If I were Ben Cherington I would have cut him this morning. It’s bad enough that he’s an automatic out at the plate, but the play he made was absolutely inexcusable. I don’t care whether or not Middlebrooks obstructed the play (he did, intention is irrelevant), Saltalamacchia never, ever should have thrown that ball to third. The fact that he threw it away makes it 1000 times worse, but the simple fact is he should have held the ball.
I give Saltalamacchia 100% of the blame for the bottom of the ninth.
Of course, he might not have ever been in that position had Farrell not screwed up mightily in the top of the ninth. The fact that Brandon Workman made his first professional at bat in the ninth inning of a tie game in the World Series proves that Farrell is in way over his head. Add to that the fact that Mike Fricken Napoli was sitting on the bench, available to pinch hit, leads me to the belief that Farrell needs to go away. That move, or lack of move, is every bit as horrifyingly awful as Grady Little’s decision to let Pedro Martinez stay in the game against the Yankees in 2003. And we all know what happened to Grady Little as a result. Farrell should be tarred and feathered.
I look back at the aftermath of game one and I cannot believe that I ripped on the Cardinals for their defensive play. I apologize wholeheartedly to the Cardinals and their fans. Their lapses in game one were nothing, nothing at all, compared to the shit the Red Sox have pulled in games two and three. Given the Red Sox defensive performance, it is clear that they have no business being in the World Series.
This game is going to kill me. The Red Sox were down 4-2 in the top of the eighth and somehow managed to scratch out two runs to tie it. I have had either 12 or 13 heart attacks. I’m not sure. I can’t tell if the eighth inning heart attack was one long one, or two short ones that just came right on top of each other. Good thing I have this defibrillator. This thing just pays for itself.
Inside the Red Head's Head 