Tag: Red Sox

Wrapping Up My Post Season Predictions

I just realized I never wrapped up my stupid, pointless post season predictions. Well I was 4 out of 8 after the championship series’. That puts me at 5 out of 9, or 55.6% for the entire post season.

Who cares.

As long as the Red Sox win, I could really care less what else happens. I could have gone 3 out of 9 and been on top of the world, so long as the three wins were all Red Sox wins.

I also want to make one little point about sports fans in Boston. While we all live and die in the hopes of our teams winning, there really is only one thing we need from our pro athletes. That one thing is hard work.

John Lackey is the perfect example of our expectations. When he first came here he was a little out of shape. He had a rough time on the mound and he put up bad numbers. He made a lot of excuses, and became the butt of a lot of jokes. Why? Because he gave us the impression that he wasn’t working hard. He got his big money contract and (whether accurate or not) he looked like a guy who was coasting through the seasons. The chicken and beer fiasco in 2011 was just a big exclamation point on the end of the sentence. He wasn’t giving us his all, and therefore we ripped him mercilessly.

Last season doesn’t count. He was rehabbing from surgery and he fell out of the public eye, mostly. The ripping didn’t stop, but it should have. Most of us were hoping he would get shipped off to Los Angeles too, but when he didn’t we just stopped worrying about it and let him get back to his rehab.

Then this year, everything changed. He lost more games than he won. That should imply that the fans were justified in their earlier attitude, but somehow he managed to win us over. How? Because it was crystal clear that the guy came into this season with a new attitude and he was working his tail off. He was working hard. That’s what we want. That’s more important to us than a good win loss record. That’s more important to us than anything, and that is why he won us back. That is why as the season rolled on a Lackey start was something to look forward to. He was the tough luck guy who was getting the least run support on the staff, but damn it if he didn’t always pitch a good game and give his team a chance. Damn it if the guy didn’t work hard.

That’s why when the post season came around we were completely confident when he took the mound. That’s why when a chance to clinch a World Series title came we were thrilled that it was his turn in the rotation.

Hard work. That’s all we ever really want from these guys. This season, John Lackey finally gave us what we needed. Thank you, John!

Important Announcement

I have a very important announcement:

We live in a world where the Boston Red Sox are World Series Champions.

AGAIN!

My step daughter came out of her room in the eighth inning or so. She couldn’t sleep. She tried to wear herself out by reading, but she finished her book. So she came out into the living room to sit with me and my beloved wife. In the top of the ninth Jen woke up my step son to see if he wanted to watch the end of the game. He said he’d come out later and immediately fell back to sleep. He didn’t remember it this morning. Funny though, he woke up just after midnight and was convinced that it was 6:00am. I was still awake so I heard the whole thing. He went to the bathroom, then went out to the kitchen to get himself some breakfast, then back to his room to get dressed. I called out to him to go to bed. He said he looked at the clock and couldn’t understand why it said 12:00 and not 6:00. We’ve all been there, buddy! It happens to the best of us every now and then.

By the sound of it my fellow Bostonians were mostly well behaved. There were a few arrests and I’ve heard of one car getting flipped. I will never get that, but it happens. We in Boston are getting pretty accustomed to championships at this point so we know how to act like we’ve been there before.

The rumor is that the victory parade will be Saturday. We have plans early Saturday morning so unless it’s an afternoon celebration (pretty please?) we’ll miss it. That’s okay. I am so happy right now that I can’t even put it into words.

The Red Sox won the World Series.

1903
1912
1915
1916
1918
**then a looooooong drought**
2004
2007
2013

I still cannot believe it. Hell, I’m still stunned over 2004, never mind 2013!

Thank you, Boston Red Sox. Thank you again!

2013 World Series Champions

The Boston Red Sox are the 2013 World Series Champions!

THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!
THE RED SOX WIN!

World Series Game Six in Progress

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!

Pre-Game Six: I am Scared

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!

World Series Game Five – A Win and a Fail

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!

More Like the WTF Series

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!

Thoughts on the Nightmare that was Game Three

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.

World Series Game Three, Again

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.