A mix of un-related pictures to take your mind off Friday night's shitty loss. Click to enlarge:
Remember a few weeks ago I said I went to that area in Central Park that had been closed to people since the 1930s? This is a pic of the waterfall in that area. (The top of the waterfall is within that area, the place I'm standing you can go to any time.) The secret is, the water comes from a hose. But it looks cool from down here.

Boxing in Central Park.

At the Providence train station a few weeks ago. I had to sneak the pic, so I lucked out that she turned the sombrero right toward me. A side angle of it wouldn't have looked nearly as cool.

On Long Island Sound, a dude does whatever this is called. I really like this one. Do not steal. Para-sailing? Kite-surfing?

The Pist playing at one of their reunion shows in Cambridge last Saturday. They were awesome again, rocking the crap out of us. I'm so happy I ended up getting to see this band three times in my life.

It was so incredibly hot in that room, I don't know how they were able to finish even one song without passing out.

A ground-level view.

This shot is for Matty. The Street Dogs shirt guy arm-in-arm with the Dirty Water shirt guy. Al, the singer, is barely visible at far left. (Black shirt.) (Shoulder only.)

Brian's first time drumming under a moose head? Wait, I think that's a buck, actually.

Is Al Jack Ruby to this guy's Lee Harvey Oswald? No, the dude's just screaming along.

I like this one, too, and not because there's a Sox hat in it. It's got Al with mic, Brian's cymbal, and Rick's bass, plus a guy picking someone up off the floor, and you can see by the sweat just how hot it was in there.

One of the opening bands was Disaster Strikes. My old band The Pac-Men used to trade shows with them. We'd play with them up in Franklin, Mass. They'd play with us in Newtown, CT. And both home audiences took to the visiting band. We had a lot of fun. Jeff, their singer, has kept the band going, and they're on the Alternative Tentacles label now. They don't mess around, and Jeff takes what he does seriously. He's always been pissed about a lot of stuff (Wal-Mart, Bush, all that shitty shit) and isn't afraid to shout it out. A working-class band that's always fun to see. At this show, Jeff made a great speech about how much the Pist influenced them, saying things like, "for every band that thinks punk rock is a way to make money and get famous, thank goodness there's The Pist." Preach on, brother Beavis.

And now to the obligatory cat-owner cat shots.
Crazy-eyed killaz.

How can you say no to a face like that? (Unless he's asking if he can eat a plastic bag, jump into the fridge, etc.)

It's cool when cats use each other as a pillow. Our friend Kara made the awesome quilt. Best quilt ever.

Dear Mother Nature, you seriously effed up. You're not supposed to put windows in the shadow. Terrible job.

Wow, this is the most shocked I've been since I heard the old Channel 2 News theme on some other news channel in a different city. That was just music. That's one thing. But tonight, I'm watching Conan, and some guest shows a great clip of a TV news theme from the 70s, which she used to be on or something. The lyrics went, "When you reach out and catch 5, you've got it all." Whoa. Does anyone remember the theme Connecticut's channel 30, WVIT (which showed the very few Sox games I'd get to see in the 80s) had at one point? It was "when you reach out and catch 30, you've got it all." But the music was totally different. So I guess you'd have people writing lyrics for news themes, and then stations could pick and choose, and set their own music to it? Based on the number of syllables in their channel number? Man, life is so much more complicated than I ever thought.

That's a game where every time the Sox (or anyone else playing the Yanks) have men on, no matter what the lead already is up to, you're screaming at them to get more, more, more. But they leave guys on. Repeatedly.

Not that I wasn't confident. But these games are just so long, I feel like we had at least a couple of wins tonight. Unfortunately, it was one looonnngg game, and we get the L.

I'll be at Fenway tomorrow, hoping to see us turn the tables on the dog butt-sniffers.

I still hate the wild card. It'll be cool to see us win the division, but I hate to see a race where the loser wins, too, and has the same shot to win as one of the division winners. In 2004, I was disappointed we didn't win the division. Granted, at that moment, I moved on, and was psyched for the playoffs. But for the whole end of the season, while some cities enjoy it, I guess, we get mainly meaningless baseball, instead of a true race.

We've already got Manny out, so Kielty's in left tonight, and now Coco has been scratched. But at least that means we get Ellsbury in there tonight.

Two people still pronouncing Joba with the long O: Tina "the other TC" Cervasio, and Crazy Chris Collins. Speaking of the Terrible One, they say he won't pitch tonight. Damn. Oh well, I'll be there tomorrow to see him get whooped.

Red Sox and Yanks! In less than two hours! Here we go....

While I've got your attention, please note that while Bush has said he'll be "removing troops" from Iraq. Well, those were the troops that were part of the "surge," who absolutely had to come back anyway. The regular amount of troops over there will stay constant, and if it's up to him, will be there for years and years to come in this ridiculous occupation. Is there anybody in favor of this "war' at this point? Too bad all these innocent Iraqis and US and other troops have to keep dying.

A few days after writing this, I got an e-mail that said this:

Hello ARSFFPT (your abbreviated title : ) ),

I hope all is going well and that you're as pumped as us for playoffs! I'm writing you because I'd like to introduce our website to you and I was wondering if you'd be up for an affiliate program. We are a young company/website and it can be found at:

http://www.[nottherealaddress].com

I'd like to ask you if you'd be interested in our affiliate program, where you collect 10% commission from sales off our site, which would be generated from your site, all just from posting a small ad on your site. The bigger the ad, the more frequent the ad is shown or the greater quantity of ads, the more earnings for you.

[Steve]

So disappointing. This e-mail may as well have said, "I've never, ever read your blog, will you shill for us?" You know, I think I'd rather get a plain old form letter addressed to "Hey You" than one that fills in my name at the top, but is still the same old letter that fully gives away the fact that they don't know me at all. If they did, they'd send an e-mail that says, "Hi, I know you don't do ads. You've made that VERY clear, so I won't even ask you about that, but would you like to just do a link exchange?" Instead, it's, "Okay, Steve, your job is to send this form letter to every Red Sox site you can find an address for--oh, and do that Steve-patented 'personalizing' in the opening line so they think we actually read their shit, which, Steve, say it with me, WE DEFINITELY DON'T. You'll get fed when I get paid, now get back in the dungeon."

In fairness, in their e-mail, they did offer the link exchange only. But, again, if they really had glanced at my blog for more than a second, they would've just cut out the part about ads, or at least acknowledged my crystal clear stance on them. Am I worried that maybe they'll be offended because they went through "all that trouble" to abbreviate my blog title and put a little happy face? No, because they've never read my blog before, what are the odds they start reading now?

Frank Thomas singles in winning run in ninth, Yanks lose! So we go into the series 5.5 up. 1 win=4.5 up with 12 to play. 2 wins=5.5 up* with 12 to play. But f that s. We're sweepin' these mofos right out of the playoffs! Go Tigers, go us.

*where 5.5 = 6.5. Myyyyy mistake. Thanks for paying attention, people.

The Buckly Effect = When an announcer starts to say a word, name, or phrase during a call in a calm manner, but upon seeing something crazy happen, her tone completely changes before her brain can tell her mouth to come up with new words.

Example (namesake example): The Buckner play. Vin Scully's brain has already told his mouth to say "behind the bag," calmly describing the location of a very boring grounder. However, upon the ball going through Billy Buck's legs, he finds himself screaming the words he's currently saying ("Behind the bag!") instead of speeding through or cutting off those words to get to the words that should be screamed, which are "gets through Buckner...." Buckner + Scully = Buckly.

Last night's example: Orsillo sees a grounder going towards first. Carlos Pena is right there waiting for it. Orsillo's brain has decided to calmly say "Carlos Pena...," surely setting himself up for "...makes the easy play." However, the ball hits the lip of the grass (i.e. all Yankee announcers' excuses for every single Jeter error) and goes over Pena's head, leading Orsillo's voice to rise right at that moment: "CAR-los Pena!"

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I couldn't believe it when I read this mlb.com article. The line is question is:

Rays right fielder Delmon Young overran the ball, reaching the Pesky Pole before retracing his steps, but not in time as the ball fell in the first row.

Was it the Dalai Lama, or Charlie Murphy, who said "WRONG! WRONG!"? Young did not reach the foul pole. He was nowhere near it. Has this reporter ever been to Fenway Park? Or looked at a picture of it? Seen a seating map? Seen it on TV? Is this his first day on the job? Did he used to cover soccer until yesterday? The Red Sox didn't score any goals, guy, and Delmon Young was nowhere near the pole.

The distance from the pole to where the wall starts curving in right field is approximately 90 feet. Papi's ball landed a little closer to the pole than the spot where the wall starts to curve, about 85 feet from the pole. Young ran to a spot way out beyond the pole. A good 65 feet beyond, probably more. Then he took about seven short, running steps away from the pole to where the ball landed. Those steps didn't take him a full 20 feet, so, in closing, I'd say the guy got within about 75 feet from Pesky's Pole. Subtract the distance the writer said (zero feet) and you'll see he was off by 75 feet. Not bad if you're trying to shoot fish in a barrel--from outer space.

To use the map above, double-click to zoom in, or click the + button. Click on each little icon for a further description, including the lines I've drawn on the map, the white one being Young's path to the wall. When the speech bubbles open, click and drag the map to be able to read the whole thing, as they're too big for the map. (Sorry, Google Maps users, I have to explain this to the people who are still stuck in the Mapquest cave-world, my girlfriend being one of them!)

My girlfriend and I played softball tonight. Cool league, one game per week. I made a nice DP at short, doubling off the runner on first with a lob throw over her head. But we lost again. Like almost every baseball team I've been on since I was six, we're the lovable losers of the league. Every team gets in the playoffs, though, so we're just, uh, "saving" our wins until then.

The game ended, and we headed for a restaurant with a TV. We listened in the car to the Sox leaving men on base, down 4-3 late in the game. We got to watch the eighth, with Okajima doing a nice job. (I see Tavarez also did a fine job tonight.) The crowd looked into it, but we didn't have sound on the TV. We went to the ninth, still down one, and Papelbon kept it like that. A key walk to put the winning run at the plate, and then Papi stepped up. High fly, outfielder takes weird route, I'm thinking, Something good should come out of this. And the ball settles into the front row, and we and a few others go crazy. (Cyn has video!) Since this wasn't a sports bar per se, it wasn't exactly a party in the street. Also, the silent TV took away from it, but who cares? It was a sweet win, Papi's first walk-off of the season. We are the team to beat. The Yanks are the team to shit all over because they're a human toilet of disgust. My daily (since '75) wonderment of how anyone can like them continues today. They come in to Fenway either 5.5 or 4.5 back. The Tigers won to keep pace in the wild card, four back.

Got my playoff tickets today! 27 bucks....is the total fees for the pair. I get to go to a playoff game as part of my 10-game plan. There's always that worry, like, is my password gonna work? Am I gonna somehow eff this up? It's serious nervous-time. But I got them successfully. Can't wait for October baseball.

(pic of David Ortiz by me, like, a few nights ago)

Hit tracker update:

About a week ago, I said that an ESPN anchor short-changed Jason Varitek:

"[the anchor] said, 'Varitek, usin' that short porch.' No. That was a shot, and it went well beyond the pole. That wasn't a 302. It was at least a 370. I'll check that hit tracker site tomorrow."

I checked Hit Tracker over the next two days, only to find that Tek's HR wasn't listed. What are the odds? The only time I look for a homer there all year, and they leave it out by accident. I e-mailed them, and they just got back to me, saying it must've gotten lost in the uploading process. While the dude reminded me that estimating homers in right field at Fenway is especially difficult, he came up with this.

395! I knew it. Even if he's over by 25 feet, my "at least 370" estimate would still be right. Short porch, my ass!

When it was 8-1, we talked about our earlier plan of maybe going to the batting cages tonight. But we opted against it. I sat in one spot on the couch and was determined not to move until the Sox had come all the way back. After the first rally, we were gold. It is the Rays after all. We had it all the way.

Good job by Cash coming through with his sac flies and run-scoring single. He was actually the only one to not get at least two hits. Even Drew had three, including a home run that was essentially meaningless to the score, but hopefully will help his confidence.

Lester against Jackson tomorrow. We go in to the Yanks series this weekend a minimum of 3.5 up and a maximum of 6.5 up. Then we kick their butts.

Did you ever notice how the MLB logos on teams' backs and helmets are sometimes not red and blue, depending on the team? Like, the Jays have blue and gray, I think, and the Marlins and Rays also refuse to have any red on their unis. The Yanks are fine with the red/blue, classic combo. I haven't done a full study on this, but I wouldn't have guessed that the colors on the official league logo would be allowed to be alter to fit into teams' color schemes.

Ever-since I wrote that piece about the walk-off triple, crazy things have been happening. Gedman's team won one of their final games on a walk-off strikeout. Then, the Brooklyn Cyclones beat the Lowell Spinners on a walk-off balk, or balk-off. And just now, the holy grail. Reader Jeremiah told me about tonight's Cubs-Astros game. With the game tied, and one out in the eleventh, Mark Loretta walked. The next batter hit, yup, a walk-off triple. Whoa, just flipped to ESPN, about to see highlight....here we go...okay--ball deep in the gap in right center. Runner scores easily from first (Loretta's pinch-runner). You see the hitter come in to the waiting celebration from third, as if it was a homer. So, basically, he just hit the ball and kept going. He must've been rounding third as the run scored, and just came right down the baseline to home, even though the game was over at that point. So, it's been proven once again that it can happen. But don't bank on there being another this season.

I've been meaning to say this anyway, but the fact that it's 9/11 will make me finally get it out: It's such a travesty that two more FDNY died recently, in a fire in the Deutsche Bank building. You may remember my photos from Ground Zero from a year and a half ago. I took pics of that building, saying it was scheduled to "come down in May." Well, they were taking it down, floor by floor. Five years later. It took that long just to start taking it down. And before they could finish, almost a full six years after it was rendered useless, there was another fire there, and two firefighters were killed. They came from the firehouse right next to Ground Zero, also visible in my shots. To think, those guys were so happy to be alive, people stopping by every single day to get their pictures taken with them, and the same tragedy that killed their brothers essentially killed two more of them six years later. Horrible.

A gray day in the Fens. This game was the annual birthday present I give to my parents. But I ended up getting two more (way better) seats, so my girlfriend and I could go with them. Note: A good way to get into (and out of) the park is the side stairway by Gate D. This pic is taken from the top of that stairway. I think people think it's a special entrance for special people, but no. Any ticketholders can go in this way.
We got in a little late, as my mom and I were doing a little research for our upcoming book, so we missed the Red Sox' BP. But we saw plenty of Rays. Here's Carl Crawford, with BJ Upton to the left. Click any of these to enlarge for a nominal fee of zero dollars.

The life of a Devil Ray, 26.5 games out.

Since it was the first game of the homestand, the team names weren't up on the out-of-town scoreboard yet. Thing one puts up the names while thing two gets to wear a glove and protect thing one from batting practice balls.

Johnny Wad Gomes golfs at a batting practice bunt.

Upton, Crawford, and Northeastern's Carlos Pena.

Gomes throws a ball to a kid in the crowd. It seems whenever a player throws the ball to someone in the crows, their estimate of the distance to that person ends up being way short. You ever see a visiting player try to throw a ball to the Monster Seats? Three tries, minimum.

There's a skyscraper in this shot. Find it.

The Rays' 10th anniversary patch.

I wasn't going for this shot, but I noticed at the very top of a picture these towels hanging in the Rays' dugout. It almost looks like it could be their jerseys, even. If they do this at every game, I've missed it until now.

Papelbon and his now-wife do some thing with a big check. You may remember this Hub-lywood Couple from the streets of New York in this post.

Jacoby & Myers (I finally thought to check how the law firm spells it--it's "Meyers." Oh well, I'm stickin' with "Myers.") before the game with his special sleeve. Details about "the sleeve" here. See, blue state blogger, you can learn new things from Amalie Benjamin:)

Schilling pitching in the first. We had two seats a few rows up in section 16, and held two standing spots behind the section, and the four of us switched all around. Since the seats were near a pole, there were empties nearby, so I got to sit in good seats from the fourth inning to the end.

You can't miss Bobby Kielty.

You can miss a ball, though. I'm just sayin', my game-action shots would be much better if I was there for that purpose. But every once in a while I'll try to shoot a play in the field, but it usually comes out blurry since I'm trying to watch the play at the same time.

What's wrong with this picture? Yes, David Ortiz is not batting third. Dustin Pedroia is. While Ellsbury is down at the bottom and Lugo and Crisp are 1-2. I guess the excuse for Papi was that his knee was acting up, so, since it was Kazmir, give him the rest. I don't care if Papi is 0 for 50 against a guy. Put him in the lineup. And in a lineup where Manny, Papi, and Drew are sitting, how is it that Ellsbury isn't hitting one or two? You've got Bobby Kielty hitting fifth? Is that the way to beat Kazmir? If we're really that afraid of the guy, let's just forfeit the game.

Now I'm down in the seats. Here's Schilling, with Lowell in the Caros Pena shift, &Myers in left.

Here's the zoomed-out shot. This pole was almost in the way, but not quite.

Woohoo! I get to see scoreboard screwiness live! &Myers had slammed into the board trying to make a catch, and knocked the 70 out of place. Too bad he didn't knock down the Yankees' win total. At the end of the inning, a dude came out and fixed it, but we got a full inning of the crooked 70. Anyway, if he'd made the catch, the game might still be going on now, as that would lead to the only run of the game.

I like how you can see the cameraman in the scoreboard.

&My' on deck.

Kazmir, Kazmir, Kazmir! What's this red dot?

Okay, in this case, I actually was trying to get an action shot--figuring Jacoby was getting ready to run. I have a great sequence of him running, then pulling, then saying "Uh-oh" really loud (I assume) as the ball is caught, then turning back and getting doubled up. But I won't subject you to that. So here's just the "uh-oh" part. (My hands totally moved as I was trying to watch the play, which is why at this point he's way to the right of the frame.)

Dan Wheeler's curled-up set position.

The aftermath of Coco's amazing catch, which led to a double play. You can see the kids in the front row doing the lean-down-and-pound. Why is that whole section wearing the same shirt? What is this, Camp Day at Yankee Stadium?

In the eighth, we knew Papi would pinch-hit for Kielty. But that didn't make the ovation for him when he emerged from the dugout any less booming. It really was incredible. A burst of cheers, and a standing O. It's not often Mike Lowell hears a Papi chant while he's batting. The inning ended before Papi came up, though. So he led off the ninth, with more crazy cheering. I hope the message Tito got from this was "play David Ortiz." Unfortunately, he didn't get on, and we went 1-2-3 in the ninth. 1-0. Loss. Great job by our pitching, though. And that's what we like to see. Kazmir was on tonight, and we looked like fools against him. Lowell had the green light on 3-0, but Kazmir must've known, because he threw an off-speed pitch, which Lowell missed horribly. Then he got his fastball, but watched it. Then he swung and missed again for the K. And it was like this all night.

Wake against the Constantine Emporer tonight. Win.

I saw this New York Post article linked on Extra Bases. Here's the premise:

One of the two AL Division Series has an extra day off. The team with the best record will have the choice of playing in the series with two days off, or the one with three. The man who wrote the article above says that if the Red Sox finish with the best record, they'll take more days off, giving the Yanks (assuming they're the Wild Card, which would also mean they couldn't play us in the DS since we're in the same division) the series with less days off. Because Jabba the Slut can't pitch two days in a row and therefore would be able to pitch less in the series. And if the Angels finish with the best record, he says they'll choose to play in the series with less days off, which they'd play against the Yanks, for the same reason. In fact, he asks if there's a "chance in the world" they wouldn't do that.

You know what that article should be called? "World 'Volves 'Round Me, Joba."

A chance in the world? Yes. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the Angels don't give a fuck about Terrible Joba the Head Hunter* and take the extra days off for themselves! And if they don't, wouldn't it be more for the reason of, say, giving Mariano Rivera less days to work with? And if the 'Huntah is doing that well, do you really think the Yanks would keep him out of the deciding game because of rules they made themselves and can break at any time?

And as for the Sox, his theory is just as dumb but for the opposite reason--it's the no-brainer of the century. "Do you want to have more days off in your series and less in the Yankees series?" Correct answer: "Yes, because we're not stupid." Incorrect Joba-centric answer: "Yes, because then Joba-ty Joba this and Joba-ty Joba that and oh Joba Joba Joba will you please come over and water my plants in skivvies while I watch you?"

I can't wait to see him at Fenway this weekend.


*Yankee fans, after your years of calling the fun-lovin', incredible Pedro Martinez (who ended up with the ring in 2004, regardless of what your memory says) a "headhunter" just because Jeter hangs over the plate and gets hit on the hands during check swing foul balls, your Joba Boy, at least on this blog (which, for some reason, you're reading right now), will be referred to as a headhunter for the next ten years, no matter what he does from here until the end of his career.

I was going to have pictures from tonight up here, but those will have to wait until tomorrow, since Blogger has a planned outage in a few minutes. So here's a teaser, and it shows the mood of the night.

Last night we saw Neil Hamburger and Pleaseeasaur at the Middle East. This was third time seeing each act. (And this will be my third time writing about them, so use the little search box at the top to read about the other times.)

I fell in love with Pleaseeasaur after one song the first time I saw them. Now, I'll gladly sell off children/organs for a chance to see them live. You've got one guy behind the scenes working the slide projectors. And you've got the main dude switching from one costume to the next, singing songs. The songs are basically fake commercials for different fake products or fake services. I saw an interview with the guy, and he talks about how he was influenced by late-night infomercials, calling 1 AM to 5 AM his "PPT"--Personal Prime Time. This guy totally speaks my language.

What makes it great is his delivery and overall "pitchman" persona. It would be funny anyway, because the slides in the background and the costumes will crack you up even if there were no soundtrack. But the guy has his schtick down. And these aren't just four-line jingles. He's written several masterpieces. Granted, they're about limousine services, Asian food, and cobras, but they're masterpieces nonetheless. My new favorite is "Action City News." You can hear some of his tunes here, but it's so much better to see him live. (Providence tonight, Portland, Maine tomorrow.) So if you can't do that, get a DVD. Also, it helps if you're a child of the 80s like me.

If you don't know Neil Hamburger, I'll fill you in. This is a nearly forty-year old dude who performs as an aging, ugly, sweaty, depressed, and most important, awful stand-up comic. When he started out with this character, that was the whole joke: he's funny because he's not funny. The albums would feature him playing to a (fake) unresponsive audience who would only speak up to heckle him. Yet the unfunniness was pretty damn funny. Now he actually goes around playing shows to audiences who know exactly what to expect, and therefore are encouraged to act like the audiences on the albums. But, again, it's just so funny that the audience laughs their asses off the whole time. It's a challenge for him to come up with a joke people don't laugh at. When he pulls this off, he gives the "I'm so horrible" frown, and everyone laughs again.

Some might think a routine that's purposely bad is a cop out: If you fail, it's okay, you're supposed to be bad. But this guy's expected to make us laugh with his badness. If the badness is good, it works, if it's bad, it doesn't. Which makes the successful performances even more impressive. Last night, Neil's big target were the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "What's the only thing worse than a new Red Hot Chili Peppers album?" "Nine eleven." So true. And that's the whole act. "Why did Paris Hilton...?" "What do you call it when Britney Spears...?" And then he tells the audience how bad they are and throws his drink at you. It's great. Try the Hamburger. (New interview with him here.)

Tonight I'm at Fenway for the Neil Hamburger of pitchers, Curt Schilling, against "Dunna Nunt, dunna nunt, dunna nunt, dunna nunt Oh let the sun beat down upon my face."

Another "bad advertising" radio commercial, that's currently airing on Red Sox games. Two dudes, going over a "checklist" of things they're brining to the ballgame:

"Rally cap."

"Check."

Uhhh....we all know what a "rally cap" is, right? It's not a special cap you buy separate from other caps. "Get your rally caps here!" No. "Rally cap" is the term for a cap--any cap--turned inside out. People do this as an attempt to start a rally. I personally stay away from the rally cap, as I first saw it done by the '86 Mets, so I've always associated it with them. I hate it when someone in my section at a game will pressure everyone to do the rally cap. I just sit there, trying to be invisible. If only these people knew the extensive mental and non-traditional physical things I'm constantly doing (while they're on the beer line for two innings) to will the Red Sox to win, I think they'd leave me alone.

But now I'm off track. I just can't believe these advertisers can't run their ads past a baseball fan or two so they could say, That's wrong, a rally cap isn't a separate cap, it's the one you're wearing. I've never seen a person take off their hat and put on a new hat mid-game to start a rally. People have "lucky caps," but that's different. Terrible job, ad people.

Dice-K really pooped the sleeping bag last night. I heard Camden Yards played a few seconds of "Sweet Caroline," but then tricked the Sox fans by turning it off and going with their usual country bumpkin anthem or whatever. Instead of picking on Sox fans, why not rip on all the O's fans who don't show up to games? Or better yet, the Orioles' management?

But we just made up for that loss, beating the O's 3-2. Key game-winning single for Fro-co. (As opposed to Braid-co, I guess.)

Yanks have swept KC, so we lead by 5.5 with 18 to play. Tampa comes to town, while the Yanks go to Toronto.