I really wanted to see that no-hitter. So many great plays on line drives and than a bloop effs it up with two outs in the eighth. But Dice still throws a one-hitter over eight. No "bad" inning, so I guess his secret worked, whatever it was.

Random stuff and eff-ups by Fox:

Pedroia hit a ball to left that looked like a possible dong. With the ball in flight, Fox switches to the down-the-line angle cam, and we see the ball hit the wall to the left of the line, foul ball. The mid-flight switch threw me off, and I would have liked to see a replay...but Fox was too busy showing us what TV shows and movies were Dustin's favorites.

At one point they missed a pitch--because they were showing Papi, the man least likely to steal, on first base.

Then the Back-Biter's son said something about a special message Millar had from the studio...at which point we see a completely irrelevant stat about the Mets-Yankees series. I didn't follow that at all.

Remember when Papi was clearly safe on a sac fly, yet everyone somehow thought he was out? Well when they appealed to third, they did it wrong. You're supposed to step off the rubber and then throw. The pitcher came to the stretch position, and then did a pick-off throw to third, which was unoccupied. Whether that's a balk or not (the rules say you can't do it unless you're "making a play"--does the appeal count as "a play"?), it still seems like it's not even an appeal, it's just the pitcher doing the next play, a pickoff throw to third. Maybe that's why that third base coach just stood there instead of making a safe call. Or maybe Fox just missed it. Your thoughts on this are welcome.

Some Phillies fans brought up Boston teams in different sports on signs. That has nothing to do with the Red Sox, geniuses. I hate that crap. I know several Sox fans who think of the Phillies as their NL team. And I'm not a fan of any other Boston teams. I just don't know why people have to be stupid about that stuff. Besides, a Philly fan bringing up hockey and football? That's comical. Especially when they have a baseball team that just won a World Series they could be hyping up instead of bringing up other sports. But those guys proved to be not only fools but racists. Later they had another sign for Dice that said "Run! It's Godzilla!" There can't be any hatred between the Phillies and Red Sox since we don't even play in the same league and hardly ever play each other. This paragraph's getting long, uh, winded, so the point is, good job by all the good Phillies fans--those racists don't represent you.

In the Twins game, Denard Span hit a fly ball and immediately put his arm up as to say he'd just won the game with a walk-off dong. The ball didn't reach the warning track. Doesn't Span remind you of Billy Mitchell. Except not white or with a mullet?

There's a NAPA commercial which Den Drinkwater seems to secretly be in. It's a scene where a girl asks a guy where he got the parts for his car. And there's Drinky the Kid aka Springer aka Redford, just standin' there. Looks like him, anyway. Weird that he's incognito.

Sox at Inferior League, 7:05 or :10 or so, tonight.

So I haven't done my annual anti-Interleague play post. Here goes, for a new generation of RSFPT fans:

The American League and the National League play by different rules. The Red Sox should no more be playing the Phillies in games that count than they should be playing the Bruins. Now, I go to the Interleague games to see something different, just as I'd go see the Red Sox play the Rockford Peaches in donkey basketball. But it doesn't mean I want it counting in the standings!

I've always been convinced that the reason they did this is so they could have a few match-ups that they knew would be big moneymakers. Mets-Yanks, Cubs-White Sox, and maybe some California series. The rest of the teams are stuck with these fake "natural rivalries," and having to play teams from the other league in an unbalanced fashion relative to the other teams in their division. It's something you can't balance anyway--since you've got teams playing each other once and can't even do a home/away.

I have to say, as an Interleague play-hater since the day it was announced, I'm glad to see that so many people are currently on my side. I feel like the tide has turned, and maybe they'll stop this silly shit. Too bad so many seasons have been stained by it already.

As for the World Series, well, the league champs have to play each other at that point. That's a whole other discussion, how the Senior Moment Circuit should just get a DH already, since pitchers just aren't hitters anymore, at any level beyond college.

Oh! And please don't tell me how good my team has been in IP over the past 7 years or so. That makes no difference to me. Just like I still hate the Wild Card even though we've won the World Series because of it.

While you were watching the crappy game, I was watching heavy metal cover bands. And yes they played Dio. Last time I was at the club they played, the Red Sox were on the TV. Last night it was hockey. So I didn't have to see the barf. Lackey, start being the Peter Brady we knew through '09. Thanks.

Tonight Fox has come up with this great plan to show a bunch of games, all at night. Ass heads. It's weird how we kind of depend on them to get a Saturday afternoon game. The Red Sox can end that by moving Saturday games back to day games. Crap, I should have put that on the survey I got from the team for being a 10-game season ticket holder. Somebody remind me next year....

Did you know you can play Pac-Man right inside the Google logo today? I hit Insert Coin twice and a Ms. Pac appeared in the board along with Pac. Weird. I'll have to play with this more when I get home later.

Complete game W for Lester. Not many pitches, not many minutes. Key dong by Youk. Another by The Executive. Three-game winning streak.

So last night I went down to the good seats for the last two innings. And even though I've thought in the past about purposely going to the spot on either side where you get on TV behind the shots of the batter, I didn't think about it last night. I walked along until I saw an abandoned seat and took the first one I saw. The next morning, Kim tells me my dad called and said he saw me on TV. I get this a lot, even when I'm not even at the game. But my dad, not knowing what I'd be wearing, said he saw me in my Bad News Bears jersey, so I knew it was me:

There I am at left, taking a pic of Jeremy Hermida. (Bears 11--Amanda--jersey, red sleeves, trademark hat, trademark glasses, trademark sideburns, camera.)

Another clear shot of me, behind the Oh Canine.

Here's my buddy Justin Morneau, posing with me.

Here I am on the shoulder of Nick Punto. These are from mlb.tv. I also checked the Twins feed, and while I got a LOT of air time, I appear very blurry on their cameras.

This one's a little harder. But I cropped it so I'm at the exact bottom right. See red hood, and the world famous cracked Liberty Bell logo of Chico's Bail Bonds.

Red Sox go to Philly this weekend. We should be representin' well down there. Yanks get their biannual respite from playing major league teams with one of their Mets series. Let's Go Mets. F, A, N, duh-nuh-nunt! (Yanks "almost come back but still lose" for the third consecutive game tonight.)

NESN Advertisin' Wackiness of the Nite! Ball of the wall. Young plays it and has indecision when it comes to where to throw ball. Remy points it out as the replay starts, tells us to watch how Young hesitates. But! The replay is cut off just before that moment. Because the next pitch is about to be thrown? No, because they can't miss the "New York Life Safe at Second" graphic that they have to show for a double. As my mom would say, Ask yourself why.... There are 17 built-in spots in a baseball game for commercials. The deal should be: you can advertise in those spots and that's all, OR, you can advertise during the game but instead of commercial breaks between innings, we actually get more baseball talk, interviews, stats, sounds of the park during infield grounders and pitchers warming up, etc. But not both.

Clay goes 8+ and we win. All pics by me. Click'em for big'em.

Tonight was the night when Josh Wilker would be signing his new book at Yawkey Way Store, alongside special guest Bill Lee. I already had a single for this game, so I hustled out of work and despite much traffic, parked on Mass. Ave. just after 6 PM. Got to the souvenir shop and fortunately, Josh and Spaceman were still there.

Bill, above, probably "had a few," but he's always like that. They both signed my copy of Cardboard Gods, and since there wasn't a big crowd at that point, I got to chat with both of them, and give Lee a double-sided magnet I made for him out of two of his own baseball cards. He looked at them and said, "my favorite player." This somehow led to him going off about how many chemicals we've put into the atmosphere today alone. Gotta love the Spaceman. Oh, and he looked at my jersey and said, "Newark Bears." I corrected him: Bad News Bears. Ha. He also did a cool favor for me, which is a secret for now....

I was completely bundled up for this rainy, cold night, but it turned out being totally fine. I was too warm even.

This picture of Pedroia came out much funnier than I thought it would.

You r date, you r place, you r teams, You k.

Finally I have settled in at the third base deck standing room area under cover and in the warmth. (My ticket was an upper bleacher, so I paid just 12 bucks for this sweet view. And one quarter for a metered parking spot.) I'd told Josh earlier that maybe I'd see him inside. Well, he ended up walking up the steps of the section I was standing at the back of. So I got to hang out with him and his wife and friends for a good chunk of the game, along with a reporter named James Sullivan who was there doing a story on Josh. Look for that in the Globe soon. Everybody was great, it was fun hanging out and talking proverbial baseball etc. with that crew.

Papi hit what we could tell was a dong, but the umps said no at first. They conferred. (And shadow boy got in the way, but I left it in since it's kinda cool.) And Carl Beane got to say, "the previous play...is under review...."

And here's what happened next:



Yes, another dong for Ortiz. We led 3-1 after 7, with Clay doing great, and I finally said my goodbyes and headed for the box seats.

And from down there, I could easily pick out Josh and Co. where I'd just been. They are the shadowy figures standing at the top-middle on the yellow-ish background are them. Left to right, Josh's wife, Josh, his friend, his friend.

Dude in the scoreboard doorway.

More no, less yes.

Adrian Beltre, as seen from not 500 feet away.

Bill Hall up, and at far left, Darnell McDonald's neck tattoo.

In the good seats at spitty Fenway.

Clay HH trying to go the distance!

To add to my "broken bat" collection....

Final shot of Buchholz on the mound. Bard had to come in and save it. We win 3-2. Tampa beats Yanks 10-6.

A picture was taken of me and Josh, but it wasn't with my camera, which is why he doesn't actually appear (clearly) on this Wilkerific post. But remember to check his site often (you can read old posts while he's on this book tour for a few more days).

Sweet win, lots of fun had at Fenway, and back in Providence at 11:30 (and that's with new 95 construction traffic near Attleboro--one lane open, terrible job). I will tell you strangers all about it and post pics before "bed," whenever that might be.

Okay, this isn't an excuse--we know going in that we're in a tough division. But I've got a new stat for you that I just invented, called "games behind the average first-place team," or, "F.T.H.E.Y.A.N.K.S."*

It gives you a better idea of where a team stands in the average division. So if it's early in the season, and one team is dominating in your division, you can get a better sense of where you would stand in the average season. It's kinda like the "Pythag" thing which is just looking at runs scored and against and seeing where you "should" be. But I don't put too much stock into that, so don't take too many bonds out of this. Or something. Our FTHEYANKS is 3.7. We're an average of 3.7 behind the five other first place teams. Not bad all things cons'd.

Of course, leaving out our OWN division's leader is a copout. It goes up to 4.5 if you include Tampa. But that looks better than the 8.5 we're really behind.

Again, this means nothing, we can't play to beat the "average first place team." But it shows that the hole we're in looks about twice as bad as it is. And there's a lot of time left. And the Yankees have just started their downward spiral, so soon we'll be right back near the top. Or...you know what I'm sayin'.


*it's a foreign translation

The best part about beating the Yanks is thinking about all of their fans (and players) who just assume they'll win no matter what, every single time.

So twice we, the team whose season is supposedly over, who supposedly can't possibly beat the Yankees, go into the Bronx and in each game come back from down five. Shoulda been a sweep. But we're still the only team in 2010 to go into the New Loo and not lose a series. Fortunately tonight we got to face the pedestrian (against the Red Sox) Mo, and the always-shitty Joba.

Why didn't Remy bring up the fact that on the missed pop-up in right field, the whole key was that the ball bounced away? Had it just dropped at the dude's feet, he still gets the force at second.

Here we go again--TC talking about "all the gloom and doom" and how this offense is "better than ANYONE expected." Do I have to fucking write in my opinions to NESN at the beginning of the year so they know who thinks what? Had me and every (sane) person I know on this earth written in, Tom would know that it's only a few media idiots who love to stir up shit (see: "Papi had two bad months out of his entire career--he's finished!") and those brainwashed by them who could possibly look at the Red Sox lineup and somehow see it as one that can't score runs! I'm so sick of this fuckin' shit. My method up until now has been to just ignore this crap like it's a non-issue, which it is--but when these people keep drilling it into our heads it's just depressing--and then the worst part, when they try to act like "nobody saw this coming" when the opposite of their crap happens! No, YOU didn't see it coming and you tried to make it look like WE didn't. I'm so glad I don't listen to the sports stations or read the shitty Pete Abraham newspapers anymore. But even hearing TC in pre- and post- kills me.

Loved how Pap did about ten fewer fist-pumps after getting the last out than that child molester catcher with the Gary Busey helmet did after getting the third out of, like, the fifth inning.

Hermida: nice job, my friend.

Twins come in for two starting Wednesday night.

Really great call by Don saying before the game was over what a gutty win it'll be, one we can build momentum from. Fool!

It killed me that it was a bloop that started the ninth and allowed the A-Rod dong to tie it--but if Pap was gonna be givin' up multiple multi-run dongs anyway, well, it didn't really matter. I am glad we made a comeback tonight, and I'm gonna move on, and hope the Yanks fall on their hideous fuckin' faces tomorrow night and every night after that.

Dice-K made me berry, berry mad in the first. Yet in classic enigma-wrapped-in-riddle-sauteed-in-cliche Dice style, he somehow kept us in the game. We just had to work a little harder to get back in it.

I guess another thing I was mad at but it kinda ended up not mattering was how Youk couldn't get that insurance run in from third against Javy. And that McDonald couldn't catch that ball that hit his glove.

NESN is ridiculous with their whole "getting fooled on fly balls" thing. The A-Rod HR--we basically never saw where it went. They showed the ball in the sky, I guess going for the Emmy shot instead of letting us know where the fielder is. Not the only time they did this on a fly ball tonight alone. But on the A-Rod one, we see only at the last second that JVE climbed the wall, as they stuck with just the flight of the ball the whole time. Then they never showed a replay of the ball leaving the park. Not one. Finally Remy said, "One more look at this homer...." One more? We never saw it! They kept saying things like "no doubter," but even if the wall-climb was just for show, I'd like to see if it was at all close to being caught. And I woulda been really pissed if he made the catch but we missed it because NESN wasn't showing the fielder. If you wanna show the ball, at least make it a wide shot so those of us who aren't watching for artsy camera-technique purposes (all of us) can see where the fielder is.

Chan Ho Park doesn't always pause in the stretch position, but they never call a balk. But that's okay, he gives us what we need in other ways. I love how Girardi said he'd "love to get him in there"! What, instead of Hughes for 7, then Joba and Mo, you'd rather have Chanifornia Howay Parktrol in there?? I love that that was his plan! And that that's how it went down. Too bad we couldn't hold on for a win after all that, with the dongs by Victor (2), Drew, and Papi.

That really was funny when Tito's argument with the ump was pre-empted by God Bless America. By the time the song was over, he didn't even feel like fighting any more.

Beach ball on the field at the New Loo tonight. Reminded me of how I haven't seen many at Fenway this season. On the field or just in the crowd. Usually it doesn't have to be "beach" weather for those things. (A fine Fenway bleacher tradition, I might add! Despite Castig's dislike of it. Or was it Trupe who really hated beach balls? I can't remember now.)

Am I the only one who's amazed that there's a commercial shown during Red Sox games that uses the "balls out" term?

Did you see how Fox showed the fan on the field in Saturday's game? The old excuse for not showing that stuff was that it might "encourage" someone else to do it. Maybe in today's taserific society they figure showing the result of such an act will discourage fans from trying it.

I wonder what the people who already think the season is over, somehow, even though it's mid-May for christ's sake, think about this game. Do they think, Yup, lost again, we stink? Or, Wow, we can come back from anything, this is a good sign? Or, what?

If you're going to the Twins-Sox game Wednesday night, go over to the Yawkey Way Store at 5:30--Josh Wilker, who writes the incredible Cardboard Gods blog, will be signing his new book of the same name. And as if that isn't exciting enough, Bill Lee will be there, too! (You have to have a ticket to the game that night to go since the event starts after the store becomes part of Fenway Park.)

Info on the rest of Josh's book tour here.

Sox at the New Loo, 7:05, Dice and the Huggies Philler.

Pretty sweet when Mo blows a save against the Twins at home.

Pretty unsweet when...we also lose.

Between Club Hell ending shows at 10-ish and extra innings, we were able to get home in time to watch the last inning. To see the dungeon-worthy move of walking in the winning run on four pitches.

I could see the game on the TV at the club, and started getting a bad feeling from it, just because it seemed like we should have been tacking on runs but weren't. So once it got to 6-4, it kinda seemed like we were toast. I kept thinking how it's a bad sign when you get a "bad feeling" from a game you're only glancing at every half hour.

The Pist were great, though. I'm glad they keep reuniting because I never got to see them in the original "incarnation." Maybe I'll put some pics up later.