There I am, far left, front row, taking pics of Manny in the to of the first Friday night. This is from the Dodgers' feed. My missed foul ball (first pitch of the ninth) was shown by both feeds, but no close-ups or mockery from the announcers.

Tonight we took the visiting Chan to McCoy. The Paws had a crazy 5-run comeback in the 8th to win it. My ball-missing streak continued, as I tried the glove trick on a ball on a roof 20 feet below the back of the grandstand. As I dangled the glove down, it knocked the ball farther away along the roof. Drainage and all. I thought my only problem would be security telling me to stop--and I'd get chance after chance trying to get this ball right below me. But as soon as my glove hit it, it rolled away.

Got to see the Pedroia hit on the scoreboard there. We're still just one back. Yanks beat Mets, and Rays just won an 11-inning game where they scored 4 in top 11 and gave up 3 in the bottom.

I will post the full gallery later--but here's a hot I got of Manny Ramirez coming out on deck in the top of the first Friday night. Click 4 Big.

I will tell you my foul ball story now though--top of the ninth, I've moved to good seats in the back of the field box section by the LA on deck circle. High pop-up, behind me. I turn around and watch it. There's no one in my four seat row, and only a young boy in the row behind me. So the ball is coming down, and I'm thinking it's in the loge seats. Or maybe the runway, which is two rows behind me. But I'm ready for the bounce, camera around neck, hands at my sides. Only as the ball is about to land do I realize it's coming down right in front of me, in the row behind me. I don't even have time to get my hands up, just out in front of me at waist-height. And the ball SLAMS off the meat of my west palm. For a split-second I'm thinking the ball may be in my hands--but no, that's just a heavy pain weighing down my left hand. I look down, and the ball's rolling toward that runway. I go for it, over the seat, but it rolls off the top row (which is raised from the runway) away from me, and I see a hand snatch the ball up. It was a great chance for me to get my first in-game ball, with no competition, and I blew it. Fortunately since the ball struck me down low, people probably thought it just hit the seat behind me--and most of their attention were on that boy, who after jumping out of the way, had supposedly also almost grabbed it off the ground, and they all felt bad for him. I will have to check the Sox and Dodgers' feeds tomorrow to see if there's a replay. Or if any announcers made fun of me. I'm normally a great pop-up catcher! You can ask Brian! But now I see why catchers turn their back to the infield on pop-ups behind the plate--the spin really is ridiculous, as it's coming back toward you. Oh, and I forgot all about my camera as this was going on--when I went to use it again, the dial had moved so it must have taken a hit. And only when I got home did I realize I also had a huge bruise on my knee, which also had to have come from this incident. The worst is sitting there at home, icing your hand to relieve the pain, knowing it's nothing compared to not having the ball.

41. Terrific, Tom. Good win tonight, I will have pics up soon slash later.

This is great, it's like Manny heaven--me and a million other Sox fans in our Manny jerseys, and a thousand Dodger fans, also in Manny jerseys. Only seen like 4 BrainwashEEIs. Manny just took BP and we cheered him every time. And a lot in between. He didn't sign or do any shagging, though.

Went down to NYC for a Colbert taping, which was great. Got out, then went to a bar to watch "the basketball, saw the Yanks lose, then saw that TB lost and we won. 2 back.

If only this guy's number had been 66. So every year I buy tickets for "Red Sox Legends Night" at McCoy Stadium. You usually get two old Sox who hang around these parts anyway. They're not getting Yaz at this thing. But the night always gets the shaft, often left off of promo schedules, so I always have to wait and see who it's gonna be. This year, they announced it would be pitcher Ken Ryan and...Joe Morgan! Not that Joe Morgan, the one with the Magic. I was psyched since I was 12 in the summer of '88 and it was one of my favorite summers. That's all-time, folks. And M's M made it that much sweeter. I was at Fenway for his first games--the doubleheader to start the second half.
And there's Joe. They didn't throw out the first ball--they just came out, stood, and then went to sign autographs at the special spot.

This was our first time sitting on the berm in left field. Great view in front; loud, annoying teenage girls all around. Michael Bowden, aka the guy I don't think can go anywhere what with that short-arming motion, pitched for the Triple-A us.

Batter and friend.

And now Bowden's kicking the friend. Are you clicking to enlarge these? Terrible/awesome job.

The view from the berm-ese python, snake-in-the-grass style. I guess Paw, which is really pronounced Puh, won the game, 2-0. But we had to leave early. Kim wasn't about to miss any of Game 6.

But first I stopped over at Joe's spot to get a pic. Great to see him getting his own, albeit shared, day.

The PawSox do a good job of promoting and stuff, sending out e-mails--but they always screw up said e-mails. The one they sent that day said that "former PawSox and Red Sox manager" would be there. They forgot to say his name! Then they sent out a "hope you enjoyed the game" e-mail--what is this, business school? Anyway, they included the final score: "PawSox , Bats 60." A follow-up e-mail changed the 6 to a 2. And put it in the right place. They're also not huge on the whole grammar/punctuation/English thing but they're trying.

The Big Club goes for the sweep against the Boy Cots tonight.

Andy Samberg got a good game. 6-2 win for us, only a little scare from RamRam Muelens in the ninth there.

Yanks lose, Devils lose, and we're three (3) games out of first place.

I love that they're using the in-scoreboard camera (aka the Fisk Angle) more often. Nice job, NESN.

But here's their non-nice job of the night: Remember the great catch in center by Chris Young? Amazing catch--you rarely see a jumping-into-the-wall catch in dead center at Fenway. But there were two runners on with one out at the time...and NESN never showed them, and never showed where they were with the little graphic. Just stayed on Young's face. Remy & Orsillo? No mention of the runners. Finally they cut to a replay. Meaning still no runners update. I guess we were supposed to assume they stayed put since they didn't mention them. But I would have liked to know what they were doing. I feel like Pedroia could've been fairly close to second still, and tried to tag and advance. It's not like he had to worry about Papi passing him--and even if the ball hits off the wall, he still scores easily from just past second. Even if Don had said, "and the runners hold," that would have at least let me know they cared!

You see Drinkwater in a suit and tie last night?

Oh, and on Com Cent tonight--Louis CK on Daily, Devo on Colbert!

Hey--we just noticed Andy Samberg in the front row by the Sox' on-deck circle. So....

It seems like every week I hear Cyn talking about her live chat, which is always on Tuesday...and is always a win! So I checked the sked to confirm it: the Red Sox have won their last nine Tuesday games. The first Tuesday was game 2 of the season, a loss, but every one since has been a win, for a 9-1 record. But please note, that first Tuesday game was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but was moved up when ESPN hijacked Opening Day. In fact, the game remained in my 10-game plan--which only includes Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday games. So I'm counting home game #2 as a Wednesday game, making us a perfect 9-0 on the day named for Lord Tue.

Went to McCoy last night--may post a pic or four tonight.

So I guess we're all just gonna beat up on NL teams for awhile and then resume the real season and see where we are. Right now we're still four back in the East, about equal to the first place teams in the other divisions, and two back of our '08 and '09 record through 66 games.

Red Sox at home against former Yankee-fan in-dreams Cy Young award-winner Ian Kennedy and the D'Bauchs.

Nava will bat leadoff.

Have you seen the video about the earthquake warning? You'll wonder if you're supposed to be laughing....but you will laugh. Bob and David have it at the top of their site...but I see it's not available anymore. So you have to find it somewhere else, like here.

Aroldis Chapman. More pics at bottom of post.

It was 7:00 Saturday night when I saw that Aroldis Chapman was pitching in Pawtucket for the Louisville Bats. It was a 6:00 game, but the start was delayed. I got in the car. Game was in the top of the third. I got there, parked in front of a house we looked at when we were house-hunting around here two years ago, bought my $7 ticket, and went inside in time for the top of the fourth. Plenty of seats available, but I just stayed toward the back at first. Chapman, the Cuban defector* with the $30 million contract, made some guys look foolish, but overall he wasn't too sharp. (While writing this, the Yankee highlights came on, and they showed Yes' coverage of Posada hitting a grand slam complete with Michael Kay screaming as loud as he does when he's in the middle of molesting children, and of course the NECESSARY shot of fucking Jeter doing nothing in the dugout--but they were thwarted as he wasn't in the shot! So they cut to another shot, a close-up of Jeter from a different camera. I'll just never understand it. Any Yankee hits a homer, we MUST see Jeter's face in the dugout. You know what--at this point, I'll make a deal with these people (and that includes visiting teams'--yes, I saw the Orioles' network show Jeter after a homer he wasn't involved in--and national broadcasts who do it too), and that deal is as follows: You can show Jeter on every home run, even if he's sick at home in his jammies. When he retires, you can show his face even then. But you aren't allowed to stop there--when he dies, you STILL have to cut into every Yankee home run trot to show his rotting, un-handsome face. It'll get really fun around the third or fourth year...)

Where was I....oh yeah, that dude. Well, one article I read said he pitched great, another said the PawSox "had his number." He was pretty good, but loaded the bases in the first inning I saw, and then walked in a run and was super-pissed at the ump. Then I moved to the other side and down closer for the next inning. And that was all I saw of him. It had been drizzling the whole time, and finally they brought out the tarp. I decided to stick it out. After a loooong time and no announcements or updates, the grounds crew came lolligagging onto the field. After removing the tarp and leisurely pouring that drying agent and raking it...they put the tarp back on...and walked away. Five minutes later, they told us the game was over. PawSox win 1-0 in 5+ innings.

The delay had gone on for so long, I was getting psyched about getting foul balls, since it was down to me and maybe 100 others. I knew that infield work was gonna take forever at the pace they were going, but I stuck it out since I'd lasted that long. They did give all of us who stayed a free ticket to Monday's game. But I can't go. That's okay, I've got two other Paws games coming up....








And here's one of Amazing Larry:


*I've seen where people write "defectee" instead of "defector" a lot lately. Classic case of thinking too hard. If you look up "defectee" on Dictionary.com, they ask if you meant "defecate." Good call!

Wake had one bad one, and we lose Five 2 Three.

Eric "Muncha Buncha Fredos" Frede was at the helm again, as Don is still on probation--er, "under the weather." Just kidding. I have no idea what's going on with him.

After Wake got outta the loaded/0 out jam in the first, I thought a sweep was meant to be. But no.

Before the game, the Red Sox Scholars ceremony was aired on NESN. And Carl Beane didn't look at his script until the moment it started. His most egregious error? When the script referred to someone who does CT scans, Carl said, "Connecticut scan." Ouch. It's like when that article replaced all instances of the word "black" with "African-American," so it came out "the Yankees wore African-American armbands...."

Gotta love the 0-2 dong for our side, by Beltre. (This was shortly after Fredo broke our hearts with "it's clear balls aren't carrying today.")

Why can't these guys run balls out? I remember telling my softball team that even if they hit a pop-up or a grounder right to someone, run it out, because you never know what's gonna happen. I shouldn't have to tell the Red Sox this! There are so many balls hit that I know I'd have a triple on, but our guys are pulling up into second. You're making Jeter look good with this crap!

Fredo: "Hamels has held the Red Sox to 5 hits as we play here in the 6th." He did have a good game, but a hit an inning is, like, not great. I can see if he meant five hits and nothing more, but we did have a run at the time.

Too bad the guy made a trick slide on Nava's throw to second.

We should still be 4 back unless Tampa makes a big comeback.

That was superfun watching Nava blast a grandmother slamfather on the first pitch he saw in the bigs. I didn't feel like the ghost of Dick Stockton or Tim McCarver made a big enough deal about the whole "first itch" thing. They kept saying "first at bat." I looked it up, and the Kouzmanoff first at-bat grand dong was also on the first pitch--and they said it was "believed" to be the first time that happened, meaning nobody knows if Frosty Bill Duggleby did it on the first pitch in 1898. The fourth guy to hit a grand slam in his first at bat was Nava's teammate, Jeremy Hermida. When Bobby Bonds hit a grand slam in his first game, the AP article said how Duggelby held that page in the record book by himself for "70 summers." I love that--if you say "70 years," it sounds like...a bunch of decades. If you say "70 summers," people think of the carousel and Vecchitto's Italian ice at Old Lyme shores.

On the second at bat for Nava, the dude comes up again with the Steve Sax toasted, and Fox actually misses a pitch. Completely misses it, as they're showing Nava's dad--and you could see Rosenthal sitting right next to him, giving away the fact that Ken would soon be interviewing the parents. That was really cool for them--and hey Jeter's parents--eff you! There's a new "set of parents that get shown every five seconds," and their name is Reggie Hammonds. Did you see the fleece Nava's dad was wearing? Sorry, that was a Jose Feliciano joke....the first in this blog's 6.5 year history.

Speaking of stuff Fox missed, they also missed the throw to first on a Varitek K.

So, I love hearing Stockton do our games, because it makes me feel like I'm watching the '75 World Series. But he's kinda losing it--so I don't expect him to get everything right. Like when he talked about all the Yankees-Dodgers World Series, then said how the Red Sox and San Francisco Giants have never played each other in the WS. Which is technically true, but that implied, based on his comments on the Dodgers which included both Brooklyn and LA, that the Red Sox and Giants franchises have never met in the WS, which isn't true--the 1912 Series was one of the most dramatic of all-time.

And he had a little trouble with balls hit down foul lines, but whatever. Fox did so much else wrong, I'm sure nobody noticed.

Great job by Castiglione for telling Nava to hit the first pitch out! And a rare good job by McCarver for passing on that story. Bad job by McCarver for again bringing up Manny "forgetting which leg to limp on," a story that was debunked by Allan Wood a long time ago.

How key was it to get a pressure-free win with Itchison & Scratchison getting the start? What the H is up with K? We stay 4 back with the 10-2 V.

Worst baseball jersey I saw in Providence today: Yanks--Irabu 35. Get a goddamn life, lady.

Okay, so I went and saw Chapman pitch at McCoy. I will post pictures tomorrow-ish. The Lil' Sox won in a five-inning game, and they gave me a free ticket to another game for sticking out the rain delay....