Looks like the Red Sox are getting Dan Wheeler. Warwick's own! I was gonna call his parents (they still live right near where I do my grocery shopping!) for an interview, but this 2009 article by Bill Reynolds covers the story of Wheeler nicely. It asks the key question--did Dan grow up a Red Sox fan? Yes. Yes he did. Nice.

Here's my unhub page. It gives you a little toolbar with all my web presences. Still proud to not have a facebook!

I like this unhub idea, it's got all my stuff in one place, but...who's gonna use this? Are you gonna bookmark that link and then click around at all my different places? Is what I'M doing gonna be that big of a percentage in YOUR daily e-routine? I hope so but I'm not counting on it. So, if it's something that helps you, fine. But I'm always gonna post here saying I posted to one of those other pages anyway.

Red Sox, when you sign Lenny DiNardo, you should be putting his name on top, not buried way down in the press release. People love Lenny!

Speaking of old Red Sox pitchers who like music or whatever, Bronson Arroyo's playing around here tomorrow night.

And as you know by now in a world where people know stuff really soon after it happens, the Red Sox are "close" to getting Bobby Jenks for the 'pen. I searched my own blog to see any mentions I may have made about the guy in the past. There was one. From 2005. I was trying to be funny in that post, as its title suggests, and I think I succeeded. (You know, as Morgan Burkhart jokes go.)

Ooh, Charlie Brown Xmas starting. Gotta go, obviously...

I'd be effing beaming regardless of which non-Yankee team Cliff Lee went to. But I think his going to Philly is a bonus, in regards to a certain group of ridiculous people. This is a group I've talked a lot about. The "I root for New York" fan. That's right, the person who feels they have the right to have TWO* favorite teams just because their city has multiple teams. Those fans also exist in Chicago, LA, etc., but it's extra-shitty in New York, because you get your 27 championships, but any time the Mets are doing better than the Yanks, you STILL get to be happy. Yankee fans, of all people, should not be allowed a back-up. Either take your 27 and be happy with that, or pick someone else, but you can't have both.

But back to Lee--my point is that those not-rare-enough Yets** fans probably hate Philadelphia***. A true Yankee fan would take solace in the fact that at least Lee did something that will hurt the Mets. But these faker, dual-fanship types are probably pissed that Lee is gonna be beating one of the teams in their harem. So let's recap:

Mets fans: I feel your pain.
Yanks fans: Do you have to ask?
Yets fans: Terrible job as usual.


*I know a lot of people have an AL and an NL. But even in that case, you have ONE true team, and the other is just who you root for in a league that might as well be a different sport anyway. But the "I root for NY" breed is a special one--isn't rooting for all teams in your city just as pointless as rooting for all teams in your country? "And my team wins the World Series again! I can't lose! Except in '92 and '93! America rules! Dy-nas-ty!!!"

**My new name for those people, Yanks + Mets = Yets. Duh.

***People hate Philadelphia. I know nothing about this. The A's left there long before I was born, so Sox and Yanks fans shouldn't have a problem, but obviously Mets fans do. Even when I followed the NFL and was a die-hard Jets fans, well, the Eagles were in the NFC. We'd only play them once every three seasons, last-place schedule aside. But in my yearly Jets game, I did see the Eagles one time. It was weird because it was on CBS instead of NBC. We made a sign. It was horrible. Cunningham can't Beat uS. CBS. The weird thing is I knew that Cunningham was more than capable of Beating uS, single-handedly even. Anyway, it rained, and the marker ran down the sign. I'd say this was the game. I should put this footnote in the "game notes" section of that page! And yeah when I was following the NBA and was a die-hard Nets fan, well, yeah I guess we played the 76ers a few times a year. But besides hating the Knicks, there weren't a whole lot of rivalries in those days. It's hard to have one when your team wins like 12 games a year. (Note to new people who are all, "Hey you're talking about how to be a fan and now you're talking about these teams you USED to like. What gives, sizzlechest?" First of all, great Jerky Boys reference--you sound pretty cool. Secondly, I only had one football and basketball team--I just stopped following those sports. I mean, it's hard to avoid them****, but I just mean I don't have loyalties any more in those sports. I'm just done. We cool?)


****I once wondered if you could make it a full year without finding out who won the Super Bowl. I don't think it's possible. Maybe I should test this theory with the World Cup or something. And it doesn't count if you learn the answer but forget. For example, I have no idea who won the Stanley Cup last year and I may never hear the answer again, but I'm sure I found out at the time.

C Billy G has taken it to new heights.

Also, ask me anything. You'd be the first to do so. (In this format.)

Please add 1 million more individual ha's to that, if you want to relive my reaction to the Yankees NOT getting Cliff Lee. I love when people are so sure of something that they just sit there rubbing their hands together with a smile on their faces, only to have that thing not come true. But it's a bonus of epic proportions when those people are the Yankees and their "the Red Sox never can get it done like the Yankees always do always always always you haven't won since 1918 even though you have"-sayin' fans, and that thing is getting Cliff Lee.

Great job, Cliff Lee. You went where you wanted to go. It never made much sense to me when people would say he'd go to the Yanks to have a chance to be a "winner," when his team BEAT the Yanks to end their most recent season.

And as for the money--okay, can I just say something? Don't answer that. I like to think of myself as the type of person to whom money is not the most important thing. There are plenty of things I wouldn't do no matter how much money you gave me. One of those things--albeit not one with any kind of impending offer--would be working/playing for the New York Yankees. If I suddenly became an All-Star caliber baseball player, and the Yankees offered me a million dollars, I wouldn't do it. Yet every time there's a free agent out there, people say with complete certainty that that player will gladly become a Yankee "once the money is on the table" AND that I, Jere, would too. Well, I wouldn't. And Cliff Lee didn't! And I'm super-psyched about that.

Does anyone know if they're really going through with the revamping of the bullpens and moving the right field fences in? Surely people who have taken a Fenway tour or people who went to Xmas @ Fenway would have seen something. In fact, I was right outside the Bleacher Bar yesterday--I should have peeked out there. Has Menino gone around with the hard hat on yet? Anyone?

Went to Fenway today. Sadly, no more Yard Sale. They screwed us on that one. I can't be the only one was was confused about this. It really stinks that some 15-year old doofus who off-handedly decided to receive Twitter updates from the Red Sox saw the message yesterday that the Yard Sale was going on, went there, and bought stuff. While a real fan like me looks right at the same message, but figures it has to be a mistake, since the team had previously stated that the Yard Sale was for Xmas @ Fenway winners only, and doesn't even go--although if I lived closer I could have stopped by just in case. In fact, I might have just gone anyway, but I'd just done the same drive late the night before--AND I knew I'd have to do it again the next day had they really meant that the Yard Sale for non-winners was Sunday (like in previous years). People who don't pay attention were rewarded. People who do overthought it and lost out. All the other stuff aside, if their stupid Tweets had just specified that the sale was open to the general public, I'd still be pissed at them for using that as the only method of notification, but at least I would have gone, and the cottony feel of a game-used Dwayne Hosey/Wayne Housie jersey in my hands right now would have long since washed away the previous pain.

But like I said, I ended up at Fenway today anyway. Kim was selling soaps in Boston (which is why I drove up Friday night, to help her load in), so I went up there, sat parked on a rainy Yawkey Way from about 1 to 2 just in case, and then went and helped Kim and loaded her out. As I left Fenway, all sad with the rain hiding my tears, I stopped at a soda machine and pressed the button clearly marked "Coke" for a $2 pick-me-up. And what came out, but a diet Coke. I stood there in the wind and cold drizzle, staring at this beverage whose taste sickens me. Instead of taking my anger out on the machine like a normal person, I took that diet fuckin' Coke out, threw it up in the air as high as I could, and walked to my car as it fell to earth behind me, its fizzy contents spewing forth and doing the no-pants dance with the raindrops. Or at least I assume they did, for I did not look back. In retrospect, giving the drink to a homeless person might have been more productive. But that diet Coke needed to die. Hopefully somebody picked up what was left of the corpse later and got some refreshment out of it.

I did go in to the Yawkey Way Store, and there were two racks of Crawford 13 shirts--one was completely empty. So they're sellin' a lot of those. AdrGonza should pick a number, eh?

Two paragraphs ago, I spoke a little bit about diet Coke. Let's revisit that topic. It really does taste disgusting. The only time I ever drank it was back in the late 80s. Our neighbors owned the bowling alley and always had a stockpile of candy bars and soda at their house. That soda, unfortunately, was usually diet Coke. It was free. So I held by nose and drank it. The Nerds and candy bars would help to wash away the thin, nasal, your-soda-is-like-bad-medicine-y taste. You see, there's the difference: Give me a free diet Coke in an era before I could drive and get my own alternative, and, fine, I'll take a few sips between bike rides. But charge me $2 for something I do want, and then secretly give me diet Coke instead? Fuck you.

I guess they actually deflated the thing on purpose so they wouldn't lose the whole roof.

If anybody finds anything out about day 2 (hopefully) of the Fenway Yard Sale, I would love it if you would let me know.... Gracias.

Update, 10:29 am: September Red Sox games now on sale on redsox.com. Just got some. No VWR.