It’s official.

It’s spring!

Up yours, you buck-toothed, Pennsylvanian underminer of foundations. Up yours, Al Gore and your global warmongering induced snowfall.

Up yours, winter.

Yesterday was Truck Day in Philadelphia and today is Truck Day in Boston.

Less than a week to go.

Welcome to 2003.

I have spent the better part of 36 hours trying to decide between suicide and homicide. Then merely veering between sheer despair and tentative hopefulness.

I feel like my dog died after running away with my girlfriend.

If it weren’t for the cosmic importance of this fight, I’d shrug and say, “Oh well, they are the Phillies.” Not this time.

Seriously, the one time in all of recorded human history when the entire family of man was cheering for the Philadelphia Phillies and they blew it. Way to go guys. You couldn’t even postpone failure for seven friggin minutes so it didn’t happen on my Dad’s birthday and the one-year anniversary of the Day the United States Died?

God’s intentions are always suspect. In this case, I suspect they are entirely focused on making 2009 the shittiest year in a long goddamn time. Perhaps it’s an issue of the “3″s. 2003 was a good and bad year. 2006 was a manifestly shitty year. 2009 has pretty much got them all beat – not for the pain of individual instances of despair – but for the horrendous summation of all the bad shit that’s gone down.

So prepare for the long, white season. Warmth and Light and Happiness have never seemed further away.

Except when considering this.

Awright, I’ll say it: Go Phils!

Hey kids, we’re damned close to doing this for all the marbles so I have a couple of requests:

1. Let’s shitcan those towels. That’s a football thing. And worse, a Pittsburgh football thing. We can’t come up with our own goddamn traditions? Philly used to have some balls, whatever happened to the stadium courtroom?

2. Let’s shitcan all the World Champions 2008 gear. This ain’t 2008. This is a whole new ballgame. Let’s act like it. Wear your red with pride but stop living in the past. Look to the here and now. Look to the future.

And the future is bright.

Besides, you can’t let the Yankees win the World Series on my Dad’s birthday.

In Pedro we Trust.

Do you trust your season to this man?

You should, he hates the Yankees more than you do.

Holy jumping zombie Baby Jeebus.

There will be at least one more day of Phillies baseball. At least one more game before the long white season. The pitching is all right. The bats might be awake.

Things look a hell of a lot better than they did 24 hours ago.

I’ll take 3-2 against the Yankees. They gotta be feeling it too.

At least one more panic-filled, sleepless night to go.

I have to apologize to every Phillies fan around the world. I had to do it. I had to go. I had to see a World Series.

Even though I knew it would cost the Fightin’s a game.

For three years I’ve been working my way up the postseason ladder. My record so far is pretty goddamned miserable.

2007 – Game 1 of the NLDS: Colorado Rockies 4, Philadelphia Phillies 2

2008 – Game 3 of the NLCS: Philadelphia Phillies 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 7

2009 – Game 3 of the World Series: New York Yankees 8, Philadelphia Phillies 5

For our undetermined 2009 campaign, I wanted to go to the World Series. I knew it would cost us a win. I knew I’d overpay for tickets to yet another loss. But hell, it’s the World friggin’ Series. How many chances in one lifetime is a man going to get to watch the Phillies play the Yankees in Citizens Bank Park.

So I went, and it was grand. And they lost. But I don’t care. I’ve been to the World Series and I’ve got the Taco Bell swag and preposterous towel to show for it.

And like a wise man once said, “Now I can die in peace.”

That’s right bitches! I am on my way to the World Series!

Section 243 on the Scoreboard Porch for those of you watching at home.

Permit me to apologize in advance for the loss the Phillies will suffer due to my presence. It’s entirely unavoidable. I have to go. That’s just the way it is.

All together now, big *sigh* of relief.

I shamelessly lifted the design from an Obama t-shirt I saw a long time ago. I think I’d like to see the same thing with Zombie Reagan but for now, Cliff Lee is the hero of the day.

Tonight, the only man alive who can work the jheri curl and smack down antique Yankee coaches with style. God damn, I love Petey.

Reasons the Philadelphia Phillies will win the 2009 World Series

1. The New York Yankees used to be the New York Highlanders who used to be the Baltimore Orioles. Who’s been afraid of the Baltimore Orioles at any time in this century?
2. Speaking of the Baltimore Orioles – if the Phillies owe the New York Yankees a kick in the jimmy for thwarting us in 1950, we definitely owe the Baltimore Orioles a teabagging for 1983. So that’s two reasons to whip hell out of the Yankees across two different iterations of the team.
3. South Philly beats the South Bronx. I’m sick and tired of the Broadway vs. Broad Street comparison – the MFYs aren’t from New York, they’re from the Bronx. Hell, when the Phillies started playing baseball the Bronx wasn’t even part of New York City! What a pity, just like everyone else – except Brooklyn – the Yankees have no home borough pride and have to look wistfully across the river to Manhattan for validation.
4. For the first time in my memory the National League team has the clear advantage in the Designated Hitter position. Typically the NL team is at the monstrous disadvantage of expecting a season-long pinch hitter to jump in and be able to serve as the big bopper through the games in the AL park. This time, the Phillies can put a season-long big bat in the DH role and upgrade their defense at the same time. I expect big things from both Raul Ibanez and Ben Francisco tonight in New York.
5. At some point Sabathia and Rodriguez have to revert to their historical postseason form. You know, the one that has Rodriguez slapping balls out of gloves like a sissy and Sabathia giving up a nine pitch walk to Brett Myers. Eventually we all regress to the mean.
6. And if that statement is true then Brad Lidge will be unhittable, Cole Hamels will dominate, Cliff Lee will be Cliff Lee and Chase Utley will awaken. That’s a bright prospect.

“All right, let’s get ‘em.”

It’s the Yankees. I am unimpressed.

My best case scenario was watching the Yankees suffer Choke #2 by dropping the ALCS to the Angels after being up 3-1. That would have made me very happy on this, the fifth anniversary of Choke #1.

And it would have been very cool to see a Phillies-Angels World Series; two teams with angels in their dugouts (Adenhart and Harry the K).

Instead we get Phillies-Yankees. Whee! The New Jersey World Series. Christ, these people are already insufferable, now I have to tolerate ten days of pro/anti-Yankees crap? Just kill me now, but let me know how things turn out.

I’m too tired to work up anything spectacular.

I’m too happy.

It’s a very weird feeling this time around. Last year was so amazing. A chance to go to the World Series for the first time since I started college. Just fricking amazing!

This time it’s subdued. This is awesome, but I want a victory. I want to be able to see the parade this time. I want two in a row.

And the lads want the same thing.

Which makes ‘em very dangerous.

Go Phillies!

My friends, the worm has turned.

This is the second time this decade that I am grappling with the weird transition as one of ballclubs goes from decades as a hapless also-ran and suddenly becomes “just another team.”

The Red Sox did it from 2004-2007. Now, instead of being the romantic Red Sox opera circa 1918-2003, they’re almost elevated to levels of scorn typically reserved for the Yankees. They spend too much. They’re overextended. Their stars are indulgent bums.

In 2007, as the Sox were cemented as a perennial contender, the Phillies jumped on the contending bandwagon and are in the process of turning themselves into a powerhouse. Suddenly, as a fan, you don’t sweat it when they get hot early in the year while anticipating the inevitable collapse. You relax, breathe deep and understand that they’ve got it under control and won’t collapse like 1964. When the manager swaps out eleventy hundred and fifty-two pitchers in 2/3ds of an inning you relax and think, “In Cholly we trust.” When the 7-8-9 batters are up in the bottom of the ninth and we’re losing by two runs you think, “We’ve got a legitimate chance to win this game.” When our terrifying closer takes the mound in the 9th you cheer him on, rather than booing him in your heart.

We pick ‘em up when they’re down. We reward effort – even if unsuccessful. We stand by our men.

What a weird time to be a Phillies fan.

I have concerns about the NLCS. Maybe we’ll win. Maybe we won’t win. Bizarrely, it would be OK either way. These boys have earned our respect and admiration and our lifetime commitment to buy their beers at any bar in the region.

I wanted to whip the Rockies. I wanted to kick them in the jimmy. We needed revenge for sending us packing in 2007. Getting beat by a better team is OK. Getting beat in a fair fight is OK. Getting unceremoniously whipped by a bunch of lucky rookies is not OK. They needed to go down and go down hard. And given their antics in the NLDS, I am glad they got whipped.

The Dodgers fought fair. And they had the good grace to step aside and let us through on our way to the mountaintop in 2008. For that they deserve our thanks. I want to whip ‘em again, though. I believe in pursuing and destroying a beaten enemy. Once you’ve got them on the run you need to take their soul. You need to jump on ‘em with both feet and make sure they don’t ever get up again. “The easiest way to win an argument is to kill the other fella.” A wise man said that in a movie. I am all about the metaphorical kill. Besides, I owe those Angeleno bastards some shit for the barefoot over broken glass experience of last October 12.

And then – well, then I’d like to beat the Yankees if only to cement New York’s decline into the basement of shame. But I’d also like to beat the Angels for two reasons:

1. Because John Lackey is an unsufferable mouth-breather who beat my beloved Red Sox.

   And

2. Because a match up of the teams with the Ghosts in the Dugout would be pretty cool. And Harry the K could kick Adenhart’s pansy ass any day of the week.

As another great man once said, “All right boys, let’s get ‘em!”

Ladies and gents, we have a return engagement with the Dodgers.

And all this on the one year anniversary of my memorable visit to Dodger Stadium.

Here we go again. Here’s hoping we hand the Dodgers their asses again.

What a day! I went from wanting to kick a puppy and conclude a murder suicide pact with a fluffy bunny to being so blearily blissed out I didn’t think I could fall asleep at 3 AM.

What a game! What a day.

I feel like some gigantic vehicle is churning into low gear.

I hope it’s a steamroller.

And all I keep thinking is, “Here we go.”

“Again.”

Here we go again! Charlie Manuel and Dallas Green, hand in hand leading us to the promised land.

It all feels like a flashback of last year. Combined with 2007. But I’m not out in the desert somewhere thousands of miles away from the meaningful things.

Bring on the friggin’ Rockies. We owe them a titanic kick in the jimmy for ruining our 2007.

Then we’ll whip the Dodgers. Again. Then we’ll whip who??? The Angels (you must be joking)? The Twins? The Tigers? The Yankees?

As long as nobody says Red Sox, I’ll be happy.

So soak up a little Harry the K. This is for him. And for Jed X. Hastings.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsFryBYYZJM]

NL East! NL East!

I hate Major League Baseball.

Just when all hope is lost, when your Championship Manager pinch hits a .138 man for a .299 hitter, when your 2 out 2 men on batter is a sub-.200 hitter fresh from the DL the little squirt hits a double, scores two runs and ties the game.

By then, however, you’ve burned your closer in the 9th for no reason at all and your 10th inning pitcher can’t hold the lead and your top of the order “big bats” can’t scrape up the tying runs that your scrap wood bottom of the order guys can.

Not to mention your last League MVP who can’t buy a hit and single-handedly gave up the opposing team’s first run.

Son of a bitch.

I am sick and tired of paying $12 for parking, $27 for a ticket, $8.25 for a cheesesteak and $6.75 for endless beers only to witness a loss. I can’t honestly remember the last time I saw my team win a game. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Phillies or Red Sox, just my team – the one I am cheering for – win a game. I know I’m hard-coded to dwell on the negative and neglect the positive but this is really something.

I am just sick to death.

Why in the hell should I spend hundreds of dollars on Major League Baseball to watch the goddamned Keystone Kops take the field? I can go back to Maryland and watch A ball, eat and drink like a king and come away less than $30 poorer. A man can stand a loss when the wallet-weight-loss is negligible. This kind of crap I cannot stand.

Perhaps it’s a baseball progression. First, you enjoy the sport on TV. Then you fall in love with the Major Leagues. Then you go to games, get drunk, get hassled by Yankees fans, visit different ballparks and generally raise hell. Then you realize a love for the game. A love so pure you can be enthralled by a T-Ball game.

God bless the Minor Leagues. For the first time in my memory of watching professional baseball I saw a group of players genuinely having fun: laughing, booting balls, missing fungoes. Before the game it was something like watching the Harlem Globetrotters.

There was an impromptu fungo/grounder session going on along the third base line. Apparently, if you missed three tossed balls, you had to let someone else hit. In an effort to get around more quickly I saw three infielders play all sorts of tricks on the striker. They threw from behind one guy. At one point all three jumped in a bunch and tossed the ball out from amidst the bundle. Pure beauty.

Add to this ecstasy a “real” ballgame with balls, strikes, outs, good pitching, good and bad fielding, timely hits and miraculous saves not to mention quarts of beer for $6, tickets for $7 and food for even less. Seldom (nay, never) have I been to a ballgame and spent less than $100. Tonight I spent less than $30 and drank 112 oz of beer, ate half a pound of peanuts and had the finest time at a baseball game that I have ever had.

“I’d buy that for a dollar.”

I am still trying to track this. I don’t know what to do. Although I know I am damned hungry. Maybe I need more whiskey.

Yep. That’s what I needed.

Alright, I have several things to say:

1. I love Boston. I cried in 2004. Brother, when the Red Sox were unbeatable the Phillies were already thirty years old. That’s kind of depressing
2. Longoria has the most punchable face in baseball. What a jerk.
3. Boy, since we’ve won, I’d sure like National TV to take the Rays’ dick out of their mouths. They might find it a smidge more comfortable.

I leave you with this:

Can we lock up and get drunk now please? — Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Well hell. At 6:58 PM Pacific Time in Reno, Nevada while staring out the window at a psychedelic clown with a pulsating lollipop I saw the Philadelphia Phillies win the World Series.

Seriously. Is there a better moment than this?

One of the happiest moments of my life was late in the night on October 27, 2004 when I heard the celebrations in Boston on the phone. How spectacular was talking to fellow sufferers on October 29, 2008?

It’s been a good decade.

Philly rules! Michael Nutter did fix the Phillies. The Rays were finally supressed.

Now I’m going to go and wrestle senior citizens for food and drink. Like the wise man says, “Can we lock up and get drunk now please?”

I sat in Santa Cruz and watched the Philadelphia Phillies win Game One of the World Series.

That’s something I would not have expected to write in my life. I kind of feel the same way I did when I spent New Year’s watching the Philadelphia fireworks from a train platform on Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd in Camden, NJ.

Not exactly an experience you expect to have in your lifetime.

I’m a little bummed I’m missing California for baseball. But hell, I can come back to California. I could be fifty the next time the Phillies make it to the World Series. Reckon that’s a fair trade. Besides, California would be lovely if it was devoid of people. They tend to ruin everything.

The victory calls for a shot of bourbon.

Right, that’s done.

May I suggest that American refrain from partaking of free tacos from Taco Bell? Do you really want to eat something that was stolen by one of the Tampa Bay Rays? Hell, only last year they were stealing cars – now they’re stealing tacos for the United States?

They must and shall be supressed.

Your Philadelphia Phillies are going to the World Series.

I never get tired of saying that. It makes me weep with pure joy every time I think it.

Chew on it for a while. Roll it around your cerebellum. The Philadelphia Phillies are going to the World Series!

The last time this happened I was still a teenager, I was studying physics, I hadn’t even met 99.9% of my friends. The last time this happened Bill Clinton hadn’t even been in the White House a full year.

The last time this happened Saddam was contained under a “No-Fly Zone,” the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City still stood and the World Trade Center still towered over lower Manhattan.

The last time this happened cell phones were still an expensive luxury, Apple Computer was in the toilet, and Microsoft was shipping DOS.

The last time this happened the Braves were still the team to beat, the Yankees still sucked and the Red Sox hadn’t won a World Series in seventy-five years.

It’s a whole new world. A new decade. A new century. Hell, a new millenium. Reckon it’s time for a new destiny.

Bring on the American League. As the shortstop says, “We are the team to beat.”

I had a boss (man, that seems like a long time ago) who used to ask – in reference to projects in process – “Is it soup yet?”

Hey baby, the Phillies are soup. Will it get soupier? I think you’d be hard-pressed to bet against the Phils getting to the NLCS. Even if they don’t get to the Series, I’m content with them going one level a year. After so many heartbreaking years I’m content to savor this as it comes and let ‘em slowly build up to really spectacular things. I don’t think my heart could stand another 1993. Come to think of it, years that end in three are really bad luck (1993 Phillies, 2003 Red Sox). It took a long time to recover from those. And I still hate Canadians and the g-damned Yankees.

These are the salad days, my friends. Salad days.

Enjoy them while they last.

And hoist a pint or two to your 2008 National League East Champion Philadelphia Phillies!

Who would you rather salute as a sports hero?

	Or
	Or
	Or

This shit just don’t happen in Football.

The Phillies are in first place!

For today, anyway.

WTF is up with this season? Boston and Tampa Bay tied for first in the AL East? Baltimore only a game back? With the Yankees in the cellar? It’s May and I haven’t been to a ballgame since Opening Day, in March?

Jumpin’ Jeebus! I need a drink.

The race was definitely under way. I had witnessed the start; I was sure of that much. But what now? — Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

What a screwed up season this has been so far. The season starts nearly a week early with games over breakfast and no beer. An exhibition game to open the Nats new ballpark miraculously transforms into a spectacular season opener. Then Opening Day nearly gets rained out across damned near half the country. The Washington Nationals have a 1.000 winning percentage. The Phillies have .000 pct. No surprises for the Sox, of course, except for that oddly dropped game in Tokyo.

Christ. Between on days and off days and the wild start to the whole shebang I think the flywheels are still turning for most. We’re still trying to rev it up.

On the bright side, the American League Beer Lady is hale and hearty in her accustomed stoop at Camden Yards. Even got a picture with her. And a lovely beer lady at Citizens Bank Park forced her adoption as the National League Beer Lady on Saturday. So, I’ve got that going for me. Sadly, no discounts – but it’s always nice to see a friendly face.

Here we go.

Go look at redsox.com. As of this writing the countdown clock stands at something just over 13 hours until First Opening Day.

On orioles.com the clock shows just under one week (3:05 game time next Monday) until Real Opening Day.

An embarrassment of riches, my friends. An embarrassment of riches. Tomorrow morning, and Wednesday morning, I get to wake up and watch for keeps Red Sox baseball for the first time since October 28, 2007. Then it’s a veritable baseball odyssey for pre-season on Saturday at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia – where I’ve not seen baseball since NLDS Game 1 on October 3, 2007 – and Opening Day 2008 on Monday at Orioles Park in Baltimore – where I haven’t seen baseball since September 9, 2007.

Cheese Steaks, the Liberty Bell, Mandingos and the Beer Lady!

You hear that? That’s the sound of spring, baby! Are you paying attention?

Hot damn! It’s spring! Finally!

I was never in my life a sports fan. I followed baseball for a while in the late 80s and 90s and then fell off the wagon again while I pursued other summer activities. With the turn of the century, I started paying attention again and slowly developed into the ravenous scourer of baseball news I am today.

I once tried to figure out why I liked baseball so much. I enjoy the game and dig the personalities but I don’t schedule my life around televised Phillies games the way people do for football. I don’t always know every player and every position. I don’t have a closet full of jerseys and paraphernalia. What’s the draw?

Then it hit me. Baseball means spring. And summer. And those lovely crisp days of early fall. Football, basketball and hockey all start when the world is dying: the leaves start to turn brown, the grass dries up and dies off, the bitter cold of the long winter creeps in. Baseball starts when the daffodils come up. It rolls into the prime of the season when the grass is green, the sun is warm and there’s nothing you’d rather do than stretch out on the deck with a cold beer and relax in the knowledge that all is right with the world. Baseball lives and dies with the good seasons.

Finally, today is the start of Spring Training. The world is full of possibilities. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. Somewhere it’s positively warm today and the flowers are coming out of hiding. Hot damn baby! I can almost smell the grilling mandingos, the freshly watered infield sod, the stale piss festering on concrete floors.

I can’t wait to see the beer lady again.

Spoils of Victory

Today the Boston Red Sox equipment truck left for Fort Myers, FL. Truck Day in Boston is a good bit bigger deal that Truck Day in Philly. I guess I have one more thing to add to my own personal “Bucket List” – be on Yawkey Way in early February to watch the truck roll out for sunny Florida.

Our long national nightmare* is almost over. I even get a break this year, pitchers and catchers report on the most horrid day of the year. For once, I catch a break and have something to look forward to.

*Winter, Football Season, whatever you want to call it. That long break between the last game of the World Series and the first day of Spring Training.

Truck Day the First!

My college roommate welcomed his daughter into this world just before midnight eastern time on February 7, 2008.

Just down the road from the hospital where he was settled for the day, the Phillies loaded their equipment truck, bound for Clearwater and Spring Training.

Now that’s an auspicious day; thoughts of Spring Training combined with fervent prayers for a long and happy life for the newest member of the human race.

Welcome to the world, kiddo. Everybody else, welcome to the 2008 baseball season!

Typical, the MLB Winter Meetings are at Opryland outside Nashville and I’m stuck in PA.  I was holding out hope they’d be down in Orlando again so I could sidle over and try to catch a clear head shot at Scott Boras while I’m visiting.  But no, they have to be in middle Tennessee.

Sometimes I really miss Nashville.

The big news is the Yankees/Red Sox seesaw over Santana.  I say the odds on is that Santana stays with the Twins.  I can’t see them accepting Lester and Crisp and some prospects.  Nor can I see them taking Ellsbury and prospects and ending up out a proven pitcher.  Interesting stuff.

On the bright side, there’s this comment:

“If the Red Sox get Santana,” said an executive of one NL team that’s grateful to be in the other league, “they might be the best team in the history of the frigging universe.”

Jimmy Rollins got his well-deserved National League MVP.  That makes it back-to-back wins for the Phillies franchise.  And, like one dude says, it ought to be a three-peat when Utley brings it home after next season.

It had to happen.  44,865 of my closest friends couldn’t be wrong.

And now we return you to your regularly scheduled holiday silence.

The good times just keep on rolling. A reporter for the Boston Globe went down to NYC clad in Red Sox gear to see how New Yorkers would react. Not well, it seems. Not well at all.

They reacted, in fact, like Sox fans did for the eighty-six years they couldn’t catch a break.

“The balance of power is shifting,” said Paul Mills, 20, who grew up in Brooklyn wearing Yankees pinstriped baby clothes and only remembered the good times as he hawked the New York Post outside Madison Square Garden. “The Red Sox win the World Series, Joe Torre leaves, A-Rod options out. Everything is crashing down. I don’t know what happened. It’s really depressing.”

Honestly, I am prepared to be magnanimous in victory. First of all to the Indians, who I would be willing to offer a semi-annual World Series split with: Boston wins one year, they win the next – excepting years when the Phillies make it to the big show. To the Yankees: Fellas, all long-suffering fans know how you feel. To the Angels: you play in Southern California fer chrissakes! What the hell do you want a championship for? Go to the beach!

No love for the Rockies, though. No love at all. In their case, to the victor go the spoils and I’m really looking forward to hoisting that Championship Coors Light tomorrow night. Victory tastes sweet.

They did it. They actually did it. The Boston Red Sox spent all season in first place, won the American League East, stumbled a bit in the ALCS and then ripped off seven straight wins – including a World Series sweep – to be the World Champions for 2007.

This is a different team than 2004. In pure baseball terms, this is an infinitely better team: better hitting, better pitching, better fielding. Much less hyper-ventilating required. They’re not as much fun. They’re certainly cleaner. They got the job done with style and that’s good enough.

Good enough for a championship.  Good enough to go into next year as the team to beat.

Beyond good enough.  Great.  Spectacular.  Say it again with me, the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions!

Tito was right, that won’t ever get old.

Tonight the Red Sox could win their second World Championship in four years. For the legions of Boston fans who have lived and died by this team through the generations, it’s got to be mind-boggling. It is to me and I’ve only been seriously following their fortunes for the last decade.

It could all end tonight, and that’s damned melancholy. No more Ellsbury and Pedroia heroics. No more grinning Papi, loping Manny, howling Youkilis, bat-shit Tavarez, Riverdancing Papelbon or nails Lowell. It’s been a magical season all around. The Red Sox on top all season, battling it out at the end and close to winning it all. A really entertaining Cleveland club clawing their way to a near-win in the ALCS but ending up only with tears on the top step of the dugout. A Phillies team taking full advantage of a Mets collapse to scrap their way into a division win and a spot in the post-season for the first time in fourteen years.

What a year. What a game.

I can’t wait for next year.

But it ain’t time for valedictory speeches just yet. There’s still one more game to play high atop the Denver plateau. As Manny so wisely reminds us, ““We don’t want to eat the cake before your birthday.” — 10.27.07, Manny Ramirez, who we turn to for words of wisdom in times like these”

Once more now, with feeling:

@#$*! the Rockies!

Game 3. The one completely guilt-free game in the whole series. Nothing to do tomorrow, no reason not to get plastered today and party well into the night after a deserved victory in the thin Denver air.

This schedule is insane. Only one game on a weekend night? A perfectly good Friday night wasted, and another week of zombie-dom. It’s like Red says:

Whoever came up with this idea needs a beating, and six hours in a locked sauna with Tim McCarver. And also, a beating.

See you all tomorrow for Game 4. Oh yeah.

@#$*! the Rockies!

Man, people are making out like bandits this October.

Everybody in America gets a free taco courtesy of Jacoby Ellsbury.  Everyone in Boston that bought from Jordan’s furniture in the spring are two wins away from getting it all for free.

It’s just happiness all around.

In the interest of continuing the happiness and being magnanimous in victory I’ll give the Rockies a day free of bile-spewing hate.

But tomorrow?  It’s on.

Hey, last night was fun right? Except for thinking about the last time this Red Sox team went romping in Game 1 of a seven-game series and what happened in the next three games.

I think I have battered ball-fan syndrome. Always with the negative waves, Moriarty. Always with the negative waves.

Game 2. The Schill-dog. A horse for both the Phillies in ‘93 and the Sox in ‘04. That’s gotta be a good sign.

And lest we forget our daily dose:

@#$*! the Rockies!

Well, who knew the World Series was as important as the friggin’ Odyssey?

The Sammy is cold. I’ve chosen rotgut bourbon in tribute to Beckett.

And I damn near forgot on this day of days:

@#$*! the Rockies!

Everybody knows the MLB playoff schedule this year was laid out by a drunken man on a merry-go-round. Long layoffs, inexplicable breaks during series, 10:00 PM start times for significant games, Tim McCarver doing color commentary. No excuse, man. None.

I will, however, give mad props to the drunken man and give him another spin on his merry-go-round for planning the two off days between Sunday’s Game 7 and Wednesday’s Game 1. I needed the sleep. I wasn’t sure I could make it through another series of 1 AM bedtimes after dumping truly heroic quantities of alcohol down my cake-hole.

So here I am, only down 21 hours of sleep in the past twelve days. Raging, raring to go. 8 o’clock can’t come fast enough. Please God, let the world hold itself together at least until next Thursday. Because I am unavailable until then.

Is this what it feels like to be a Yankees fan? I mean, aside from bad cologne, obscene body hair, poor hygiene and guttural accents? This sense of inevitability? Of certainty that the righteous forces of light will win out against black, ichor filled agents of darkness? Being absolutely gob-smacked when you don’t win because, obviously, God Himself is on your side. And who the hell let the Devil loose in the ballpark?

Twice in four years, the Boston Red Sox are going to the big show. A feat that, as many sportswriters are giddy to point out, hasn’t been accomplished by this team since the days when Babe Ruth was on the mound.

So now it’s time to meet the Whiz Kids from out west; who practiced yesterday in the four inches of snow blanketing the field. I think, fellas, your run of incredibly good luck has run out. All the umpires have been issued corrective lenses so they can see whether or not a foot touched home plate or precisely what sort of junk was coating a pitcher’s shirt. The game is afoot. The Coors Light has been hidden away until next season. Instead, it’s all about situational beer drinking: Colt 45 for Beckett? Sammy for the big bats. Sapporo whenever Dice-K is on the mound?

Take that, you Rocky Mountain bitches.

@#$*! the Rockies.

Last night was a rough night for baseball.  I saw emptiness in the eyes of the Red Sox.  And I cursed myself for so lustily cheering the Indians as they steamrolled the Yankees.  Any team that beats the Yankees is deserving of the affection of all Americans.  Any team that defeats the Red Sox (or Phillies) will be fed en masse into the wood-chipper when I am finally in charge of things.

I want to see steaming hate.  Pure unfiltered fury at an undeserved defeat.  No worry.  No fear.  No concern.  Absolute confidence that destiny demands victory and that the Almighty Himself will strike down those evildoers who disturb the path of the righteous.

This is a bad year.  A fortnight ago I was contemplating the inevitability of a too-long delayed Boston/Philadelphia World Series.  Today I’m contemplating the third year in a row with no reason to watch the last week of the season.  Another boring World Series.  Another wasted opportunity.  Another blown year.

@#$*!  the Rockies.

This is real Baseball Armageddon. The Cleveland Indians vs. the Boston Red Sox. This ain’t no namby-pamby, emotionally charged, historical showdown of two stratospherically hyped and miserably mismatched Yankees and Red Sox teams. This is real baseball. Hitting against hitting. Pitching against pitching. A delicious mixture of small ball and Home Runs. Sabathia vs. Beckett. Carmona vs. Dice K. Sizemore vs. Youkilis. Hafner vs. Ortiz. Everybody vs. Manny.

Oh, the hotness. The television coverage will be muted – no Yankees for the commentators to massage to the inevitably disappointing climax. But that’s the only thing that will be muted.

@#$*! the Yankees.

Today is a day of commemoration. A damned dismal and disappointing day.

God failed to repeat his unleashing of the Fourth Plague on the Yankees and let them survive to play another day.

RIP:
the Phillies Season
April 2, 2007 – October 6, 2007

Which Phillies will show up next year? The pissed off and revved up ones that went into the playoffs? Or the depressed and silent ones that exited?

RIP:
Jeanne Anne Rader
June 27, 1945 – October 8, 2006

My cousin used to have a signature on her email I find most appropriate for this particular anniversary: “Miss You. Love You. Bye.”

On the bright side, the Red Sox won a three-game sweep of the Angels. The last time that happened was? Oh magical year! Does this mean destiny intends another titanic seven-game anti-Yankee battle? One way or another we’ll know by Wednesday night.

And tomorrow will be a better day.

Because de agony of de feet don’t rate an elegant Roman numeral.

No worries kids. I have seen an October where a team came back from a 19-8 loss to win two away and two at home – four straight – to win a series. And you expect me to worry about the 2007 Phillies only needing to win three in a row? No problem. No problem at all.

I bought my first ever jersey yesterday with King Cole Hamels on the back representin’. I bought my tickets for Home Game 2 of the NLCS. I’ve spun my mind around all the various possibilities of Home Field Advantage or not Home Field Advantage and how I’ll adjust my previous plans if the Fightin’ Phils are home on October 12. And I’ve prayed a little for a D’backs win so we didn’t have HFA and I wouldn’t have to re-arrange schedules.

And the D’backs are cooperating. And the MFYs* are cooperating. And the Indians are cooperating. And I saw two moments last night when the Rockies slipped up, and the chinks in their armor showed up.

And Saturday night is going to be a sleepless night as I watch the MFRs** start cooperating.

It’s going to be a long October. You can sleep when you’re dead.

* Mother-@#$*! Yankees      ** Mother-@#$*! Rockies

I’m not taking the blame for this one. I’ll take the hit for Red Sox losses when I’m present because the coincidence rate is entirely too high to think anything other than some cosmic confluence of bad luck is at play. But I’m not taking the lumps for a Phillies loss at Citizen’s Bank Park. Not when I haven’t seen them lose a game at home the entirety of the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Not when I was wearing the lucky hat that hadn’t seen them lose at all – home or away – from Spring Training 2006 through yesterday. No sir, I’m not taking the lumps for this one.

The question for today is: What the hell happened? Let me tell you, the Rockies ain’t that good. They play good defense and capitalize on pitching mistakes but I saw nothing to convince me that they are a special team or a team of destiny or any of that other bollocks. The real question is: just how much does it cost to buy off two officiating staffs – Monday night and Wednesday afternoon – so all the calls go your way? Like several people pointed out yesterday – we’re all still waiting for Matt Holliday to touch home plate at Coors Field.

I think the Phillies just got beat. Pure and simple. They didn’t even beat themselves, they just flat out lost the game. When the top of your order goes 0-fer through nine, you’re going to lose the game, regardless of Rowand/Burrell/Hamels heroics. When your pitcher (King Cole!) gets the very first hit of the game, that’s a sign things ain’t going so well.

They lost. But you know what? I have no fear. This year is different. Maybe I’m just a more mellow guy. Maybe things that seemed life and death seem very insignificant in the light of real life and death. Maybe I just have more faith. This year I believe. I know the Phillies are good enough to beat the Rockies. I know that they won’t beat themselves. If they lose, they lose.

But I don’t expect it.

And that’s the oddest attitude for a Phillies fan there is.

The Rockies are coming to town. And I’ll be there. 3:00 PM EDT tomorrow in the City of Brotherly Love.

I have long had a soft spot in my heart for the Rockies from way back in the day when they were a new team, with some spectacular bats. Now they’re just a bunch of young punks who managed not to fold under pressure (ack! Padres) and who stand between the Phillies and the real Pennant battle.

And if that weren’t enough of a reason to hate ‘em, Todd Helton’s beard-ee would do it.

Git.

The fat lady has most definitely sung – that beautiful old broad – and this time she sung a dirge in that nasally Queens accent and an aria of glorious celebration in her guttural Philly patois.

The Philadelphia Phillies are going to the playoffs for the first time in fourteen years.

Today, anything is possible. I might even get the Philadelphia v. Boston World Series I’ve always dreamed of. It’s a good day to be a fan of the two greatest cities in the United States.

The game was absolutely staggering. I can’t give commentary on the plays – some of which were spectacular – because it’s awfully hard to concentrate on the intricacies of the game while in the stands.

I have never seen so many Phillies fans smiling. I have never heard Phillies fans cheer like they did. By the time the game started the Marlins were already up five – zip on the Mets in Queens. While the Mets lost, the Phillies gritted out a convincing whalloping of the Washington Nationals.

Eight and a Half innings later – after countless MVP! chants for Rollins, after a Howard home run and a rousing Liberty Bell chorus, after the Phanatic cheated a lady into winning ten-thousand dollars, after a little kid played a spectacular rendition of “God Bless America” on the trumpet, after the Mets final score went up and the NL EAST! chants started, after the stands shook and the screams drowned out all brain patterns – Wily Mo Pena – who just a week before handed me a t-shirt at RFK – struck out and the Phillies are the National League East Champions!

I think I love the Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Phillies because I love Boston, Massachusetts and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Tonight Boston returned my love. They dropped their magic number to 1 won the American League East!. If it was the old Red Sox or the Phillies you’d say, “Hey, they only need to win one out of the last two games? Yeah, they’ll find a way to f**k that up.” But this is the new Red Sox. They buggered up the first game against the Twins. But tonight, they were born again hard. Dice-K has screwed up his last umpteen games. Tonight he pitches eight innings with only two runs on six hits and eight strikeouts. That’s my boy. Hopefully the Japanese are pleased with that performance. More in line with his Pacific days than anything he’s shown so far in the good ol’ USA.

MVP!!! MVP!!! MVP!!! JIMMEH! HE DE MAN!

Sorry, a momentary lapse of reason due to the dulcet tones of Philly fans on the telly.

And a word on those rotten goddamned towels. I’d give green money if football players never, ever wore baseball caps in any scene associated with the gridiron. Why would baseball people want to wave those goddamned Pittsburgh football towels? Idiots.

Here’s how it looks at 10:08 PM on a beautiful September Friday night.

I’ve been superstitious. I refused to write about the Phillies game while it was ongoing. Even in the top of the 9th, only three outs to go and up by six runs to none. It ain’t safe to say nothing. It’s never safe. Not with Philadelphia. Hasn’t been safe in seventeen years. One World Championship! One measley championship and 10,000 losses? Never safe. But hey, at least for the next hour, We’re Number One! And maybe for at least the next twenty-four hours. And maybe for the month of October.A man can dream, can’t he?

And maybe he don’t have to. Witness the standings as of 10:50 PM!

Now we await the ending of the Orioles/Yankees game. I spent a lot of time cheering on the O’s this year. I’ll spend even more time cheering them on next year if they can pull this one out.Oh! El Bencho struck out looking. Too much eye makeup? Would you still wear that at night?Hey! It’s alright! The O’s pulled it off! WOW! I owe the beer lady (remind me to post the pic) a whole shitload of tips in return for a whole shitload of Coors Light.

God bless Baltimore! God bless Boston! God bless south Florida acting the spoiler against the right team. And pray loudly and lustily that the standings don’t radically alter. My opinion of D.C. is slightly improving with time and exposure. Don’t f**k it up with a spoiler role in the stretch run.

That, my friends, is the sweetest thing I’ve seen in a long, long while. I am simultaneously deliriously happy (as a friend put it, “Breathe Scott breathe…… in, out, in, out, take a sip & repeat in, out, in, out.”) and titanically annoyed at the Red Sox for squandering a bases loaded bottom of the ninth, the Twins for playing spoiler and pre-emptively upset with the Nationals just in case they don’t completely roll over and play dead in Philly this weekend.This could be the year. Boston and Philadelphia born again hard. The long-awaited beginning of New York’s well-earned slide into obscurity and depression. It could be.In other news, Hillary Clinton proved she’s the anti-Christ. “I’ve always been a Yankees fan,” says the former first-lady in response to the question: “Yankees or Red Sox?” She did microscopically redeem herself by commenting that the possibility of a Red Sox/Cubs World Series might be one of the signs of the apocalypse.

So, everybody pray for the Phillies. 705 tonight, 355 tomorrow, 135 on Sunday. Then hopefully a city will burn, cars will be overturned, and people will be desperately injured – but all out of delirious happiness in the city of Brotherly Love.

And I had done an hellish thing,
And it would work ‘em woe :
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.

Five times I’ve been to see the Red Sox at Fenway South. Before the first time I went, the Red Sox had beaten the Orioles in thirteen straight meetings. Before the latest time I went, the Red Sox hadn’t lost a series to the Orioles in more than two years.

But I went. And they lost, won, lost, lost, and lost again.

I could take comfort in the idea that Gagne is clearly the goat, that Tito Francona chose to lose Sunday’s game when he pulled Okajima for Gagne in the eighth. The whole ballpark knew what was going to happen, the O’s fans cheered, the Sox fans booed. But the simple fact is that I am the Ancient Mariner and I shot the albatross.

An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high ;
But oh ! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye !
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

I could also take comfort in the fact that yesterday was a perfect Fenway day – in Baltimore. The warm air was alive with chants of “Let’s Go Red Sox,” the stands were filled with yet another record-breaking sellout and only a smattering of fans for the team that wasn’t the Sox, a Sam Adams was in my hand, a couple of slices of pizza served for a mid-game snack, and I witnessed a losing effort by the Boston Red Sox. Winners of the 2004 World Series. A team that has only missed the playoffs in one of the last five seasons. A team with the 2007 winningest record in baseball.

I was just like being in Boston. I showed up, the Sox lost. Best guess? I’m 1 for 8 in games I’m present for.

Maybe this is God’s way of telling me I should concentrate on the Phillies. They haven’t lost a game I was present at since 2005. Including Spring Training. And I’ve seen them really try to lose games.

A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware :
Sure my kind saint [will take] pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

“Jesus has gotten some big hits and has played tremendous defense in his limited time for us . . .”

Well, no wonder the damned Nationals beat the Phillies and broke Chase Utley’s hand.

It’s hard to do wrong when the Son of God is your back up catcher.

Only in long-suffering Philadelphia would the sold out ballpark stand to celebrate the franchise’s 10,000 loss.

There must be something ennobling in being the first franchise to ten thousand losses. They’ve always been in the same town, always had the same sort of players and, as is becoming apparent, always had the same sort of bums for owners.

The Phillies once had an owner who put up a high wall in the outfield so his best slugger would stop hitting so many runs. They had another owner who traded away his best sluggers. Now they have an owner who seems to be uninterested in winning. Hell, it’s Philly, the fans are used to failure and they love their teams anyway. Why bother winning?

God bless the Phillies and the Phillies fans. As we go on the road to 20,000 losses – we’ll need it.

It’s official! It’s Spring! We may be buried under untold inches of ice and snow but in the deserts and along palm-shaded beaches balls are being scuffed, bats are being pine tarred, caps are being dirtied (I miss Trotter).

And there’s beer! In the Florida sun! What’s not to like?

The beginning of another Spring Training made me think about why I’m so stoked about baseball these days and why all other sports absolutely pale in comparison. I think it all hinges on spring. Football comes in when the leaves turn brown, when thoughts turn to going back to school and winter looms large on the horizon. Everything is dying. There’s no fun to look forward to until summer. Life’s a drag.

Baseball, on the other hand, starts up just when you’ve had all you can take of dead winter, snow, and ice. You can watch games under the afore-mentioned palm trees or in the dry desert heat. You can look ahead to breezy summer evenings, a beer in hand and the roar of the crowd surrounding you. You can look forward to mad dashes to Baltimore, bar hopping on the Metro in Washington, an annual pilgrimage under threat of rain and loss to Fenway Park, new ballparks to visit, new teams to see and the final wind-down in October when another eclipse might just mean the Phillies go all the way this year.

Oh man, pitchers and catchers have reported. Position players and workouts next week. And games, blissful games, soon after that. There are damned few things in this life to look forward to. At least we’ve still got base-ball.

Baseball will break your heart

Two years, twenty minutes and less than 1/2 mile from the greatest baseball night to date comes the absolute worst baseball night in my memory.

Bleh.

It’s the perfect ending to a particularly shitty year. Christ. The Cardinals. The goddamned St. Louis Cardinals. The most uninteresting, unexciting, unattractive team in baseball whipped the best baseball team of 2006. And Scott Rolen finally got his championship. No good, whiny, useless, rat bastard, clubhouse poisoning Rolen.

If I weren’t so tired I’d probably take a walk and spout profanity for a good long while. Honestly, this is the first time I can remember that I’m actually glad the season is over.

What a shitty year.

So much for the Red Sox. They’ve officially abandoned any hope for 2006. Varitek gets knocked out, they lose first place, then go directly down the shitter – do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Oh well. On the bright side, they managed to beat Toronto at home, which is a rare achievement this year. Of course, that means it’s now a given absolute that if it doesn’t rain out tomorrow night they will lose. Spectacularly. Leaving unbroken my string of witnessed Sox defeats. In consultation with my partner in misery, I don’t think I’ve seen the Sox win at all – unless they were beating the Phillies.

Bastards.

In other news, I would like to add a corollary to the “Never help the Yankees” law of baseball. “Never deep-six the Phillies.” Especially when you’re dropping out of the season and the Phils are surprisingly in the playoff hunt.

Talk about kicking a man when he’s down. Give up your playoff hopes, abandon the only consistent player on the team and shiv the Phils while you’re at it.

In fairness, turnabout is fair play.

Goddamnit. I hate baseball. Maybe I’ll be a Nationals fan. No chance of them getting good any time soon. I could even wear one of those nifty retro-Expos hat and merrily abandon all my principles.

Get swept by the worst team in baseball and suddenly the season’s over? Cripes, to read the tales of misery issuing forth from Red Sox fans makes you realize how spoiled everyone’s been over the past couple of years.

First of all, it should be patently obvious that Satan carefully crafts the MLB standings. It is inconceivable that the Yankees would not spend some significant portion of the season in first place. I haven’t got the energy to do the research but have the Sox ever won the division when the Yankees were contending? So that’s that. Truthfully, I’m happier to be gunning for the Wild Card. Keeps the guys hungrier. Better chance of going all the way. And besides, remember last season? Who led the American League East for most of the season? Then what happened? Remember the National League East at the same time? It is to laugh.

Listen, this team plays up to it’s opponents’ level. If you give them cream puffs they become eclairs. Give ‘em a brick wall and they become sledgehammers. Nasty, pointy, mortar crushing sledgehammers. I expected to drop two out of three to the Royals. I expected to get pasted by the Rays. God have mercy when we face the fecking Blue Jays again. But play the Yankees? I’d lay even odds. The Orioles? We won’t get a sweep but will take at least a pair.

There are times to pack it in and leave the corpse to rot. The late innings of Game 7 in 2003. Hell, I went to bed. I could see in their eyes that they were beaten. I’m not sure they’ve got the thousand-yard stare yet this year.

It helps to love the Phillies when loving the Red Sox. Disappointment you can live with. As long as the beer is cold and the cheese steaks are hot and the game is on, life is good. And there’s always next year.

At least until after the All-Star break. Then there’s always next next year.

Did I miss a memo? When did the Philadelphia Phillies turn into the St. Louis Browns? Or worse, the ‘97 Marlins?

It begins to look like the high office folks in the Phillies organization want to wipe all traces of Ed Wade’s tenure from the roster. Which means everyone has to go, and it doesn’t matter a damn what the Phils get in return. Sell, sell, sell.

And I will never, ever forgive that Canadian winning wanker Gillick for giving the Yankees a big Sheffield-replacing right-field gun when the AL East race is getting hot. Goddamn you and everything you stand for.

The first rule of baseball should be, “Never help the Yankees.” Especially when you get a nice big plate of bugger all in return. What, really, was the plan here? Was it only to dump payroll? Damn the owners, damn the GMs, damn the managers. Damn, damn, damn Steinbrenner and his legions of barely sentient tag-along fans. The whole thing reminds me of an old song about gravy and beans.

Sorry. I’m a little sensitive right now and I really want to hit something.

It’s been a long time since Philly had a player they could rally around. Just look at the roster photos sometime. That’s a bunch of nondescript folks if I ever saw ‘em. Rowand looks like a suburban wigger thug. David Bell looks like a high-school stoner. Tom Gordon will swallow your soul. Not much character there. Just a bunch of un-photogenic journeymen. No fun at all.

And then along comes this guy:

Sal Fasano – perpetually mulleted, moustachioed, minor league dago from Chi-town – here to save rough and tumble Philly and it’s low-down team from the depths of stylistic mediocrity. It was like high times again. Sure, the Phils may suck – a 14 games out, fourth place and falling, in danger of being worse than the ex-Expos kind of suck – but at least there’s one man out there hustling like Rose, wearing a ‘do like Wild Thing and Dutch, moustache-ing it like, well, Rollie Fingers. It was like the early 80s and ‘93 all rolled up into one. Without all the, you know, winning and stuff.

And now Sal’s gone. Out of baseball, presumably, given his resolution not to return to the endless monotony of the minors. Clear skies, my friend. For a few brief months you reminded a tortured city that baseball is supposed to be fun.

Seven of the last ten World Series winners were from the American League. Despite its faults, despite its heresies – being the junior league, the designated fecking hitter – the American league is clearly the superior league. In fact, it’s a minor miracle the National League wins any Championships at all.

What has the American League got that the National League doesn’t? Is it just titanic payrolls and the insanity of competition – *cough* AL East *cough*? Is it really that elevated a play? That much better pitching? Even with a man down and their pitchers hitting the AL still cleans up. For chrissakes, an AL pitcher moved to the NL this year and had more home runs to start the season than one of his former teammates – a man widely proclaimed one of the best hitters in baseball. An AL pitcher cracked a homerun in a game against the Phillies. Did any NL pitchers hit homers in interleague play? Hell, in regular season play? No, seriously, I’m asking here.

I revel in the Red Sox, I dig the fanbase and the vibe and can’t get enough of that city when the season’s in high gear. I love going to a town where all eyes are on the game, where they have a TV channel that shows every single blessed game, repeatedly. I love sitting in a bar near the waterfront watching the game and being asked the score constantly by passers-by. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s meaning in the game. I’d say I wish they’d change to the National League – come on over to the side of the Lord – but I’m afraid their play would sink to the level of, say the Phillies, or the Cubbies or the Rockies. And then they wouldn’t be fun to watch.

But last night, last night I wore my Phillies hat. Last night, I felt a stab of pain in my heart as they showed the winning homer from the ‘93 World Series. Last night as I delighted in Papi, saw him swing, saw him smile, hoped and prayed he’d beat down anyone representing the Orioles, the White Sox, the Marlins, the Mets, anybody but the Phillies I held out hope that our man Howard would make it another Phillies year. And sure enough, the boy came through.

Now, explain to me how the Home Run Derby can come down to NL East power hitters and the NL can be such a lame-ass League?

Tonight I fully expect to see the NL embarrased. That’s fine, the Phils ain’t going anywhere near the Series with the current regime in place and the Red Sox could use the home field advantage when they get there *cough* Beckett *cough*. But dammit, I want to see parity. I want to see a titanic battle for the purity of the game.

Or maybe I just want to see some small ball. The old sandlot game played on a big stage.

It’s official. I should be banned from Red Sox games. Thirteen games in a row they beat the Orioles. The fourteenth? Well, I was there. Naturally they lost. Sonsamahbitches! But I did get to see Papi lift one that almost saved the day for the Sox. And El Bencho cranked one into right center that did save the day for the Os. This makes me happy.

I miss El Bencho.

As if the bizarrely entertaining trip into Baltimore to see the boys of summer lose pitifully wasn’t enough of a psychic blow, my adventure down south is about to end. Everything’s all set, now it’s merely a matter of actually transporting my gear north. The entire prospect is highly depressing, but the fact of another relocation to a place I fled and have no interest in returning to is not the really weird bit. The really weird bit is that the likeliest living quarters upon my return are the same delightful lodgings I vacated eight months ago.

Same people, same place, same job, same issues. It’s like a crime film where the bad guy loops the security camera footage so you’re missing the good stuff while the same thing that happened five minutes ago replays endlessly.

God has a plan. Even if it’s only a good belly laugh.

I tried to update Johnny Cash’s lyrics with my own travels but never could get the rhyming and syncopation right. Regardless, I have been everywhere, man. In the last week I’ve flown 1,000 miles, driven nearly 1,000 miles, been to Tampa, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Mercersburg and Hanover, seen two ballgames, the President of the United States, a few museums and the ghetto.

And all the fun bits of my travels involve baseball. If it weren’t for ever-fluid plans this past weekend I might have seen half as many games before the season even started as I saw all last season. As it is, I’ve seen one-third as many.

I can understand people not being a baseball fan. Different folks like different things for different reasons. I cannot fathom my own interest and why it’s grown so much in recent years. I’m half afraid it’s one of my period attacks of whatever Rain Man had and that the love and enjoyment will fade as suddenly as it appeared. Maybe I’m just getting old and can enjoy sitting on my arse watching games on TV for three hours at a clip. Perhaps I need some stability amidst the weary whirlwind of life and baseball provides it. I don’t know. But, as much as I can understand folks not being baseball fans I cannot imagine why anyone would turn down a chance to go to a game. How can you not like spending the day outside, drinking beer and delighting in shared experience?

And so, I’ve been to Clearwater, in the rain, two weeks before the pre-season season even started. That’s dedication.

And Tampa.

And Cincinnati.

Read the rest of this entry »

As if it weren’t already crazy enough trying to get from Tampa to Philadelphia to Cincinnati and then back to Nashville, or Philadelphia or central PA. Now I find out I’ll have to be at the gate mighty early on Monday April 3:

President Bush to throw out first pitch at Cincinnati home opener
March 24, 2006

I bet my brother, good Democrat that he is, will be overjoyed at this news. And here all I wanted to do was try to see Arroyo in a Reds uni before the game.

The fun never stops.

So if the Beers beat Detroit and Denver beats Atlanta in the American Southwestern Division East Northern, then Milwaukee goes to the Denslow Cup. Unless Baltimore can upset Buffalo and Charlotte ties Toronto, then Oakland would play L.A. and Pittsburgh in a blind choice Round Robin. And if no clear winner emerges from all this, a two-man sack race will be held on consecutive Sundays until a champion is crowned.

Baseball used to be simple. Whoever had the best record at the end of the regular season won the League. Whoever won four out of seven games in the World Series was World Champion until next year. Now we’ve got wild cards, three levels of playoffs for League Champion and still the occasional one-game playoff.

And then you have the World Baseball Classic.

Has anyone actually seen one of these games? Have you noticed the broadcast schedule? If baseball wanted people to get excited about this they probably could have done better than scheduling a tournament in the middle of March Madness. 24-7, every goddamned TV station in the world is broadcasting a bunch of hoodlums tossing a rubber ball into an updated fruit basket instead of beaming the antics of whiny, overpaid drug abusers to fans the world over.

And then we come to the bizarre tournament play. I wish I could quote what is required for the United States – thrice-damned for losing to the bleeping Canadians – to go on to the second round of play. It sounds identical to the quote from BASEketball above. If so-and-so loses or if this-or-that wins by less than three runs in between beer runs and piss stops then there’s a three-fifths chance of the Americans scoring eighty-two baskets in the half-third of the eleventy-ith game and hurtling into the secondy-twelfth round.

I tell you, it’s enough to make a man want to watch a different bunch of wealthy bitches play childrens’ games.

I’m not even ten miles away and I couldn’t go see this magnificent game. That’s painful. Doubly so when you consider I dropped over a hundred bucks on DVDs of a two year old championship series and watched them, glued to every pitch, pumping my fist with victory in the same spots I did two years ago.

Baseball’s back. Life is good.

What a supremely bizarre offseason. The Phils give away Thome and Abreu? Ryan Howard is supposed to singlehandedly hoist the team on his shoulders in his first full season? How about some damned pitching? That’s what’s needed. Away goes the top of the line closer and in comes, who? Christ, I can’t even figure out what the hell’s going on anymore.

The Red Sox clean house? I mean, who the hell is left from the 2004 crew? Varitek? Papi? Manny – for now? And trading Edgah after one season? I mean, thank Christ and all, Edgah was horrible. But Jesus, you spend all that time and effort and dough and then send the man on his way without a real trial period? And you knuckleheads couldn’t even get Cabrera back?

Are the Mets becoming the ‘97 Marlins/’01 Diamondbacks? How about Red Sox West? What the hell is going on there? Do the Yankees like watching old guys make fools of themselves in the biggest media market in the nation?

I will say this: I am very, deliriously happy with my choice of favorite teams. I like disfunction. I thrive on hopelessness. I can’t sit still even when I’m sleeping so what’s the point of living the baseball season on cruise control? *cough* ‘05 White Sox *cough*

Meanwhile, if I’m going to have to go up to Cincinnati for Opening Day why can’t some of this drama revolve around the lowly Reds? Do they still have Ken Griffey Jr? Does anyone even remember who he is?

Ah, I see they have a player named “Bubba” and one named “Bong.” Maybe Ohio’s not so useless as I previously supposed.

And Johnny D’s going to look like a schmuck with a shave and a haircut. Two Bits.

Anyone know how often a team gets a bunted double?

Man. That’s got to be rare. How deliciously bizarre.

If there’s a full pint on the roof of the home dugout after they’ve stopped selling alcohol at Fenway and you’re down seven to two in the eighth to one of the worst teams in baseball (who are, incidentally, the only fecking Canadians left sullying my perfect game) wouldn’t you grab it and down it?

Dammit Nixon! I thought you were a man!

And Oh-My-God, Fenway umpires tonight are worse than Sveum on average over his entire godforsaken career. Stupid Canadian loving wankers.

• There are few things sadder than watching a ballgame by yourself.
  

• One of those things is not watching at all.
• Another is finding out you have a pal in the stands but not finding out until later.
• Who ever heard of a system wide power outage on a subway with no noticable power outage anywhere else?
• Baltimore traffic on game night is worse than Boston at rush hour. I have never seen so many one way streets suddenly switch direction or disappear completely in all my life.
• Camden Yards is the worst place to watch a ballgame I have seen since the Vet went the way of the dodo. I am not a sitter. Particularly not in ridiculously small seats with no cup holders. In Camden Yards the only places to stand and actually see the game are behind bars. It’s like watching a pick up game in the prison yard. And, since it’s Baltimore, you get to sit with real inmates.
  

• I am severely spoiled by the Phillies ballpark.
• In hindsight, I find it hilarious that on Friday an Orioles fan – wearing a Dodgers ballcap – kept needling me – in my Red Sox ballcap – about the rumored Manny mega-trade while we stood under a big sign advertising Raffy’s 3,000th hit. Now it’s Tuesday: Raffy’s been exposed as a fraud and ain’t playing while Manny continues to contritely swat clutch hits for the BoSox. What a world.
  

• It’s also funny that the only dude who didn’t give me shite about my Boston cap was a Yankees fan. I guess strangers in a strange land have to stick together. Just put us together in Fenway, though.
• I have been to entirely too many American League games. My God it’s painful to say this. It actually seems weird to see pitchers bat. Damn you Designated Hitter rule!
• National League game this Sunday! Will it suffice to wash the bad taste out of my mouth?