Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

Surviving Belichick?

Yes, Patriots haters, soak it in. That game last night was every bit as painful as it looked.

Squish the Fish

Dad hates the Dolphins. He remembers the Don Shula days and the original Squish the Fish. For me the Dolphins have more frequently been on the receiving end of some of the Patriots' more magical moments -- Tedy Bruschi sliding like Bruce Springsteen into the end zone, capping off an interception and touchdown with some showmanship in the snow; Troy Brown speeding along the sideline, catching Brady's deep pass for a walkoff touchdown, prompting Bill Belichick to toss his headset into the air in celebration; and this afternoon, in one of the better Brady-to-Moss plays we've seen yet.  

27

It was during the series that a Yankees fan I know emailed me to complain about how some Red Sox fans were making noises at him -- again -- about that old, tired payroll thing.

Old and tired as it may be, that didn't prevent us from rehashing the entire argument.

My point to him, in the end, was this. I don't actually expect people born in the Bronx, or any of the boroughs for that matter, or New Jersey, or upstate New York, whose father brought them to their first baseball game at the old Yankee Stadium, to make rooting decisions based on their team's payroll. On both sides of this rivalry, many fans are simply born into it.

I have also argued publicly Red Sox fans don't deserve blame for steroid revelations about 2004 Red Sox -- at the end of the day, being a fan is not about being rational, and it is not about some kind of spectator's responsibility to police the morality of entertainers. Some people do use their team's success or failure to prop up or affect their own sense of superiority over other fans of different teams -- and that kind of transference is something I'm well and truly sick of.

But the comparison I ultimately drew for my Yankees fan friend was between the flapping of gums over payroll that Yankees fans must contend with if they sport the NY logo, and the perennial SpyGate references still being flung at Patriots fans.

Might both be blown out of proportion? Probably. But these things are also undeniably based on fact.

Bill Belichick is probably not the nicest person in the world. I would hate to be a reporter trying to deal with him at one of his press conferences, and even as a fan I don't usually get much out of watching the coach away from the sidelines.

Meanwhile, it is also a fact that the Yankees payroll remains some $70 million above the next-highest payrolls in baseball, which, by the way, belong to the Mets and Tigers, not the Red Sox (they're fourth). Not only is that $70 million difference the biggest sequential gap between payrolls on the list, but it's also large enough on its own to field the Colorado Rockies, Texas Rangers, the Baltimore Orioles, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Minnesota Twins, the Kansas City Royals, the Washington Nationals, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Oakland Athletics, the Tampa Bay Rays or the Florida Marlins. In fact, both Florida teams combined could fit within that difference in payrolls between the Red Sox and Yankees.

In the years between the last Yankees championship and this one, two of the players that figured prominently in this World Series for New York were brought to the Bombers' roster rather than Boston's as a direct result of the Yankees' superior bidding power: Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez.

Then again, this is hardly the first year that the Yankees have led the league in payroll. For the 8 seasons before this, they did it while losing in the postseason, and even sitting it out one year. Meanwhile, the Mets and Tigers' expenditures didn't even net them playoff appearances. Money is obviously not the only factor in victory.

But that's sour grapes, and that's human nature. As a Patriots fan, I can't expect fans of other teams to be happy for me when the Patriots win. I can't expect them to want to root for Belichick. I can talk till I'm blue in the face about how it's not like other NFL head coaches aren't megalomaniacal, pathologically competitive jerks -- in fact, that's practically the personality profile of a head coach. But I know full well that it would be hard for me without familial and local loyalties to New England to be a fan of the Hooded One.

As fans, we are thinking in symbols.We are thinking in terms of us vs. them. There is no more subjective state of being.

On top of that, this year, there's something else that's different, and similarly symbolically significant, about the Yankees -- their new Stadium. If you haven't already, I recommend reading Deadspin's "Why Your Stadium Sucks" post on the new Yankee Stadium for an excellent primer on all that's wrong with the place. 

It's not as if the Yankees are the first or only team to use public financing for a stadium. In fact, in New York the Jets and Giants are being built a new venue with public funds as well. And as an entertainment corporation (essentially), they are not going to be able to solve the global economic situation.

But think about this from a rival fan, or even a nonpartisan's point of view for a minute. You read things like this from a resident of the Bronx:

I think Yankee Stadium sucks because it was built on valuable parkland that was taken away from the community and they haven't been fully replaced. It will be at least another 2 years; possibly longer, until that happens. I think the stadium sucks because the attention paid to the construction of the bleacher areas is an insult to those fans that cannot afford the pricey seats. It sucks because the stadium's lights are on 24/7 and those residents who live a mere 100 ft across the street can get no relief from them. It sucks because the police become super aggressive toward the community during games by blocking streets, putting up barricades to direct fans from the garages and train stations right into the stadium so there is little or no pedestrian traffic to the local businesses.

And then you watch the games in that echoing, soulless arena. You look at the empty $2000 seats behind home plate during the clinching game of the damn World Series, and later you read the tepid defense that those seats were empty because people were instead "inside an adjacent restaurant with a lavish food spread that comes with the steep price of admission."  And you wonder, given that pricing, how many of them are also among the Manhattan captains of industry who played such a central role in the mortgage mess that's formed the unfortunate backdrop to the new Stadium's grand opening in the first place.

And then, in the end, in the last gasp of baseball before the long winter, you watch the wealthiest group of baseball players in the world celebrating their 27th World Series championship -- more than any other team in history, on that field. 

Poor sportsmanship it may be. Sour grapes? Probably. But in that moment, it's hard to be inclined to wish them well.

After all, it's not as if they need it.

Return of the King

Pedro Martinez, originally uploaded by Michael G. Baron.

Pedro is the same. He is still equal parts strange, silly, audacious, angry and wickedly intelligent. Yes, all of them, if not at the same moment, at least in the same press conference.

He was also, as one AP sportswriter put it, erudite in his pregame opening volley toward Yankees fans. The first of many memories that came flooding back on the nostalgia trip that was this game was how laughable I used to find his claim that some of his more controversial remarks were attributable to poor English.

And the more years that pass, the more poetically and provocatively Pedro speaks. Especially when he's speaking in New York.

As Denton put it:

He brought his own 150-pound version of badassery to this town when we sorely needed it. And he very quickly took to heart the rivalry and developed a hatred for the Yankees akin to my own.

He has always been angry. That anger, that fire, that's the feeling of Pedro. He has always been a little guy whose body was all wrong and sure to give out completely at any time. Now here he is, nearing 40, without his fastball but with enough guile to still be on the mound, staring down Yankees hitters in late October.

This is how he has always done it, from the scrawny kid in the Dominican Republic who would always be second fiddle to his brother Ramon, to the mean, smoke-throwing bastard who was never going to make it out of the Dodgers bullpen, to the leader of the Boston underdogs against the Bambino and the Bombers, to the wily veteran plying his trade in the National League through surgeries and injuries and rehab and making his stubborn return to the mound at an age when few would have envisioned him still in uniform. He has been fueled all along, it seems, by sheer spite.

He still has a knack for whipping Yankees fans into a froth -- the "Who's Your Daddy?" chants were ringing out in the first inning at the new Stadium last night. He still has a graceful, looping movement on many of his pitches, though his arm slot and velocity are low, and he even seems a shade stocky these days. He can still put in a quality start, six innings and three earned runs; he struck out eight hitters with that 88-mph stuff.

In the end, however, this game would also remind me of a more recent time, a night Pedro ceded the field he once ruled absolutely to a younger man--in 2006, Josh Beckett showing early flashes of dominance, in last night's case, a brilliant AJ Burnett. A night haunted by memories, but which also left no doubt that the Pedro of legend has been gone a while.

Around here we root for two teams...

Cliff Lee, originally uploaded by mrtickles.

All of a sudden, it was like I'd woken up from a dream. For a few days I couldn't quite pinpoint what was different, except that suddenly I was realizing how long it'd been since I'd, say, changed the Brita filter or cleaned the shower. Suddenly it seemed like everything was a mess.

I was washing what felt like my millionth dish the other night when it finally struck me what had made me begin to inspect my general surroundings more closely once I was home from work of late.It had all started, I realized,on Friday, October 16. The Yankees and the Angels were kicking off the ALCS in the Bronx, and I decided, at the last minute, that I'd sit this one out.

It's obviously against my religion to root for the Yankees, but I couldn't quite root for the Angels. I wasn't even feeling particularly bitter about the division series--the Sox were playing too badly for that--it's just that I don't like them, or some of their fans.

The team sometimes remind me of the San Diego Chargers -- when they've lost in the playoffs against Boston, it's always about someone else, and a few of them have to let everybody know about it. Legitimate gripes with umpires are one thing (though you lose me at the league-wide conspiracies), but let's just say I don't think you make yourself look good, no matter what sport you're playing, when you insist to the press postgame that the better team lost.

As for the fans, I also think that allegations of cheating--open, bald-faced cheating of a kind uncommon since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson--based on a few seconds' worth of video of your opponent from a bad angle, is not something that's going to make you look very good.

Yes, I know that first example was last year. Yes, I know I'm in a glass house as a Boston fan talking about being a sore loser. I honestly didn't even feel like having that argument, if anybody even cared to have it. I needed a break.

Next thing I knew, I was scrubbing floors. Watching back episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Colbert Report on the ol' TiVo. Processing photos. Many photos. It's amazing what you suddenly remember about your life when you're not watching baseball.

I mainly absorbed the ALCS by Google Reader osmosis. I know about A-Rod becoming a true Yankee and then elbowing Erick Aybar in the grundle heading in to second base. I feel I've caught up on the important highlights.

So now here we are, and this World Series...well, that one's pretty easy. But not just because The Phillies are "whoever's playing the Yankees".

In fact, even though it's the Yankees, for a brief moment, I wondered if there wasn't something vaguely disloyal about rooting for the NL, according to a kind of abstract hierarchy of rooting interests (I have been able to bring myself, with some retching, to root for Derek Jeter during All-Star Games based on this same set of principles).

But there's no way I can not root for Pedro, no way I can not watch to see if he has one more great performance left in him, even if it's more like "Who's your granddaddy?" now.

Tonight, watching the broad-shouldered and businesslike Cliff Lee pitch a one-run complete game, languidly gloving a popup in the sixth, smiling and shrugging after an uncanny behind-the-back catch in the bottom of the eighth, and Charlie Manuel cursing at the umpires from the dugout on any number of farcical calls, I decided I truly like the Phillies. There's something old-fashioned about them, the solid primary colors of their uniforms, the crusty manager and the baby-faced Chase Utley rounding the bases. 

Go Phillies. Go Pedro.  The Yankees must not win. And the rest of the chores can wait.

Patriots vs. Ravens Photos

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Meriweather & Co. Stomp London Buccaneers

Brandon Meriweather collected two interceptions this week, one of them
run back for a touchdown...but Tom Brady put up two INTs of his own.

"Here’s the strange land of uncertainty in which Patriots fans find themselves, heading into the bye week at 5-2. How much of the last two weeks of dominance should truly be encouraging? And how much should be chalked up to facing consecutive 0-fer teams?" Game Post at MVN

Red Sox vs. Cleveland Photos Pt. 2

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Red Sox vs. Cleveland Photos Pt. 1

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Patriots Week 3 Photos

Photoset

What is this "baseball" you speak of?

Today, the Patriots brought back 1982's uniforms and 2007's hegemony over the National Football League with a 59-0 all day long country-ass-whupping of a warm weather team in the snow. 

Good times. And vastly preferable to watching Joba thumping his chest in New York.

No Joy in Mudville

Following the Red Sox loss, the Patriots didn't give New England sports fans much to drown their sorrows with...

A Taste of Our Own Medicine

The law of averages finally caught up to the Red Sox and Angels today, as the Halos celebrated in front of the Fenway Faithful after completing the sweep.

It's hard for me to be too angry about this, it really is. For one thing, Boston has been crushing Angel dreams since 1986, for Pete's sake. For another, with the exception of the final three innings of this game, the Red Sox never really seemed like they were in this series. 

Yes, we knew their backs had been against the wall before. They'd looked dismal before, and come back.

But.

Per Joy of Sox:

With only one run and eight hits in Games 1 and 2, the Red Sox have never -- in 151 post-season games dating back to the 1903 World Series -- been limited to just one run or as few as eight combined hits over two consecutive games.

The Red Sox are hitting .131 (8-for-61) in this LDS and are in danger of setting a new record for the lowest batting average by an LDS team (.141, 1998 Rangers vs Yankees).

In Boston's last three playoff games (including 2008 ALCS 7), the Red Sox have scored two runs on 11 hits in 27 innings.

None of the flaws the Sox showed in this series was a surprise. For one, they couldn't buy a hit (anyone remember July and August?). For two, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester were not their ideal selves (neither had been consistent throughout the season).

And as we saw today, for three, Jonathan Papelbon hasn't really been himself all year.

It's hard, for me anyway, to get worked up when a series isn't even close, and the problems are not hard luck or controversy but well-understood, longstanding fundamental flaws in a team's makeup. Shades of 2005.

Things that DO get me worked up: booing Jonathan Papelbon. And ESPECIALLY that dude in the front row who first tried to interfere with V-Mart making a catch of a foul popup, and then patted V-Mart on the back like he'd been rooting for him all along.

Our team looked pretty bad today; wish I could at least say that we didn't make it any worse in the stands.

I am saddened to bring you a Josh Beckett Face

...but, alas, it must be done.

Do you recall ever seeing him with such an expression? Me, either. Pissed off, yes. Looking that...defeated? No. Hilg.

About midway through the bottom of the second, as Beckett shook off V-Mart and fussed and fumed at everyone's favorite, CB Bucknor, I wondered how long it would be before he couldn't take it anymore and disappointed his mother by blowing a gasket. Turns out the answer was 6.2 innings.

That's when a pitch slipped from his hand and hit Mike Napoli, who was only too happy to hold his left shoulder out for the incoming ball. And sure enough, with two stolen bases and a run already wearing on his nerves in the inning, there went Beckett, storming from the mound toward the umpire, complaining bitterly.He continued to spit and sputter as V-Mart jogged out toward him for a meeting, and the ministrations of the catcher seemed largely ineffective in calming Beckett.

When Erick Aybar followed with a double over Ellsbury's head in deep center to put the Angels up 4-1, it was clear Beckett was cooked. He was pulled from the game mid-inning, hardly the outcome Red Sox fans had vowed after the Angels and umpiring had gotten to No. 1 starter Jon Lester the night before.

But this was also another night in which unfortunate starting pitching and officiating were overshadowed by an utterly ineffectual Red Sox offense. You could argue that's still a result of the Angels winning the starting pitching matchup, but this is also a Red Sox team that once went approximately a Biblical epoch without being able to buy a bleepin' timely hit back in July and early August, so I'm not sure I buy that. Especially since they had the tying run at the plate against Brian Fuentes in the top of the ninth, and still went quietly into that good night.

That said, this could just be the large amounts of Robitussin I've consumed in the last three days, but I remain surprisingly Zen about this whole thing so far. The Sox can clearly play better than this, and we've been through too many postseasons around here this decade to count the Sox out when their backs are against the wall.

Sunday. Fenway Park. Noon. Be there. And Go Sox.

Top 5 Revisions to CB Bucknor's Wikipedia page last night

Adam at Universal Hub pointed to the revision history on CB Bucknor's Wikipedia page last night -- some of the gems collected for your amusement...

5.

"see also failblog.org"

***

4.

"(pronounced suck-nor)"

***

3.

Original Wikipedia post: "During cold weather games, Bucknor wears a long-sleeve pullover shirt behind the plate, instead of the plate jacket. He is known to be very dramatic when calling third strikes."

Added: "He uses his dramatic interpretation to try to distract people from his horrible calls. It's the pink glasses and feather boa that distract his vision."

***

2.

"It is a little-known fact that Bucknor is the inventor of an umpire-specific, miniature "Magic 8 Ball" (e.g. "Signs point to safe") that he uses to call plays at first base. He possesses superhuman hand speed similar to quick-draw artists, enabling him to consult the ball and then conceal it again before making the call--without being picked up by most cameras.

Bucknor is also prone misunderstanding the rules of baseball, saying "Wait, when the ball is in the glove and you touch a runner with the glove it's the same as actually touching him with the ball itself? Wow, I didn't know that.""

***

1.

On Oct. 8, 2009, Bucknor made two terrible calls against the Boston Red Sox during Game 1 of the American League Division Series. In between innings, he admitted, "not understanding why they didn't let Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder drive a car."

"What's the big deal?" Bucknor said. "I call games just fine!"

During the off-season, Bucknor, who is legally blind, speaks at the Helen Keller Institute for Sensory Impaired Children.

Of Angels and Umpires

By the time Jon Lester was facing Torii Hunter for the second time, in the bottom of the fifth, he'd already thrown more than 70 pitches.

This was, in part, the result of a third inning in which Lester had Hunter struck out on a beautiful pitch low and away, right on the black, which was called a ball. Lester then walked Hunter, and had to face Vladimir Guerrero with the bases loaded, striking him out on his 50th pitch.

After what should have been strike three on Hunter, Lester took a step toward the dugout, but got the bad news before he could take another. He stepped back to the mound with lips pursed, seeming at first to be regaining his poise, nodding and holding his glove out for the ball. But when his next pitch hit the dirt and Hunter took it for a walk, Lester lost his cool. Jaw clenched, he let out a GD, and got a visit from his pitching coach as Guerrero stepped in.

The strikeout of Guerrero was a crisp effort, though helped generously by the fact that Vladi seems to be swinging with his eyes closed these days.

Couple that with a long fourth inning in which Howie Kendrick was called safe at first after Youkilis tagged him, and things were unravelling quickly for the Sox. When a flagging Lester faced Hunter the second time, Hunter handed him the L with a three-run blast to left.

Curt Schilling had pointed out before the game that the umpiring might be a factor here:

To be honest, one of my biggest fears is the umpiring crew. This is about as bad a crew as I have ever seen assembled. Joe West, for all his pomp and circumstance, can ump a game. C.B. Buckner? Greg Gibson? Not so much. I’m blown away that A) They made the postseason and B) They are umping what I think will be the most-watched series. If I HAD to put them on the postseason roster, I’d try to hide them on the outfield foul lines of Colorado. Look for BOTH to have game impact in this series.

The controversies continued with a safe call on Howie Kendrick at first base in the sixth inning after Youkilis left the bag to field a throw from Lowell, but came back down again before Kendrick touched the bag. That much is crystal clear from every angle of every replay.

But while they were a factor, and while I found the edits to CB Bucknor's Wikipedia page as humorous as the next person, I'm not saying this game is the umpires' fault.

The Angels were also patient at the plate, confident in a way they weren't last year. They chipped away at Lester and frustrated him beyond the calls by umpires. The homer by Hunter was not cheap by any means. Juan Rivera followed that up with a ringing double down the third-base line, and had it not been for a diving stab by Gonzo at short on a grounder from Kendry Morales, the merry-go-round would've kept spinning. 

Meanwhile, after the second Kendrick play, Lowell and Youkilis followed up by decisively throwing out Erick Aybar; Jacoby Ellsbury made a circus catch in deep right center to end the inning.

All of that is not even to mention the comedy of bullpen errors that followed for the Sox, or the offense that laid egg after egg, inning after inning.

Generally, I believe that you don't win or lose games solely because of officiating.

But if you're an Angels fan who's believed certain conspiracy theories alleging that the league advanced the Red Sox via the umpires last year, I really wonder what you're thinking right now.

A Whirlwind Weekend of Sports

After those unforgettable trips to Fenway Park came a rousing rumble with the Ravens at Gillette to make the week complete.

Watch this space as I begin my slog through approximately 2.5 million more photos of the Sox and Pats.

A Dream Come True

(Full Fan Appreciation Day photoset here...)

Iain and I were tipping a few at the Baseball Tavern (above) when my Dad called. He'd been talking with the Herald's Sean McAdam (an alumnus of the high school my dad and I both went to - my dad works at the park now part-time), who tipped him that the Sox were letting fans on the field and possibly letting them meet players as part of the Fan Appreciation Series.

I haven't shotgunned a malt beverage like that since college. Iain and I quickly settled our tab, ran to buy baseballs and Sharpies (which didn't wind up getting used) and get in line to be let in to the park.

Sure enough, at 5:10 pm, the gates opened. We entered, walked a ways, then took a left at Canvas Alley, walking past the groundskeepers' brooms, past the field box seats...and out the open door onto the warning track.

We're Back

Back in the playoffs, and Iain of Baseball Desert fame flies in tonight for another pilgrimage to Fenway.

I'm taking time off to show him more sights around the Boston area, which meant last night I had to work so late I only got home in time to see Youkilis stand at the plate with two on and two outs down one run in the bottom of the ninth, work a full count, and then watch strike three streak past him into the catcher's mitt.

As Soxaholix put it, "Ah, yes, nothing quite like chahging into the playoffs by losing 5 straight including getting nonchalantly flicked like a boogah off the nose of the pinstriped 800 lb playoff gorilla."

Then again, the theme of this team this year has been ups and downs -- BIG ups and downs. I figure if they're getting their inexplicable week-long slump out of the way now, maybe it'll up the chances they'll get hot mid-September-style by this time next week.

Red Sox game? What Red Sox game?

Gillette in the Rain, originally uploaded by ConfessionalPoet.

Today while the Red Sox were being swept in the Bronx -- AGAIN -- I was doing something much more fun than watching them lose: sitting outside in the rain.