Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

It's like the rock 'n' roll version of Jaws

(Photo via Screwballs)

There's a secret part of me that loves rain delays--because that's when NESN breaks out the best footage from the vault.

Today's high point was the breakdown of Jonathan Papelbon's new entrance music. I don't know what I love more--the choice of the Dropkick Murphy's song also associated with a violent Martin Scorsese flick about the badass side of Boston, or the fact that collectively, Red Sox Nation has been trying to come up with the perfect entrance music for him just about as long as he's been in the majors. "Bodies" was okay, but not quite there. "Wild Thing" is all right, and seems to be Jonathan's personal favorite, but the reference to Rick Vaughn is problematic, since Vaughn had issues with eyesight and accuracy, which is the opposite of Jonathan. As a middle-class kid from Louisiana, Papelbon also hardly boasts street cred from the California Penal League--he even dresses more like Dorn.

No, he isn't exactly the "Wild Thing". It has remained clear that his ultimate signature theme song--the equivalent of Mariano Rivera's "Enter Sandman"--had yet to be found.

I know there are plenty of Bostonians who are not fans of the Dropkicks, and it remains to be seen if this one will stick, either. But I like the choice, not only because of the fact that it's an appropriately tough-guy song, but because it's so overtly, aggressively Boston-themed. It feels like we're putting our mark on Jonathan by picking that song; whether or not you like the song, it's clear we want his badassery intertwined with our city's identity, and I can only hope the front office (other than Dr. Charles Steinberg, who was shown playing the opening riff on a guitar during NESN's segment on this today) is taking note, since it'll soon be time to take care of him financially. Once you take the worship to the level of assigning Jonathan Papelbon a Dropkicks song, you can't let him go to free agency or arbitration. You just can't.

Some other things of note I skipped over during a busy week:

Score that play 5-2-5-1-6-3: I forgot to note the rundown I saw Thurday night in which half of the Red Sox fielders combined to put out Carlos Guillen in the fifth inning. That was the kind of play that contributes to a lifelong battle with high blood pressure for the baseball fan; whenever you throw the ball back and forth that much there's always the chance for something ugly to occur. Thankfully, it worked out in our favor.

Hideki Okajima is a stone-cold stud: That's how Seth Mnookin put it a while back, and I can't help but think of that on weeks like this one just past, when Okie contributed 2.0 innings, earning one strikeout and one save and posting a 0.00 ERA. He has an overall ERA of 0.44 in 20.2 innings pitched. He faced down the heart of the Tigers order twice in a row in the same game, on Thursday, and both times wiped the floor with them, prompting effusive praise from Gary Sheffield, of all people. (Sheffield's statements are documented in this awesome Jackie MacMullan piece on Okie which--Red take note--contains references to puppets.) Also, judging by all the huggage, Manny has at this point officially adopted Okie--there seems to be a trend of deep man-love developing here between Japanese and Dominican Red Sox players.

File this under 'I'd have given just about anything to be there': The conversation that took place between my Dad and Rem-Dawg about Iain on Yawkey Way on Tuesday night. Hearing Iain speak English after my dad pointed out he had come from France, Remy expressed skepticism thusly: "What, Paris, Massachusetts?" I will always regret being in Chicago at the time this was occurring.

New year, new teams, new face-mammals: Edgar Renteria's first move after reaching first base safely in yesterday's first game? Reaching out to pat the small animal Youkilis has nesting on his chin. I'm sorry, that is just plain awesome.

This is why they don't play baseball in the rain: Last night a foul screamer wreaked havoc in the Red Sox dugout, glancing off a bat Jason Varitek happened to be holding and off the forehead of Wily Mo Pena, directly into the choppers of poor Devern Hansack, who would later be pegged by a liner back to the mound in the throwing hand and lifted from the game.

Red Sox Photo of the Week:

(Globe Staff Photo / Jim Davis)

P.S. That video of Remy taking a header while playing air-guitar in the booth still has yet to get old, despite the fact that I've now seen it approximately 241 times.

Things I Can't Freakin' Believe Right Now

Pats fans attending a game and Rodney Harrison: two things contributing to unbelievable news lately.

1. The Chargers' rule for the upcoming playoff game that only Southern California residents are permitted to purchase tickets through official channels. First of all, this isn't going to solidify home-field advantage for them in any meaningful way, since the Globe story I just linked mentions the no-brainer solution to the problem for determined Pats fans: Ace Ticket and StubHub. Of course, what it means is that the Chargers have not prevented Pats fans from showing up, but they have made it so they are paying the $100 to $150 resale premium from those ticket resellers in order to get there, in addition to airfare, etc., and the Chargers don't get a cut of that money. So to recap, Pats fans will still show up, they'll show up prepared to be even angrier and more obnoxious than before, and the Chargers have just planted some big-time bucks in ticket-resellers' pockets for the tickets instead of their own. That, my friends, is weak and a half.

But the other thing that really bakes my noodle about this rule is the geographical limitation. What if, Heaven forbid, there are Chargers fans who live elsewhere--such as Northern California? Chargers fans are only permitted to be from Southern Cal? Is that the deal?

Here's the bottom line: the Chargers appear to have such a weak fan base that they fear a couple hundred (if it's even that many) overly dedicated Pats fans who want to pay the considerable airfare on short notice to get out to San Diego for this game. That is double weak.

I also am wondering if this rule applies to the wine-and-cheese and / or celeb fans who are going to show up to the playoff game just because it's a place to be seen. You know, people like Donald Trump and Joe Perry. My guess is the answer is an emphatic no.

2. I don't know what I find more unbelievable: Barry Bonds' seeming inability to stay off drugs; his arrogance at taking what he knows to be a banned substance given his personal history as well as the fact that the league said they were going to be cracking down on it; his scumbag strategy of avoiding responsibility by pleading ignorance and throwing a teammate under the bus, or the fact that under baseball's dumb-assed amphetamines policy, he gets another chance. Actually, yeah, I think I can safely say that the most mind-blowing fact about that particular situation is the last one. Seriously, if Bonds breaks the Aaron record, it will be an absolutely indelible stain on baseball.

3. The Red Sox were already committing what I think is an asinine move by looking to sign oft-injured OF JD Drew to a ludicrously lucrative contract, but at least they had the sense to make the contract contingent upon his passing of a physical. JD Drew had his physical and did not pass. Seems simple enough to me. And yet though the intrigue about this situation is deep indeed, most reports seem to indicate that the Red Sox are still interested in signing Drew.

This to me is like going down to a car dealership, going for a test drive and having the transmission conk out on you halfway through, but still negotiating with the dealer to buy the car. Why?

4. That we're going to have to face LT without Rodney Harrison this weekend. I had gotten my hopes up when it was reported his status has changed to "day-to-day", but recent reports indicate he won't be available. I know Harrison's a safety, but he frees up some of the LBs when he's in there to be more effective against the run. When he's not there, I think the secondary gets spread too thin and the defense as a whole is less effective, and the Pats sorely miss his leadership, too. We're going to need all the help we can get in this game, and having to do it without Rodney is a pretty tough pill for me to swallow.

5. I've been avoiding writing about this, but the utter shellacking put on Ohio State by the Florida Gators the other night also falls into the realm of the unbelievable. OSU tackling was piss-poor and as an entire team the Buckeyes seemed to be constantly a step or two behind every player on the Gators' squad. It was like watching a big lumbering giant try to fight a mongoose. Crazy--and a total surprise, it seems, to a majority of college football experts, who had favored Ohio in the game.

Snippets while I ignore Mud-Palmgate

SG links to a touching Globe feature story on the fall of former Sox relief pitcher Sammy Stewart. A wrenching but fascinating read--there's something in there about the bittersweet and quasi-redemptive nature of baseball I can't quite put my finger on, but it made me mope around being all introspective for a while just the same.

***

I bet you didn't know that Curt Schilling has founded a gaming company called Green Monster Games, and that he is already at work promoting it to the gaming community, though he has said he plans to honor his 2007 contract with the Sox. The game is going to be a massively multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG, which is sometimes pronounced "more-peg", and I'm going to stop right now before someone gives me an atomic wedgie and stuffs me in a locker.

Although now I know that Curt Schilling might protect me if that were to happen.

***

Boooooooooooooo to the new football commissioner for wanting to eliminate crowd noise as a home field advantage. Hoo-ray Cold Hard Football Facts for taking him incisively and humorously to task.

***

So apparently it's been the least watched World Series in television history, adjusted, I'm assuming, for population inflation. I know it has been in my household, anyway--don't really have a clear cut reason, either. I have a team I like--the Tigers--and I really do love baseball, but I have very, very limited free time in my life anymore, free time that means sometimes cruel prioritization of activities must take place. If the Red Sox aren't in it, watching the World Series gets bumped pretty far down that priority list.

I might finally get around to watching a game tonight, though. Then it just becomes a matter of finding time to post about it. Blah.

It's like one trillion degrees

Boston.com photo

Some tidbits from around the horn today:

* Please see also this amazing photograph by an AP photographer from last night's game, as found on the Boston.com photo gallery. It reminds me of a classical painting.

* I was going to comment on the whole Jeter-cologne thing, but Chad Finn did a much better job of posting a thorough mockery than I could anyway.

* This comment thread on YFSF contains an interesting discussion about homophobia as a factor in criticisms of Derek Jeter. Fascinating sociological commentary.

* This just in: Sam is not right in the head.

* Any truth to the rumor I heard that the Sox were gouging for water at Fenway last night? Someone called the radio station I listen to saying he was at the game last night and that the Sox had covered over the normal pricing stickers for water at $3.50 a bottle with new signs saying it was $5.00. They can't do that, can they?

* I think Mark Loretta is really cute. There, I said it.

* I am not a sabermetrics chick. At all. But I've been learning a little more about it lately. Combine that with one of my perennial bouts with insomnia last night, in which I lay there for hours and have racing, disjointed, nonstop thoughts about random shit, and you have my question for stats geeks: is it possible to calculate the change in the Pythagorean wins for the Sox and Yankees given the changes at the trading deadline this soon after it? And if so, what does that number look like now?

Another question, apropos of nothing: how exactly is secondary batting average different from OBP?

* I have been learning some basic SABR principles largely through reading Feeding the Monster, which every literate Sox fan should be reading, too. The only thing about the book that really bothers me is that Seth Mnookin frequently references headlines from Boston Dirt Dogs, but utterly refuses to give attribution to the site, choosing instead to say "one Red Sox fan website said..." and then quoting a phrase or two that could only have come from Dirt Dogs. I don't get it. Every time Mnookin references a mainstream media source he references the date, author, publication and sometimes even where the story was located on the pages of the newspaper. Why the hell does a website get the shaft?

* People really cannot get over this bird thing. I suppose it's a happier thing to think about than Varitek on the DL or Youkilis getting utterly robbed at home plate last night.

* In other news of the unbearable, Tedy Bruschi apparently has a broken wrist. Which may require surgery. To steal a line from Bill Simmons, I will now set myself on fire.

It couldn't be much hotter than just standing outside for a while anyway.

Saturday Morning Tidbits

Just a little roundup before the game starts this afternoon.

YFSF has a post up whose title made my soul collapse in on itself, only to burst forth again and explode with audible violence somewhere in my thorax. The content of the post is just as infuriating. I guess far be it from me to step to the analytical geniuses at Baseball Prospectus, but I mean...hullo?!? This is the comment I left, and I stick by it:

uhhhh yeah, young slugger who essentially carried the team to a pennant on his back, who would immediately be snapped up by your bitter arch-rival were he to become a FA. said slugger is a lefty pull hitter, something that would probably boost your rival team's offense to a ridiculous extent.

totally not worth throwing some money at that guy. not at all.

did the BP guys make any mention of the fact that the sox signed ortiz for far less than he could have commanded on the open market, and that both sides had struck an equitable deal to keep him on the team's side while not paying him an a-rod like salary? regardless of whatever number they think is the right one for ortiz in a vacuum, the fact of the matter is it was an incredibly smart and timely negotiation for the red sox, from a business perspective if nothing else.

i guess that's what bothers me about the analysis (or at least your summary of the analysis)--it ignores the business factors at work and doesn't seem to take the context into account, but its conclusion is a comment on a business decision (the signing of a contract and whether or not it's fiscally sound).

Anyway.

***

Evan at FB of the AL has a great premise I think we should all get behind:

Right now I just want to keep playing with what we have. I don’t want to see any drastic changes until each player has at least 100 at-bats under their belts. The first two months are spent seeing what you have. The next two is spent getting what you don’t have, and the final two is the push for the playoffs. This is a long season, and there are going to be more injuries and more pitfalls. We may be 6-2 right now, and I have every confidence in the word we’ll be playing October ball, but these Yankees aren’t going to go away, and we have losing streaks looming.

I think we should all take that 100 at-bats pledge right now. I think there should be forms notarized and everything.

***

Redsox.com reports that Manny has been spending "post-batting practice moments...taking more batting practice in the tunnel behind the Boston dugout.

"I think he's been looking at his hands, where they are, pre-pitch," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. "He did the same thing last year. Sometimes coming out of the gate, you just lose your comfort zone for whatever reason. He'll get it."

For whatever reason, Ramirez has been a slow starter the last couple of years, though his career April numbers heading into this season (.325 average, 68 homers and 246 RBIs) weren't too shabby.

I like that image, of Manny studying his own hands.

***

The official site quotes Schilling thusly:

"Warming up for the second inning, I threw my split-finger and everything clicked," Schilling said. "The first two starts, I haven't felt like I've been consistently bearing the pitch well and I didn't feel like I've been throwing it at a good angle. And I threw it and it was exactly what I wanted it to be from a feel standpoint. And mentally, I was like, 'There it is.' From that point on, when I needed a strikeout, I felt very comfortable about command, fastball-wise, and about the fact I could bury my split in the ground."

What they don't include is that, at least if they're quoting him from the press conference, he actually said "I was like, 'Holy Crap, there it is'." I feel the "Holy Crap" part is important.

***

Mr. BlackandWhite has a great little post up at his place, entitled "Papel-balls", in which he rightly captures the moment Papelbon "get[s] the swinging strike and circl[es] the mound... Letting the fury reign for a brief moment..."

That's a great sentence. "Letting the fury reign for a brief moment." And a very apt description for the moment in question.

***

Sam can't get Flickr to work, but she's told me about the 400 PICTURES she took at the Michigan / Ohio State baseball game last night (culled in-camera down to 253, she said, so there'll prob. be at least 150 shots up when she gets Flickr up and running, I would wager), and if this preview in her post is any indication, they'll be worth a good gander.

***

My favorite Yankees fan Alex Belth has some lovely observations up about Kyle Farnsworth, with whom I am not familiar (except through Sam's affection for him). This is the kind of detail I really value (and aspire to, even if I don't necessarily come through with it) in sports blogging:

I've complained about Farnsworth's thought-process in the past and last night was an ideal example of why the guy drives me nuts. Farnsworth's two best pitches are a plus fastball and a sharp slider. But you don't get the sense that he knows how to mix his pitches properly--he falls in love with dominating a hitter and makes things tougher on himself in the process.

With two men out and nobody on, Farnsworth was pitching to Torii Hunter, a right-handed hitter. He threw a slider for strike one and then got Hunter to wave at a nasty slider for strike two. Now, I'm thinking, okay, time to come up and in with the heat. Posada signaled for a fastball and you could see him motioning for it to be high and tight. Hunter is a free swinger, after all. Farnsworth shook him off.

C'mmon, Meat, I'm thinking at home. We're going to go through this Nuke Laloosh routine all year, aren't we? (Funny to consider Jorge Posada as the sage Crash Davis, huh.) But no, Farnsworth wanted to get him out on another slider. It would be difficult to throw one better than the pitch Hunter had just swung through. Sure enough, the next pitch was a slider, it wasn't as nasty as the previous one, and Hunter slapped the pitch into right for a double.

Justin Morneau, a lefty, was next. He had a great swing at a Farnsworth fastball that was low and right over the plate. The pitch was fouled straight back indicating that Farnsworth had gotten away with one--Morneau was right on it. He got strike two on another fastball, but this one was up and away, and he simply over-powered Morneau with it. So now, I'm thinking, maybe time for the slider, or another high heater. Instead Farnsworth threw another low fastball--seemingly identical to the pitch Morneau just missed--which was promptly slapped into left field for an RBI single.

Now, maybe Farnsworth's location was just off. Again, I'll admit that I'm ready to be critical of the guy so I'm not exactly even-handed when discussing him. He's clearly got good stuff. I just don't know that he's got much sense. And after a long night of lousy at-bats, it was the icing on the gravy so to speak. Farnsworth didn't lose the game for the Yankees, he just made it uglier.

Great stuff. Although I'm wondering how Alex learned to tell a slider from a fastball from anything else in TV footage. I certainly can't do it.

***

Meanwhile, the commenters at Alex's site warmed my little heart today. Quoth one:

the Red Sox, at 7-3, have 5 wins in games where their starter gave up only 1 run. Schilling and Beckett have each done it twice and Wakefield did it once. We need a few more stellar games like that.

And another:

I hate these wasted opportunities when our starters pitch well. Who knows how many nights like this we'll get from Moose? Although, he has been very encouraging so far.

Lemme guess, the offense sucks against a back-end starter one night, then goes and demolishes their ace the next (see Oakland, Anaheim).

And I really hate seeing the Sox and the unfortunately healthy Schilling win close games.

***

Thank God.

***

Red, as always, makes me feel like just deleting my site and spending my blogging time genuflecting towards him. The high point of the excerpt and post as a whole, IMHO, is in bold.

Curt Schilling has been reborn as the heart, soul and fury of the team.

After two games in which our starters got slapped around like a fat kid in a monkey suit, the Schill Dog reasserted himself as the Prince of Route 109, striking out seven -- including a critical punchout of Ichiro with the tying run on third in the sixth. His ERA is a paltry 1.64, and in last night's incredibly non-ankle-friendly conditions, he got more bad-ass as the evening progressed. When can we finally say it's not a fluke? When can we finally admit the dude's back in the saddle, calling the shots, lovin' the ladies, and bringing the pain?

***

Daryl at Singapore Sox Fan wonders about Le Papelbon's closer music. Apparently he currently comes out to a song by Drowning Pool, which, barf. But then again, a lot of the great closer / at-bat songs are taken. So I open the floor on this one, as Daryl did on his blog. What would be the perfect music for young Jonathan?

Tender Morsels

This is a kind of cop-out post I often do on my other blog when too many of my "interesting link" emails to myself pile up in my inbox and I finally have to bite the bullet and admit that they're just going to go to waste if I don't just throw up a list of them on the site, noble though my intentions to read and analyze each in a thorough manner may be.

So here are some scraps from my travels around the Web of late.

***

Have you seen the episode of Family Guy guest starring Tom Brady? If you have not, my deepest condolences on the fact that it sucks to be you.

***

Found while Googling:

I think this is the most dramatic photographic evidence yet of the extent of Jason Varitek's impact on a winning pitcher.

Also, somebody actually Photoshopped this thing in homage to Mariano Rivera. It made me laugh and laugh.

***

This piece in the Washington Post cites a study showing that "emotions and implicit assumptions often influence why people choose their political affiliations, and that partisans stubbornly discount any information that challenges their preexisting beliefs." Any Red Sox fan who's ever been halfway introspective following an attempt at conversation with a Yankees fan knows that has to be the case.

***

Cool Q & A with Tito on the official site, in case you missed it.

Also, if you call right now, we'll throw in this interview with Johnny Pesky at the Oregon Stadium Campaign site ABSOLUTELY FREE!

***

Quoth Paul Godfrey, Blue Jays' president and CEO: "There is excitement in the streets of Toronto. There's panic in the streets of Boston."

He continued, "THE STREETS WILL FLOW WITH THE BLOOD OF THE UNBELIEVERS!", and then pulled his shirt up over his head and ran out of the room screaming something about "TP" and "Lake Titticacca".

(via El Guapo's Ghost)

***

I'm sorry, people, but HOW am I the only one (besides Kristen's friend Heather) who finds this man delicious? I mean...no accounting for taste, I guess.

And don't anybody be jumping on me for the man-candy, unless there's been a moratorium established on the occasional chick-ogling at several of my male counterparts' sites.

***

Meanwhile, what the heck was too confusing about the "Roger please come home" video?

***

Preseason predictions are flowing in...my personal favorite was of course Red's post this morning on Surviving Grady, since whenever he writes anything about Mike Timlin, I have a tendency to spray down my computer with whatever beverage I happen to be sipping. In this case, it was:

In a desperate bid to out-batshit Tavarez, will take the mound for every relief appearance with an eyepatch and cigar.

Dear Christ, that's awesome. That just rules, quite possibly than anything else has ever ruled in the history of things ruling, with the exception of the original Timlin post, of course, which I will never in my life stop referencing, so deal.

I liked Emma's, too.

Anyway, I haven't decided whether to jump on the prediction bandwagon yet. It's been done, you know? But as we can see I'm pretty hard up for posting material right now.

***

Don't miss Trot Nixon's musings to Gorden Edes about whiteness and body hair.

***

Conversation between me and Kristen this morning:

Her: Please note this picture.

Me: Oh my God. You found a picture of Heaven.

Her: The thing is, sometimes I forget how much I love Tedy Bruschi. And then I remember.

Me: And you have to take a moment to weep.

Her: Or just to grab the person next to me and go, "OH MY GOD, I LOVE TEDY BRUSCHI SO MUCH!"

Me: Right and it's a Colts fan, hopefully.

Her: Hee. I don't think I've ever actually met a Colts fan in person. And it's certainly hard to find one now.

Me: I sat next to one at the opening day game at Gillette in 2004. It was SWEET.

Her: SHANK! That will never not be funny.

***

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be cracking open Roger Angell's 2005 season recap, which I've had on ice for just this week of desperation...

Tidbits

For those of you as addicted to XML feeds as I am, the Sox now have one for their news. The Patriots and The Sports Guy need to get on that, stat.

According to Peter King, the Patriots are coming up on "arguably the toughest five-game stretch in NFL history":

[It] begins on Sunday at Carolina (7-9 last year) and continues through Oct. 16 with games at Pittsburgh (15-1), at home against San Diego (12-4), at Atlanta (11-5) and at Denver (10-6). According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no other NFL team has ever had a five-game run in which four games were on the road and the five opponents averaged 11 wins or better in the previous season.

That brutal slate of games has some New England players thinking there's a conspiracy against them. "The league doesn't want us to threepeat," says safety Rodney Harrison. "What type of schedule has anyone ever had like that?"

"[The league] wants parity," adds linebacker Mike Vrabel, with a snicker. "We got the memo on that one. I think Paul Tagliabue delivered it himself."

Oh, Rodney Harrison. You make me laugh.

Meanwhile, I was reading Entertainment Weekly because the show I'm currently obsessed with was on the cover, and came across this:

Stadium Rockers

STP appraise diamonds in the rough

Even though the quartet has disbanded, the Stone Temple Pilots legacy lives on in baseball dugouts nationwide. Both the Boston Red Sox' Bronson Arroyo and Florida Marlins' Jeff Conine recorded versions of STP's grunge anthem "Plush" for recent CD releases. "I'm totally flattered that these guys did our song," says former Pilots bassist Robert DeLeo. Adds his brother (and ex-STP guitarist) Dean DeLeo: "it brings a whole new meaning to stepping up to the plate." [Note: this is why I don't normally read this magazine. But let's soldier on.] But are these covers fair or foul? The DeLeos weigh in.

Conine gets a mixed review, but here's Bronson's:

On the field: Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Bronson Arroyo, who recorded an entire album of his rock & roll favorites,  Covering the Bases.

Scouting report: "Technically speaking, this is a really good vocal performance," says Robert, who offers a possible tip as to why: "Getting on the mound in front of 40,000 people is pretty intense and vulnerable. So is being a vocalist."

Final score: A home run! "I'm favoring Arroyo's version more--feel-wise and technically speaking," says Robert. "Well done, man."

A caveat: one of them also said, of Conine's rendition, "I like the slide guitar solo. It's a nice touch."

The slide guitar solo.