Monday, June 04, 2007
I was commiserating with Beth about this game, and the bloody UNFAIRNESS of it all. "How could this happen?" we sulked. The Red Sox are playing good ball these days! The Yankees are cellar-dwelling gnomes whose supposed savior is an old man with a case of muscular crotch rot! The standings say that this series should have been ouuuuurrrrssss!
Maybe so. But Red Sox/Yankees games exist outside of the "real" world. If the standings represent the space-time continuum, a Red Sox/Yankees series represents a parallel plane of existence where none of the usual physical rules of the universe apply. In the NORMAL world, the Red Sox should have at least taken 2 of 3. But in the RED SOX/YANKEES world, records go out the window and anything at all can happen. In my deranged little Red Sox fan mind, I firmly believe this.
The Nation did its collective best. Chants of "Where is Roger?" and screams of "MINE!" or "HA!" every time a ball came near ARod... blonde wigs and masks, also directed at ARod, and all the usual range of anti-Yankeedom that unites Fenway for such games were out in full force.
There was the usual dash of Sox/Yanks drama. All the hit batsmen in the first game, and then Lowell and Mientkiewicz colliding... Yankees saying Lowell's play was maybe dirty, Lowell immediately snarking back that he learned that sort of thing when he was on the Yankees... just a mess. A glorious, typically frenzied rivalry-fueled mess.
It all came down to those moments of ridiculously perfect drama that characterize Sox/Yanks matchups. Who should hit the game and series winning homerun but ALEX FREAKIN' RODRIGUEZ, the brunt of every joke in both cities for weeks. Of course, right? Like it could come down to anything else. And then Mariano Rivera had to remember that he's Mariano Rivera, and shut us down. The rest of the league has been discovering that he's human, but of course in the strange parallel world that is Sox/Yankees, he has fully regained his alien powers.
It's tiring. It's hard being in an alternate universe where up is down, black is white, and the Yankees are an actual threat. I'm sure everyone will be glad to head to Oakland for some hopefully normalized baseball, even if it does mean Wrong Coast times and prolonged exposure to the sheer horror of Danny Haren's facial hair.Labels: ARod, baseball, loss, Red Sox, rivalry, Yankees
1:05 AM
Thursday, March 22, 2007
 Labels: ARod, Bronson Arroyo, drawn, rivalry
12:38 AM
Friday, July 14, 2006
What a surprising All Star Game that turned out to be. Most everyone, analysts included, seemed to expect it to be a slugfest, especially on the AL side. That horrifying little "heads, shoulders, knees, and toes" musical montage they had worked up for Vlad Guerrero was proof enough, if nothing else. But the darn thing turned into a pitching duel.
Now, lemme just say, before the game, I did not think Brad Penny was all too exciting a starter for the NL. And I get the general impression that a lot of other fans felt more or less the same. Brad Penny, however, knowing he only had two innings to pitch, came out throwing 98 mph heat up and inside. I was sitting there watching it with my mouth hanging open. I can't remember the last time I saw Ichiro's timing look so incredibly off on his swings. Usually even if he misses he's somewhere in the vicinity, but with Penny pitching he was taking some awful swings.
Oh, all you who make fun of me for my love of Ichiro? Say what you will, I am not nearly as bad as Tim McCarver, who had this to say about the poor guy (they were talking about his 'incredible balance' or something): "We saw Ichiro in the tunnel today, and he walks like a ballet dancer." I mean... what? He... walks... like... a ballet dancer. I don't know. I just don't know.
Of course one of the best plays was ARod bobbling the ball at third and desperately chucking a bouncer into first, where it was expertly picked by Ortiz to save America's Greatest Baseball Player a nationally-televised E5. It was as tidy an embodiment of the absurdity of the old "a DH can't win the MVP because they're only playing half the game" as one could wish for. Just because Ortiz doesn't play first base very often, that doesn't mean that he can't. Granted, I don't think he has the ability to play there every day, but by now that could be because we've conditioned him into a DH. If he had had to play first every day for much of his career, I'm sure he could, because the base skills are manifestly there. He wouldn't be winning Gold Gloves, but still.
The fact that the NL lost, after all that... hilarious. Poor bastards. It looked for so long like they had it in hand, and then they had Trevor Hoffman coming up... Trevor Hoffman! He's an unstoppable force of Padretasticness. He's no Jon(athan) Papelbon, of course, but then again who is? In any event, I thought that the NL was going to take this and we would have to suffer the indignity of losing to their soft squidgy league.
Blown save. With a Michael Young two-run triple. I kind of couldn't stop laughing. I thought Phil Garner might cry.
Anyways, on to the second half. And thank cats we had that break, because between the game before it (19 innings) and tonight (11 innings), well, if there hadn't been a break, we would be looking at the bloody remains of Julian Tavarez right now, instead of the ravaged but still live Julian Tavarez that plagues us at the moment.
I was actually at this game, and will have photos from it up soon, but not tonight, as I've got work tomorrow and should be in bed oh, say, now-ish. Many photos later. Especially of Huston Street. I must've taken 800 photos of Huston Street alone.Labels: All Star Game, ARod, baseball, error, MLB
1:14 AM
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