Late Night With Papelbon

Jonathan Papelbon on Letterman: “…and this is to quote-unquote David Ortiz: ‘Hey, guys, I've got to tell you some-sing, if you wear a Red Sox uniform jersey, you're a bad mother@#$%!’”

“…but David Ortiz happens to be a huge Bedazzler.”

And I've got nothing to add...

Game 147: Big Papi Just Breaks Down Your Fences and Runs Off With Your Women

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 5, Tampa Bay Devil Rays 4

Run for the hills!!! Big Papi is back with a vengeance. Screw the rest of the hitters, he’ll score ALL YOUR RUNS! The 2 homers and 5 RBI (including the amazing walk-off that exploded my clothes off my body) meant that Papi ate his morning Wheaties and they had Devil Ray blood in them. And the city of Boston? It’s a crazy love-fest for Ortiz here. More than I ever realized was possible. If he ran for mayor tomorrow it would go:

“Hey, my name is Big Papi and I don’t speak English too good and I don’t know a lot about public works or anything like that… but I’m running for mayor and… ummm I hit a ton of homeruns?”

(cue the stampede caused by every citizen running out to vote for Ortiz. Hell I’d vote twice.)

Now THANK FREAKING GOD that he did the whole heroic thing today, cause this game pretty much SUCKED otherwise. Lester spotted the Rays 4 runs in the first inning and I was calling for the guy’s head right there. He could not throw a strike to save his life. I was climbing the walls and I am still shocked that the Rays only managed to score so FEW runs. Lester was out of there in a hurry… and Tavarez stepped in to put out the fire.

And he really did it! Yeah it’s amazing. Tavarez shut down the Tampa bats for 3 innings and made me smile at his normal scary faced chicanery. Is that blood on your cleat? Oh Julian you big joker!

Meanwhile, besides the Man Mountain that is Ortiz, the rest of the Sox could not get it done with men on base… again. Francona needs to start asking players for 10 pushups for every man they leave on base. Tek and Hinske would be doing 100 between the two of them. It was so ugly that once Papelbon came in and shut the door on the Rays in the 9th, I had pretty much chalked this one up as a loss. I’m such a quitter.

But when Lugo reached… and I saw Papi waiting there with that tree trunk of a bat that he made out of redwood he chopped down with his bare hands… it made me believe again. I KNEW he would do it. He has that look in his eye that we saw in the 2004 playoffs. The look that says:

“Nothing’s over until I say so… and you better vote twice.”

So now I feel ready for New York. Bring on the Yankees because the confidence is back, the swagger is back and no matter HOW far up we are, these games always bring out my venom and hate. You can’t teach a hammer to love nails. That dog won’t hunt.

Game 137: Can I get a Witness? The Defense Of The Fens

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 3, Baltimore Orioles 2

I love being in Boston and being able to sleepwalk to the 57 bus on a lazy Sunday and wander into Fenway without any bothers or troubles whatsoever. It’s a privilege that has no equal in Brooklyn. I never knew what I was missing.

My first visit to Fenway this year came complete with an awesome victory from our super B squad. Cora, Moss, Ellsbury and Cash were in the lineup in an attempt to play down to Baltimore’s level. It almost worked. Moss, Cash and Cora (and Drew and Youk for that matter) were plain old horrible at the plate today. Nothing but 0’s and K’s for this crew. From my seat in the grandstand I could hear boos for Drew, but not for the other mooks who couldn’t manage to reach on Daniel Cabrera of all people. At least Drew got a WALK.

Anyway, it was Pedroia, Lowell, Papi and Ellsbury (first HR!) who stepped up and got the Sox the measly 5 hits and 3 runs it took to finish this puppy. The real story was the defense that protected the slim lead for starting pitcher Jon Lester. The fans at the Fen went CRAZY for Ellsbury’s diving catch, Pedroia’s diving stop, Youks sick snag at first, Moss crashing into the scoreboard (knocked down an inning plank) and Drew’s nasty outfield assist. When Coco replaced Ellsbury in center (who replaced Drew in right) to back up Papelbon in the 9th, something big just HAD to happen. Coco didn’t fail to excite with an awesome sliding catch to get one of the 3 outs to end this little match-up. Lester got the win, Oki got the hold, Paps got the save and that’s all she wrote. I filed out with a big smile on my face and gained a hop in my step when I saw the final in the Yankee/Tampa game. Love the 6 game lead.

So going back to the great defense again, who (if anyone) is inline for a Gold Glove this year? I say there should be 3 handed out to the Sox players. Coco needs some props for his outstanding acrobatic skills in center (might be tough with Ichiro out there), Youk has something like a million games without an error at first (the man is a beast) and Pedroia should get a golden mitt for his efforts at second this season. No kidding. Dispite his small size and less than swift feet, Dusty P has been a vacuum and has now has a saved no-hitter added to his repertoire. The little guy should walk out of this season with a ROY and a GG no questions asked.

Game 118: Wakefield Finalizes His Acquisition of the Rays

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 3, Tampa Bay Devil Rays 0

After another dominating performance by Wake against these flat fish fellas, only one question remains: how much money will he make when this team is inevitably sold?

I mean think about it. Wake OWNS this team… he freaking OWNS it. Therefore it stands to reason that he should make a profit when the ownership group up and decides to move to another Florida town NOT full of displaced Sox and Yankee fans (I can imagine the pink uniforms of the “South Beach Devil Rays”). That’s how it should be. If you get 18 career wins against somebody, then you should get stock that team or something.

Anyway, we needed this. We need to make sure there is NO slack after the (ahem) disappointing (ahem) losses to Baltimore (who seem content to roll over for NY) we need regain the winning ways. Thankfully Timmy Knuckles was thinking the same thing as he rocked 8 awesome innings and even had a no-no going into the 7th. He is line of 2 hits, 2 walks and 6 K’s were just what the doctor ordered for getting back on track. Oh, and to finish up, Francona went to a relief pitcher that WON’T blow it every time he gets a chance. Paps brought the “no panic” late innings we were getting used to.

And lastly, as for runs… we got Lugo and… umm… wow… at least we got Lugo? Even with Wake being all amazing and stuff, this was WAY to close to be comfortable. Maybe Papi needs to keep doing those pushups if we are ever going to put some formidable numbers back on the board again.

Now, is it asking too much to get some back to back wins against this last place team? Can we act like the division leaders that we are? BTW: Eric is on vacation so you have to put up with me all week and if we dip any closer to the Yanks I may explode. Just saying.

Game 56: Can I Go to Sleep Now?

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 4, Oakland Athletics 5

I hate the West Coast trip. The 10 o’clock starts are an endurance test in itself, but add in extra innings and it becomes a test of wills between you and the Sandman.

I saw the end of this mess… but somehow I don’t feel like it was worth it.

The Sox did everything they could to forfeit this game. Sitting Tek, Lowell, Coco, and Lugo they went with the Super B Squad headlined by crazy Tavarez himself. Honestly I remember very little about this game before the 7th inning. I know Ortiz and Pena took the ace Dan Haren deep, I know Tavarez pitched well enough to almost lose… but that all feels like weeks ago. I still don’t know how they managed to tie it up on Embree when the bats looked as tired as they did. Everyone who was supposed to be resting made it into the game but all those innings seem to blur together in my head.

Fighting through yawns and droopy eyelids I remember Joel Pineiro sucking, I remember clutch hits by Tek and Papi, I remember Oakland loading the bases and not scoring thanks to the weirdest double play ever, but that might have been a bad taco I ate.

More indigestion/insomnia when Pedroia ran into an out at home (et tu, DeMarlo Hale?) and Oakland getting MORE runners in scoring position yet not sealing the deal.

Kyle Snyder was cruising along with two outs in the 11th, until Eric Chavez put one out to finish this off key lullaby. Good, fine, whatever. I honestly don’t even care anymore.

I guess it’s a testament to the gustiness and quality of this team, coming so close to victory while hardly trying in the earlier frames, but I can’t really concentrate on that now... in fact I can barely see the keys.

Another 10 at night start tomorrow? Balls.

Game 6: A Pictorial Representation

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 3, Texas Rangers 2

A breakdown of tonight's game, in pictures:

Do you see this man, to the left of this paragraph? Do you know how pissed he was tonight? Coming out, Opening Day, throwing that bush league crap for four innings? And then he starts out the game with a home run to Frank "Journeyman" Catalanotto? The Rangers should have been quaking in their unis after that at-bat and with reason: Schilling's line of four hits, one walk and one run over seven innings, with a side dish of six strikeouts, ate lightening and crapped excellence. He was so worked up by the end that he lingered in the dugout after seventh inning, waiting for his chance to come out and finish up the game. Emotion aside, Schilling has had some nice (4 and 0 record) success versus Texas, so tonight's performance isn't the be-all, end-all proof of the ace's return, but damn, looking hot tonight.

Need to score some runs? Then you'll need to call on my man pictured to the left. While most of the league's power hitters are struggling to get started, Big Papi broke out of his slump with authority, smashing home runs in his first and third at-bats to score the Sox only runs.

Speaking of slumps, I have a theory on the slow start to the hitting: has anyone noticed how cold it's been across most of the country recently? Cold nights in KC and Texas don't help hitters get into a groove when they've spent the past month plus in warm Florida. We may be relying on pitching until spring finally kicks into gear.

Speaking of pitching, we will speak no more of this guy until he redeems himself for forcing greater men to pick up the sacred charge he let fall into the dust. The bullpen shakiness from yesterday carried over into the eighth inning today: walk, walk, bunt single to load the bases, panic rising, Schilling's marvelous effort starting to fade away like a baseball version of Marty McFly's family photo, sharp ground ball (off Lopez) by Nelson Cruz that erased the man at second, but scored a run and left the tying run smirking ninety feet away from ignominy and potential defeat...shame, shame and more shame. Until the Papal-Bon came to the mound.

This. Man. Is. The. Balls. With one out and runners at the corners, Papelbon came in to face Texas's two toughest hitters, shining as he came like a beacon of hope and awesomeness in the dark night of RSN early season despair and the oncoming rush of the Texas sweep brooms. Needing but fifteen pitches to accomplish his sacred work, Paps garnered three strikeouts, smoked Michael Young with fastballs, terrified Hank Blaylock with splitters and left Brad Wilkerson so devastated with his badassery that the man could not swing at the final pitch as it blazed by at 96 miles per hour.

Although ESPN was more interested in showing Terry Francona splitting sunflower seeds (enjoying his careful bullpen management, no doubt) and closeups of Papelbon's pre-pitch sneer than Varitek's pitch selection, I did catch a few of the location choices and all of Tek's setups and noticed something interesting: although Papelbon didn't hit all of his spots with his fastball tonight (not that it mattered), when it came to the kill pitch on all three strikeouts, the ball hit the glove exactly where Varitek wanted it to be. I'm not sure this rising level of control means anything, but it struck me as interesting; anyone have any insight they'd like to share?

Game 3: Cat and Mouse

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 4, Kansas City Royals 1

Have you ever watched a cat toy with a mouse? The cat will trap the mouse near its hole, giving the mouse some small, pitiful hope of escape, then bat the mouse back and forth, now and then giving it a moment of free play, a chance to flee, before dropping the trap again just as the mouse starts to taste freedom. Eventually the cat gets bored and goes in for the kill; a few bats to the skull and game over, man. Watching today's game, I could sense the same dynamic going on between Boston and Kansas City, as Dice-K led the team to its first series win in 2007.

The parallels between the contest on the field and the life-and-death torments of the mouse were all too obvious: once again, the Sox scored first blood, when a walk to Youkilis and a Manny double lead to a Boston lead in the top of the first. Matsuzaka allowed a single and a walk in the Royals' half of the inning, then turned fierce, shutting down KC's hitting into the fifth inning. "Balls nasty" might not be an exaggeration of his performance; he struck out the side in the fourth, collected ten Ks over all and kept the Royals in such fits that they had trouble swinging, let alone making contact. The few lapses, coming in the second rotation through the lineup in the fifth and six innings, were mostly harmless - only David DeJesus managed to catch a bad pitch and take it for a ride for the Royal's only run. Although Dice K doesn't seem to display a lot of emotion on the mound (nothing the cameras caught, anyway), I could see where he bore down to get key outs, like a cat swatting a fleeing mouse back into its paws.

Meanwhile, Zach Greinke was doing his best attempt at running an escape act from the Boston offense. The Sox managed to get the lead off man on base seven times during the game, but Greinke would turn up the juice, get the outs he needed and move on. Eventually, inevitable as the boredom of the cat, the killing blow came: an error at third scored Lugo in the fifth to draw new wounds; a wild pitch by Peralta, Greinke's replacement, scored Papi from third (Papi speed!) in the eighth, then a miscue by third baseman Alex Gordon left the door open to score an additional run and, with Papalbon save numero uno, put the nail in the coffin of the Kansas City mouse.

Coming Soon: David Ortiz, The Book

A few days ago, a representative from the company that's publishing Big Papi's upcoming memoir emailed us and asked us if we wanted to review the book, which hits the streets on April 17. Despite the rather unassuming title (Big Papi: My Story of Big Dreams and Big Hits - I would have gone with something badass like David Ortiz: The Kratos of Baseball), we agreed to take a look at the book because, if nothing else, reading up on Ortiz's take on life sounded like fun. The publishing rep was nice enough to send us an excerpt beforehand; here's a quick taste of the style (excerpt copyright 2007 by David Ortiz with Tony Massarotti):

Seriously, bro, I'm not joking. Every time I go someplace where the peopel have never met me before, they all tell me the same thing: I look fatter on TV. I'm a big dude - I'm six foot four and between 255 and 260 pounds - but I try to take pretty good care of myself. In baseball, you have to. Like most guys, I'm in the weight room a lot during the season and I try to eat right, but I'm a big dude. Even my teammates give me sh*t about it sometimes. But I wear a really big uniform that must make me look fat on TV, so every time I meet someone for the first time, they look surprised that I'm not this big, fat guy.

I always joke with them: "Who do you think I am, Kevin Millar?"

(Trust me, bro. Millar would say the same thing about me.)

I have a feeling this book will be a pretty awesome read.

Game 1: Fear of a Blue Meche

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 1, Kansas City Royals 7

"Thump. Thump. Thump." A lone scribe sits alone in the dark of an early April evening, thumping keys on a Dell Latitude X300 and imagining he's one of those grumpy old sportswriters who still writes columns on a Remington typewriter because he's too full of cuss to deign to use anything else. This particular wannabe has a mind full of irritation and a heart full of disappointment, but so does every other red-blooded Red Sox fan out there, with an Opening Day affair against a team that dreams of .500, against a pitcher whose $55 million price tag made headlines for its underscoring of the flaws of the current state of free agency, all designed to be an easy transition from Spring Training to the big time. Instead: Boston humiliated, Schilling heading to the dugout (and, presumably, the blog) in disgust after four and a third disappointing innings, Gil Meche the master of the day and the Sox lineup reduced to one run on eight scattered hits.

As the game wound down and I watched a young unknown named Joel Peralta give the lie to his 2006 stats and surrender two hits over the eighth and ninth innings, I gave some thought to the thing about this game, losing excluded, that disappoints me most. Was it Schilling's pitching? How about our lead off man, who struck out three times? Maybe Big Papi's rally-killing strikeout in the eighth, or how Wily Mo still seems willing to swing at anything that comes close to the plate, or Manny's inability to hit anything on Opening Day for the past seven years? Maybe it was Wonderboy, who did his best to reinforce DC's faith in his future stardom by trying to turn a clear single into a double, getting thrown out by a mile at second? I'm feeling the Wonderboy pick; that seems to be the point where the game started to go south for the offense, when Mr. Meche realized he could, in fact, pitch a house afire. Anyone have another choice they'd like to voice?

Jonathan Papelbon, Ca-drillionaire

Ah, to be young, rich, famous and able to invest in Internet startups, just like Jonathan Papelbon. That's right: Papelbon is looking beyond his playing abilities to expand potential talents in other areas of life, just like his teammates: Coco Crisp has his producing thing, Big Papi makes salsa, Manny does public speaking appearances, etc.

What's the venture, you might ask. Where does he get his hot investing tips? Does he have a specific investing vision in mind? As a matter of fact...

• The venture: ISpottedYou, a social networking site (like MySpace) that uses buttons (the plastic-coated things with the pins on the back you stick to your shirt) like a membership pin so you can spot other adherents in the street. Features investors like Under Armour, "some NFL guys [and] some MLB guys," bilingual capability and the tag line, "where the virtual world meets the real world." And on these lowly beginnings, an online empire is built...
  
• The tip source: his agent. I think this may be the equivalent of asking your plumber for medical advice.
• Pap's investing vision: "to be a ca-drillionaire," where a ca-drillion is an amount of money equal to two metric ass-tons.

Go look at the site just so you can laugh at the idea of a.) people walking around wearing buttons like they're in some sort of cult, b.) those people getting beat up on street corners for wearing those buttons and c.) other people investing their money in this venture. Whatever real-world amount of money a ca-drillion equals, I don't think Paps is going to make it by funding this website.

Psychologist Says Fans are of Two Minds During Sporting Events

According to an article in the Washington Post (helpfully reprinted on the subscription-free Nashuatelegraph.com), a psychologist named Emily Pronin administered a questionnaire during Superbowl XXXIX (aka The Last Time The Patriots Won) to a group of 58 Eagles fans watching the game on a big-screen TV. During the game, the questions centered on how much attention the fans were paying to the game. Afterwards, Pronin had one last question: "How responsible did the person feel for Philadelphia’s defeat?"

According to Pronin, her study found that people have a tendency to believe that things they do can have magical effects over other, entirely separate events - like fans believing that following certain rituals or yelling at the TV will influence the course of events on the field. All of this research is probably true, but I could have told you that in five minutes, with one very simple anecdote.

In 2004, as some of you may remember, the Red Sox won the World Series after a trip through the ALCS so harrowing that it probably cost me several years of my life. At the end of Game 5, which was probably the climax of the madness, Robin, my then roommate Ryan and I all stood, smacking our hands against our thighs like we were banging mystic baseball-season-saving drums, because that was the only thing that would make Big Papi get a hit. And you know what? Everyone in Fenway was doing it, too. And you know what else? Papi got the hit that won the game on the tenth pitch of the at-bat. What does this prove? Sports fans are absolutely, complete and totally 100% crazy because we think that banging an improvised drum made a man hit a ball with a piece of wood. Holy crap am I excited for a new baseball season.

Via Deadspin; Pronin has her own take on the subject here.