Photo by Matt Urban

As a Sox fan I was pretty pissed about A-Rod opting out of his Yankees contract. On the one hand it confirmed for me that he really is a mercenary douche bag. But on the flip side this releases the Yankees from the curse of the A-Rod. Let’s look at the history shall we?

• A-Rod leaves Seattle and the first year without him they win 116 games.

• A-Rod arrives in Texas after signing the most lucrative contract in baseball history. One MVP for A-Rod, three consecutive last place finishes for the Rangers. His teammates nickname him ”The Cooler.” *

• A-Rod joins the Yankees. Over the course of 4 seasons the Yankees perform the greatest choke in sports history followed by three straight first round post-season exits. A-Rod wins two MVPs.**

• The team Texas almost traded A-Rod to in 2004, The Boston Red Sox, have won 2 Word Championships since the trade collapsed.

A-Rod leaving can only be good news for New York, which is bad news for me. Here’s hoping Scott Boras can convince the Stein-brothers to pony up. May A-Rod retire a Yankee!

** The Peter Gammons blog is behind an ESPN pay wall.

* Technically the 2007 MVP hasn’t been announced but there’s little doubt that A-Rod will win.

Tags: baseball, redsox, yankees

I finally have a good reason to post this video that I took a few weeks ago after the Sox-Orioles game (aside from the fact that it’s friggin crazy). The Camden Yards cleaning crew is planning a hunger strike (so old school!) for better wages. Maybe while they are on strike they can come and clean my apartment.

They weren’t too happy with my video taping them either, they started pointing at me and if I had taped any longer I think they’d have reversed the flow on their blowers and come after me.

Tags: baseball, orioles, video, youtube

I just stumbled upon this trick last night and it makes the MLB.TV experience 1000% better on the Mac. Go to the Flip4Mac control panel in System Preferences and under the Browser tab check “Launch QuickTime Player.”

What this will do is launch QuickTime Player every time your browser encounters an embedded Windows Media file and open the video in QuickTime instead of embedding it in the browser window. I had never turned this on because the idea of launching a separate app seemed redundent, but trust me when I say that the experience of watching the game in Quicktime Player is exceptional compared to being stuck in that crappy little browser window.

First of all, once it’s liberated from the browser it instantly gains functionality. You can resize and position the window a lot easier than the large clunky browser window. You can also quit your browser entirely once the game has started.

Second, now that QuickTime has enabled full screen mode for the masses with its latest update (7.2) you can now watch games in full screen without having to use (or pay for) the bloated MLB.TV Mosaic app.

Third, For users that have an Apple Remote, you can now play and pause the game with the remote!

Fourth, and this is the coolest part. you can watch as many games as you want at once, QuickTime player doesn’t care, check it out.

If you have two monitors you can even watch two games full screen simultaneously!

Tags: apple, baseball, flip4mac, mlbtv, quicktime, tips

From a Red Sox newsletter:

Kevin Youkilis has not made an error in 115 games. The club record for first baseman is 119, set by Stuffy McInnis in 1921.

It’s pretty easy to be wowed by Youkilis’ errorless streak, but the most important piece of information in that blurb is that there used to be a guy named Stuffy McInnis. Just let the pure awesomeness of that sink in for a second. Wow.

Tags: baseball, hilarity, redsox

A Japanese commercial for Asahi Super Dry Beer featuring Daisuke Matsuzaka in a Red Sox uniform. Could you imagine any American athletes chugging beer in a TV commercial? There would be absolute outrage. Unless it was David Wells. (via Matsuzaka Watch)

Tags: baseball, gowatchthis, matsuzaka, redsox, youtube

ESPN baseball analyst Rob Neyer perfectly captures how I feel about the Super Bowl:

[…] I’m sort of pulling for the Colts because I like Peyton Manning’s TV work – both in commercials and press conferences – and I’m sort of pulling for the Bears because a lot of my friends are Bears fans.

Tags: baseball, blurb, football, sports, superbowl

Being the baseball fan I am, I’m not sure how I ever missed this video of Randy Johnson killing a bird with a fastball… during a real game.

Tags: baseball, blurb, gowatchthis, omfg

The best initial reaction to the Red Sox’ $51.1 million winning bid I’ve read so far is by Tom Verducci:

It would seem to be a stunning reversal of philosophy until you understand this: There is no more valuable commodity in the game than young ace pitchers, and the Red Sox boldly just redefined the value.

I definitely agree that this is not a departure from the Sox policy of setting a value on a player and sticking to it. It’s just that this time that value was extremely high. This caliber of player may not be available again by trade or free agent signing over the next 4 years.

The criticism is that if the Sox were willing to spend so much on Matsuzaka, why did they not sign Johnny Damon or trade for Bobby Abreu due to financial concerns? The reason is obvious to me: overspending on good veteran talent is a lot different than overspending on great young talent. It’s not that the Red Sox aren’t willing to spend money, it’s that they will save their money for when it really counts. I’ll take Matsuzaka over the combined efforts of Damon and Abreu any day.

Make no mistake, the Yankees feel burned. Matsuzaka would have been a perfect fit for the Yankees and solidified their playoff chances for years. It’s hard to put a price on (preventing) that.

It’s also worth reading Gammons piece on the deal (subscription required). Specifically:

Second, the Red Sox strongly want to build an Asian foundation. When Theo Epstein left the Red Sox last fall, after he turned down the Dodger job, he worked with two Japanese teams as a consultant. Epstein believes in the next decade the mass of baseball talent coming out of Asia will alter the landscape, and his owners want to be entrenched in Japan as well as China;

Tags: baseball, goreadthis, japan, matsuzaka, redsox, yankees

I really just need to start a baseball blog. But that would make this site exclusively about Lost, huh? Well either way, we’re now hopefully only hours away from finding out who won the Matsuzaka bid. Daisuke Matsuzaka is Japan’s best pitcher. He’s currently under contract with the Seibu Lions but they decided to post him so that he can fulfill his dream of pitching in the United States (and also so the Lion’s can make a ton of money).

The posting process is like a blind auction. Teams submit bids without knowing what the other bids are. The winning bid is presented to the Seibu Lions, but they are not told who the winning bid is from. They either decline the bid and Matsuzaka is retained for the last year of his contract or they accept it, in which case the winner and the bid are revealed and that team has 30 days to negotiate a contract with Matsuzaka. If they can’t agree on a contract then Matsuzaka goes back to the Lions and the bid is refunded.

The suspense is killing me. Will the Yankees get him and finally get the ace they’ve been missing since the late 90s? Will it be a dark-horse like Texas? Or… will it be the Sox? Furthermore, will the winner get the pitcher they are expecting or will there be a rough transition between Japan and the majors? Pitchers are always such a gamble.

There is a report on ESPN that the Sox may have won. Also worth keeping an eye on is Matsuzaka Watch, written by an American living in Japan who has been following Matsuzaka for years.

The Sox going all out for Matsuzaka makes some sense. Keeping him from the Yankees is just as important as adding him to their rotation. If they can do both, that’s a huge, huge move. Is such a move worth $40 mil before even paying Matsuzaka anything? It would be awfully tough to answer “Yes.” $30 million, probably. Anything less, definitely. Stay tuned.

Tags: baseball, japan, matsuzaka, redsox, yankees

I figure I should get this out now before it’s too late. I’m rooting for the Cardinals. In fact, I’ve been rooting for them. That’s right. I was rooting against the Mets. Even after being somewhat thankful that there was a New York baseball team not named the Yankees I could get behind and feel good about.

Problem is I could never get behind the Mets. Maybe it was the orange and blue color-scheme or the mercenary-style line-up. It just never felt right.

The decision happened when I was recently watching the 2004 Red Sox Championship DVD. The Cardinals had absolutely no chance in that Series. They were steamrolled by 86 years of history. You could see it on their faces, the Cardinals had no idea what hit them. So, I vowed I would root for them until they won their own World Series. It only seemed fair. It was the price we paid as Sox fans.

Now this might seem like front-running given that they just won game 1 of the World Series (the first National League World Series game victory since 2003). But this was a long time coming.

Besides, the Cardinals are still solid underdogs and there’s something about the underdog I just can’t resist.

Tags: baseball, cardinals, mets

There’s a bar in Kyoto, Japan called “Fenway Park.” Owner Yasuyuki Ohta is a Red Sox fan and the bar features a constant wall projection of 2004 World Series highlights.

“Yankees suck,” Ohta says, some of the only English he knows.

My kinda guy. Apparently Ohta is a fan of the Hanshin Tigers who are considered the Red Sox of Japan because of their eternal under-dog status. That and the Tigers are also supposedly cursed… by KFC’s Colonel Sanders.

In 1985, during a post-Japan-Series-win euphoria, fans made Tigers look-alikes jump into an Osaka canal … except no one could find a local who looked like star Randy Bass. So an enterprising Tigers backer grabbed a statue of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Col. Sanders. In he went.

No one ever found the Colonel, and the team is allegedly cursed until someone does.

More on the curse at Wikipedia.

Tags: baseball, japan, redsox

This a blurb on the New York Times website:

Torre Is Staying
The Yankees manager said he’s returning despite two playoff disappointments in a row.

Two? Two? That’s adorable. I think we can safely classify 2004 (and oh, say, 2001, 2002 and 2003) as somewhere in the ballpark of “extremely disappointing” for the Yankees. If you get to throw around that gaudy number of championships your team has won on a constant basis, you also have to bend over and take it when they lose.

Tags: areyoukiddingme, baseball, yankees

shawn: Huh, I’m reading Barry Zito’s blog. He implies in one post that it’s common for pitchers to use ear plugs when they pitch.
matt: it’s not just for rafael palmero anymore
shawn: I guess it makes sense. I’d have a hard time doing my job if some fatass 50 feet away kept calling me a fag

Tags: baseball, conversation

• The Answer is NO!
• Never Forget: A-Rod sucks.
• Last link is via Bill Simmons who is doing a running diary of each post season game.

Tags: baseball, blurb, links, lost

In an article by Jim Caple about baseball celebrations and the clothing made specifically for the event:

Major League Baseball also prints up and ships out the appropriate commemorative T-shirts and caps for players to wear within minutes of clinching. And when teams lose the final game in sudden fashion, these same shirts are packed back up and shipped to Third World nations to give away as needed clothing. Seriously. I’m sure the folks in Lesotho appreciate the shirts, but I wonder if this practice also leads to a lot of confusion.

“The good news is my ‘2003 National League Champion Chicago Cubs’ shirt is made of 100 percent breathable cotton and will provide years of comfortable wear. The bad news is a fellow villager in a ‘2004 World Series Champion Cardinals’ cap keeps kicking my ass.”

I know he said “Seriously,” but Seriously?

Tags: areyoukiddingme, baseball

Sure, taking 3 of 4 from the Yankees is sort of a hollow victory at this point. They’re going to the post season and the Sox are not. They’re clinching the East sometime this week and we’re not. They beat us when it mattered, we beat them out of spite. Sure, I’m glad they didn’t clinch with a win against us but it really doesn’t matter.

What does matter and what I am happy about is the message we sent them. In my best impression of Triumph the insult comic dog:

See you next year, beeches.

Tags: baseball, redsox, sports, yankees

Well, starting tonight and continuing for 5 excrutiating games spread over 4 long days, the Yankees will be in Boston playing the Red Sox. I contemplated taking off work and going back only after I stopped crying, but that might end up being late Septmember so I’m just going to have to be a man about all this.

A Yankees series normally makes me a nervous wreck but this time is even worse. First of all, 5 games is a hot ton of games. It can make or break the whole season. Lately the Sox have been doing their best Devil Rays impression, which doesn’t bode well. The Yankees have had their issues too but their lineup is Blair Witch scary. I flipped past a Yankees game the other night and the Yankees batters had formed a circle around the mound and were taking turns literally beating a middle-reliever to death. I didn’t think that was even allowed, but it is.

Unfortunately I’m going to watch every minute peeking over the top of the pillow I will be clutching for dear life. I’m trying to remind myself that the Yankees’ ace gets the senior citizen discount when he eats at Denny’s and that their rotation includes a chubby guy named Jaret. These are the things that keep me going.

Tags: baseball, redsox, yankees

Minor League manager plays out every angry manager stereotype as he completely looses his mind on the field. Awesome. (Video)

Tags: baseball

Asked how he prefers his name pronounced, Red Sox pitcher Julian Tavarez said:

I really don’t care. They can call me whatever they want. They can call me [expletive] Tavarez, it doesn’t matter.

Tags: baseball, redsox

Watched some WBC last night. Korea vs. China. Of all the games that will be played in the WBC it was probably the one I would have picked last to watch, but it was actually enjoyable. Korea has a good team, though they looked great playing the sloppy Chinese team. It really wasn’t a fair competition, the Koreans have major-league level players, China is like a college team. They looked terrible at times. At one point their shortstop swung at a pitch, missed the ball by a foot and a half, then his helmet flew off his head. I’ve never even seen that happen before.

Tags: baseball

Bill Simmons interviews Curt Schilling. I love how his first question is four paragraphs long. I’m in full Red Sox 2004 championship glory-mode. If my smile were any larger the top of my head would shoot off like a champagne cork.

Tags: baseball, redsox

I cannot believe Red Sox GM Epstein has quit. I’m in denial. This is bad—really bad. How often do you have a GM you trust let alone root for?

Tags: baseball, redsox

Tags: baseball, photos

I haven’t yet woken from the dream so it must be real. My brain has exploded and the pieces are globes of orgasmic joy raining down upon this earth. What is there to say? The World has ended. Toast. Over. Four horsemen galloped across Busch Stadium, dragging Babe Ruth’s corpse through center field.

I live in a world where the Red Sox have won the World Series. Recently.

It all changes from here on out. The Golden Era has begun. Long live Johnny Damon. Long live Curt Schilling. Long live Manny Ramirez. Long live David Ortiz. I love you guys!

The Red Sox won the World Series.

Good night!

Tags: baseball, redsox

This morning I woke up in a world where the Red Sox have beaten the Yankees. And it mattered. And it was for the pennant. And the Sox are in the Series. For real. You can’t understand quite how sweet this really is.

Most importantly, millions of New York fans woke up in a world where the Red Sox beat the Yankees. History is now, finally, history. The Yankees mystique has been vaporized. The slate is clean. Game 7 last year, the ‘99 ALCS, the 7000 other times they played in the regular season… gone. Forget about it. History. You Yankee fans may be able to say, “Hey fine, you beat us, but we still got a bucket load of championships.” Yes and you can have them, because there is a good feeling to be had from winning a lot but there is nothing sweeter, nothing more intense, nothing more emotional than suffering for 18 (25? 86?) years and then winning… BIG.

The Sox didn’t just win. They humiliated the Yankees and made history in the process. And not some most-bunts-in-one-game type history. Best comeback in sports history history. Against the Yankees. For a trip to the Series. Need I also mention that Game 7 was a rout? Granted, the Sox could make a 30-1 score seem tenuous. This whole series I’ve been Mia Wallace getting an adrenaline shot in the heart. Except it doesn’t last 5 seconds it lasts nine days.

Never again in my life will I ever hear a Yankees fan say “What, you think the Sox can actually beat the Yankees?” Never again. ‘Cause they did. And it was no small victory. It can’t be written off. It can’t be rationalized. This was no marginal .520 Yankee team that barely scratched out a wild card. This was a 101 win $180 million Yankee club. And they lost. It will sit like a heavy pile of stink in the brain of every Yankees fan from here on out. As Bill Simmons said, “It was the choke of chokes, an unprecedented gag job. For once, finally, the Yankees have some baggage. Just like every other baseball team.”

And now what? I woke up with this strange feeling that must be the feeling of victory but I’ve never felt it before. I don’t know what to do with myself. How do I behave? How exactly does one gloat? This is uncharted territory.

Wait, what? There’s more baseball to play? What’s this World Series they’re talking about? Didn’t we just beat the Yankees, isn’t that it? You know, Game 1 of the World Series starts Saturday and I’m not even nervous. I’m just fantastically excited. I get to watch the Sox in the Series. Sure, they were in it in ‘86 and a few times before, but I was only 7 then. I hadn’t been tortured yet. I was a little snowball just beginning to roll down the steep hill of loss, suffering and agony that is being a Red Sox fan. After Game 3 that snowball was the size of a cruise ship and I really didn’t think anything would ever stop it.

I gotta get out of here and go buy some Red Sox merchandise and call everyone I’ve ever known. Bill Simmons column is a must read.

Tags: baseball, redsox, yankees

I’m extremely nervous, though this is how I felt before the last two games too. I’ve never live-blogged anything before, but why not start now? We’ll see how it goes.

10:40 – Top 5th – I am completely demoralized. I am lying on the ground, wondering where the closest sharp object is. 12-6 Yankees.

10:15 – Top 4th I will give one million dollars, yes, one million dollars to the first Red Sox pitcher to go through an inning without giving up a run. One million dollars.

10:06 – Top 4th – And we’ve been playing for 7 hours 37 minutes.

10:02 – Top 4th* – It’s 6-6. I swear, they must be huffing out there in the bullpen, none of these Sox pitchers are looking sharp at all.

9:31 – Top 3rd – Mendoza just balked in the go-ahead run which just adds so much to my confidence in him. I haven’t seen a balk since I played Little League.

8:53 – Bot 2nd – OK, my brand new firewire drive just died (replacement for firewire drive that died). But Nixon just hit a 2 run homer. More importantly, the Sox scored before the 7th inning…

8:23 – Top 1st – You could hear a pin drop in Fenway…

8:19 – Top 1st – I’m still too nervous to type. Third game the Yankees have scored in the first inning, second time they’ve done that before any outs. My heart is thumping in my feet—-FUCK. Matsui just hit a home run. It doesn’t get worse than this. God, these games are like watching the Yankees in batting practice…

7:56 – Pregame – OK… I must not have woken up yet… they’re introducing some band that inspired the Partridge family… The Cowsills??? I can be pretty ignorant but I’ve never heard of these hippies in my life… and the Red Sox and Yankees are looking at each other like they haven’t either. This musical montage is going on forever. No one knows what’s happening. God, this is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

7:48 – Pregame – Why is Terry Bradshaw at Fenway, talking about the Patriots? And they’re asking them about Game 3… Bradshaw just answered a question, “Well, seeing a baseball come at you at 100 mph, yeah, that’s hard.” Real baseball insight here.

Tags: baseball, redsox

I’m at work right now, dying over not being home watching the Sox on ESPN. Instead I’m watching the game on the internet. My palms are sweating. My heart is racing. I care so much it hurts. Yeah, it’s weird. If I race home I might catch the end, but I’d definitely have to push some people down to do it. It might be worth it… watch out.

UPDATE: I just clapped. Alone. To the computer.

Tags: baseball, redsox

It is almost October which means every neuron in my brain is preoccupied with baseball. I lose my mind somewhat in this time of year, but I love it. I check scores on my cell phone, I watch “live games” on the internet, ah god I love it. The Sox are in it again this year and I stumbled upon this:

Maybe enough time hasn’t passed yet. I still remember everything about last October, those twelve playoff games unfolding like rounds in a classic boxing match, so many twists and turns that even Harold Lederman couldn’t have scored it. I still remember the minutes and hours after that fateful Game 7 in the Bronx, when I called Dad just to make sure he was still breathing. I still remember the following afternoon, when everything hit me at once – the residual emotions of the past three weeks swelling up like a killer wave, knocking me right on my back – and I actually had to leave work early. It was too much. Baseball shouldn’t mean this much.

A few months passed. I thought I was okay. Last Friday brought everything back. This isn’t about a curse, it’s about baggage, the way an accumulation of experiences alters your innate reactions. Like every Red Sox fan, I have baggage. Tons of it. Now we’re heading into October with another dicey manager. My guard is up. I can’t help it. At the same time, I’m going to spend my entire afternoon monitoring that Yankees doubleheader against Minnesota today. Because you never know.

Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. I don’t want to go through this again. I can’t live without it. I’m not sure I can handle it. I couldn’t imagine any other way.

Yeah, pretty much. I definitely couldn’t handle a repeat of 2003. I might just die. But you never know… Hope is a strange thing.

Tags: baseball, redsox, yankees

[Strike three.]

“Bg-hap-gaqptu!”

[Clapping, standing, screaming]

“Sox win! Sox win! Sox win!”

[Falling to floor, screaming, clapping, roll onto back]

“Sox win! Sox win! Sox win!”

[Kicking legs in air, rolling around, screaming, clapping]

“Sox wiSoxwiSoxwi—”

[Catch breath, keep clapping, swallow]

“Sox win! Sox win! Sox win!”

Tags: baseball, redsox, sports

Sniff deep, readers. That is October air you smell. Chilly, crisp. Perfect weather for some good baseball. In under an hour the Sox will take the field in Oakland. More history will be written. And in a few weeks, the Boston Red Sox will win the World Series for the first time in 85 years.

Many do not understand Boston fans. Though I think we have a special edge in life. Us Sox fans have a temperament that is difficult to learn, much less understand. We are eternal optimists. Every year is The Year. Twenty years? Sixty years? Eighty-five years? Psshh. Just math, just numbers. This is the team, this is the year. “But what of the setbacks? What of the losses? What of four game seven’s of excruciating defeat?” What does it matter? This is the year they will win, anyway.

I had an English professor once who explained existentialism in terms of the Boston Red Sox.

The Yankee fan is an entirely different breed. I think perhaps they enter the real world and find a bit of a shock. Defeat is rough for a Yankees fan. I once said to a Yankees fan, after their defeat in the 2001 Series, “Hey, Yankees lost hard, eh?” He looked at me as if he wished to cry and sever my head from my body simultaneously. I didn’t bring them up again. Lucky for them though they do win. A lot. Always charged with the excitement and rush of victory. A spring in their step, ticker tape in their hair, smiling, screaming, happy. Sure. Fine. If that’s what you want. Guaranteed happiness once a year. But it must get a little old. I’ll tell you this much, I may have guaranteed disappointment once a year, but when they finally win, I will burst into a glowing orb of light that will be seen from distant continents. My scream of joy will echo through small shanty towns in India. For years. Millions in an uncertain radius around me will smile for no reason, caught in my vortex of pure, unadulterated, orgasmic glee. Just you wait.

Some may think, “You live in New York now, don’t you like the Yankees?” I spit on that question. I was born and raised to hate the Yankees. From the moment I popped out of the womb I was trained to love the Boston Red Sox. To root for them without question. To always stand tall through any and every blunder, flounder and passed ball. To always believe. The Yankees could hire me as a starting shortstop and I’d still hate them.

And so now I hope you understand why this is the year the Red Sox will win the World Series.

Good day.

Tags: baseball, redsox, sports, yankees