Sports Writing

Watched this game on quasi-YES on MLB.tv, which featured some scintillating shots of the game from behind a cage. Woo. After Schilling gave up the Cano home run, the YES announcers were going on about how he was really struggling, and while I know he wasn’t the greatest it was still 5 innings pitched, 3 ER (and only 4 hits), which was hardly atrocious.

I can’t do deep analysis or add much insight on the upcoming draft, unfortunately - the draft more than anything else requires some sense of scouting, and all I’ve seen is some standard video footage of Andrew Miller, Hochevar… But I have to say, Evan Longoria is some kind of name. Not Lance Broadway or Chuck Tiffany porn-name great, but still… pity there’s no relation to Eva “Let’s hide the fact that Tony is black from my grandma” Longoria.

Okay, so it was Josh Beckett and not Thomas à Becket, and Yankee Stadium is hardly a cathedral, but still a murder was going on. From that errant Varitek throw after the Giambi shift it seemed like everything was unraveling.

Gah! So long first place. As usual, Wakefield gets no love from his teammates. At present he’s got more support from those Bernie and Phyl mattresses he’s hawking than from the Sox batters. I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind…

I’m back in Singapore, but since the Sox playing the Jays has been really too depressing to talk about, let’s just go all The Smoking Gun with this story of Scott Sauerbeck getting arrested.

Okay, I’m still in Bonn, but just some quick thoughts: watched today’s game, pretty much was expecting DiNardo to be average - well, he’s the 5th starter. But last night’s game - to see Beckett and AGon homer - good golly.

Am now in London, and will be in Germany from the Saturday to a couple of weeks after that. Which means, unfortunately, that I haven’t had the time to blog properly about the Sox. Although that 14-3 thrashing of the Yankees was lovely to watch - Randy Johnson imploding utterly, an A-Gon homer…

What is up with two-game series? One rainout later and the Sox have their first sweep of the Yankees. This was a strange game - balls blowing into the wind, knocked down like flies before the gods, until David Ortiz - who else, right? - did what no one else could, launched a shot that broke through the hurling winds out of the park. Against a lefty, no less. And a lefty specialist like Mike Myers, who till that point had been having a great season for a LOOGY. (Ex-2004 Sox pitchers having great seasons: Pedro, Arroyo, Myers…) Less impressive, but a good sign I thought, was Ortiz beating the shift early on by hitting to the opposite field.

Sometimes the simplicity of the Gameday windows says it all. Sunday mornin’ coming down for me at least, and Foulke and Papelbon are just the thing to ease into the day.

Speaking of painful, yeah, it’s been around, but I thought I might as well put it up here: Game 6 of 1986, recreated in RBI baseball. The Yahoo! Sports article about the process of creating it was quite funny as well.

A painful game. A painful, painful game. Josh Beckett going awry, giving up his first grand slam in 638 career innings. And why was Keith Foulke even in there to mop up? Mike Timlin seemed like the logical choice.

So, DP night, and not in the porn way… Varitek’s baserunning was very, very questionable at the DP where he was caught at home, and two outs on the bases in that weird baserunning moment? You’d think Dale Sveum was back in town.

Um. Care and feeding of mohawks, anyone?

Yeah, no game-by-game analysis here. Mostly because the games have given me the bleahs - always gut-wrenching to lose an extra-innings game, especially when they take the shine off Manny’s first home runs of the season. Had to run off in the 9th of that long game to catch an Earth Day event - am glad I missed that ending, in a way.

So, anyway, during the game, Jerry Remy mentions ESPN, except he pronounces it “Aspen” (which I guess is how people address those two kids named ESPN). But it made me think: Americans always have problems pronouncing my last name - “Sng” - thanks to its lack of vowels, and they usually default to something that sounds like “sing”, which isn’t right. So, next time I meet a Bostonian who needs to figure out how to say my name, I’m going to say the vowel pronounced exactly the same way as the vowel in “NESN”.

Okay, not many thoughts about this game except - is there a lefty pitcher the Sox can hit? And why is it this supposed new look “did you see that catch Coco made?” team all immediately takes on characteristics such as an inability to hit lefties? There’s a psych study in group dynamics there.

“I snow-coned it. I was like, ‘It keeps dying on me.’ I was wondering what the heck was going on,” Stern said. “That’s the way I play sometimes. I take some chances to make some big plays.” (Link)

Wow, the one game in the year which actually starts on the same calendar day in both Singapore and Boston. And what a doozy of a game. The Sox these year - great fun to watch, sure, but well, some days, I could do with getting some sleep or work done silently confident that the Sox had a solid lead.

Being made to look bad by Ted Lilly and Jamie Moyer is one thing. The Sox having traditional lefty issues and all that. But righty Joel Pineiro? Ick. As usual, the Sox had a pitcher on the ropes and couldn’t close the deal. Manny with a slow start to the season. You know how after all the drama of the offseason it was like a new Manny came into spring training? More buff than ever, with a good attitude? Well, screw that. I want spacey, “Manny Being Manny”, loveshittingmoonshotslikeafatkidlovescakes Manny back.

I have to say, 5 saves in, I’m liking the Papelbon fist-pump, and I’m hoping to see more of it. Does he have a good entrance song yet? Haven’t noticed one. Slate was discussing the evolution of entrance songs for closers -I gotta say, I don’t think much of the metal theme (even if metal is popular for movies), or at least of the particular song choices closers have made. G’n’F’n’R… I suppose “Get in the Ring” is too profane. I always thought “Lust For Life” would make for a good song - plus “Here comes Johnny Yen again” would sound nice when Papelbon comes in.