Sports Writing

Since Singapore Sox Fan tends to be a bit verbose, I thought I’d add some pictures here and there for spice. This is by Mathew Honan. His website also has pics of Singapore for those of you who want to know where I’m coming from.

I got the world on a string Sitting on a rainbow Got the string around my finger What a world, what a life - the Sox won. So… just how much did Theo and Lucchino pay Contreras back in that hotel room in Nicaragua?

Also, dumb Tim McCarver comment today on Derek Jeter being booed after the brawl: “I don’t think they’re booing the man, they’re booing the symbol”. Um, no, I think they were ALL booing the man. I’m sure even Yankee fans know that Jeter’s the centre for all hatred of the Spankees.

Some days, it’s great to be a Sox fan. It’s great to have stayed up the whole night. It’s great to have hope, to see the sun shine as Bill “the Professional” Mueller launches a walkoff homer out. What a game. What a game. Brawls, ejections, 2 perfect Ramiro Mendoza innings, and to top it all off a Mariano Rivera blown save and loss.

Ask and ye shall receive. Game rained out. Although admittedly, I was hoping it was tomorrow’s game, not today’s. Arroyo’s hot, hot, hot. Will they push his start back? And since this prediction thing was going right, why not say I think the Sox will take the next few games from the Yankees and the Orioles?

Sometime in the next stretch of games, perhaps the best thing that could happen is for rain and for our starters to get a rest. Schilling and Pedro got hit hard in their last two starts, so it’s time for #3-#5 to step it up. Arroyo’s next.

Hi everybody! (Hi Dr Nick!) And a warm welcome to those visiting from SoSH. Just a minor non-Sox announcement. Singapore Sox Fan now has its own domain name. So those of you linking here or trying to find the site can just type www.singaporesoxfan.com instead of the ungainly old URL (although that still works). You are, of course, welcome to visit my main blog. Y’all be good now.

Sigh. Kevin Millar hits 3 home runs in a bid for redemption, tie game, top of the 9th, and nothing doing. Why couldn’t Tek hit a sac fly? Why do the Sox mock us by putting runners in scoring position and not bringing them home? Why must life be so hard? Why must I fail at every attempt at masonry?

Jayson Stark has a piece on the Expos moving to DC. Really. Perhaps. Definitely maybe. But really, the Expos should have a permanent home, instead of being MLB’s paid barnstormers. Can they bring along Youppi!?

Flipping through the Sox’s batting stats and realised, Derek Lowe has a higher OPS (.750) than Daubach, Mueller, Kapler, McCarty, or Reese. Ah, the wonders of small sample size (4 ABs, 1 double). One of the few good things going for him this season.

The beautiful thing about competitive balance? The Sox lose 2 out of 3 to the Orioles, and have gained a half game in the Wild Card standings. Back to my earlier point about it being better to be lucky than to be good.

I’m putting up a variation of a post I put on SoSH: I do think a large part of this season’s poor play is bad luck. But the hard part about taking it out on luck is that we as people are conditioned to blame people for things that happen. It’s a variation of the Fundamental Attribution Error. Maybe blaming lets us have more control. Better for our psyches to blame others, rather than to weep and wail at the Fates. Better to have a target, than to see ourselves as subjects of the sport of the baseball gods, like some Greek tragic hero beset by woes. So when bad luck happens, we spin around and look for someone to point fingers to, because it’s much better to feel like someone screwed up rather than to feel like a malevolent amorphous force like “Luck” is against us. It’s unfair, but it makes us feel good.

Why am I not surprised that this team split a doubleheader? .500 ball. Still I’d rather it go this way (lose, then win) than that doubleheader against the Rays in 2002. July 23, 2002, almost exactly 2 years ago: Sox go 22-4 to win the first game (Willie Banks, amazingly, gets a save in an 18-run victory), then lose 5-4 in the second on a 5-run 9th inning. Pedro and Lowe were both in the running for the Cy Young, the team was full of expectations, but somehow that for me was deflating, possibly the turning point of the season. This time round we end with a shutout victory that wasn’t a pitching gem, but I’ll take it.

You know how they say “if they play .500 ball the rest of the season, the team will be 90-72”? I think the Sox are taking it too literally. Abe Alvarez pitching like it was double-A. Nice pick by Tek in the 1st, though.

Win, lose, win, lose. If this procession keeps up we better hope to have home-field advantage in the playoffs. As noted earlier, Pedro is shite against the Orioles this season. The Orioles disgust me, if only because they always, always play the Sox hard and roll over for the Y*nk**s. And Karim Garcia’s presence on the team adds to my disgust. I hope the Expos move to Washington and steal their market. And I can’t believe Newhan’s inside-the-parker: Manny was the cut-off man? Crazy stuff.

It’s better to be lucky than to be good, as Derek Lowe showed today. Okay, I know, balls lost in the sun, balls dropping in badly, thumb giving him issues, that sort of thing, but still to give up 9 hits and 2 walks and come out with the win - lucky, lucky, lucky. So Lowe gets an 8-9 record even with a 5.75 ERA, and poor 12-K Bronson Arroyo languishes at 3-7 with a sub-4 ERA. But then Lowe was lucky in 2003 too. If a pitcher gets lots of run support consistently throughout his career, even when the other pitchers on his team don’t seem to, does that mean anything?

What, or what, did Boston do to the Boone family? 12 Ks and Bronson yet again has nothing to show for it. It’s the hard-knock life.

Spahn and Sain and pray for rain? Hey, those Boston Braves are so 20th century. How about Schilling and Pedro and then a tornado? Sox 6, Angels 2, and a 2-2 series split is a good result on the road. Hey, if the Sox keep up their Fenway record I’m happy with .500 on the road.

Good piece in the most recent New York Times Magazine on the fate of Matt Harrington, the first-round draft pick who never did sign and never did get his $4 million signing bonus. He’s stacking shelves at a Target now and pitches for $800 a month. Life’s funny that way. If you hit the jackpot, you have to grab it.

Here’s a stat you’ll see in tomorrow’s papers: Boston is 23-29 when neither Pedro Martinez nor Curt Schilling starts. When one of them pitches, the Red Sox are 26-11. To which I say: does anyone remember the D-Backs’ 2002 rotation beyond Randy Johnson and Schilling? No, I thought not. .500 from #3-#5 is quite acceptable. Arroyo and Wakefield seem capable of giving us that. As for Lowe… let’s just say I’m glad his next start is against a weak team like Seattle. I know everyone was complaining that the rotation should have been set up so that Pedro faces the MFYs, but I thought the bigger issue was that if we had started post-All Star Break with Pedro, we get Pedro vs the Ms, whom he owns, and Lowe vs the Os, whom Pedro hasn’t dominated this season (splits say: 11IP, 9ER against the Os this season, which interestingly is exactly the same as Lowe’s).