Sports Writing

Oh yeah, don’t forget to write in Ortiz for 1B into your All-Star ballots. Something in me says that even if the write-in votes aren’t enough, Ortiz should be featured on that final “30th Man” ballot (the one that got Damon and Varitek named as All-Stars)…

Great win by a sleep-deprived Wakefield. His last name’s like a partial description of his life now: Change diaper. Go back to sleep. Wake. Field. Back home. Repeat. Also nice to see David “Double-O” Ortiz’s twin doubles. I’ve come to expect them doubles by now. Here’s a marvelous quote from him:

More time to digest this morning / last night’s game: Pedro seems to have found a way to get rid of his cold-weather blues. Now, whether those blues are a physical thing, an annoyance that affects his mental game, or just a convenient excuse is a subject of further study. And a Manny ball lands in Lansdowne again. Man, someday some driver on the Turnpike is going to get a ball through his or her windscreen. I can see why they call his homers moon shots - one smooth swing for Manny, one giant leap for Manny’s kind.

RIP Doug Pappas.

I still get a laugh from Debbie Clemens’ website. Those photos of Roger and her at the bottom of the front page are a hoot. And I’m amused by the $100+ cushions, autographed by the Rocket. There’s a market for that? I guess eBay has shown there’s a market for everything…

Quick thoughts on the game: Keith Foulke is the most economical closer I’ve seen. And Pokey, Pokey - nice 9th inning snag. I really don’t know how to resolve the Pokey-Bellhorn logjam when Nomar comes back… I thought it was weird bring on an unproven player like Nasty Martinez (okay, I don’t know if that’s his real nickname, but it should be) in a tie game, but he survived the baptism of fire nicely… Mirabelli is finally DHing against lefties! Brilliant. Poor Ortiz, first game after signing a contract (yay!) and he gets left off the starting lineup. Pinch-hitting Kapler for Dauber and Dauber for McCarty seems an exercise in futility.

You’ve heard of ‘roid rage? Apparently there’s ‘roid age too: With one out in the ninth, Yankees designated hitter Jason Giambi left the game after sustaining an injury, apparently to his right ankle, while rounding first base on a hit to right field. Giambi, who has been bothered lately by problems with his left knee, left hip and back, was clearly in pain.

Many thanks to all who’re dropping in via Boston Sports Media Watch. Took a look at my traffic and was surprised to see such a jump. The compliments are much appreciated - nice to know I’m not talking in a vacuum! Or maybe it’s just that the Boston Sports Media mafia have put off people so much that people like to read opinions from as far from Boston as they can get.

Sinker: Lowe, Lowe, Lowe. Lowe’s pitching is like some sort of Biblical cycle: 7 years of feast, 7 years of famine. And his body language smacked of ‘01. Lowe looks like the kind of guy who can’t stop focusing on what’s going wrong. It’s like he’s a pitching savant: his sinker works, but he doesn’t know why, so he can’t adjust it accordingly. So maybe the solution is to restore him back to a Zen mood. Maybe instead of a chat on the mound, we need Francona to bring in one of new portable PlayStations. Damon can play him.

Who doesn’t love Randy Johnson after Game 6 and Game 7 of the 2001 World Series? In this Boston Globe story on Pedro and Schilling’s reactions to Randy Johnson’s perfect game, Pedro’s quote is quite interesting:

Man. So Manny was DHing with a sore groin today? What’s with the variety of injuries on this Sox team? Let’s look at the foot up: Achilles - Nomar Left knee - Burks

No, not the caveman look. Spent last night in the hospital observation ward no thanks to my klutziness - while playing with the dog at obedience school I got up and banged my head on a low-lying shelf, and so got treated for concussion. Great. I’m at home now, but postings may be a bit less frequent. Tough loss for Pedro.

Youklis!!!! A pleasant surprise to see the Greek God of Walks in the lineup today, and how awesome is it that he hit a HR in his first game? The Youklis-Bellhorn combination seems designed to just annoy people by taking pitches and running up pitch counts.

Grrr. Today’s game. Slop all around. People looked tired. It’s a strong argument for getaway day games to be, well, day games. Grrr. I know people are saying DiNardo in the 6th wasn’t a good choice, but why not? Hindsight’s 20/20 (or 6/6 as we metric users like to say), of course, but DiNardo wasn’t pitching badly prior to this game and it’s not like Embree was much better.

Fascinating article in the Boston Globe on the issues with BK. It seems that BK is the anti-Pierzynski. Where the Giants’ catcher seems to be disliked for playing cards when he’s supposed to be going through the lineup, the issue with BK is that he works out so fanatically to the point where teammates like Damon just want him to relax and play PlayStation:

ESPN has a piece on the recent explosion of young catchers. Why do some positions get hot? In the 90s, shortstop suddenly became a superstar position in the AL - Nomar, A-Rod, Jeter - and, assuming those highlighted by the article (Gerald Laird, Johnny Estrada, Miguel Olivo, Victor Martinez, Joe Mauer) do blossom, it seems another defence-oriented position may be in for a power upgrade. As an economics graduate, one wonders whether it’s a supply-and-demand thing…

So we started the season with powerful pitching performances, but lately the Sox have been such teases. There’s now winning a la 2003 with last at-bats and late-inning heroics. What seems more common this year is, sadly, games like today’s, where a late 9th-inning rally gets extinguished just when the going gets good.

The Johnsons, Jones, and Jacksons (a largely NL team) C Charles Johnson, Rockies 1B Nick Johnson, Expos 2B Damian Jackson, Cubs 3B Chipper Jones, Braves SS hmm… can’t come up with one

Double-takes at the box score every morning! C: J Valentin, Reds 1B: A Gonzalez, Rangers 2B: Luis Gonzalez, Rockies 3B: Matos, Expos SS: Alex Gonzalez, either the Cubs or the Marlins :)

Sometimes it’s funnier to read a game report in translation: The emergent batter David McCarty connected an impelling triple of two races that broke the deadlock the party and the Dominican Pedro Martinez poncho to 11 so that the Red Averages of Boston last night overcame 5-3 to the Indians of Cleveland.