Sports Writing

Manny is going to be such a Fenway favourite just for offering to defer his salary for the Sox to keep Pedro. I know, it’s only a deferment, but it’s still a generous offer. At this rate he’ll approach Fisk/Yaz levels of Fen-love. You know, in between his website, his newfound willingness to talk to the media (and the quite-endearing humility he shows), his running out bases hard (okay, we’ll let occasional brain freezes go), Manny is doing everything perfectly. What happened? How does a guy get put on waivers, almost get traded away, and come back not just all right but a seemingly truly happy camper?? Maybe he just can’t hold a grudge. Maybe in the magic run of last October, for the first time since he’s been in Boston, he’s realised how great a baseball town Boston in the postseason can be. (I remember that night in 1999 when Pedro stepped to the mound in the ALDS and no-hit the Indians. I don’t remember a city ever feeling so electric.)

Sigh. Let’s not talk about the 4-game skid, shall we? Even this cut-rate blog gets more hits then the Sox at the moment. An amusing story from ESPN: “Alou says the secret to hitting without batting gloves is to harden your hands and prevent calluses. One of his methods might win someone the prize money on the TV show, “Fear Factor.” He urinates on his hands. That’s the honest truth. Alou said he isn’t sure where he learned this distasteful folk medicine, but it wasn’t from his famous father. And it works for Moises.” Great. What do his teammates think when they win and have to do the hand-slapping thing? And who gets the job of picking up his bat after he gets a hit? I guess when Alou strikes out, he gets pissed off.

Incidentally, I don’t agree with the implication that since he’s earning $17.5 million Pedro should shut up and “know his place”, because the ownership has so generously given him money. Bull. The ownership pays him $17.5 million not because they’re kind-hearted, but because they (or at least, whoever negotiated the previous contract) believe that’s at least how much he can bring in to the club - in terms of sales of Martinez 45 jerseys, extra Fenway tickets if he pitches well enough to bring the Sox into the post-season. $17.5 million is a lot of money, but just because he’s paid well doesn’t mean he must shut up. (Now, as to whether speaking out - and risking the bad PR - was a good tactic, we shall see.)

Dan Shaughnessy is back to his usual Pedro-hatin’ form, although it was good to see the self-deprecation that came with it, acknowledging that his role on the Boston Globe rotation is to be the complainer, the one for whom nothing is ever good enough.

If the rule was ‘don’t get too excited’ about the sweep of the Yankees, the inverse should be true too: losing two to Texas shouldn’t cause a Tobin Bridge crowd.

Can’t talk much. Losing both ends of a doubleheader will do that to you.

Man, tough loss. I figured the bullpen would eventually cough up a run or two, but I was hoping that it would be a tail-end-of-a-blowout cough, not a lose-the-lead, blow-the-save moment. Arroyo looked sharp, but still I don’t blame Francona for going to the bullpen - who would? (Francona’s hook has been good since that Schilling grand-slam game. Hope that doesn’t change.) Man, I love that our long man would be an effective 5th starter on other staffs. Good to let Scott Williamson pitch the 8th after that bad 7th - hopefully it restored some of his confidence.

Pedro fires off a salvo saying the Sox have dissed him in contract negotiations. General mood seems to be that this is merely a negotiating tactic, which I agree with. What worries me is his diss of Larry Lucchino:

Shit happens.

Where-is-Ro-ger? *clap clap clap clap clap* Actually, Roger’s probably taking a curtain call or two… Clemens is 5-0, and at this pace a Cy Young looks possible, nay, likely. And good to see the Padres - the other team that honours Ted Williams - doing so well. Combined with the opening of Petco, it must be a great boost for the franchise.

Rain again! My word. We get monsoons over here in Singapore, so I know from continual rain, but this is silly. It’s like a monsoon ambles along with the Sox plane. Good thing we carry 12 pitchers. While momentum is hot I hope the game gets underway or a quick makeup date is arranged…

What is this crap on “productive outs” that ESPN is trying to foist on us anyway? (Note the attempt to get the phrase “productive outs” linked to refutations of the statistic. Time to start the Googlebombing.) Advancing someone with a groundout seems more like a making-lemonade-out-of-lemons kind of thing, not something players are actively seeking to do. It’s nice to win a 3-2 game using 3 sac flies, but a high-OBP team would always have chances of doing that…

Watched the Manny Ramirez / Gordon Edes interview at Boston.com last night. Great stuff - Manny is really likeable. I love the way he says “Thanks God” for “Thank God”, both in the interview and on his website. Overall he strikes me as really sincere. And yeah, it’s sad that the journos are now falling at his feet just because he’s decided to give good quote, but on the other hand, who isn’t inclined to be nicer to someone who makes your job easier?

Oh, dear. Derek Lowe, performing way below expectations for a Sox pitcher - one earned run. Tsk tsk. Whatever shall we do? :) Good to see Kim back and in form, although the ESPN headline is really quite a sad reflection on how people perceive Kim (or rather, how people perceive the Fenway crowd perceives Kim): “Crowd cheers Kim”. Lots of second-guessing on Sons of Sam Horn on Francona’s choice of relievers, but I quite like how they’re being used… Embree for Timlin in Game 1 was somewhat odd, but it also had the nice ring of “whatever, I could close my eyes and point to someone random in the bullpen, and they’ll still no-hit you”. At this point, the bullpen has so much confidence even the guy who was attacked by Karim Garcia could probably come out and pitch 2 innings.

So, Schilling was wicked awesome, and Tek and Bellhorn were great too. So now the Sox haven’t surrendered a run since Saturday afternoon, and the bullpen is on some sick number of not just shutout but no-hit innings. 11 or so?

Watching Sox-DRays right now… thought it was funny when they played Remy Zero’s “Save Me” when Sweet Lou went to the bullpen for the second time. Bellhorn is really a human Questec. And who knew Rey Sanchez, of all people, would have the nicest car when he was with the Sox? Ah, NESN, how I love thee.

Visited the Beer and Whiskey site today, and atop he has the reason for his site’s name - the NL banned alcohol in 1881, and tried to insult the AL by calling it the Beer and Whiskey League. Just thinking how funny this is given that the NL now has 1) the Brewers (admittedly an AL transplant), 2) Coors Field, 3) Busch Stadium, and 4) Miller Park. I can’t think of an AL franchise/ballpark that has associations with alcohol in its name. C’est la vie, said the old folks, goes to show you never can tell…

The news that Dauber’s back makes me happy. Oh yes, as someone pointed out, the timestamp of my posts shows Singapore time. To convert to EST, just change the “AM"s to “PM"s and vice versa. Or would people like to know the future…? I once took a flight from Singapore to Boston on New Year’s Eve, going via Europe. Celebrated the New Year about six times or so! Mmm, champagne. Or “sham-pug-nay”, a la Christopher Walken.

Kim’s back, and because of last night’s rainout they’re putting in Kim to start for a few innings then Wakefield as the long reliever. (Of course, Kim could pitch a 75-pitch complete game, heh.) When I first heard this I thought, man, they’re abusing Wakefield’s versatility again, but then apparently Wake was the one who volunteered. What a guy.

No game today so I watched bits of the Oakland - Y*nk**s game. Man, that 8th inning was brutal to Oakland. Pitching seems so ephemeral sometimes: one day you have it, your pitch is called one of the top 10 in baseball (hello, Jim Mecir!), and the next day it all ends in tears. It was one of those death-by-a-thousand-cuts innings: mucho scoring on singles, walks, ground-outs, with the lone extra-base hit a Ruben Sierra double. Schadenfreude update: Yankee defence still is awful though, and Bernie Williams really has lost speed in centre. (Actually, this isn’t really just gloating… it’s quite sad to see a player in decline. Like watching Rickey with the Sox.) Plus, Jeter is still hitless. (Okay, that was gloating.)