Sports Writing

Baseball sometimes seems like one of those Zen things… today’s Globe has two articles, one on Manny’s relaxed state and one on how Foulke really doesn’t watch baseball. Gotta be relaxed.

I know they say April is the cruelest month (why does everyone know this Eliot line? why is it scorched indelibly in the collective unconscious?), but I would really love this month to be the start of inflicting further cruelty on the AL…

It’s the off-day, but what a lovely off-day - time to sit back and soak in the sweep’s warm glowing warming glow (to paraphrase the Simpsons - I wonder how much of my life was spent in front of those Fox 25 reruns?). When Dan Shaughnessy sounds positively happy and when the Noo Yawk Post starts to sound alarmed, it’s a beautiful Tuesday morning. I know, it’s only April, the Yankees will eventually hit and Contreras will eventually pitch against impatient opponents who don’t frighten him. (There, there. They’re gone now.) But I’ll savour the moment while it lasts.

Here’s something on the Curse of A-Rod. Facetious, obviously, but still funny.

I’ve concluded I’ll keep doing this “watch a few innings then go to sleep thinking of a score”. Last night I caught the first inning, saw that Pedro looked fine (admittedly, no one seemed to be chasing balls outside the strike zone - was that because Tek was so obviously setting up outside?), and went to sleep thinking 2-0, Pedro goes 6. Almost right - who knew Pedro would throw a 7-pitch 7th? Got the right score 2 days in a row, so this superstition stays.

The Sox are really profligate about leaving men on base this season. Maybe the OBP emphasis leads the team to forget that the point of OBP is to bring those on base home? :) The 0-for-19 with runners in scoring position was pretty pitiful, as was the box score at ESPN.com showing a total of 31 left on base. (Granted, some of those 31 is double-counting, but still…)

Classic problem of watching day games for me: 1.05pm EST is 1.05am over here in Singapore. So I only caught the first two innings, happily noted Kevin Brown’s struggles and Arroyo’s willingness to challenge hitters inside, was quite pleased, but forced myself to go sleep. Woke up to use the bathroom and saw the game was in the 7th inning, tied 2-2, with Williamson coming in to take Arroyo’s place. Saw Torre pinch-run for Giambi and was very pleased - as long as Williamson got out of the inning I figured the game would hit extra innings and it’d be nice to have Giambi’s bat taken away. My heart was pounding like crazy, 2nd and 3rd with only 1 out, but I saw Bernie come to the plate and I figured Williamson would either strike him out or induce a weak grounder. Weak grounder, double play, end of inning. Brilliant. Pumped my fist and almost let out a shout before realising that my housemates wouldn’t take kindly to me screaming at 4am. I went back to sleep, thinking, 3-2 in extra innings, 3-2 in extra innings - and what do you know, when I get up, a lovely 3-2 score awaited me. Nice to know the bullpen this year lets me get a good night’s rest.

I figured there wasn’t much overlap between those interested in my reportage of life in Singaporeand the other miscellany of my blog and my ardent following of all things Sox, so I started a separate blog to capture my thoughts on the Sox. So, here goes.

Talk about small sample sizes… you can start voting for the baseball All-Star Game now! So now Manny has one vote, at least… the game’s at Minute Maid Park. Why is the brand Minute Maid called thus? I like to think of it as “minute”, pronounced “MAI-nyute”, and visualise a diminutive domestic helper, bearing glasses of OJ.

Some hopeful Yankee fan at ESPN has the Yankees leading the AL East, and indeed seems to have been watching a different set of April games from everyone else. This is ESPN’s version of April:

Signed up with MLB.tv to watch the baseball games. The connection’s good with my cable connection, not as good with my DSL one, but hell - the ability to watch my beloved Sox destroy the Yankees, even when I’m 12 time zones ahead is amazing. That’s literally half the world away…

So, a day in baseball arrived when the Tigers, the D-Rays, the Mets, and the Brewers were all in first place. Ah, the joys of small sample sizes.