Sports Writing

Why did I not keep Kazmir on my fantasy keeper team? Which left me with absolutely nothing to celebrate about Kazmir’s general continual dominance of the Sox. Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir is going to go down as one of those legendary lopsided trades.

I actually want to get worked up about Mark Redman being included on the AL All-Star roster (do you think he even had an All-Star bonus clause in his contract?) but not Liriano, but I understand the principle of having each team represented (Grudzielanek probably a better choice). On the other hand, Nomar being screwed over upsets me.

Did you see that catch that Coco made? (Check out the version with the Japanese commentary.)

Embedded Red Sox. What can I say? :)

Pedro’s return - what can I say? I watched the NESN press conference where he talked about the Sox being family… man, no one ‘got’ playing for Boston like Pedro did.

It was a long break from posting here, I admit: I was away on my army reserve commitments (mandatory military service for all males here in Singapore) so I’ve only just caught up. But David Ortiz’s walk-off hits are going beyond ridiculous. It’s reached the point that I realised the Sox message boards weren’t even fully gushing - of course he hit a walkoff, that’s what he does. Or is that ‘He’ with the capital, deity-indicating H?

Papelbon’s ERA+ now stands at 1889. 4 digits. 4 freakin’ digits. 1889 isn’t an ERA+, it’s the year the Meiji Constitution was adopted and the year the Eiffel Tower went up.

Yeah, I still try to watch part of all the games, it’s just hard to do game-by-game reviews. So I’m doing series reviews. Great sweep of the Braves, made sweeter by the Yankee bullpen implosion of the last couple of games.

Speaking of TV feeds, the funniest moment this season for me was watching NESN on MLB.tv and them leaving the mikes on between innings instead of cutting to commercial - suddenly you heard Jerry Remy going “Wanna be an ice girl Ash? Skate around in your big white skates and your little short dress?”

Someone on SoSH was complaining that in soccer (I still can’t quite say “soccer” - it has that whiff of upper-class boarding school about it) that the TV doesn’t show you the strategy (of where the other players are in relation to the ball), and I was thinking, that’s not true of the coverage I’m seeing - which is a British feed. If done right, you definitely should be able to get a sense of strategy.

Um: Sox got swept. So badly that Theo did what seems like a hasty move and got Javier Lopez (the pitcher - Javy Lopez the catcher would’ve been great) for David Riske. Mirabelli for Bard redux? I hope not. Plus a no-name like Jason Kubel got key homers. And two weird incidents involving the Metrodome - the ‘ghost ball’ that Coco Crisp hit foul that never came back, and Ortiz’s speaker home-run-turned-single. Crap on a stick.

Meanwhile, as Jere points out, that Melky Cabrera catch off that Manny almost-homer might have been the best thing possible - it made the Yankees trot out Melky even though he hasn’t done squat since, except collide with Johnny Damon to let Nick Swisher get an inside the parker and miss the Dan Johnson game-winning homer.

On completely unrelated news, KC turned a triple-play. I like rare baseball occurences… like the triple play. (If you catch this one, it’s a doozy - if I’m scoring right, it’s sort of an 8-1-6-5 play)

Another random link: Hot Sox Chick, a T-shirt-hawkin’ site. Now, I won’t pass any judgements of the hotness of said “chicks”. But surely if you claim to be a Sox fan you don’t say your position is “4B”.

Meanwhile, I hate it when you get all pumped up from the first game of a doubleheader, and then the second one lets all the air out. Reminds me of that day in 2002 when the Sox won the first 22-4 (Nomar: 8 RBIs on his birthday; Willie Banks: cheapest save of the year) and then collapsed in the second.

Sometimes, I think when we call him Papi it is not the familiar ‘father’, but Father, capital F, deity-like. Statistical interlude: Ortiz has at least one game-ending home run in each of the last five seasons (2002-2006), the longest streak for any player since Fred McGriff hit walkoff homers in each of five straight years from 1993-97 (for the Padres and Braves). [Link]

Hey, “You’re With Me, Leather” has a Wikipedia page all to itself. Ah, Chris Berman’s penchant for catchphrases comes back to bite him. Oh, I’m supposed to talk about the game now? Frankly, in between working the weekend and watching England-Paraguay in football and trying to figure out when in the world ANY game would get in, I’m surprised I even caught the last few innings. So - Lester’s outing - okay, not a hotshot debut, but control’s always been one of his issues.

“Dirty Water” the song, that is - the product, while tasting like water, tastes like clean water: The song “Dirty Water” blares at Fenway Park after every Red Sox victory and has become part of the winning soundtrack of baseball-crazy Massachusetts. The band that wrote the 1966 hit says it is used in Budweiser commercials, and the rock ’n’ rollers are none too happy.

Hey, there’s a Red Sox dating site. (Found via Obstructed Seats.) Although it makes me think of that bit in Fever Pitch (the book) where Nick Hornby gets all angsty about his girlfriend/wife becoming an avid Arsenal fan because then who takes care of the kid when they go to the games?

Talk about Papel infallibility - Jonathan P. comes in and blows his first save, recovers his cool, and Ks the side next inning to get the win. Sweet work by Trotman this game, although I still don’t see why Youks is 7th in the order.