Pitchers and Quarterbacks Report

"If you want to make history," Seymour said, "then you've actually got to forget about history. That might sound confusing, you know, but it's the truth. No one is going to give us anything based on last year or on (2001), when we won (the Super Bowl) for the first time, OK? It's all about right now. It's about this team. And, even though we have a lot of guys back, just look around, this is a new team."

I love being a fan of a team like this. First game's just a summer memory away...

Are you there, Kevin Millar? It's me, Joe.

Dear Colonel,

First off, congrats on the new title. I'm not calling you Kentucky Fried Kevin anymore, because frankly, it doesn't seem to fit. You're the Colonel until you prove that you aren't, or until you stop doing those ridiculous commercials.

I don't know what you did to produce that monster weekend, but I want you to keep doing it. The league decided that, along with Miggy Tejada, you were Player of the Week. Kudos and salutations. Aside from helping the team--which it did, immensely--your newfound prowess keeps me from disliking you. And myself.

See, Colonel, you were one of my favorite pickups last year, when Theo first took over and snatched you away from the Chunichi Dragons. I wasn't as in to the stats portion of baseball yet, so all I looked at was your batting average--at the time, a respectable .290-something. Your power totals were pretty good, too. Nothing that was going to set the world on fire, but eminently respectable. Besides, considering the trouble we had to go through to get you, I figure there had to be something I wasn't seeing.

Your personality, I guess, was what I had missed. For a very long time, the Sox clubhouse was full of surly, unlikable bastards, guys who were very good at playing very badly and whining about it afterwards. I cringed when Nomar, after John Cumberland had been fired, growled in the dugout that "No one wants to fucking play here". The proof was all around him.

Compared to those guys, you were like a cartoon that could hit a fastball. Everything about your presence on the team had a hint of silliness to it; your penchant for changing haircuts on a whim, your dumb-looking (sorry, buddy, it's true, although if it's dumb and works, it isn't dumb) batting stance, and your willingness, even eagerness to talk to the media. You even seemed to understand and get along with Manny. Manny Ramirez, colonel! He's like a goofy Kim Jong-Il!

I don't know how you did it, but it worked. It didn't hurt that you came up with some clutch hits along the way. I was at the Seattle game when you hit a single off of Mike Cameron's glove that won the game for us in the 10th inning, and I think that was about where the Nation really started to like you.

Which made it worse the next season.

The absolute greatest sin in this town is resting on your laurels, which is exactly what you seemed to do at the beginning of this season. Honestly, your statistics weren't that bad, but your appalling lack of RBIs and shoddy defense made you Pokey Reese, if Pokey Reese was as mobile as Ted Kennedy. On a larger scale, I think, the Nation saw you as emblematic of what was wrong with the team; a lack of clutch hitting and a severe lack of true baseball athleticism.

You were, and still are, a leader, Colonel. What you have to understand is that leaders are symbols. It's nice to be a positive symbol, but once you start to falter, it starts to look very lonely on that podium. That and the wolves start glaring at you from the dark.

The wolves are the media, by the way. They've been giving you a beatdown lately, and some of your quotes seemed to display a lack of fire, or intensity. Complacency, if you will, and we despise complacency. You were turning from the Rally Karaoke Guy into Some Asshole.

That's not fair, but it's what we felt.

Now, Colonel, one of the reasons I love baseball so much is the sense of familiarity that comes with following a team. You guys wear open-faced helmets and are stationary for most of the game, so the camera is able to give us a greater piece of your personality than just about any other team sport. It's easy to recognize habits or ticks in a player you've seen at length hundreds of times in the batter's box. This plus the fact that the game is slow-paced enough that we see your interactions with teammates in the dugout means we start to think of you as our friends. Or enemies (See the New York Yankees, current and former editions).

With that comes a fatal flaw; by seeing a bit of your personality, we start to believe that we know your motivations. This is the grief we've given Nomar for the past five years--accusations that, because we think we know him, that we have determined that he does not care. You got a taste of that, and it powerfully sucks.

The only thing that serves as penance is performance. It's better if it's consistent performance, and it's even better if it's against the Yankees.

Four home runs in three games? Raising your OPS a hundred points in a week? That sounds like a man who's decided to carry a team on his back.

Keep it up. Your penance has been served so far, Colonel, but you're not out of the cave yet. You were a symbol for everything that was wrong with this team, but for a time, you were also a symbol of everything that was right with it.

Care to try? I sure won't mind.

-Joe DeMartino
A Fan

P.S. I would highly reccommend a new director next time you do a commercial for KFC. Seriously. It was way too easy to make jokes about you trying to eat a chicken wing, but dropping it and allowing a run to score from third.

Hoo-ah, Master Chief

SabreStewie (8:04:06 PM): BELIEVE
scuromezzo (8:04:10 PM): man...
scuromezzo (8:04:13 PM): I love baseball
scuromezzo (8:04:31 PM): make no mistake about it - that game was dumb as hell
scuromezzo (8:04:35 PM): but I love baseball


Also, as Beth at Cursed and First would say....clemency for Millar. Believe that.

The Medium is the Instant Message

Last night's game, were it an IM conversation between two middle school girls
 
CwbyUp2004:  whatup, son?
IchirosLastStand:  buddy!  whassup on the East Coast?
CwbyUp2004:  not too much.  hey, nice job on the game last night
IchirosLastStand:  lol sorry
CwbyUp2004: s'ok. 
IchirosLastStand:  I really thought u guys were gonna pull it out
CwbyUp2004: lol no way.  I hate winning streaks!  make me soooooo nervous!
IchirosLastStand: lmao
IchirosLastStand: me too.  good thing we haven't had any this year.  BTW, do u want to take Piniero off our hands.
IchirosLastStand: ?
CwbyUp2004: LOL
CwbyUp2004: NO
IchirosLastStand: haha
CwbyUp2004: how bout Guardado?
IchirosLastStand: dude!  that's not funny!
CwbyUp2004: lol sorry
IchirosLastStand: whatever
CwbyUp2004: ok seriously STFU.   you suck, you dont need him
IchirosLastStand: haha, who r u gonna give me?  Lowe?
CwbyUp2004: ...
CwbyUp2004: I hate you.
IchirosLastStand: haha sorry, j/k.  I used to hang with him, u know.
CwbyUp2004: ya, I know. haha
CwbyUp2004: you know, I feel kinda bad
CwbyUp2004: tell you what.
CwbyUp2004: I'll let you win this game tonight.
IchirosLastStand: NO WAY!!!!!!!
IchirosLastStand: r u serious?!?!?!?1!!11!!
CwbyUp2004: totally
IchirosLastStand: dude.  I don't think I can do that.
CwbyUp2004: I insist.
IchirosLastStand: no, thass ok
CwbyUp2004: seriously, go right ahead, score a few runs
IchirosLastStand: ok, I guess so
CwbyUp2004: ok, be back in 5 innings
CwbyUp2004 is idle...
CwbyUp2004 has returned
CwbyUp2004: dude I changed my mind
IchirosLastStand: WTF?
CwbyUp2004: ya, I want to win this game
IchirosLastStand: ...not cool
CwbyUp2004: ya, I know.  sorry dude
IchirosLastStand: don't do that again.  I h8 having my guys stike out.
CwbyUp2004: lol I kno the feeling.
CwbyUp2004: ok, I gotta go.
IchirosLastStand: c u l8ter boi
CwbyUp2004: lol avril

 
CwbyUp2004: lol what's up?
Ripkenisgod: dude, that's lame.

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left R--ah, screw it

I woke up this morning to my father telling me not to bother to read the paper. 
 
"Any reason why?" I asked him.  The Globe didn't have the Sox score--I figured the game just went too late.
 
"They blew it," he said.  Then he gave me a cup of coffee.
 
Mornings are when my blinders are still on, so I didn't start processing what he had said until he had a few sips of coffee and sat down.  I thought for a little bit, and, after going over the particulars of the game, remembering how Seattle just had a fire sale and brought up Larry, Moe, and Bocachica to hold down the fort, I came up with this:
 
"Whuhbuh?"
 
Roughly translated:
 
"They were crusing when I went to bed!  Sure, they missed an opportunity in the first with the bases loaded and one out and a crappy pitcher throwing wild, but this was a game they could win!  They were playing the Mariners!  What the hell happened?"
 
"Foulke blew it in the ninth, and they lost in extra innings."
 
That hit me pretty hard, and I'll tell you why.  I expect Kevin Millar or Derek Lowe or Some Guy From AAA to blow a game with shoddy play.  It's almost expected, and heck, if they don't, it's like a pleasant surprise.  But Keith Foulke, as early as a month and a half ago, had a 0.31 ERA, and was the best assassin on a bullpen that had, for a while, given up no runs in 33 innings.  You're telling me he gives up two home runs with one out in the ninth?
 
"Bull!"
 
My dad shrugged.  "They suck, Joe."
 
By this point, I think, I had stopped blaming the loss entirely on Keith Foulke.   They refused (and yes, I think that's an appropriate word choice here) to take advantage of horrendous pitching, letting Villone off the hook in the first inning after he hit and walked the bases loaded.  Nomar's "swing-at-the-first-pitch" approach doesn't work so well when the guy you're facing hasn't thrown a strike all day.  At very least, try to get a fly ball in the outfield! 
 
I hate when we lose to bad teams.  It's like letting the baddies take away all your health before you face the boss in any video game you'd care to name.  You might as well hit the reset button.

Rage against the Matt Hollowell

I didn't catch Dio's outburst last night; for once, I was confident enough that the Sox would win that I went to bed at a reasonable time.  I saw it on ESPN this morning, however, and it does look pretty bad.  Ortiz is a happy guy, and apparently one of the nicest in the league (recall the last time anyone on the opposing team complained about him?), but when he's angry, it's very easy to imagine him taking someone's throat out with his teeth.
 
Now, here's why I don't mind.
 
Out of all the guys who played on the powerhouse Yankee teams in the late 90's, the guy I hated the most was Paul O'Neill.  Sure, Jeter (Captain Intangibles, as he's derisively called on the Sons of Sam Horn) and Posada were worthy of my ire, but I plain hated O'Neill.  Every time an umpire called a strike against him, he would have something to say about it.  He'd always seem to spit the words out, too, grinding his teeth together and making me hate him even more.  That bitch.
 
Now I'm starting to see parallels between him and Dio.
 
Ugh, it feels wrong even to type that.  Lovable Tizzle, comparable to the worst Yanquis of them all?  But it's true, in some ways.  Dio's got O'Neill's penchant for turning and yapping at the umpires, although I don't hate him when he does it.
 
What this comes down to is that O'Neill and Dio care. 
 
The ultimate baseball sin, especially in Boston, is to look like you don't give a damn.  Dio arguing with and exploding on the umpire last night was a pretty clear indication that that at-bat meant something to him.  Call it selfish (which I don't think it was.  We don't know whether Dio was mad about striking out personally, or sticking up for his teammates and pitcher as a whole, while using his at-bat as a podium), call it stupid (at best, it costs him three games), but never say that David Americo Ortiz doesn't care.
 
Never say, also, that I'm putting Ortiz and O'Neill side by side.  I still think O'Neill was a tool.   Dio's my boy.   Anyhow, maybe the Sox needed one of their own to blow a gasket.  Once they see how much Ortiz cares, maybe the more lackadaisical ones will follow.
 

Too Big for his Bridges

Lakeshore Drive winds past Lake Michigan like a concrete shoreline, hugging it so close that you can hear the smallest wave if the traffic's light enough, which it never is, but it's honestly not that hard to imagine. I'll be travelling on it intermittently when I return to Northwestern in the fall, and I can't help thinking that Nomar will already be there.

I remember watching him in 1997. I was in middle school, and it sucked, powerfully. I was one of the unpopular kids then, awkward and unathletic, your typical quiet nerd who loved watching sports he could barely play. I had spent my evenings in awe of Clemens and Vaughn, Valentin and Greenwell. The older fans reading this might not know, but to we young initiates to the fandom, these guys were the pinnacle of baseball. We slept through '86, and were in kindergarten when Morgan Magic came to town, so the only baseline we had for what a good season looked like was 1995-and we lost pretty quickly in the playoffs that year.

My impressions of these players, then, are inflated beyond what the stats now tell me. In my mind, John Valentin is a Hall of Famer, as is Tim Naehring, Mike Stanley, Troy O'Leary, Lee Tinsley...these were the guys who made me a fan of the Red Sox.

Then they all left.

Clemens was gone in 1996, taking with him a still-golden arm and Dan Duquette's credibility. Vaughn hauled off in 1998, after one of the best years by a Sox hitter in a long time. Tinsley and Stanley's careers crapped out, Naehring's knee betrayed him, and Reggie Jefferson never lived up to his promise. All my heroes were leaving me, and now that the veneer of youthful idealism was wearing off, their replacements were a poor comparison. Ladies and gentlemen, Wilfredo Cordero.

Those guys made me a fan. Nomar kept me one.

I turned on the TV one day, and John Valentin was at third base. I didn't recognize the guy playing shortstop, taking Johnny's place. Tall, razor-thin, eagle's beak of a nose...no, definitely not John Valentin. What was going on here?

I don't remember who was up at bat, but he hit a quick ground ball between second and third, the kind that Johnny, bless his heart, would always try but never get to. I had almost written it off as a hit when this new guy came streaking into the picture. As he stretched out his glove hand to, impossibly, scoop up the ball, I saw a red number 5 on the back of his jersey.

Then, like he would a million times afterwards, Nomar snapped upright, jumped, and fired his cannon arm towards first. Inning over.

Much as I respected him, suddenly John Valentin was forgotten. This guy...this guy might be something.

Much of the familiar cast came around within a few years of Nomar's first monster season. Tek and Trot were playing regularly by 1999, as were Pedro and Lowe. I had new heroes, and reasons to start caring again. Like I said, Nomar kept me a fan.

Now he might be just another in a long line of stars who left this town a little bit tarnished, red dwarves instead of supernovas. He might be going to Chicago. Which team he's part of is irrelevant. He won't be our guy anymore.

I'll be living in Chicago, so I'll get to see him play almost every day. Wrigley's not so different from Fenway, you know. They care as much as we do. Maybe all he needs is a change of scenery. Maybe all we need is Randy Johnson.

Maybe we'll re-sign him at the end of this season. But I doubt it.

When it comes to optimism or pessimism, I always run screaming towards pessimism. It's like Ozzy Osbourne said once, actually fairly lucid for a change..."I'm a pessimist because if something goes wrong, I expect it. If something goes right, it's like...a pleasant surprise".

Too many bridges burned here. In Chicago, Lake Michigan's too big for bridges in the first place.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

Adam: Wade Boggs used to eat whole chickens, man! I swear, they'd show him break the chicken's neck, pluck it, toss it into the pot, and then eat the whole damn thing!

Me: That explains a lot. Maybe he absorbed the chicken's life force.

Marc: Wonder what Pokey Reese eats?

(pause)

Steve: Unicorns.


Yeah, Unicorns. You heard it. How the hell else can he do what he does?

Longer entry later. I promise.

Smile as the robots stomp their way to freedom

Here's how I know the season's going well.

Friends of mine, particularly those who sat with me in my room during the 2003 playoffs, know very well how angry I can get at a game when things aren't kosher.

"You tool!," I'd shout, when Todd Walker misplayed a ground ball, or Tek whiffed with the bases loaded. "What the flying hell are they paying you for, you unspeakable bastard!?" Then I'd either storm around the room, rich in vengeance and looking for an blood, or flop down on my bed, exhausted, like the game itself prevented me from standing. About this time, everyone would leave. They had the right idea.

So when Derek Lowe, as is his wont, failed to get out of an inning where his defense let him down, as is their wont, I was surprised at myself when I didn't explode.

"Iss cool, esse," I though to myself. "We'll get 'em back."

And we (well, they. I had jack shit to do with it) did.

I once read a translation of a Spanish-language Red Sox story that described Manny and Ortiz as "massive artillerymen". Tonight, even without Dio's presence ((Myself and my friend Adam, both loving metal music way too much, call David Ortiz "Dio", after Ronnie James Dio, famous for horrifically bad outfits and replacing Ozzie Osbourne after he left Black Sabbath. It's a bit of a stretch, but I like it), the Sox looked like giant killer robot war machines, mechwarrioring their way to 14 runs. I shouldn't get too optimistic, 'cause any game that features John Wasdin inevitably also features outfielders looking helplessly upward at out-of-reach bombs.

But still. Tonight's game made me smile. Isn't that what's supposed to happen?

Setting the Borders

Games like this always remind me a little of Rome.

The beginning: bombastic and warlike. A conquering people establish dominance in short order, smashing down their enemies while building the beginnings of an empire. Their bullpen coach makes fun of a bobbled catch by a Spanish-language announcer. All is right in the Mediterranean.

It's when the empire builds what seems to be an insurmountable advantage and sets the borders that everything starts to go wrong. People forget that Rome was doing alright until it stopped conquering.

Oh, sure, it starts off small. A homerun by an overwhelmingly dimwitted, curly-haired left-fielder (and no, I'm not talking about Manny). A few legions lost to barbarians in the forest. A little bit of paunch in the eagle standard. Those seven runs, like the seven hills of Rome, are still impregnable. Right?

You lose another couple of legions, and your citizens stop innovating and start eating. Your closer is making jokes in the bullpen.

A few runs later, your closer has blown a save, and the barbarians are ransacking the Senate.

Hold on a minute, though, or at least another inning. The Empire never really fell, you see, it just kinda split in two. The Western half descended into barbarism, but the Byzantines, in Constantinople, lasted another thousand years. Their greatest emperor? Guy by the name of Justinian.

Our greatest savior? Johnny Damon.

With a little help from Bill Mueller and Mark Kotsay, of course.

OK, so the metaphor's a little mixed. But, hey, we're tied for first in the Wild Card race, and slowly gaining back what we lost to the Yankees.

Roma Victor, si?

First Fandom

I can't remember the first Red Sox game I ever watched.

I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that, on a magical spring afternoon, I entered the secular church on Yawkey Way and, my young eyes blazing with wonder, fell in love with the Sox. That might have been the way it happened, but it's equally likely that I fell into a rhythm of watching games on sleepy Sunday afternoons to put off doing my homework. There's too much haze surrounding the first seven manic years of your life to remember a single event, unless it was especially traumatic.

I remember breaking my leg, for instance. Not much else. It sticks out in my mind because, frankly, it hurt like nothing has ever hurt before. I had a spiral break of my right leg that left my doctors thinking I might not walk again. I came through it alright, though I've never been accused of being speedy.

Anyhow, you remember the really bad stuff. I think I'm lucky, then, that I can't remember that game.

You know which one I'm talking about.

I was two at the time, and asleep. My dad wasn't. He saw the whole blasted thing, start to finish, with a dedication born of hope and the lack of a remote control. When it happened, his reaction, from what he told me more than fifteen years afterwards, was sadness. He couldn't sleep that night.

That should be obvious enough, right? Your team blows the best chance it has had in years, perhaps the only chance in your lifetime it'll ever have, and to make matters worse, does it in the worst bloody way possible. What are you supposed to do?

I always thought that, had I seen that game, my reaction would be anger. I am a furious fan. Watching a game with me is the equivalent of debating evolution with Carl Everett; completely illogical, and I might swear at you. I can't enjoy any part of a loss. When they're losing (I also fall victim to this bad habit: We are winning, but they have lost), I hate everyone and everything involved with the production, conduct, and concept of baseball. I despise the umpires--lousy mooks are in Steinbrenner's back pocket. I despise the cameramen, for tricking me into thinking a long fly ball is a homerun rather than an out. I reserve my worst loathing for the announcers--I'm looking at you, Tim McCarver. Honestly, I don't think it's healthy.

So when my own personal heartbreak came, alone in a dorm room, watching Aaron Boone's home run ball sail into the night, I turned off my television not with anger, but with sadness. I think I had just given up.

So, after having a drink with the resident true Cubs fan in my hall, I called my dad. Having come late to the Fandom, I had never heard what Lou Gorman had to say, way back when my dad was my age, maybe as hot-blooded and fanatical about this bloody team as I am now.

"Joe," he said, sounding surprisingly lucid considering the ordeal and the late hour, "The sun will rise, the sun will set, and I'll have lunch."

True that, Dad, but you also told me what someone else said about this team.

"Baseball in Boston isn't a matter of life or death. It's bigger than that."

Which is it?

Tonight, the Red Sox will start the second half of their 2004 season. Winning this series might set the tone of the rest of the year, and may decide whether they get into the playoffs or not. Then again, it might mean nothing.

Could be, maybe, it's both. I still haven't had lunch yet.