Bambino's Curse

Guess who's back? Back again?

Are the Red Sox really ready to get down to business? Is there still time to shut the wild card down?

"It's better to have fight to the end than no fight at all" -- Trot Nixon.

Yes, Yes … (Yes?)

How come I don't feel so good this morning despite the labor settlement and the Red Sox 15-5 win over the Indians last night?

Maybe it's because Pedro is hurt? Maybe it's because the A's keep winning? Maybe it's because the Red Sox have to pretty much win every game to stay in this thing?

I dunno.

I'm going to climb into my easy chair this drizzly damp afternoon*, put on the WEEI webcast from the Jake, and see if I can't get my mojo back.

(*Damn, just realized it's a night game and I've got plans for the evening. Guess I'll be checking scores on the cell phone.)

Om*

As we sit this morning and wait for word of an agreement between owners and players or lack thereof culminating in a strike, I thought these words by A. Bartlett Giamatti are well suited for the occasion:

Sport [is] the daily re-creation of the impulse of pure play, a reiteration of the hunger for paradise — for a freedom untrammeled.

… To shun or denigrate sport because it more often fails to reengage its highest promise — for player or spectator — is to undervalue the power of that promise. To say sport rarely if ever achieves the garden ideal ought in now way presume to deny the ideal's existence (Take Time for Paradise, p. 48).

This is also perfect moment to take a step back from the rumblings and grumblings we've all felt that past few days, weeks, months due to the Red Sox gradual yet persistent fall in the standings. Take a moment to think of all the good times we've had so far this season and imagine the better times we have ahead of us.

Not to get overly sentimental, but for me one of the best things to happen this year is the feeling of community that has built up day in and out around this blog. I'm biased, of course, but there is no denying it's there. And while I do know first hand a couple, 2 or 3, of the folks who post comments to the site, the rest of you I've never met and only glean your personalities and passion for the game of baseball from the words you send across the web. Yet those words resonate with me, and when I'm listening to or watching a game, I feel like we are all there together.

To me, that's pretty damn cool. And therein lies the biggest chunk of my positive outlook. One way or another the sport will go on and we will have many more moments that, as Giamatti puts it, "cherish the individual while recognizing the overarching claims of the group."

Go Red Sox!

OK, now what?

I'm at a rare loss for words.

3 errors before the first out of the second inning?

I tell you, watching the game it looked entirely plausible that the Red Sox were trying to lose the game. OK. I'll reluctantly give them the benefit of the doubt and grant that their collective heads were not into the game, unfocused; reportedly, "Red Sox players were packing their bags and reportedly making plans to ship home their fancy cars."

The thing that most struck me about last night's game was the intensity the Yankees showed. Whenever the ESPN camera would pan across the Bomber's dugout, I saw nothing but fire in their eyes to a man, a fire decidedly lacking in the Red Sox, barring a few anomalies, over the past month or so.

The Yankees want to play baseball. And they play to win:

Derek Jeter pumped his fist as if it all still mattered. He threw a short right uppercut in celebration as Bernie Williams' three-run homer cleared the Green Monster in the seventh inning.

… the Yankees could not have been more professional over these 18 innings in New England. They came, they saw, they conquered (Sherman, The New York Post).

Today. Tomorrow. Strike or no strike, the Yankees play to win.

Sadly, I cannot say the same about the Red Sox.

25

That's the Yankees' magic number: 25 after last night's bludgeoning of the Red Sox.

Got to admit I had a lot of reservations going into the game. The wonderful come from behind 9th inning rally and Damon walkoff homer in the 10th on Monday was Monday and yesterday was Tuesday … (and I'm starting to sound like Yogi … oh boy).

You know what I mean?

Deja vu all over again:

Hey, it's the Red Sox way:

1) Push the Yankees around in April, May and June.
2) Fall out of first place in July.
3) Challenge for the wild card in August and September.
4) Wait 'til next year.

Why does it always happen this way? No need to turn this into ``Quest for Fire.'' It always happens this way because the Yankees are better than the Red Sox (Buckley, The Boston Herald).

If there's any consolation at all, losing to the Yankees 6-0 is complete. There is no second guessing. No what could have been if only thoughts. Fait accompli. QED.

I tell you, though, I'm just gullible enough to still think the Red Sox can handle the Yankees. I think they can beat them tonight. I think they can hold their own during the Labor Day series. I think if the Red Sox can get the wild card spot and have to face the Yankees in the postseason that the Red Sox can beat the Bombers.

(Obviously, I'm in the first stage of grief: Denial and Isolation.)

Bipolar

It's as if we are following two different Red Sox teams: The depressed and the manic. And sometimes we witness an instance of both personalities within the same game.

In most cases of bipolar disorder, the depressive phases far outnumber manic phases, and the cycles of mania and depression are neither regular nor predictable. Many patients, in fact, experience mixed mania, or a mixed state, in which both mania and depression occur (UC Davis Health Dept.).

Remarkable.

Down to their last at-bat in a game in which they'd committed four errors and paid for a grievous base-running decision, one in which Damon was cut down at the plate after third base coach Mike Cubbage waved him in from second with no outs in the fifth, the Sox pulled off their biggest comeback since Mo Vaughn's magic in the 1998 home opener, when he hit a grand slam to beat Seattle, 9-7, after the Sox were down, 7-2 (Edes, The Boston Globe).

I'm stunned. OK and for the sake of my own integrity, I have to confess that I did not witness the comeback first hand. I tried to practice what I preach, i.e., staying positive, but

Red Sox unraveled in the eighth inning last night, coughing up four runs and falling behind the Anaheim Angels, 9-5, resembling the same lifeless crew that rolled over and croaked the night before (MacMullan, The Boston Globe).

At that point I closed up the Real Player, closed the window containing the ESPN pitch-by-pitch coverage. It was over. Or so I thought.

''What's the headline?'' asked a jubiliant [sic] Pedro Martinez. ''Where's Shaughnessy? I scared the ghost out of the [expletive] dugout [during the rally].

Stay manic, boys, oh puh-leeeze stay manic!

That'll do it

So technically the Sox are not done for the season. But they no longer control their own destiny. Now we can all sit around and wonder if several of the other teams will collapse, allowing the Red Sox to limp back into contention by default. What an ugly scenario, eh? Not the kind of thing that would inspire much fan confidence that they'd go very far into the postseason in such a case.

At this point, too, it's obvious that the Angels, the Athletics, the Mariners, really want to win. These other clubs deserve a shot at the postseason, too. The Red Sox do not.

Despite appearances, the Red Sox are not a team full of chokers.  No, I'd say the squad is fairly evenly divided between the chokers and the guys who simply don't care …

Watching the Oakland A's this summer you'd think they were playing a different sport than the Sox.  They swagger and they produce.  Clutch hit, clutch play, clutch pitch, over and over and over again.  Yes, the A's John Mabry has more clutch hits this summer than the entire Red Sox team.  And he's a freakin' part-time player. John Mabry! (Hench, DirtDogs)

It's sad, really, this sputter into devolution.

Kid Stuff

Congratulations to the Worcester Little League club for a great run in the Little League World Series. What a fantastic achievement.

And speaking of kids …

If you grew up during the 70s and waited each month for the arrival of Skateboarder Magazine in the mail, then I highly, highly recommend the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys to you.

It's all about the skateboarding in Venice Beach, CA, AKA Dogtown, the name of a downtrodden section of L.A. that figured prominently in the skateboarding phenomenon of the mid-1970s. Those Dogtown kids were the ones always featured so prominently in the pages of Skateboarder. For me, turning the pages of the mag and seeing them in crazy, unimaginable moves off the lips of empty backyard pools, brought home to me that there was a whole big and exciting world out there waiting for me, a world more varied, colorful and stoked then my little New Hampshire shoe mill town.

After seeing the Dogtown documentary, I realized what an impact Skateboarder Magazine had on me. I hadn't thought of it in years, but now realize that it more than anything else alone was responsible for filling me with the wanderlust. And in the very way the magazine was laid out and written, in a beautiful DIY aesthetic, are rooted my first stirrings of a love for graphic design and writing that later culminated for me in the web and now the blog movement.

I wish I would have made that connection sooner, for then I might have saved myself a lot of wasted years on studies and jobs that I was not suited for and did not enjoy. I now know that what you really, really love as a kid, in some form or another, is what you most likely have a vocation for.

Make it 2 today

The loss yesterday really stung, especially the missed opportunities. All told the Red Sox went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position —

But the most crucial act of futility may have unfolded in the fifth when the Sox put runners at second and third when Daubach singled leading off, Nixon walked with one out, and both advanced on a wild pitch by Appier. Sanchez, who was batting .452 (14 for 31) with runners in scoring position and less than two outs, popped to shallow left for the second out. That left it up to Johnny Damon, who had dislocated his right ring finger Thursday night. He popped to center to end the threat (Hohler, The Boston Globe).

Well, we all said they need to win 3 of 4 from the Angels, so let's see how D-Lowe does today before we feel to sorry for ourselves.