Bambino's Curse

The Gods Must Be Crazy

"Anything's possible. We just need a little help from the gods." -- Johnny Damon

Poor Johnny. I guess no one has broken the news to him that Yahweh is a Yankees fan.

Or maybe Damon means the Greek gods up on Olympus. Once again I'm reminded of the classic B movie Clash of the Titans and the scene where the gods are gathered around a chess board of sorts and they are moving around Perseus et al into these dangerous situations just for their pure amusement. It's what those Greek gods like to do. There's nothing better than screwing with the heads of mortals (or quite literally their bodies as well).

I can see it now:

Aphrodite: "Let's put Calvin Schiraldi here." [She moves a small bobblehead figurine on the board].

Hera [giggling mischievously]: "And let's put Bill Buckner right here. Oh, this shall be better than the fun we had with Hercules." [All the gods break into thunderous laughter.]

Excuse me while I go prepare to meet the Gorgon.

Out of Synch

In my daily wanderings around the web picking up Red Sox tidbits from the various sites, I've begun to realize that I seem to be completely out of synch with the majority of Red Sox Nation. The tenor among Sox fans is so grim and rancorous.

Nothing new there, you're saying, right? I know that such despondence is the modus operandi for most Sox fans.We've been through a lot of heartache and collapse. Which is why I guess I'm surprised to read things like this:

Bob Joyce: As I reflect back on this year, I can't help but think that it ranks as the most disappointing season in a long time.

ART: Bob -- an old friend from the very earliest days of the site -- actually wrote a lot more than that, but it was this one sentence that struck a chord with me. I agree (Art Matone's Notebook, ProJo).

The most disappointing season in a long time? Really?

Yes, if you started thinking postseason back early in the season when the team was 40-17, I can see how this would be a disappointing year, but, if you've been a fan for a while, why in your right mind would you be thinking those thoughts then?

I recall someone posting something to a Gordon Edes online chat back in May to the effect of "with the Sox already wrapping up the division, aren't the Yankees just playing for the wild card at this point?" Edes was as flabbergasted as I.

Are those the folks, then, who are so bummed out right now? Because I'm not disappointed.

Maybe I'm too cynical for my own good. Maybe I've been in this thing too long, because I've found this season to be pretty typical. It was far less disappointing than last year, for instance. And loosing to the Yankees in '99, when I still think the Red Sox had the better team, ranked up there top 10 my lifetime on the disappointment scale for me.

Or maybe it's just in how one defines disappointment. I find starting the season with injuries, as happened last year, to be far more disappointing than having healthy players. Last year we were more or less done as soon as we got started. And I won't even go into all the weirdness toward the end of the '01 season.

Look at the way this '02 season started. We had new ownership coming in very late and basically having to make do with the team they inherited. Pedro was a huge question mark. Nomar, too, if you recall early speculation that his wrist was weak. Lowe? Talk about uncertainty.

Yes, there have been some moments this year when the team was very disappointing, especially right before the almost strike. But when I look at the season as a whole, it's not that bad. And one slights the fantastic play by California and Oakland by placing the entire onus for being this far out of the hunt upon the current Red Sox roster.

And, to be honest, it did seem like the wildcard was a worst case scenario for much of the seaon. Again, though, if I look at the season from my expectation on April 1st, I don't have whole lot to feel badly about. Grady Little said he expected the team to win 94 games. There is still a chance the club might do so, regardless of whether that puts them into the postseason.

Sucks not to make the playoffs. But most disappointing season in a long time? Nah.

There's a reason we say "Wait 'til next year." This is a long, long winding road.

I don't want to sound preachy, but those fans who are sitting around crying in their hankies over this season, may want to consider toughening up a bit. We are going to get there, but along the way we'll encounter some events worthy of bringing you to your knees in disappointment. This season isn't one of them. Keep your Sox on.

Eight Miles High

And when you touch down you find you're stranger than known.*

"Manny's in la-la land," Martinez said, defending the slugger's penchant for unpredictable - and sometimes unacceptable - baseball behavior. "Manny's weird."

Whatever music Manny is listening to before stepping into the batter's box these days seems to be working.

Last night, Martinez was the beneficiary of Ramirez's 29th blast of the year, which boosted the slugger's RBI total to 94, an impressive figure considering he missed 39 games because of a fractured left index finger. It was Ramirez's third homer in as many games in this series (Krasner ProJo).

And further proof that the big media sportswriters have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat the fans here at Bambino's, Bob Ryan has this to say in a column this morning:

Manny is frustrating. Manny is exasperating. Manny is, to most of us, a mystery. But we've seen Mannys before. Manny is in the finest tradition of baseball Goofballs.

That's the exact same point we were trying to make a couple of day's ago. And reader John Kerr summed it up so well in a comment:

[in] Manny's [behavior] is revealed one of the unchanging truths about baseball; as long as there is big league ball, it will be peopled by colorful characters who never fail to surprise and, yes, entertain.

So what music is Manny listening to these days after his choice of "I Get High" has been banned for inappropriate language?

You know, in a perfect web world, these kinds of details could easily be revealed. As a fan, I'm interested in the minutia such as the music players listen to before batting and the music the pitchers prefer when taking warm ups. Someone on the Red Sox likes listening to one of my favorites, Deceptacon by Le Tigre, but I'm not sure who it is. I catch snippets of it on the radio webcast but for one reason or another (ADD?) I never can make the connection. Now a truly wired franchise would make this sort of stuff available on the web if you ask me. Along the same lines, I'm surprised more players don't take control of their own media image and spin by having their own websites with regular blog like postings such as what Moby does.

Speaking of music, what would you listen to if you were a big leaguer looking to get pumped up before batting or pitching? (Remember the lyrics must be suitable for fan friendly Fenway.)

If I was to pick today, it would be something off Sleater-Kinney's latest, probably O₂. Day in and day out, for the past several years, Sleater-Kinney is the most rocking band in the USA if you ask me.

Let Freedom Ring!

Not a day goes by when I don't think about that day. And I felt a dread as this day of solemn anniversary approached. What would I write about? Should I even mention it? How can I avoid sounding cheesy? How can I avoid sounding maudlin? So and and so forth ran the thoughts in my head.

But all day yesterday (which, as it was a Tuesday, seemed more like the anniversary, acting as dress rehearsal of sorts), I felt good not bad. Yes, I still cry when I hear the stories of individual heroism and the sad, sad, sadness in the voices of those who've lost a loved one, a piece of themselves in the ignoble manslaughter of that day.

Yet it has been a remarkable year. Personally, I've never felt more proud to be on the side of freedom and freedom loving people.

Freedom is that state where energy and order merge and all complexity is purified into a single coherence, a fitness of parts and purpose and passions that cannot be surpassed and whose goal could only be to be itself.

When I read those lines from Giamatti above, I can't help but think of the single coherence that was wholly demonstrated in the rebuilding of the damaged Pentagon in one year and the total excavation of the WTC site in only eight months.

And then there is baseball and our community here at Bambino's that has flourished in the past 12 months, and the larger community of all of Red Sox Nation, past and present, our ancestors, our mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, our granddaddies, all of whom have rallied around the single coherence of watching nine men on a field, nine men in red stockings, and hoping, hoping they can win …

As our forbears did, we remind ourselves through sport of what, here on earth, is our noblest hope. Through sport we re-create our daily portion of freedom, in public (Giamatti).

So let this be a day of remembrance but let it also be a day of celebration. We are a freedom loving people, of parts and purpose and passions that cannot be surpassed.

American Idol

What I'm about to say probably won't sit well with many of you. I like Manny Ramirez. Indeed, he is my favorite player currently wearing the Red Sox uniform.

I like his funny hair. I like his pants worn low. I like his patent leather spikes. I like his .443 average with runners in scoring position. I like his remaining diamond earring. I like Manny Ramirez.

And what about after what happened last night?

Manny Ramirez made a blatant blunder in the third inning last night, embarrassing himself and his teammates by not running out a ground ball.

After grounding a ball back to Tampa Bay pitcher Tanyon Sturtze, Ramirez did not leave the box at all. He simply wheeled and retreated to the dugout as Sturtze tossed him out, the throw beating Ramirez by about 92 feet (Silverman, The Herald).

Yep. Still do. And I'm not sure why, really. I know I'm supposed to like the gamers like Trot Nixon, but, between me and you, many of those dirtdog type players make me uncomfortable. Deep down they seem like mean sonsabitches. And despite the dirty uniforms and mad dashes to first, these guys never seem to bring me the same enjoyment I get from seeing Manny striding into the batter's box, hems of his pants dragging in the dirt, corn rowed hair flopping.

Maybe I'm nuts. Maybe it's some sort of odd psychological holdover from childhood that makes me spurn the uber jock types and feel compassion for the lackadaisical dreamers who forget how many outs there are or are completely oblivious to inappropriate language in the song they choose to play when coming up to bat.

And I think the loss of Manny in the head first slide in Seattle on May 11 (my birthday no less) was the single, most important factor in the team's slow slide down to the cellar.

I hope he's around next year, when, as rumor has it, "the Boston Red Sox are not going to be 'rebuilding' in 2003," as the new owners are going to go for it big time.

And did you hear all that cheering in Foxboro last night? You know so much of that energy and enthusiasm for the Patriots comes from years of pent up frustration from watching the Red Sox. Rooting for the Patriots is another form of catharsis. We deserve it.

It's just a flesh wound

Got to admit it felt pretty good yesterday to find a football game on TV from 1pm until past 10. While I didn't watch more than a few plays here and there (mostly catching the beginning of the Spurrier Era with the Redskins), it was a pleasant distraction.

The irony here, of course, is that I have this site all about Red Sox baseball and yet I'm trying my best to avoid Red Sox baseball. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

And besides how can one even begin to comment on this?

''They caught the breaks and we didn't,'' Floyd said. ''There's no reason to panic.''

In some ways I guess I see Cliff Floyd's point. Before the Titanic hit the iceberg was probably the time to panic. Once the impact had already occurred and the tragic fate was sealed, panic wasn't of much help.

May as well insert the sound of Celine Dion here bellowing that tune from the movie. She doesn't fit the mold of the fat lady opera diva, but it is singing. And, yes, in the end, my heart will go on.

Wish Upon a Star

"We still have a chance to make the playoffs," offered lefthander Casey Fossum, who threw a masterful six innings, improving his record to 4-3.

I'm less optimistic than Casey Fossum, unless he's talking about the '03 playoffs. Something tells me we are going to pinning a lot of hopes on this skinny kid's shoulders next year.

Though I'll admit to clinging to this one last fantasy for this year: While 99.9% of fan and media attention turns away from the Red Sox and toward the Patriots, it allows the team to loosen up a bit and … let's just leave it at that.