It’s a red wine night, gentlemen

Thoughts on the most recent failure of the boston red sox

Grady fucking little

Aaron fucking boone

in that order


Why start pedro in the 8th? He was in trouble in the 7th…why tempt fate like that? Can’t you just take what you’ve been given and give him a pat on the back and say ‘great game, petey’. Whats wrong with that? For 6 innings he was the man. In the seventh he was coming apart at the seams but had enough to get by (with a little help from the free swinging Soriano). You should (well I can say listening to it on the internet feed, I certainly did) consider yourself lucky to get out of that jam. Going into this game, weren’t we all looking for 6-7 seven inning from Pedro? Was anyone really thinking we needed a complete game out of this guy? The bullpen which (rightfully so) were the weakness of this team during the regular season truly rose to the occasion and were lights out in the post season. Lights Out. Maybe it was Sierras homer in game 5 that Little was thinking about; I don’t know. Perhaps, but more likely it was simply his poor judgment to take Pedro out in the eight. And keeping him in after 2 people were on base was a crime. The crazy thing was that until this game, the cubs/marlins game 6 foul ball/fan interference was the big story of the moment. Superficially, yeah the fan gave the marlins an extra out in the inning. Strategically, Dusty Baker made a huge error in not having anyone warmed up at the start of the inning. Grady didn’t err there – he had the pen ready. He simply failed to pull the trigger when the game was on the line. And that’s what he’s there for. On the other hand, Torre is a master at his job. He doesn’t get sentimental over his players, he simply puts his team in the best position to win. Grady looked past this and elected to put Pedro in a position that he simply could not fulfill. In 99 maybe yes, he probably could have had enough in the tank to get one or more of those guys out after getting ahead of them in the count. But that’s a red flag when you’re ahead 1-2 in the count and you can’t put them away. 120 pitches will do that to Pedro. Not only did Little miss the recent history lesson so painfully played out by the Cubs, but he missed one of the errs of game 6, 1986. Bill Buckner was kept in the game in the bottom of the 10th because Johnny Mac wanted him to be on the field when they won it all. He completely abandoned his policy of putting Dave Stapleton in as a defensive replacement in late innings. Why? Because he got for lack of a better word, sentimental. It was not the best move for the team then, and it was not the best move for the team to keep an exhausted pitcher in the biggest game in nearly 20 years, perhaps moreso. After the Yankees tied it up, the game was all but over. I understand that may discount the sox resilience, but with Rivera, its 2-3X harder to have the type of offensive production that this team is justly famous for. All I (and Red Sox Nation) could hope for was an oddball mistake or 3 by Rivera, or that our pitchers would be able to match serve long enough that Rivera would either make a mistake or get pulled from the game. From this point, it’s all conjecture – it never should have gotten to this point in the first place.. Putting Wake in the game was pretty questionable. He was great in the games he started, perhaps stealing the series with his 2 wins against the moose and earning the series MVP if the sox were to win. But this game was getting to the point where one swing by someone was going to win it. The likelihood of one high knuckler going out was too great at this point in time. You want to keep ‘em in the park. Isn’t that what a groundball pitcher like Lowe does? Isn’t that why he was used 2X in relief by Boston in the first round? I would rather have seen Williams in the game until we hopefully took the lead then if needed throw wake in there when we’re playing with house money. Heck, if that works out maybe wake finishes with 2 wins and a save in the series. As is, we ended the game with our best reliever rotting in the pen while their best reliever went 3 and got the W (and the series MVP).

Truly let down by the game that we really should have won, I have no doubt that the distance I had this year saved me from the deepest depths of the heartache that I would be feeling now, that many are feeling over this grievous and thoroughly unnecessary turn of events. Until the playoffs, I listened to parts of most games, but I was only able to watch 4 games during the regular season, and of those, only 2 of ‘em were live. Because of this, I couldn’t sink my teeth into this team as much as I wanted. Believe me, I tried. The internet radio broadcasts, espn.com, cbs sportline, projo, herald, globe, and a few good baseball blogs helped, but when I’m at home, I’m hearing about 6 innings per game, I’m tuning to sportstalkradio daily, reading the papers (yes there is a difference between the paper and the online versions, perhaps its simply more organic), and the ubiquitous ESPN and ESPN2. Plus there are no fans like red sox fans. As much as I hate to see then fall short again and again, and as much as I don’t need to see fighting and rioting, red sox nation is still the best fanbase in all of sport. In Sydney, no one understands that I could like a sport so much that I had to go home to see the championships. In San Fran, in the twin cities, in new york, in Atlanta, I could find a few diehards who would completely understand. In Boston, 95% of the people living there could understand why I would NEED to be there. In no other city could that be so. And for that I will continue to be sox fan.

One of the great (yankee) blogs out there offers some post mortem respect to the 2003 sox club that shoulda, coulda, oh whatever...

I tip my cap to the 2003 Boston Red Sox, who I still believe had the best team in baseball, but came up short. And I will not indulge in any vainglory before them, I will treat them as I wanted them to treat me had the won--although I know they wouldn't have--and I know that my fellow Yankees fans probably won't, either.

In the minority

At the sydney office, there are 11 people 30 and under. A quick analysis of hairstyles puts me in the minority:

1 person has a shaved head, so lets discard him from further consideration as its an abberation.

That leaves 10 guys. Of that, 5 have highlights. So actually thats a push. Of the other styling effect - vertical styling using gel or whatever, we're got 6 guys. So with no styling products and no hightlights, I'm in the minority here. And Queer Eye just started airing here last week. I don't think its warranted.

Rained out

Got this link off the Ryan Adams site of all places. Whatever.

What a crazy game. They don't make 'em like that no mo.

I would have liked the theatre in the fens alot more had the outcome landed in the sox favor, but one thing is for sure and thats that game lived up to the hype. I know Pedro must have been feeling pretty frustrated (and perhaps hurt or tired) in the 4th after giving up the lead on the Matsui ground rule double, but going after Garcia (perhaps it got away from him and he was only aiming for some chin music, only Petey knows that) is pretty much indefensible.
Until that point, he was throwing too many hangers. It was like watching a tight rope act. If this was '99, no net would be needed. While still as good as anybody, I don't think anybody would argue that Pedro of 2003 is not the same pitcher. And it showed. He got burned several times (and got lucky with more than a few yankee hitters jumping all over some of those pitches and pulling them foul instead of roping singles and doubles).
Although defending Petey against Garcia is not easy, I can defend him swinging Zim down. Zimmer was probably a little too worked up, ran across the diamond to start some shit with pedro, tried to throw a left and got burned for trying something he really shouldn't be. Now had something really crazy happen, like if he broke his hip in the fall I can't imagine the backlash, right or wrong.

After the game, besides feeling completely exhausted from getting all of three and a half hours of sleep the night before I kinda felt the winds knocked outta my sails, or at least the lift outta my holiday plans. My flight tickets were delivered to me on Friday, so I was getting really psyched for one last vacation here; work has been a bit too much lately and I'm seriously pineing for a getaway. And what getaway would be better than a vacation devoted almost entirely to red sox world series baseball? Umm, I'd really have to think hard to come up with a better way to spend my time. New Zealand? Very nice, but its not in the same league.

Oh well, on paper game 4 should be a lot less of a pitchers duel, and as good as the yankees are offensively, they'll have a hard time keeping up with the sox. Then we might be looking at a tied series again and anything can happen in a best of 3 contest. And if the sox can take both remaining fenway games it would be alot easier going into the bronx needing to win one. I wouldn't bet against the sox if game 7 is a rematch of game 3. I simply can't see the yanks manufacturing another win against Pedro. But they got one, and that may be all they need.
Of course, there can only be so many Todd Walker and Jason Varitek homers. Ortiz has had some big hits, but he's not hitting his weight in the playoffs, and I don't think Nomars hittin' Mia Hamms weight lately (.170 for September, and no better in October yeesh!). Nomars gotta break outta this funk and fast if the sox wanna plate more runs that the other guys.