If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries. [What is this?]
NESN cameras captured Brett Anderson’s between innings ritual of semi-slurping water from its bottle until finally taking a gulp. He reminded me of a hamster fastidiously licking a water bottle nozzle. The Red Sox are like hamsters on an endless loop of failure. They were swept by the surging Athletics and this father and son celebrated with color-coordinated brooms. John Henry and Ben Cherington made the trip to Seattle to meet the flagging squad. In an e-mail Henry expressed how his franchise has gone off track by not listening to Bill James: “One of (the) biggest issues we’ve had is that Bill James was a great resource for us but fell out of favor over the last few years for reasons I really don’t understand. We’ve gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly. He’s the father, so to speak, of baseball analysis and a brilliant iconoclast who looks at things differently from everyone else. But Ben is the right person to make the final decisions for the club.” It is heartening to hear that Larry Lucchino didn’t make this trip. Henry seems to wresting away some of the power Lucchino grabbed with Theo...
I’m old enough to have taken a typing class in college and to have been amazed by one-hour film processing. Don Orsillo’s penchant for cropping Jerry Remy out of his photographs was jokingly brought up by the color analyst. Remy should start standing in between the dignitary in question and force Orsillo to learn advanced Photoshop skills. I also remember being taught the copy and paste function in Unix and having to relearn the process in graphical interfaces. Unfortunately Jed Lowrie couldn’t cut and paste his previous performances into this game; the hot hitter went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, both of them coming against Brett Anderson. Also, did Orsillo copy and paste his tie from Opening Day with the tie he wore on April 18? I can’t quite tell if the stripes are the same width. Can Anderson be cloned and placed into the Red Sox team photo? The southpaw had a dominant outing: 8 innings pitched, 4 hits, no runs, 1 base on balls, 8 strikeouts. Game 16: April 19, 2011 Boston Red Sox5-110L: John Lackey (1-2)No extra base hits Oakland Athletics9-85W: Brett Anderson (1-1)2B: Mark Ellis (6), Cliff Pennington (1), Hideki Matsui (5)...
Game 100: July 29, 2009 Athletics8W: Brett Anderson (6-8)H: Craig Breslow (9)S: Andrew Bailey (13)43-57, 2 game winning streak Red Sox6L: Brad Penny (7-5)58-42, 2 game losing streak Highlights: Eighth inning, two men on, two outs, one run already in and the tying run at the plate. Breslow induced a pop-out to third off David Ortiz’s bat. Wish we could get players like Breslow.... You know the game isn’t going to go well when the most uplifting moment of the game is Joe Pantoliano visiting the booth in the fourth to talk about clinical depression, alcoholism, and suicide.Perhaps Pantoliano can stage an intervention for Brad Penny. If the pitcher wasn’t depressed before the game he should have been by the end of the first. Adam Kennedy kicked off the game with a home run off Penny’s first pitch and Oakland’s lineup almost turned over in the opening inning.While Pantoliano’s at it, set up a session for couples therapy for Rajai Davis and Ryan Sweeney. Right fielder Sweeney didn’t yield to center fielder Davis and Jason Bay’s can of corn dropped to the turf for a three-base error on Sweeney. Bay just barely scored on Mike Lowell’s sac fliner to left.Despite...
Game 82: July 6, 2009 Athletics6W: Brett Anderson (5-7)35-46, 2 game winning streak Red Sox0L: John Smoltz (0-2)49-33, 1 game losing streak Highlights: Rookie Anderson went the distance against makeshift lineup, allowing just two singles and two bases on balls while striking out nine. The Athletics’ premier southpaw prospect called to mind Jon Lester with his poise and repertoire. The Athletics seem to have a Big Four the making with Anderson, Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, and Vin Mazzaro on the cusp of domination. When is a win a loss?When a town has the chance to say “welcome back” to a homegrown superstar it never had the chance to say “goodbye” to.When that superstar was traded in a deadline deal to remedy the fatal flaw that kept his team from playoff contention.When a heart-breaking loss set the front office on a course to continually evaluate its team with steely reserve and make those gut-wrenching moves that pay off in a championship.If the Red Sox had won it all in 2003, it’s possible that today I would be bickering about Pedro Martinez sitting on the disabled list in the last year of his five-year, $60M contract. Or I would be bemoaning the...
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries. [What is this?]
Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library’s Sports Temples of Boston.