- as i watched pedro the other night, he reminded me, more than anything, of ...... mike mussina? in that Mr. Almost kind of way; dominant, but not enough. afterwards he also made a comment comparable to moose's infamous "60 feet, 6 inches line": "I can't do anything if we don't score runs," he said. "I can only do whatever possible to keep my team in the game, and from there on, it's up to them." not for a moment do i believe his mango tree humble pie, but no matter how much i dislike the guy and the things he spews, his eloquence makes me tilt my head in grudging admiration.

- naturally it ain't over til it's over, but note an early entrant for this year's potential killer B: should mark bellhorn have been able to get glove on that throw from varitek? i says yes - it nearly hit jeter in the face, how much more accurate did it have to be?

- the who's your daddy chants were relentless. RE-LENT-LESS. color me impressed. i felt for sox fans having to listen to it all night. or i would have, if having to listen to the aural equivalent of chinese water torture - nonstop YANKEES SUCK from boston to east bumblefuck - hadn't hardened me beyond phantom empathy.

- during the gamethread (that shall go unlinked because i am kinda ashamed of my undeniably schizophrenic gamewatching tendencies), i remarked that i am overcome by an eerie sense of calm... i had more agita while moose was pitching a perfecto with an 8 run lead than i do right now. lieber was rolling. helmet olerud didn't surprise me, that swing that porch... it's appropriate somehow that possibly the two most mellow, aw shucks, fade-into-the-woodwork type guys, the antitheses of everything the red sox are, were instrumental in determining the outcome of the game. props go to yankees uncanny knack for investing in guys otherwise relegated to the reclamation project heap.

- the sports guy is keeping a hilarious running commentary on the alcs, and to my delight, even the sports gal has noticed the weird arod purple lips phenomenon.


- the hartford courant thinks crash davis is a character from field of dreams. twitter.

- words to live by: "Respect is important to me ... the respect starts in your own clubhouse. Even if a club you are playing is in last place, respect that fact that somebody can kick your butt at any time, and just don't take anyone for granted." [joe torre]

- tanyon sturtze's niece is hardcore. a girl after my own heart:

Tanyon's most ardent supporter might just be his 11-year-old niece, Tiana, Heather's daughter. Last week Tiana's school held a "Red Sox Day" to show support for the team during its first-round series with Anaheim. A defiant Tiana went to school wearing every piece of Yankees apparel she could find.

- back to boston we go. worried, no. cautiously confident, yes:

A team from New York has been in a playoff series at Fenway Park just three times -- in 1986, when the Mets played in the World Series here, and in 1999 and 2003, when the Yankees came north for the ALCS.

All three times, the visitors took two out of the three games here -- a feat, if matched by the Yankees this weekend, would allow them to pop corks on Boston turf.

So while the Red Sox spoke excitedly about returning to Fenway for the next three games after losing Games 1 and 2 at the Yankee Stadium, history shows the home field is not much of an advantage this time of year for Boston.

The Red Sox are 23-23-1 all time at Fenway Park in the playoffs.

"I'm not sure you can put too much stock into that," Red Sox veteran Ellis Burks said. "It seems like every year we do well at home, and this year was no exception."
The Red Sox had a 55-26 record here in the regular season, good for a .679 winning percentage, winning 18 of their final 23 games. They led the majors in batting average (.306), on-base percentage (.378) and runs per game (6.4) at home.

Only one team won more games at their home park -- the Yankees, of course. [newark star ledger]

- fuck you roger clemens dept: astros down two games. scotty rolen helping to bring the pain and somewhere, juney is sighing.

- red soz fever is REAL, sez the boston globe.

- the chicago tribune seems to feel the same way i do about the nlcs/alcs scheduling bullshit:

...the geniuses who bring you Major League Baseball could not bring themselves to schedule the two baseball games at two different times.

They couldn't begin one game at 5 p.m. and the other at 8.

No, they had to begin both of these 2004 playoff contests simultaneously.

So if I wanted to watch both—and I did—I had the following options:

I could unplug one of my TVs at home and stack it atop my other TV, aiming my "mute" button at whichever game had cut to a commercial.

Or, I could use my really cool "Picture in Picture" feature to watch two shows at once, if I could just find my TV's manual to find out how "Picture in Picture" works.

Or, I could go to a bar, find a stool at the midpoint of a TV on my left (Yankees vs. Red Sox) and a TV on my right (Cardinals vs. Astros), tell everybody else at the bar to shut up so I can hear, ask the bartender to turn up the volume on one TV and down on the other, then stagger my way home after 3½ hours of swallowing 3½ beers, a basket of buffalo wings and the guy on the next stool's cigarette smoke.

Labels: yanquis