Another Walk-Off

Maybe I'm luckier than I thought. At least for the Red Sox. With some real craziness (more excuses, but some are legit!) going on during the last couple weeks, I've barely been able to keep up with the scoreboard, let alone watch an entire game. But I was able to see most of the endings of the last two games, so I was able to see two straight walk-off victories. Boston has now tied their longest winning streak of the season with the back-to-back wins.

This time, it went twelve innings, and it was Kevin Youkilis with a double knocking in the game-winner for an 8-7 victory. After falling into an early deficit, and then coughing up a lead to Josh Hamilton in the seventh, the Sox eventually

The Thrill is Gone

Well, it didn't take too long for the shine to wear off this season. I blame the day off Monday. It feels like the momentum got sucked out pretty quickly. But there's 159 games to go, and another fifteen chances to even things up with the Yankees. I saw about a minute of the seventh inning and got a little too smug when I saw Chan Ho pitching. I figured the Red Sox would be up 4-1 by the time I got home. I didn't get back until the very last at bat, but I had to eat my words when Chan Ho got the win after pitching three scoreless innings. I'm sure he'll still cost the Yankees more than his fair share of games, though. Maybe I'm just jinxing Boston now…

Luckily, the Sox have another day off before traveling to Kansas City this weekend. It's been a tough stretch, what with two games since their last day off.

As much as I love Tim Wakefield, I actually am relieved (no pun intended) that he'll be matched up against Kyle Davies instead of Zack Greinke. It'll be hard rooting against Greinke on Saturday, but I like Beckett's chances against him better than Wakefield's. Of course, it doesn't hurt either of them that the Royals ranked 13^th in the American League last year in runs scored. I did notice one fluke, though, when looking at their 2009 stats. The Royals ranked eleventh or worse (out of fourteen AL teams) in every offensive category except for stolen bases (ninth)… and triples. With 51 triples, they topped the American League, perhaps because Kauffman Stadium has the second-largest outfield in the league.         

It’s Finally Here!

Opening Day is one of the most magical days of the year for me, and at the risk of being smote, I dare say going to an Opening Day game is a more spine-tingling experience than going to Easter Mass. I'm not saying it's a religious experience per se, but the fanfare of opening games, which typically combine jet flyovers, gigantic flags unfurling, special guests (Hi, Pedro!), and all the feelings of team spirit, spring fever, and some patriotism thrown in for good measure, is hard to beat, even with extra choruses of Alleluia. A few fortunate teams also get to present rings or unfurl league championship banners at their openers. The Sox aren't one of those teams this year, but a 9-7 win over the Yankees (who will soon be receiving some tacky diamonds) is still quite a nice way to start a season.

I personally believe the Sunday night opener is something of an abomination. I'm not a fundamentalist who thinks there should be more day games in general. My skin is so white that it's nearly translucent, and I live in Texas where the heat during nearly every day game (and a solid two months of night games) is suffocating, so day games and I do not mix too well. But opening day is like Christmas morning, with all the excitement and presents to unwrap. Opening up presents on Christmas Eve just doesn't have that same magic of running downstairs as soon as you wake up to see what Santa left under the tree. And although the weather in Boston apparently was quite lovely tonight, it wouldn't be unusual for a starting temperature in the mid-30s on an early April evening (the average low for the month of April is 41 degrees, 31 in March). I suppose once a century isn't too bad, though.

While I'm being a cranky old man, I should mention how much I agreed with Jon Miller when he described keeping a score book as the "best way to enjoy the game." I'm a geek, old-fashioned, and completely unashamed. Learning to keep score for the first time can be daunting, or teaching somebody can be, at any rate; but it turns into a reflex eventually.

 

Kevin Youkilis might be my favorite current player, and tonight was a great reminder why. Besides scoring the Sox's first run after hitting a double, he gave Boston new life in the bottom of the sixth with a two-run, stand-up triple to narrow the Yankee lead to 5-4. Adrian Bel-tray (as Jon Miller keeps calling him and Bill Simmons has already pointed out) drove him in to tie the score up. And then he also scored the go-ahead run. What more can you ask for? 3 for 4, with two doubles and a triple. I don't pay much attention to individual averages before the All-Star break (or at least May), but that gives him a slugging percentage of 1.750 for at least one day. Still, every time they cut to a shot of him in the dugout, I want to pour baby powder all over his head.

Of course, Chan Ho Park deserves some credit tonight, too. He handed Youk his second double and allowed three earned runs- including Pedroia's two-run homer- in his brief appearance, which gives him an (admittedly skewed) 27.0 ERA to start the season. Knowing Chan Ho (and with Joe Girardi's impatience with pitchers), it could be June before he gets that down to single digits. I'm quite glad to see the Yankees pick up one of Tom Hicks's bigger boondoggles.

It's even kind of nice to see C.C. Sabathia. He won't always allow five earned runs like he did tonight, but he will at least make David Ortiz look darn near slender.

Like any self-respecting baseball fan, I'm a bit superstitious. When I realized during the sixth inning that I was no longer wearing any of my Sox gear (I had to hit the showers before the game after some exposure to toxic chemicals), I wondered if I had inadvertently given the Yankees the advantage. Sure enough, after I put on a few lucky items, the rally got going. That doesn't explain the Yankees retaking the lead, but superstitions are rarely that accurate, right?

They really pulled out all the stops tonight with entertainment, too. Steven Tyler sang "God Bless America" and Neil Diamond himself came out to lead the traditional "Sweet Caroline" sing-along. I am not in either of their fan clubs, but it certainly added a little something extra to an already exciting game.

I'm not quite sure who at ESPN thought they only needed to budget three hours on their schedule guide for a Sox-Yankees game. Last season, the teams had the longest game-time averages in baseball. The Yanks averaged 3:08 per game and the Sox 3:04, and their games against each other were about 36 hours long a piece. I don't have actual statistics for the average length of their matchups, but the teams do share the dubious distinction of the longest nine-inning game in the game's very long history. Four hours and 45 minutes. I'm not necessarily complaining- I tend to agree with Jonathan Papelbon (apparently the slowest-lingering pitcher) who asked why you'd want to see a Sox-Yankees game end- but it did throw a wrench in my DVR-ing.

Thankfully, Papelbon didn't waste too much time putting the middle of New York's order to bed. I'm already in my Sox jammies, but I won't be able to get to sleep for a while. Another reason opening day needs to start around 1 p.m.

Spring Fever

The train has really gotten derailed here. I haven’t even written a single word about the NCAA tournament, and this was easily the most exciting tournament that I can remember. I could rattle off a list a mile long of all the ‘distractions’ that have taken me away from the blog, but I will not bore myself. There is some hope for the blog and excitement for me, though, because baseball season is only twenty-six hours away! I am not generally a fan of the Sunday night opener, but this year it’s at Fenway, so I’m psyched despite my disapproval.

I don’t even know where to begin with my love for baseball. Suffice it to say, I love everything about the game except for the people involved with Major League Baseball. My love for baseball was almost derailed a few times by some of the less savory aspects of the professional game. Just as I was really getting into it, learning to keep score, getting my own subscription to SI for Kids, hanging posters in my room, the 1994 strike hit. At the time, I was especially jaded. My school band was one of the organizations that served concessions at the Ballpark in Arlington to raise funds, so I was particularly disgusted by professional athletes, many of whom had multimillion dollar salaries (and the lowest-paid of whom still earned six-figure salaries), on strike while ushers, ticket takers, and concessioners who barely made minimum wage were out of luck and out of work. With a little age and perspective, I know that the players’ case was not without its merits, but ten-year-old Laura did not see it that way.

Just when the bitter taste was starting to wear off, it was 1998 and the dueling medical marvels of McGwire and Sosa commandeered the national pastime. I know the homerun race was supposed to be the cure for baseball apathy, but I guess I was an exceedingly cynical fourteen-year old. I didn’t want to see a 37- (or 61-) year-old record be erased by players of dubious credibility. Even if it was a Yankee record.

I have a general queasiness when it comes to overpaid prima donna players, and I absolutely despise Bud Selig, but I still love baseball. I have no patience for people who have no patience for baseball. There’s something beautiful about the pace. I like football and basketball, too, but I love that I can truly follow and appreciate a baseball game. Maybe it’s because “Baseball is an individual sport disguised as a team sport,” as Bill Simmons recently pointed out. But when I’m watching a typical football game, I probably have almost no idea what more than half the players on the field are doing on any given play. It’s not that I don’t understand football, but there are 22 players on the field all moving at the same time and doing something different. The pace of baseball gives me time to see what the pitcher and batter are doing, how many different signals the catcher is going through, if there’s a shift in the infield, and if a runner is trying to steal. If somebody thinks baseball is boring, they just don’t know what is going on.

I haven’t gotten quite as geeked about spring training as I may have in the past, but I have already seen a few college games, and Easter or not, I’ll be decked out in Red Sox gear from head to toe (literally… I have Red Sox socks, not to mention caps, shirts, earrings, and a few other items) tomorrow.