Not Rocktober… Soxtober!

Not that you had time to notice, but the Colorado club fancied October as Rocktober. I think they may have succeeded in copyrighting or trademarking it. Well, we all knew it was really Soxtober, right? No one gave up on the (tied-for) best team in baseball, right?

Well, I can’t figure out if I did or not. I’m thinking not… or, at least not like in the 2004 ALCS. Yeah, I skipped watching a couple games against the Tribe, but one was on purpose and another because of work (the 2nd Beckett gem). I did see Game 6 though and of course, Game 7 following Mookie’s wedding.

Anyway, there wasn’t much doubt as soon as they got passed Cleveland. The Rox were on an incredible run, but you knew it would end when they reached an AL team, no? I never thought they were going to beat the Jake Peavy and the Padres in the one game playoff. Then I thought they’d meet their match in the just-as-hot Phillies, but no, the swept those fools. The Diamondbacks? Puh-leaze… not with all their injuries and inexperience. (It would have been a way better NLCS if AZ were healthy.)

So, whether it be the Sox or Tribe, you knew they would go down. Clevela... Continue reading »

Serendipity

Check out the new photoset [slideshow] I posted on Flickr from the July 4th Red Sox game. I coincidentally ended up selecting 76 photos to post. I swear. It was serendipity yet again. First 33 for Varitek and now this.

Anyway, these were taken from the really good lower box seats that are owned by Noelle’s company. Ed couldn’t make the game so I was called in from the bullpen. He’d been begging to see a game from there for years and when it is finally his turn, he can’t take it. He’s likely to never see them now!

Did you watch the HR Derby the other night? I didn’t and I guess I didn’t miss anything… Rios vs. Vlad for the final? Puh-leaze. They need to work something out there and I have read a lot of agreement on that this week. I guess the game itself wasn’t very good either, and also had some low ratings, which if I’m not mistaken has been a trend. I did happen to be tuned in to see Ichiro hit the inside-the-parker, the first in All-star game history, so that was pretty cool, and obviously the highlight.

Checked out Peter Gammons’ blog today and he had this funny blurb about Manny:

Peter is Back!

He’s only part-time, but I am so happy to see this day. Peter Gammons is one of my favorite writers of all time, and I’m not just talking sports. I shed a couple tears reading his piece, “One of the luckiest people on the earth.” You should read it too.

I’m sorry I wasn’t home to see him on air. Hopefully they’ll repeat tonight.

Gammons at Fenway

Leave it to a Sox/Spanks series to bring Peter Gammons back into the baseball fold. This tidbit of information comes courtesy of boston.com sports blogger Eric Wilbur who is looking correct in his previous statement that he’s thrown in the towel. It’s too bad that Gammons’ presence couldn’t bring his preseason A.L. Cy Young pick Josh Beckett better luck on the mound today. Personally, it has less to do with luck than his lack of a quality third pitch, but that’s just me.

Anyway, good to hear Peter is back at the park. UPDATE: Here’s a better AP article on espn.com.

Reynolds Tossed

I was pretty bummed out to hear that Harold Reynolds was fired by ESPN earlier in the week. Besides Peter Gammons, Harold was my favorite part of watching Baseball Tonight. When they had Karl Ravech, Bobby Valentine (or Buck Showalter), Harold and Peter on all at the same time, it was must-watch because they had a great dynamic.

The show hasn’t quite been the same since Buck or Bobby got back to managing and we now have to deal with John Kruk. Peter had already been increasingly absent and this year was doing the Sunday game of the week before his aneurysm, so I had already been missing the show more often than not. The guys they have been bringing in have, well… let’s just say are very boring and suck.

Anyway, I obviously thought Harold brought a lot to the table and I’m pretty sure I’ll watch even less than I already was now that he is gone too. Reporting on the exact cause has been spotty at best, but according to Harold himself, it was for sexual harassment and was a misinterpretation by the other party. I can’t really comment on the thing, because we don’t know exactly what happened even though Harold says it was just a hu... Continue reading »

Another Gammons Update

Peter Gammons was released from the hospital today and will be going to a rehab center to continue his recovery. There are multiple outlets for the story, but today we’ll go with the one on his employer’s site.

Funny enough, the story isn’t correctly updated as it states (at the time of this writing) that his CD, Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old, is scheduled for release next week when it actually came out two weeks ago. I finally picked it up yesterday and I am on my second spin as I write this. It is pretty good. Mostly covers and very rock-a-billy or blues sounding and Peter is sporting a good singing voice. His voice reminds me a lot of someone else, but since I am a real amatuer in this genre, I don’t know whom.

A lot of guest appearances — most notably (for me at least) Juliana Hatfield and Kay Hanley — and an excellent backing band featuring Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom. Many current and former Red Sox lend backing vocals and even guitar along with NESN broadcaster Don Orsillo and Sox GM Theo Epstein.

The disc supports the Epstein brothers’ A Foundation to be Named Later which is also a part of the Hot Stove, Coo... Continue reading »

Gammons Update

Read this from Gordon Edes on boston.com today:

According to an ESPN executive who spoke with Peter Gammons’ wife Gloria today, the ESPN baseball analyst continues to progress. There has been improvement “in both his motor skills and cognitive ability.” He even joked at one point, “I have to write.”

This is good news and it’s good to read that Peter seems to be in good spirits. I haven’t picked up his album, Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old, that came out this week yet. I figure I’ll pick it up next week when the new Butch Walker disc drops.

I’m sure Peter will also be excited, as am I, that Pete Yorn has his new disc, Nightcrawler, dropping on August 29th according to this week’s Newbury Comics mail list. It has been too long.

This Week in OB1og

Yeah, it’s been a little over a week since my last post and I apologize, but it is not like there has been any public outcry/outrage over it. I don’t even have a good excuse except that maybe I didn’t feel like sitting in front of the computer after getting home from work all week. Instead, I watched the Sox sweep the Mets, which is something I haven’t done much of this year. Well, no one had watched them sweep the Mets yet; I mean watch the Sox on TV. I think the Orsillo Cam is brand new and, quite frankly, it frightens me.

So, the idea of this post is to catch up on this week’s activity, much like This Week in Basball does and a bit like Ed just did over on The Ed Zone.

I guess I’ll start with last Saturday because I can’t remember further back than that and it’s also the day after I posted Flickr pictures of Portland Rose Gardens that apparently no one bothered to view except for Ed and someone else. Of course, it’s hard to tell because Flickr only has counts for individual photo page hits and not photostream page views, so if you view the gallery photostream pages only, then I must ask why? Okay, so many photos are fine to look at that way, but most of the... Continue reading »

Assholes in the Outfield

Apologies for the colorful title, but in this particular instance it is warranted. I went to my first Sox game of the year yesterday to see them shutout by the Seattle Mariners. While the game result wasn’t in our favor, the game was a good one and it was an amazing day at Fenway.

Wakefield settled down to pitch a complete game, but the Sox lineup squandered a lot of opportunities to score. As for the weather, it was more like a June day at the park than a mid-April day. Usually at this time of year, day or night game, there’s a pretty good chill to the air, but there I was wearing shorts and my Manny jersey in the mostly sun-drenched bleachers and worried because I didn’t put sunblock on my arms.

This year’s changes to the park look great and fit in with the others done over the last five years so that they seem like they’ve always been like that. In fact, in addition to the redo of the .406 fish tank club, which is obvious and well publicized, I almost didn’t notice they did the sky boxes over too. I actually took in my first game from the sky boxes and haven’t been back since. I think I was seven or eight then and it was against the Blue Jays. Chec... Continue reading »