Ugh. The Sox

Wednesday night, Brownie called. "I have a proposition for ya, By." I was intrigued, "Go ahead."

"You give me a Pearl Jam ticket, and I'll give you a Sox ticket, some beer and a few dogs."

"Cool."

The Sox played the-thorn-in-thier-sides Baltimore Orioles. I haven't really had a bad word to say about Sox manager Tito Francona, but during these last few days, he has really sucked. I mean, Grady Little bad in terms of his bullpen management. Let's start with Thursday night, the Sox were tied with the O's 5-5, going into the fifth. Derek Lowe pitched kind of crappy and it was time for the bullpen.

He brings in Terry Adams, who pitches two no-hit innings. Good job. Then he brings in Ramiro Mendoza. He shits the bed getting no one out so Mike Myers comes in, loads the bases but gets two outs. Up comes a .186 pinch hitter, something Leon. He gets a hit. Two runs score. So, the Sox are trailing by two going into the eight, they go down one, two, three.

I guess Tito thinks that a major league game is over after the eighth, because he brings in Byung Hung Kim. He gets two quick outs and then explodes to give up two more. Of course, the Sox score two in the top of the ninth with David Ortiz hits a bomb that was about 15 feet away from going out. So the Sox lost the game and a game on the Yanks.

Two things about this game: people were completely pissed off at BH Kim. I have no idea why. Was it because he sucked at the beginning of the year? Was it because he flipped the crowd off last year? I don't know, but it was pretty freaking obnoxious. You have to cheer for your home team, unless they completely do something stupid. And being an asshole just to be an asshole doesn't make you a good or intelligent fan. It makes you a knee-jerk moron.

The other thing is that there is no other thing. I have no idea why I wrote that and since I'm on Sara's Apple laptop, editing things is a pain in the ass.

I asked Brownie to be a groomsman. He wanted to know what he had to do. I'm not sure if he's ever been in a wedding before, so I had to tell him what he had to do: give me two hours between and now next year for a tux fitting, walk people down the aisle and make sure that I don't run out of the church. He said that he could handle that. So, after the game I walked to Aly's place. It was a beautiful night, and a pretty nice walk, a little over a half hour to walk a mile and a half. Walking those roads from Fenway to Brookline made me think that I would love to live in Brookline Village and work somewhere in town.

Friday night, Aly and I met Skaus and Nick (and a few of their friends) at T's Pub on Commonwealth. Big game friday night. Huge game. The Yanks were in town, Pedro was on the hill and the Sox and Yanks were in a pennant race. The Sox were winning until the eighth when Tito decided to pull a Grady Little and leave him in the eighth inning, though he was well over 100 pitches. Bad move, a homer by Matsui and two more runs left the Sox in a 6-4 going into the ninth. Despite putting the tying run on first twice, the Sox couldn't do anything against Mariano Rivera.

What is the old cliche? "Those that don't study the pass are doomed to repeat it." Seriously, this was almost a carbon copy of Game Seven (except that last year was in Yankee Stadium). He is supposed to be a "numbers" manager and he does this? Unbelievable. On Thursday night, I didn't really blame him, a playoff-bound reliever should be able to get out a .186 pinch hitter. But this? This is entirely something different. For an entire year people were talking about Game Seven, and while the stakes weren't as high, he still screwed it up. This does instill confidence. Even Eddie was on the edge, he posted for the first time on timquinn.com with a scathing rant against Tito.

No one ever said it's easy being a Sox fan. The good thing about baseball is that there is another game tonight. If they win, most will be forgiven. Incidently, my parents are at tonight's game with their friends, sitting 11 rows from the field. What the fuck?

Two interesting things happened during the game. One, Aly's friend from High School, Jeff came up to visit. He seemed like a pretty cool guy, has led an interesting life. He lived in Japan for five years, teaching Japanese students how to speak English. He then moved to Los Angeles for a few years. He told us that he hated it, people were extremely mean, in-your-face and just too insane. He decided to come home because he missed Massachusetts. I liked him and I hope we see him again soon.

Ryan and Mike went to the game last night and as they were waiting in traffic a few Yankee fans started with them. Ryan threw a Coke can in one of their faces. They started to chase them. BANG! A Heineken battle spider-webbed their rear window. BANG! A Heineken bottle smashed through their rear window. The Yankee fans continued their chase, but never caught them. Ryan and Mike came over after the game, and Ryan didn't look too good. I think he knows that a line was crossed.

Today we didn't do much. Aly and I had to go and visit the priest for our compatability test, there was the typical questions on their. Only there was 156 of them. Afterwards we spoke about it and we seemed to be in agreement on the answers we put down. Then we watched movies. Saw a terrible movie, "50 First Dates". Not only was it a stupid story about a woman who gets amnesia every day, but Adam Sandler put in a shot against the Sox. Fuck him. That was a shit thing to do. Adam Sandler is one of my least favorite "actors" now. He can just suck it.

BTW, I was reading the Boston Phoenix today and it looks as if Public Enemy and Living Colour are playing a double bill next month at Avalon. I have to find someone to go with me. That is an awesome show.