Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

Down is Up

...left is right, etc. Ichiro, of all people, lost sight of a ball in the sun of late-afternoon right field at Fenway, letting Jed Lowrie reach third base safely, and then Carl Crawford hit a walkoff single that scored the Legend. And thus, with the first walkoff win of the season, the one game the Red Sox were expected to lose this weekend -- right up until it started today, even when it would mean a sweep -- they won, at the last minute, and in unlikely fashion.

"Unlikely"goes for the Sox in macrocosm, too, so far this season. They have defied every expectation, from the certainty that they would probably flounder during their West Coast swing, to the assumption that they would then feast on the soft underbelly of the Orioles, before returning for another strong homestand.

As it turned out, they went on an ass-kicking rampage in Oakland and Anaheim, inexplicably dropped the series in Baltimore, and did indeed look headed for another blindingly frustrating loss this afternoon before a pitch was even thrown, given the pitching matchup: AARP member Tim Wakefield vs. "King" Felix Hernandez. Sure, piece of cake. Or so, of course, we thought.

The Dempsey Debacle

Rick Dempsey, originally uploaded by Keith Allison on Flickr.

My TV was muted, and the nasal tones of Joe Castiglione were floating over the airwaves into my home by the second innning, so I didn't hear tonight's worst from MASN broadcaster Rick Dempsey, who filled in alongside Don Orasillo in the NESN booth with Jerry Remy said to be battling flu.

But if Remy can't come back tomorrow night, I would honestly rather they enlist Tim McCarver to co-host than have Dempsey back again. Seriously. What little I heard of Dempsey was that bad -- for just one example out of many, he called JD Drew an "Orioles killer," after which he was swiftly informed by Orsillo that Drew is hitting .238 against Baltimore. I really think you could've taken your average Red Sox fan off the street to do color, and they'd do about as well as Dempsey's constant spew of cliches, truisms, nonsensical blather and misstatements tonight.

Dempsey was so bad that he was actually lifted for relief color man Nick Cafardo in the seventh inning, though the ostensible reason was that Dempsey had to get ready to inflict himself on Orioles fans on the MASN postgame show. I can only imagine he killed at least some of their winning buzz.

Meanwhile, the play on the field was just as painful as the announcing.

Los LOBos back up Beckett in the end

"Hi. I'm Josh Beckett, and I'll be serving you your own asses on a platter tonight."

First, and foremost, let me breathe a HUGE sigh of relief for Kevin Youkilis, whose X-Rays are apparently negative after he fouled a ball off his left shin in the first inning last night, and was taken out of the game.

NESN kept showing the trainers in the dugout peeling back Youk's sock to reveal an ugly purple welt on his leg, near where the shin bone meets the ankle. When it happened, it had looked so much like the foul off the instep that downed Pedroia last year that I told Youk half-jokingly through my television, "Don't be pulling a Pedey here." When he didn't return to the field, I yelled, "I didn't mean it!!"

And thus began an, er, adventurous night.

Red Sox Opening Weekend Photoblogging, Part 2

Still getting random ice cream headaches thinking about last night's awful outcome? Here, have some more photos...from the OTHER win so far this season. Oy. I think I need to go lie down.

However, I will first note that I am still accepting sponsorship offers for my attendance at Fenway for the rest of the season as good luck charm. I've been there for both of the games they've managed to pull out so far...

About 48 hours after Opening Day, it was back to the park with Sam to see Josh Beckett bitch-slap the Yankees. What outs there were aside from Ks of the variety that sent Josh a-swaggerin' off the field just like old times were mostly tough grounders hit in the vicinity of Dustin Pedroia.

In other words, it was as if the game had been designed with me in mind.

Red Sox Opening Weekend Photoblogging, Part 1

You don't want to think about these epically frustrating losses to the Rays the last two nights, do you? No! Of course not! Wouldn't it be nicer simply to savor the only two wins for the Sox so far this season -- the only two wins it feels, in moments like this, that they will ever have again?

Well, then, why not take a gander at these photos from Opening Day, here in Part 1, and the Sunday night game against the Yankees, in Part 2, that I've taken this freaking long to get processed been saving for just such an occasion?

Opening Day with Dustin Pedroia

The last time I'd been to a game at Fenway before attending Opening Day this year, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis both had been on the disabled list for quite some time. Their absence was palpable to me then, and throughout the offseason.

Then, yesterday, they were two of the first players I saw -- and for someone with a cravin' for a Laser Show, especially, the game turned out to be an all-you-can-eat-buffet of awesomeness.  

The Sixth Inning from Hell

It even shows up, if you scroll through ESPN's play by play page for the game, like a meteorological event on a weather map. After the five runs that scored between the two teams in the first two innings, all is quiet columns of grey until the point where it says, in bold lettering, "D. Reyes relieved D. Matsuzaka."

You want a scapegoat? You want to ride somebody? Here's your guy. Dennys Reyes. The guy who came out "in relief" only to hit not one but two batters, walk another, throw a dozen pitches without collecting an out, and recording one single, solitary, pathetic little strike. The guy who singlehandedly loaded the bases, then went to sit on the bench and watch the rest unfold.

And this is where the ugly green of that inning on ESPN's page, to indicate-run scoring plays, starts to show up, like the deepest, nastiest center of a severe thunderstorm on a Doppler screen.

This cruel and unusual inning would continue with a mental error (though not officially recorded as such; it was ruled a fielder's choice) on the part of Jason Varitek, though I would just like to point out to those still jumping all over 'Tek that it took all of us -- Kevin Youkilis, Varitek, umpires, Terry Francona, and fans alike -- several minutes to figure out just what had happened. And so, on a related note, I'd also just like to mention that the word "Boneheaded" is usually reserved for errors which are a) actual errors and b) glaringly obvious. Ahem.

Still, yes, this play was when the Sixth Inning from Hell truly began to take on its surreal and nightmarish quality.

Michael Brantley hit a liner that bounced in and out of the glove of Youkilis, who probably let the ball go on purpose in an effort to get more than one out. And it might've worked, too -- Youk stepped on the third-base bag in time to force out Matt LaPorta, and then threw for home, where Travis Buck (the guy who'd begun the inning getting beaned in the back by Dennys Reyes) was headed for the plate.

Tek fielded the ball cleanly, stepped on the plate, then shifted forward, the better to hold the remaining runners on. What he didn't realize (and we ALL didn't realize until several minutes after the fact, I feel the need to point out again) was that Youkilis had stepped on third, meaning it was a tag play at home, not a force. Varitek could easily have tagged Buck, but didn't think he needed to. Thus Buck scored the fourth run for Cleveland.

While the Youkilis-Varitek play was painful and strange, the ultimate low point would have to have been the stomach-dropping dread of watching Azdrubal Cabrera's towering three-run homer off a Wheeler pitch, as it soared toward the right-field stands shortly afterwards.That was your ball game, right there, even though Official Hope of Red Sox Nation Adrian Gonzalez would contribute a bomb of his own in garbage time.

No, let's not panic -- but let's not be disingenuous either. That inning, from start to finish, front to back, from the pitcher's mound to the basepaths and the catcher's mitt, absolutely sucked. And it's the sloppiness of that inning -- not to mention the seeming hopelessness of Reyes, who won a spot on the team over Hideki Okajima this year -- that sticks with me today.

Here's hoping we can finally wash its ugly taste out of our mouths tonight.

In the meantime...

Just finally seeing this...

Jose Iglesias and the Play of the Weekend

With being a football fanatic to distract me through most of the winter, I'm not normally pining for baseball as much as the next Sox fiend by the time pitchers and catchers report.

After that, though, it's quite a different story.

For me, the wait from 'pitchers and catchers report' to 'actually playing real baseball' is the most interminable of the sports year. What few games are broadcast this early in the season are utterly meaningless -- utterly. Inferences and predictions are equally meaningless this time of year.

Even if you tune in to see the familiar faces, you won't always find them. What real joy and intrigue there is to take from Spring Training, once we've moved past the first-day-of-school feeling of the initial reports to the Fort, can usually be found in the minor leaguers invited to camp (provided you're unhealthily obsessed, anyway).

This year, though, there's not much new there, either. As Don Orsillo and Peter Gammons rather drily pointed out, by the end of last season, more than a few of the "bench guys" who played last night -- Nava, Kalish, et al -- actually already have been regulars.

There is one player in camp this year, though, who is a real novelty to see. Still far too young to be on the big club's radar last year, no matter how dire the injury-plagued straits they found themselves in, this player has nonetheless been talked up since he first defected from Cuba to join the Red Sox around this time last year. And during his appearance in last night's exhibition, at least, 20-year-old shortstop Jose Iglesias did not disappoint.

His best play, and arguably the best play of them all in this weekend's contests with the Yankees, came in the bottom of the seventh last night. A chopping grounder bounded toward short, and then...

Red Sox Off-Season Photoblogging 12: I'll Be Missing Youk

originally uploaded by Mark Waitkus on Flickr

Last week, Alex Belth wrote in a post titled, Do Baseball Nerds Dream of Electric Sheep?

Do you dream about baseball during the middle of winter? When it is grey and cold, chunks of ice on sidewalk, banks of snow against the buildings, do you picture long summer days, green grass, men spitting and laughing, the smell of beer and urine, the humidity, and the tension of even the most routine ball game?

You can start printing up my Bad Fan™ badge now, because my answer is, pretty much, no. Not right now, anyway.

First, of course, there's football. And for some reason -- maybe because the sports are really like pickles and ice cream, two great tastes that DO NOT taste great together -- it seems like I'm only ever 'into' one at a time. I need palate-cleansing time. Again, judge me if you will, it won't change anything.

Then there's the fact that my football team has now been eliminated from contention by the sports team I probably hate most in the world, in either sport I follow. That'll put you off your feed, sports-wise, for at least a little while.

Meanwhile, this week, we find ourselves in that sea of dead air between the conference championship games in the NFL and the Super Bowl. Apparently there was some kind of football exhibition game played this past weekend, but seriously, who even watches that thing anymore? Even hardcore football fans have little interest in watching a scrimmage where everyone's just playing not to get hurt. 

So. Back to Alex's question. Do I dream about baseball, as I look out my window and watch another foot-plus of snow come down on Boston?

And again I say, for the most part, no. Frankly, part of that palate cleansing I go through every year is using this Time of Tumbleweeds to do other things -- watch ANYTHING AT ALL besides a sporting event or a show about sports on my television, for example. Visit dear, old friends that are only in the country anymore for one month each year thanks to State Dept. jobs. Reacquaint myself with my husband, a two-sport widower.

You know. Life. That thing people are always trying to bug you with while you're watching the game.

But as I've thought about Alex's question, I've noticed that there is one little green shoot, if you will, of baseball that has at least cracked the surface of my wintry distraction. One little pang, that hits me, baseball-wise, from time to time, and has since before last season was over.

I try not to think about it, because when I say 'pang' that is the exact word I mean, like a hunger pang, and every time I give it attention it only seems to get worse. This is not a pleasant feeling I want to wallow in -- and there are other things to do besides rage that my pang will not be assuaged for another month yet.

But that feeling in the pit of my stomach, something like hunger, something like homesickness, hits me every time I can't avoid thinking about Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, or a combination of the two.