Yankees 3, Red Sox 1

1) It could easily have been 7-1.
2) They now have a decent chance to take the series, with Wang facing Orange Julius tomorrow.

3) Are they seriously thinking about canning Torre? Seriously? I mean, feel free, George, if that's what you want to do, but if you do, you're out of your damn fool head.

A perfect example of a thought process that drives me batty. "We have to do SOMETHING." Well, how about we try something that will work instead? Casey Stengel or Joe McCarthy couldn't manage this team to a win in the condition that its in right now. I am so damn tired of doing things because we'll feel better or because it will raise morale or because of some other damn fool reason-do something because it will work, because it will produce results that you want or need.

4) Rivera looks terrible. I don't remember him being this hittable before-not that he never gave up hits before, but more that he used to make hitters look overmatched, with only weak fouls and skittering grounders to go with hideous, late, swinging strikes.

5) How much longer before ARod becomes a bum again?


We'll see if we can pull out a series win tomorrow with Tavarez, but I doubt it.

So after an uninspiring two losses to Toronto, we drop Baltimore twice and now lead New York 7-4 after 7 1/2 innings. Dice K was less than dominant, but he really only had one bad inning, and they never hit the ball hard off of him. Beating Pettite, assuming we can close this one out, is a good start. We should be able to hammer Karstens, and then, hopefully, we can get to Wang in a squeaker on Sunday.

This lineup is easily good enough to score 4 more runs, though.

They'll have to do it in the bottom of the ninth, though-now its 7-4 after 8.

There was a little kerfuffle about Curt Schilling and the bloody sock from the 2004 World Series. Gary Thorne, an announcer for the Orioles, contended on the air that he had been told Doug Mirabelli had admitted to him the sock was faked. It wasn't, of course, and that isn't what Mirabelli said, and Thorne concocted this lame "well, I misunderstood" defense which didn't make any sense.

Now its a story because there are blogs now that are going to call the media on it when they pull this kind of crap. Imus, too, really. The media is getting scared because they can't get away with this anymore. Oh well, poor babies. If they can't be bothered to do their jobs properly, they're going to get called on it. I would give my right arm to be a baseball play by play guy-I shouldn't know stuff that they don't know.

Now reading: Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

Kind of a techie kind of book-both my Dad and my brother in law have read it. I don't know what made me pick it up, but I did, and it's very good. Cryptology has been a secret interest for a while, ever since reading a Simon Singh book about it. "The Code Book", if memory serves. I only read that after reading his Fermat's Last Theorem book. I don't understand the depths of that stuff, but I have a nerd's semi-interest in this kind of stuff. Extreme intellectual effort of any kind interests me.

Books I want to buy:

Roger Penrose's big Guide to the Universe book
New Einstein biography
A Churchill biography (to go with the FDR one I just finished.)

After this (it's pretty big, so it may take me another week) I think I'm going back to the new Buck O'Neil book.

Glad to read there will be a sequel to "The Traveler". When it comes out, in July, I'll probably have to buy The Traveler to read it again to get caught up. I read it from the library the first time. It's kind of a cyberpunky story, about freedom and tech and shadowy conspiracies.

Listening to: Boston 4 @ Baltimore 1. 8th inning.

Boston's Hideki Okajima used to pitch for the Nippon Ham Fighters, which is a funny name for a baseball team. I learned only recently that it isn't as funny as it seems. The team is owned by Nippon Ham, hence the name. You picture a guy boxing with a pig.

Thinking about:

I don't know. We have to stop the war. It has gone so far beyond pointlessness it's not even funny.

After dropping two to Toronto, we need to beat Baltimore two straight, pretty clearly. New York got rained out, though.

I got to see nephew Simon today. He's 22 days into life, and already seems annoyed. Not really, he just has so many expressions that look that way.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mcgovern24apr24,1,1800867.story?ctrack=3&cset=true


God Bless George McGovern.

Blech.

A blech loss yesterday, and another blech loss today.

Blech.

A real letdown, after the high of the Yankee series.

Hopefully we can pound the Birds a couple of times to get our frustrations out.

I still don't know who Sanjaya is. And I don't care.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/04/30/070430taco_talk_gopnik


Great column by Adam Gopnik about Virginia Tech.

Key point: Strict gun laws will not prevent insanity. Strict gun laws will not prevent murderous rampages by unhinged people. Strict gun laws will, however, make it harder for unhinged, insane people to get ahold of the tools they need to easily kill scores of people.

I don't see how you can argue with that.

The Riches was on last night, and again, it was brilliant. Love that show.

7-3 loss. 3 runs in the last two innings, though, creating a pile on effect that makes it seem worse than it is.

Top Five Batters: 2 hits, 1 walk. Nice job, fellahs.

Beaten by old friend Tomo Ohka.

Grumble.

Plus we get Doc Halliday tonight. Great.

RIP, David Halberstam.

Oh yeah-we win, 7-6, completing a three game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway.

But, but, but...my Red Sox heart always looks for the cloud on the other side of the silver lining. We needed a improbable rally-scoring three runs off of Rivera-and tying a 40 year old record-four straight homers-to beat a Yankee team who were starting Andy Pettite and Star Trek Disposable Crew Members # 1 and 2. And a team that is without their starting catcher and starting left fielder for the whole series.

This Yankee team scares the crap out of me.

Great fact from Baseball Think Factory-the series is at 56-56 over the past five years.

I don't know how much more of this I can take.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/cold_turkey/


No comment necessary.

The kid for the Yankees escapes by striking out Drew with two on.

This is not going to be easy.


Yankees 2, Red Sox 0 after 1

Yankees 2, Boston 0, Bottom 1st

Wouldn't it be nice to go into the bottom of the first 0-0? Once? Well, we won the last two...but this kind of crap doesn't make it very easy.

Come on, Dice Man.