Archive for July, 2008

Manny Ramirez is no longer a member of the Boston Red Sox. Some of the members of the newsroom here at the Enterprise are a bit upset about this. It’s being compared to a break-up, and emotional separation has come up. If I see any tears there will be slaps doled out to foreheads.

This is a good thing.

Personally I’ve always loved Manny Ramirez. He’s been my favorite player for a long time and I will miss him. But these things happen. He wasn’t going to be happy here anymore. He was just going to be a huge distraction. Maybe he isn’t a reason that they’ve been so bad since the all-star break, but he certainly hasn’t been helping any.

And they may have actually upgraded. Jason Bay has very similar power numbers, and his batting average is good. That’s the only place that Manny has a leg up on Bay, by about 18 points or so.

Manny all but sealed his fate when he said this.

“The Red Sox did the same with guys like Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, and now they do the same with me. Their goal is to paint me as the bad guy,” Ramirez added. “I love Boston fans, but the Red Sox don’t deserve me. I’m not talking about money. Mental peace has no price, and I don’t have peace here.”

Manny doesn’t understand that the Sox weren’t going to pay up when they didn’t have to. Not yet. They had an option that they could pick up, and it would have paid him handsomely. If they hadn’t signed him he would have gotten a little less on the free agent market, but he’s still going to take home well over $12 million a year for 3-4 years if he hits the market. Somehow I don’t think his lifestyle is going to change.

But the fact remains that Ramirez was going to be a distraction for this team the rest of the way. Manny’s always been a bit dopey, but that was forgivable. But if he’s going to be a pain in the butt and difficult, well that’s just not acceptable. It was time for him to go.

Yes I will miss him. I’ll miss watching Manny be Manny, but I won’t miss the antics of late. In sports few relationships last a lifetime. My favorite player of all-time, Dewey Evans, ended his career as an Oriole. Nomar has been with Chicago and LA. Pedro went to the Mets. Doug Mientkiewiez, oh wait, I don’t care about him.

But you get the idea. We have to enjoy our favorites while they’re here, appreciate what they do on the field, and then find another one. You’re basically rooting for laundry nowadays, so find solace in the fact that the guy that wore No. 24 was here for eight years and gave his team unbelievable production and helped them win two World Series trophies.

Maybe the new guy will help them do the same. Maybe he won’t. We’ll have to wait and see Jason Bay be Jason Bay.

Well, it looks like we’re saying goodbye to Manny Ramirez. I’ll save my thoughts on the Manny experience for later in the week.

For now, though, if the deal that is on the table happens I’m all for it. Manny’s mentally done here, period. He’s not going to help them do much I don’t think. Jason Bay, on the other hand, will be rejuvenated by the chance to come to a contender and play in front of a packed house every day. Trust me I’ve been to PNC in Pittsburgh, it’s a great ballpark, but the team stinks and so do the fans, for the most part. This is an upgrade in every way for Bay, and it is for the Sox as well. They’ll be getting a younger bat, in his prime, that can help, and is willing to help.

Playing on a mediocre team, Bay is hititng .282 with 22 homers and 64 RBI. Manny’s hitting .299 with 20 homers and 68 RBIs.

For a player that I was afraid that the Sox wouldn’t be able to get .50 cents on the dollar for, this is a great, great, great, great deal if they can get it done. It’s like 93 cents, and maybe more when you consider that Manny’s 36 years old, and on the decline while Bay turns 30 later this season.

Make it happen.

Eagle One said the other day that he was surprised that I hadn’t written about The Dark Knight. The main reason was that I couldn’t think of anything that hadn’t already been written a billion times by other people on the net. Basically there’s so much hyperbole out there that it almost takes away from just how good this movie was.

If you wondered, yes I loved it. I loved just about every second of it. It skyrocketed into my all-time Top 10 the second I walked out of the theater. It’s really that good, and you probably know that by now because just about everyone in the country has seen it by now.

I think the reason that I liked it as much as I did is that in a lot of ways it mirrors my all-time favorite movie, which is also a sequel — The Empire Strikes Back. In both movies our heroes are thrown into the worst possible scenarios and they don’t come through unscathed. Prices are paid. Bad things happen.

And that certainly is the case here. Bad things happen because The Joker makes them happen. He puts nearly every character of importance through the ringer. Only Alfred and Luscious Fox aren’t targeted directly it seems.

Heath Ledger’s Joker is as good as advertised. Like I said, there’s been so much hyperbole about his performance, but it’s all so deserved. I never once saw Heath Ledger on the screen. I only saw a maniac known as The Joker who will inspire a generation of clown-hating teens for certain. He’s creepy, maniacal, off-kilter, savage and darkly funny. Cesar Romero’s Joker was a goofball. Jack Nicholson’s was over-the-top, and pretty much Jack being Jack. Ledger’s Joker is what the character is supposed to be, demented and scary and also very calculating.

So often we look forward to a flick and are horribly let down (hello Phantom Menace). This lived up to all my inner-hype and went beyond it. I’ve seen it twice already, and want more.

Eagle One and I are planning a Foxwoods trip in the not too distant future. I’d pay money to see the following guy sit down at the card table with us and do this again. I think my buddy would lose his mind, cuff the dude and then laugh uncontrollably for about three weeks straight. Too funny.

By the way, I can’t take credit for this one. I found it on deadspin …

Finally the Sox are coming home to play again. No big deal, right? Just another home series.

The Sox — along with Toronto — have played the fewest home games in Major League Baseball this year. Here’s why this is a big deal, every team in MLB stinks on the road, with the exception of Anaheim, which is an MLB-best 31-18 away from The Big A. St. Louis is five-games over and there’s a handful of teams two games over. Nearly every other team is below .500 on the road. It’s almost NFL-like with the home field advantage this year.

The Red Sox have the biggest home field advantage in all of baseball, having gone 36-11 at Fenway, but as I stated, they’ve played the fewest home games, which makes the fact that they’re in first place this morning all the more impressive. Tampa has now lost seven straight road games, which has helped.

It’ll be a big test to that home field advantage over the next six games though. The red hot Yanks come to town for three and then even hotter Anaheim for another three. Thankfully dead-in-the-water Oakland follows, but the next six are huge.

It doesn’t seem possible, but the Sox have fewer than 60 games left to play, 59 in fact. Of those 59, 35 are at home and only 24 will be away. There’s a good chance they’ll be back in the postseason again. And if they are you can bet home field advantage will be a big reason.

Okay, it’s Thursday, which means I’m up to my nose in work to do and am falling behind more and more by the moment. Since I can’t catch up, and write a good blog, I found something on the net that will make you smile.

If you’re anything like me, you love Will Ferrell. How can you not? He’s only the greatest actor of our, or any, generation. The man is walking hyperbole.

So, some random site came up with a list of his greatest lines. Try to not laugh while reading them and watching the vids. Just try. Not possible.

For the record, the Frank The Tank lines in regards to the beer funnel are my favorites. And, yes at a Pearl Jam show a few years ago I did one just so the kids who had it could yell “he’s gonna do one.”

Enjoy

Summer’s nuts. The boss on vacation, which doubles my load here, and there are so many different things going on that it gets hard to keep up with the blog.

Being so busy I spend a lot of time in the car this time of year, which without air conditioning isn’t fun, but what are you gonna do? I plan on driving this thing into the ground, so I have to suck it up for three months and deal with it.

But, being in the car without a good radio is not acceptable. A few years back I got Sirius for Christmas and have never turned back to regular radio. The satellite stuff is just so much better. I listen to Howard and Bubba, and several different music stations like Lithium, Channel 20 (alt rock) and Classic Vinyl. Every now and then I also check out the Bruce Springsteen channel and there’s ESPN and a couple of other sports channels. During NFL season I’ve got every game there is, and also NBA and some hockey and college sports too. If the merger with XM ever goes through I’ll have MLB too, which would be great.

So there’s a ton of good stuff to listen to. And, let’s say you get a phone call but you’re really into what you’re listening to. No worries, just like TiVo at home, you simply pause what you’re listening too and then pick it back up when you’re done. It’s awesome. The pause can hold up to 45-minutes worth of stuff, so you never have to miss anything. What’s great about that is that on the few channels that do have commercials, you can fast-forward through them if you’ve paused what you were listening to. The music stations, though, are completely commercial free.

So I love my Sirius, but about two weeks ago the antenna broke. You’d think that this would be an easy fix, but it wasn’t. I went to Radio Shack and they didn’t have any. I checked the store in Hyannis too, and they were out. I was told they had them in the Yarmouth store, so I headed out there after covering a game that way only to find out that they close at 7 PM (I got there at 7:30). Days were slipping by and all I had was WEEI, which is okay, but it gets very tedious listening to the same arguments over and over and over again. “Manny doesn’t try.” “Manny’s an icon.” blah blah blah … shut up.

Last Wednesday I stopped in at the Falmouth store and asked if they could order one for me. They said they’d do a store-to-store transfer (from Yarmouth, of course) for me and that they’d call when it came in. It took — ready for this — six days for the part to move 23 miles from Yarmouth to Falmouth.

But I finally got it back yesterday and I couldn’t be happier. I had no idea how much I missed my crystal clear radio until I plugged it back in. I hope I never have to go back to regular radio ever again.

There are days you wish you could blog about personal stuff. I can’t … sorry. I’ve got a lot to say about other stuff, you know sports, but it’s hard to think cogently when you’ve got steam leaving your ears. So, hopefully it’ll all cool down tomorrow.

I think we all thought that game was going to end in a tie, but as I sit here and write this — at nearly 2 AM Wednesday morning — the American League has won another All-Star Game, there 11th straight decision.

No one was happier to see that game end than Terry Francona. The Sox skipper was out of pitching. He could have thrown Scott Kazmir one more inning, but the lefty had thrown over 100 pitches on Sunday and the Rays didn’t really want him in there at all. Clint Hurdle might’ve gotten one more out of Brad Lidge if it had gotten that far, but that was all he had too. We were this close to the second tie in six years.

Me, I wondered if I’d ever see a run. I saw the NL take a 1-0 lead early on a Matt Holliday homer in the fourth, but then the wife wanted to watch some shows and I jumped on the computer to surf. I threw the game back on in the ninth, and wouldn’t you know it, tie game.

I’m a bit of a sicko when it comes to tie games. If I see a playoff hockey game in OT, or a baseball game in extra innings, or a hoops game in OT, I have to watch until the end. I just can’t turn it off. Even if it means sleep deprivation, I have to see the end. I may live forever just for that fact alone.

So the game finally ended and the MVP ends up being a Red Sox player at Yankee Stadium. You gotta love that. JD Drew won the MVP. He had a homer, a single, reached on an error and a walk. He extended the 15th to get it to Michael Young for the sac fly.

What else will we remember from that game? Well, Russell Martin playing unreal defense behind the plate for the NL. Nate McLouth throwing a runner out at the plate to keep the game going. Both teams wiggling out of extra innings bases loaded jams, oh, and Dan Uggla.

Poor Uggla. The guy is a fun player to watch, but he had a horrible night. He hit into a double play with a chance to win it in the top of the 10th, then made two errors in the bottom of the frame and nearly cost his team the game there. He then went on to set a record by committing his third on a ball hit by Drew, although that was a tough one because the ball bounced funny on him. He struck out looking late too. Tough night for Danny boy.

But now I can go to bed. The game’s finally over. I won’t have to watch the T2000 tell me why I need DirecTV anymore tonight (ever notice he sounds an awful lot like George Bush? Maybe it’s just really late). And I won’t have to see that horrible Heineken commercial anymore with the song about love that just sticks in your head forever.

Until tomorrow, it’s love, love, love, la-la-la-la-love, it’s love …..

As much as I don’t like the team that plays there, and the place itself is a dump, Yankee Stadium sure has a ton of history going for it. Last night it got one more great moment to add to the list.

Sure it doesn’t top Lou Gehrig’s speech, or Don Larsen’s perfect game, or even Aaron “F’n” Dent’s homer. But Josh Hamilton’s display in the first round of the home run derby was something we’ll never forget as baseball fans.

Sure it was a 71-year old geezer throwing lollipops over the middle for Hamilton to pummel. Sure it was an exhibition, but the pure awesomeness of those homers will live on in memory for a long, long time.

The fact that he didn’t win the event (who came up with the great rule that total homers don’t matter?) doesn’t matter. Hamilton destroyed 28 baseballs, hitting them more than a combined two miles (thank you ESPN). For the record, Justin Morneau of the Twins won, but it’s a lot like the ending of Tin Cup. Our Hero Tin Cup didn’t win, but his amazing 12 would live on in history as one of the most special, crazy moments in golf history.

That’s a lot like how Hamilton’s first round will be remembered. He didn’t just hit a ton of homers, he hit them into the far reaches of the night. People in the back of the bleachers were catching baseballs. People sitting halfway up the upper deck were glad they brought gloves. He was responsible for more souvenirs than Kyle Farnsworth bobblehead night. Well, maybe they handed out more Farnsworth bobbleheads, but more of the baseballs actually made it home than the toys did.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same guy that was so deep into drugs just a few years ago that he wondered if he’d live to see another day. He doesn’t go out places where he can drink, and he doesn’t go out with teammates so he won’t be tempted to throw a few back. Hamilton has turned his life around and last night was sort of a culmination for the Born Again Believer. He’s been having an outstanding season for the Rangers, but last night he told the world “hey, I’m back and I’m worth rooting for again.”

Hats off to Hamilton. The guy’s been through Hell and come through it.

Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

Josh Hamilton knows that verse, and has lived it. Last night he had a lot of fans singing “alleluiah.”