Just Beckett Being Wasdin
As I was shamefully trudging from Fenway Park at 1:00 AM last night, I overheard some fellow Sox fans taking a rather pragmatic view of the event. “Hey, it was a hell of game at least, right? Right?”.
Well, no. It wasn’t a good game. In fact, it was quite heinous. The Red Sox scored the majority of their runs on a pop-up which dropped in between the shortstop and center fielder. Their October ace was in February form, as hitters put on a laser show during the rare instances when Josh Beckett was able to throw the ball over the plate. It was a game of squanders and fluke plays, and the score could have been 10-1 as easily as it was 5-4. It was a 6-hour symphony of rat diarrhea, and Josh Beckett was the conductor.
And that is the sole consolation I take from last night. The fact that the Red Sox had no business winning that game. It was a miracle of bleeding Virgin Mary statue proportions that they were able to come within 1 run of victory.
NOTES:
- 8:37 game tonight. There is a 60% chance that I will end up unemployed this week, due to some catastrophic error I make while sleepwalking at work. Other teams have had early division series games. Can’t the scheduling gods spread the love?
- You could hear a resounding chorus of “boos” when Julio Lugo was announced during the pre-game ceremony last night. The way I see it, you have to be a really miserable piece of shit to boo a Red Sox player at that moment. Folks, this is why the rest of the country hates you. Look inward.
- Mike Lowell and Dustin Pedroia are a combined 0 for 21 in this series. Dustin has had some hard luck, hitting a few bullets that happened to wind up in the gloves of the opposition. Mike Lowell, however, probably shouldn’t be playing. He can’t swing, he can’t run, and he has minimal range at 3B. It’s been painful and frustrating to watch his every movement on the field. Hey, I give guys credit for playing through pain, but you need to be cogniscant of the line where your presence in the lineup is actually hurting the team. At this point in time, Alex Cora is a better player than Mike Lowell.
- You’ve been hearing the grumblings all season long. “We have a new ace”. Tonight, Jon Lester has a chance to chisel this into stone on baseball’s biggest stage.
Is there a worse feeling as a Red Sox fan than watching Alex Cora come to bat with 2 outs in the bottom of the 12th?
Yeah, that was the “everyone gather your personal effects and plan your exit” moment at Fenway Park. Everyone just sort of picks up their jacket and turns 45 degrees toward the isle, keeping one eye on the field and the other eye on the nearest ramp.
“Folks, this is why the rest of the country hates you. Look inward.”
Who cares what the rest of the country thinks? To be honest with you, anyone who takes baseball or any form of entertainment that seriously needs a reality check. If multimillion dollar players can’t accept being booed as part of their job, they should find a new one. Fans pay good money to support these teams and should be able to boo. Who died and made you the end all be all of fan etiquette?
The answer to your question is Cornelious McGarnackle the Fourth. He died of whooping cough on January 14th, 1988, and in his will he actually named me “The End All Be All of Fan Etiquitte”. I’m actually sort of pissed, because he left my cousin $20,000. Not to sound bitter, but I’d rather have the money, you know?
I am sure there was more than one utterance of the prhase that prompted your post, but perhaps we heard the same knucklehead.
My wife and I were walking away across the street from Jillians and I heard the same “At least it was a good game…” garbage.
We looked at each other and rolled our eyes. It helped keep them open for a while at least.