Playoff baseball at Tropicana Field.  It’s a bit like putting a boutonniere on a pile of elephant dung, isn’t it?  Here’s memo to the groundskeepers down there: guys, it’s the ALCS!  Lots of people are watching.  The least you could have done was improve the aesthetics of the turf, maybe paint it and try to at least make it not look like Mike Timlin’s camouflage undershirt? That star in centerfield (a color I like to call “Babyturd Green”) is not going to cut it.   

And you’ll have to excuse me for playing the cynic here, but there is no way that 35,000 people willingly put on Tampa Bay Rays gear and entered that stadium.  There’s just no way.  The theory I’m going with: TBS sent busses to a dozen Central Florida methadone clinics and asked people to grab a cowbell and see a baseball game in exchange for a little bag of Afghani Brown Sugar.  Judging by the crowd shots on television last night, it’s a theory I’m sticking to.

I didn’t think it was possible, but the fine gentlemen at TBS have managed to accomplish it.  They’ve made me pine for the “good old days” of FOX.  If I had to pick a favorite moment from last night, it would be this:

Chip Caray: “Oh, And Dice-K walks Pena.  Ohhhh, the sensational Evan Longoria is going to do something dramatic here.  Oooooh, I can feel it in my bones.  By the grace of God, Evan will come through here, he will tie this game and I will get to raise my voice dramatically.  Can you feel it, ladies and gentlemen?  Because this (points to himself with both thumbs) guy sure can!”

Ron Darling: “Chip, I don’t think you’re supposed to…”

Chip Caray: “Now you just shut your mouth, okay?  You just shut it.  I can root for whomever I please, nobody tells me how to call a game!  Back to the action, Longoria digs in!  Oooh, I would love to see this sensational player naked.  Let me clarify, I’m straight as an arrow, see?  I just have an extremely deep appreciation for this athlete and the way he is currently making me feel.  He just oozes superstardom from every pore and you just know he’s going to deliver here!  The crowd can feel it!  I can feel it!  This great nation can feel it!  LISTEN TO THOSE COWBELLS!”

(Longoria strikes out)

Chip Caray: “what…oh.  It looks like that’s strike three.  Well, goddammit.  Heh…didn’t see that coming.  Now that’s just…it’s just not fair.    God DAMMIT!!  That wasn’t supposed to happen!  IT’S NOT FAIR!  IT’S NOT F***CKING FAIR!!!”

Buck Martinez: “OK, let’s go to commercial”

Chip Caray: (incoherent sobbing)

Anyway, Daisuke Matsuzaka exceeded my expectations last night.  He pitched the way he’s been pitching all year.  He rams the opposition with an oil-tanker at full speed, and last night he broke through without any damage to himself or his team, as is his custom.  You watch it with one eye open and a stiff drink in your hand.  Matsuzaka took a no-hitter into the 7th-inning, and it was still an excruciatingly tense game.  It should be fun, because it’s baseball, but last night’s game (like most of the playoff games thus far for Boston) was agonizing.      

Would it kill this team to outscore an opponent by 3 runs for once?