It looks like you can buy a World Championship after all.

You suck. For real. Thanks for the crappy birthday present.

Okay -- what is it with Red Sox castoffs going to the Cardinals and suddenly becoming world-beaters?

You've got Joel Piniero from last year who was cast-off from the Sox bullpen only to emerge as a stud in St. Louis (5.03 ERA in Boston in 2007; 3.15 ERA in St. Louis this year). Then you've got Julio "I-can't-make-routine-throws-to-first" Lugo who spent most of his Boston career hitting anywhere from .230 to .268 over parts of three seasons and then went on to the Cards where he's been hitting over .300 (and gone from seven errors in 32 games to 1 in 23). The latest addition is John Smoltz who spent 8 games serving batting practice to the opposing team and then travelled to the Gateway City where he promptly went back to looking like the future Hall of Famer that he is.

Is what Éiden called the Red Sox left fielder, Jason Bay, tonight. Immediately after he did, Bay hit a single and then later in the night, followed it up with a double and, more importantly, a ninth-inning, two-out, two-run, game-tying home run off the Yankee's Mariano Rivera (the Sox went on to win in the eleventh inning).

Consequently, from this day forth, Jason Bay will only be known as Bacon Jay in this house.

Major League Baseball has just premiered it's HD streaming video player and it is absolutely fucking beautiful. I just watched part of a game between the U.S. and Venezuela (which I couldn't give a rat's ass about except that the image was gorgeous) to check it out. Of course, there's always the chance, especially since it's a Beta product) that there will be all sorts of problems with it but for now, at least, I'm seriously looking forward to watching this season online.

It looks like the Manny era has officially ended.  He heads to L. A., home of other Boston cast-offs such as Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Lowe, and Bill Mueller (who, if I remember, has a job in the front office) and former home to Grady Little who was replaced by Manny's new skipper, Joe Torre.  It'll be interesting how Torre handles Manny's frequent walks down the first base line where he turns sure doubles into singles and sometimes outs, or when he sometimes decides it's really not even worth the effort to do that and instead turns to the dugout before the out is even recorded.

I've really enjoyed Manny's time in Boston (and I don't think the team wins either of their last two titles without him) and, in the past, I've tried to overlook his shortcomings and his distractions.  However, these past few weeks, he's been so distracting between his refusal to play (with a bad knee or watching three called strikes in a row when called on to pinch hit) and his declarations that the Red Sox "don't deserve him" that there really was no other solution than to ship him out of Boston.    It's unfortunate.  The Boston fans gave him free passes for his sometimes odd-behavior during the entire eight year tenure and collectively rolled their eyes at his semi-yearly demands to be traded.  Regardless of his behavior on or off the field, the fans rolled with it and gave him standing ovations like the time he came out of the dugout to pinch hit three years ago after the trading deadline passed and his latest "trade-me" demand was not met.

I'll miss some of the crazy stuff he did like the phone call from the wall (and the rumored bathroom break), the high five with a fan from earlier this year in between catching a ball and throwing it in, and even the absolutely head scratching stuff like cutting off Johnny Damon's throw into the infield in 2004 (I still laugh when I see that one).  Unfortunately, though, it was time for him to go.

Ortiz to DL

Ortiz has a torn sheath in his left wrist, his top hand when batting which is usually bad news for a hitter.  If I remember correctly, it was a wrist injury that initially sidelined Nomar in 2001 and he was never really the same Nomar afterwards.  The good news is there' s nothing wrong with the tendon, according to the MRI.  Hopefully it's nothing more serious than a DL trip and Papi comes back as good as before.

Éiden sat up in my lap, looking out.  Jacoby Ellsbury had just grounded out to start the game and Big Papi was on deck.

"There he is Éiden," I said and pointed down to the on deck circle where Papi had just walked out.  Our seats were right behind home plate, eighteen rows up, so had a good view of the players. Éiden looked down to where I was pointing.

"Where?" he asked.

"RIght there," I said and showed him again.  Éiden looked again and saw him, holding his pink bat for Mother's Day.

"Oh," he said.  "There he is."  And his eyes grew as he stared at Big Papi and he pointed down at him.  He'd seen him on television many times before but this was Big Papi here in person.  Standing in the on deck circle.  Right down in front on us.

Éiden watched the at bats intently, following the ball from the pitcher's hand to the bat, following the batted ball to it's end spot, marveling at live baseball in front of him.  As the game went on, he began to lose interest and after the second inning we went and I bought him a $6 bucket of popcorn that was not as big as his head but more like two of his head put together (and the kid's got a pretty big noggin).  Throughout the next few innings he finished most of the popcorn (with only minimal help from me).  He kept watching and cheered with me when the Red Sox started to score but most of his time was devoted to eating popcorn and flirting with the people sitting around us.

After about two hours of the game, in the bottom of the fifth, Éiden started to get tired, his eyelids getting droopy.  I asked him if he wanted to leave after we saw Papi hit one more time and he said yes.  So we watched Papi hit again, striking out and left.  Éiden waved goodbye to the people around us, raising his fists over his head in some display of machismo for one of the guys who laughed and raised his fists back.

As we walked out of the Metrodome, the cool spring air revived us.  As I put Éiden's jacket on, he looked up to the clear sky and said, "Look
there's the moon!"

I looked up to see the moon he was pointing at, glowing bright over Minneapolis, a waxing half moon, beautiful above us.  As we walked through the streets back to the car we kept seeing the moon reappear from behind buildings and each time Éiden would point and yell, "Look another moon!"

We talked about the game and about what we saw.  We talked about the moon and about the cars parked on the street and how Éiden thought some of them looked like Rocket Boxes, a matchbox car that he owns.  We talked about how we'd gone to see the Harlem Globe Trotters and about the houses and apartments we passed.  We stopped as I pointed out where haddayr works.  Éiden showed me how Super-grilla walks and he laughed at his silliness.  We held hands down the street as I carried the nearly empty popcorn bucket in my free hand and we enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful spring evening and being silly and laughing as we walked back to the car to drive home.

This is just fucking insane:

Sox-Yankees spat cited in N.H. killing

Not that it's really all that surprising.  I've had run ins with Yankees fans where I actually began to feel physically unsafe.  Some of these fans need to realize that it's just a game.  Seriously.

Would someone please tell Michael Kay that his trademark, "See-ya!" after a home run is just as annoying as Ken "Hawk" Harrelson's, "He gone" after an out?