Confession: I’m a winter soul.
I love when it gets dark at 4:00 in the afternoon. Snow drifts up to my ass and my car spinning merrily across 128.
I dig on sweater weather, getting all bundled up in coats, gloves, wigs, fake beards and the like. Love to see my breath hang in the air, scrape inches of ice off my windshield, or just sit inside, a glass of Jameson’s in my hand and Interpol on the stereo, and watch cute chicks in wool hats amble down the street.
By comparison, the summer months offer little cheer. Cut from that pale-skinned Irish cloth, I can’t spend fifteen minutes under a reading lamp, let alone the blazing August sun. My grandfather used to wear a hat, trousers, shoes and socks to the beach [and his grandfather before him, I can only imagine, would don a complete suit of armor], but I just avoid the sand and surf altogether, a slave to drawn mini-blinds and central air conditioning.
What gets me through the summer months — and keeps from just up and moving to Point Barrow — is baseball. The weather’s always “just right” at Fenway, even when I’m carrying two liters of sweat off my balls. I don’t mind baking in standstill traffic on the south shore when I’ve got Joe & Jerry in the car with me. Can shrug off even the unholiest of sunburns when Remy and the ape-like Orsillo are working their gentle magic.
Things make more sense to me in the summer. Things are regimented. There’s NESN Sports Desk in the morning. There’s the NESN and Fox Sports New England pre-games. There’s the game itself. Then there’s post-game. Then Baseball Tonight, to watch THE GAMMONS drop some science. And SportsCenter. And then there’s banging out my own silly-ass comments for this site.
Were it not for the heat and sun… man, I’d be in heaven.
So, to take my mind off the fact that the days are slowly but surely getting longer, today I ask the question, “What are you, gentle reader, most looking forward to in the 2005 season?”
Personally, I’m digging the thought of David Wells in a Red Sox uniform. I’ve always enjoyed his antics [c’mon, wearing that Babe Ruth jersey on the mound is the stuff of which great Simpsons episodes are made] and, more specifically, his ability to come up big in the postseason. Slap a velour running suit on the guy and instantly, he’s your high school gym teacher. But put him on the mound in a big money game and, miraculously, he seems to pull it off — perhaps most notably in Game 5 of the 2003 ALCS, where he very matter-of-factly snuffed out any momentum we’d hoped to carry over from Game 4. Hell, if he can bring a bit of that magic, I’m almost willing to overlook the fact that he pals around with Tom Arnold. Almost.
I’m also intrigued by the whole Unit-Schilling dynamic. If you believe everything you read [and why would they print it if it wasn’t true] and you’ve got two slightly ego-centric stars and former teammates who can’t stand each other playing for two of the most storied rivals in baseball, the stage appears set for some classic showdowns. The question mark is Schilling’s ankle, but something tells me he won’t miss an opening day tussle with Big Bird. Considering his hugeness of heart, bigness of balls and badness of ass, I’m secretly hoping that claims he’ll miss the first month of the season were part of a “disinformation campaign” to lull the enemy into complacency. Because, if we’ve learned anything from the Smoky and the Bandit films, it is that first you lull, then you strike, then you just fill the remaining 56 minutes up with Burt Reynolds doubletakes.
And speaking of the Unit, SarahRN noted in our comments section yesterday that if Randy J stirred up this much shit during his goddam physical, what will the mood be like when the season kicks in and, as De La Soul says, “stakes is high”? “I’m picturing a media confrontation that would put Tommy Lee or Alec Baldwin to shame,” she wrote, and all I can say is bookmark the Post and Newsday now, because the circus has officially pitched its tents [insert Beavis & Butthead laughter here].
Oh, New York Post. Your mysteries, so deep! Your wonders, so immense!
One other thing I’m looking forward to… Jessica Alba playing Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four movie.
Hurt. Me.
