This is the first time I’ve ever really sat and watched El Tiante pitch. Two words: F–king. Awesome.

Best Red Sox player name ever: Dick Pole. Man, you couldn’t make up something that cool.

I used to think Gary Sheffield cut the single most menacing figure at the plate. Then I saw Pete Rose bat.

Cecil Cooper’s sideburns haunt me in my sleep. They were huge and glorious and everything that circa-1975 sideburns should be, yet his had that something extra. Clearly, the sideburns were to Coop as the flowing manes were to Samson. Also, Coop’s burns controlled the tides.

How ’bout those 1975 network graphics? I picture a team of dudes in the media box working a row of Etch-a-Sketches. It is kind of sweet, however, in a simpler, nostalgic way, ‘specially when you consider all the pomp and shnizzle that goes on during today’s broadcasts.

Seeing someone else wearing number 5 for the Sox just seems weird to me. Especially when that someone else is the elfin Denny Doyle.

I totally dig on the fact that Game One opened in the midst of a pouring rain storm. If there’s any pet peeve of mine regarding our glorious national pasttime, it’s the rainout. No baseball in the rain? Are you made of clay? Get your ass out there and shag balls, grandma. Christ, back in the day, Cy Young would see his second baseman eaten whole by a bear and just keep on playing. F–k, he’d even try to tackle the bear, applying the patented “nutbag nuzzle,” which is simply too horrific to describe here, and since the SPCA has outlawed it anyway, there’s no sense even bringing it up. [Suffice it to say that Cy was one bad motherf–ker. And don’t ever forget it.] I mean, c’mon, why can’t they play in the rain? When I was a kid, we played in the rain. What the f–k is the suffering fan supposed to do when a game gets rained out? Watch JAG? Not in my house, buddy. This is a JAG-free zone, and it’s not like I’ve ever even watched the show. I just dislike the fact that there’s a show called JAG that has been on the air for about 20 years now and I don’t know what the f–k it’s about nor do I care to. But still, JAG is there, taunting me, inviting me with its clarion call.

I miss baseball. Miss it more than I ever missed Debby Smolenski when she went away to the Hamptons with her folks each summer. And if you knew what that girl could do with a bicycle pump and six ounces of pancake batter, you’d realize just how much this means I miss baseball.

See you tonight for Game Two.