Four innings deep and it looked like a replay of Monday night’s game. Nothing doing offensively, with each successive Sox at-bat about as alluring as a Counting Crows boxed set. Just keep it away from me, mister. I don’t want to know about it.
But in the fifth inning, it all starts to click. Mueller walks. Bellhorn singles to center. Then John “Yeah, I wear the helmet to bed, what’s it to you?” Olerud belts a double. And Edgar smacks a sweet single to left. Then Papi gets in on the fun. And before you know it, the Sox have plated four runs and my place becomes a goddam multimedia center, with one hand calling up scores from around the league on the laptop while the other dons the foam “Remember us? We won the goddamn 2004 World Series” hand. In other words, it was happy time again last night. And save a scary moment in which Damon went noggin-first into the bullpen wall [no doubt prompting at least a few front-office dudes to consider passing an “All Olerud, All the Time” mandatory helmet rule], it was one of the more enjoyable games of the 2005 season thus far.
Heck, things are getting so good, Damon’s already being quoted as telling Tito to make sure he’s in the line-up tomorrow. Tough as a bag of hammers, that dude. ‘Course, if I was spending my nights alongside Mrs. Damon, I’d probably feel like I was dipped in silver as well. Or something like that.
Some passing thoughts:
I’m waiting for the announcement that Curt Schilling will not pitch another game in 2005. And I must be honest; it doesn’t scare me.
Another amazing catch by Trot last night. Is it just me, or has The Nix already accumulated a season’s worth of “holy shit” plays in just a couple of months? I’m waiting for the play in which he jumps up to catch a sinking line drive, flies directly to the beer garden behind the home plate grandstands and buys a round for the crowd, then zooms back to the grass just in time to glove the ball, then throws out the runner tagging from third. You know this is going to happen. It’s just a question of when.
No home run from Sammy in over a month? Que pasa?
I want a custom horn for my car. And that custom horn will be, quite simply, the voice of Jerry Remy as he says “Buenos noches, amigos.” Because I want to drive down the strip along Revere Beach and hear that greeting bellow from the hood of my car as I surreptitiously press the horn down, over and over again. I dream big, folks. Big.
All of this and the Yankees take it on the chin from the Kansas City Royals? As that kid says in Animal House, thank you, God.
