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Has the Time Come?

17 Sep

As much as I don’t want to admit it — and I’m not conceding entirely — but I think, after tonight’s loss to Toronto, which left us just three-and-a-half games on top of the Yankees, it may be time to be concerned about the Red Sox. (Note that I didn’t say worry.) What happened to the good ole days, when Papi up in the bottom of the 9th with bases loaded and the Sox down by a run would mean an automatic clutch hit and a win for the Sox? What happened to the days just, like, a month ago when Tim Wakefield was an almost-guaranteed win? What happened to the Sox’ winning ways? How did we lose tonight? How did we lose last night? And I still hesitate to ask, but how did we lose Friday night? What’s happening to our team?? Thankfully, we have two weeks to shape up before the playoffs. Let’s hope we begin the road to recovery tomorrow.

It’s About Time

4 Sep

Hate to say I told you so, but it seems people are starting to come around to my way of thinking on this whole Dice-K thing. In the Boston Herald today, Steve Buckley describes how the Japanese “phenom” was pitching so poorly last night — he gave up seven runs on 10 hits in 5 1/3 innings — that the crowds were “begging, pleading, with manager Terry Francona to get Matsuzaka out of the game. And Francona was anxious to accommodate them.” Ouch. And then he goes on to say, “There’s no way other way to put this: Matsuzaka has been lousy in three of his past four outings. In those four starts, three of them losses, he has allowed 20 earned runs in 23 2/3 innings, which works out to a 7.60 ERA.” In short: Dice-K sucks. Still. Who’da thunk 10 runs wouldn’t be enough to win last night’s game? And sure, Dice-K didn’t give up all 10 runs (the Sox eventually won the game 13-10), but he gave up most of them, and set the stage for the other three. So I say welcome to my bandwagon, Steve. It’s nice to have some company.

Tedy! Youk! Martin!

1 Sep

As if there wasn’t already enough going on in the Coolidge Corner general area today, Tedy Bruschi was doing a book signing at Brookline Booksmith.

I may not be a huge Patriots fan (at least not as big as I am a Red Sox fan), but you gotta love a guy who battles back like Bruschi has.

And hey, I love a good book signing.

So I waited in the line — which snaked down Harvard St. and about halfway up Green St. — for an hour and got my book signed.

And it was pretty cool to see everyone walk out of the store with a big grin, relating what inspirational words he told them. Tedy shook my hand, signed the book, and gave me a little smile.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Continue reading →

So What?

30 Aug

Big deal. The Yankees swept us this week. I feel no sense of deja vu. After all, we’re still in first place by five games. The next time we meet up with the Yankees — right here in Fenway Park — we could be 10 or 12 games up. That’s how confident I am. So all you Yankee fans out there can just go enjoy your sweep. But don’t get too used to it.

Ouch!

27 Aug

I’ve been good all season, but I just couldn’t resist reposting one of my all-time favorite photos after Monday night’s humiliating loss. 16-0. That hurts, don’t it?


Ha ha! And now, as the Red Sox gear up to play three in the Bronx, up a whopping eight games — !!! — in the division standings, and with the Boston Herald proclaiming that It’s Over, that for all intents and purposes we’ve already clinched the division, it sure is good to be a Red Sox fan. Let’s just hope Dice-K (or Eric Gagne) doesn’t screw it all up and kill the momentum tonight.

Is Summer Over Already?

19 Aug

Everyone has their favorite way of marking when seasons change. For example, does summer end on Labor Day? On September 1? On September 21? On Rosh Hashannah? When baseball season ends? When the Red Sox’ season ends? When football season begins? When the new TV season begins? Well, if you look around, you may see signs that summer is coming to a close are all around.

One of the biggest is that the gate to the parking lot at the Allston Shaw’s on Comm Ave. is now closed and you need to get a ticket before entering. When the college kids leave town, Shaw’s opens the gate permanently and laxes the restrictions on parking in the lot. But the gate going down means the students are returning. And sure enough, there were plenty of them all over Shaw’s Sunday night. Ugh. It means do your grocery shopping earlier (by all means, before 4pm on Sundays). It means the streets and the T are going to get more crowded. It means … summer is ending soon.

Another is my annual excursion with Dave and Scott (and their families) to Rye Playland and T.G.I. Friday’s. We started doing it back in 1992 before we (and five other friends) left for college, and we’ve made it a tradition to go sometime in August every year. This past Saturday we rode the Dragon Coaster and all the other rides for the 16th straight year. (Sixteen!) Amazing, I thought, that we’ve been going there that long and the park is basically exactly the same as it was when we first started going. It means people still enjoy an old-fashioned good time. It means Dave, Scott, and I are all still in touch. And it also means … summer is ending soon.

And then there’s the whole moving thing. My apartment building is emptying out. It’s largely because of the excessive increase in rent, and I’ve heard that come September 1, the place will only be about half full. That’s crazy. My across-the-hall neighbor is gone (bummer). My next-door neighbor (the loud one I don’t like) is gone (woo hoo!). Who knows who’s moving in (or when I’ll be moving out as well), but it means the place is going to be quieter for a little while. It means I have a better chance of doing my laundry whenever I want (for at least a couple weeks). It means soon there may be new people moving in — here and in other buildings all across the city. It means … summer is ending soon.

But living in Boston, I choose to go with the Head of the Charles as my marker for the end of summer. After all, the season starts late so it should end late too, and while the temperatures do get cooler in late September and early October, there’s always at least one weekend where we get a last gasp of warm weather. It means there’s still plenty to look forward to. It means there’s no need to worry. It means … summer isn’t ending just yet.

Geek City

14 Aug

As the saying goes, If You Lived Here, You’d Be Blogging Right Now. I read in the Boston Globe this morning that according to the Web site Outsidein.com, Boston is the bloggiest city in the country, with 89 posts per 100,000 residents recorded in March and April of this year. Good for us. I guess we have a lot to say. But it brings up an interesting question: what was I saying back then? Let’s take a trip in the wayback machine, shall we?

Ahh, March and April. Those were the good ole days of Haley Scarnato. When Dice-K was just bad, not quite awful yet. Back then I was listening to Amy Winehouse and making fun of Best Buy (how times have changed). There were good movies and not-so-good ones. Ah yes, March and April. Those were good times. No wonder I was blogging so much. And to think, we only had one more post than the greater Philadelphia area. I wonder if they counted this one or this one. Either way, I say Ha! Take that, Philly! (And yes, that was said with all due sarcasm.)

Good News for Dice-K

12 Aug

Congrats, Dice-K, you now have some company on my “least favorite Red Sox players” list: Eric Gagne, who may just suck more than you do. He came into today’s game with a 16.20 ERA in Boston — sixteen-point-two!! — and then he gave up a two-run home run to Miguel Tejada in the bottom of the 8th, which tied the game at 3-3. Your teammate has now given up seven runs with the Red Sox, just one less than he had given up when he was with Texas the entire first part of the season, and he hasn’t even pitched five full innings for us yet! And then the Sox end up losing the game — thanks to a walk-off three-run homer by Kevin Millar, of all people. Now the Yankees are just four games behind in second place. Jeez … Who’da thunk this trade would turn out so badly?

Catching Up

9 Jul

After a few days off, here are a few quick items that weren’t significant enough for posts of their own:

Real estate porn: I’m starting to really enjoy this whole buying real estate thing. Every Sunday I try to hit up a few open houses to see what’s out there, and it’s fun to see the nice kitchens and views and cleaned up bathrooms and stuff. Equally fun (though also frustrating) is seeing the places that sound nice and are photographed well, but in actuality are dumps. Who are they kidding?? And then there are the places I walk into off the street because there’s an “open house” sign out front, only to find it’s way out of my price range. Ha! Either way, it’s all good and worth seeing just for comparison. And one day, one of these nice kitchens will be mine. Then, I suppose, I’ll have to cook. But first things first.

All junk: I’d like to spend, like, two minutes in the mind of a spammer. What good is it to send out all your messages for discounted software and “enhancement” drugs and all that other crap on a holiday weekend, when it’ll just get lost amongst all the other junk emails of the sort? I got close to 100 of these messages in my work email box between Friday and Monday morning. And I moved them all into the trash.

In their place: I’m so far away from being married that sometimes I can only look at my married or engaged friends and laugh at some of the things they do. Like when my engaged friends register for “silly” stuff I know they’ll never use. For example, one of my friends registered for, like, 20 bjillion placemats. And not just the same kind, but, like, six of one kind, a dozen of another, and 15 of another. How many times has this couple eaten dinner together at home recently? Let’s just say that everytime I call them at 5:00 (the time they say they’re eating dinner) they’re not home. And I know this friend will enjoy that I’m making fun of him publicly. Still, I look forward to the day when he tells me the dinner placemats actually got used.

No Dice: Halfway through the season and I’m still not impressed with Dice-K. He lost again on Sunday. Six runs and 10 hits in five innings. That’s no ace. As for the whole team, I’ll worry about them when the second place team (be it Toronto or the Yankees) make it within five games. Until then, much as I’d rather they be dominating everyone, I can’t get upset that they lost the series this weekend. The season’s on cruise control.

Wild thing: I’m really looking forward to the movie adaptation of Into the Wild, which is a book I’ve actually read. Granted, it was a few years ago, but I remember really liking it, and the film’s trailer looks really promising. Speaking of which, I expect to have finished Cabin Pressure by week’s end (only 25 pages to go). That’ll be the second book I’ve read in three months. (That’s right, two books in three months. Go me!) Next on the reading list: The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs. It’s not out till October, but A.J. himself sent me an advance copy (with a personal note and everything) because I interviewed him a few years back to promote his last book. Yaaaaaay, A.J.!

Say What?

2 Jul

One thing I hated about the movie Fever Pitch was how utterly unrealistic I thought the Drew Barrymore character was. How could it be possible, I wondered, that a person living in Boston was that clueless about the Red Sox, and baseball in general? Isn’t it, like, a mandatory part of your citizenship in this city that you have to be a baseball fan? Or at the very least, how could you avoid it, what with the incessant press coverage of the Sox and the way the city seems to be totally devoted to the sport during the season. So imagine my surprise when, on my way home on the T this evening, a fellow passenger started to engage the driver in conversation.

I tried not to eavesdrop — really, I did — but she was right behind me, and certain things she said and questions she asked stood out. For example, “I haven’t been paying attention. How are the Red Sox doing this season?” “I heard they’re playing the same team tonight that beat them yesterday.” “A series is three or four games? Why do they play so many?” “What’s the team from Texas called?” I thought she might have been kidding, but no. She was genuinely clueless about the whole thing. It was as if she was talking about something that some people do, like a movie that those kids are all talking about, or the cult tv show that she’s heard is good, or something that happens in a foreign country that hasn’t yet reached the States.

I swear, I’ve never heard someone talk like that about baseball in Boston. I knew people like Jimmy Fallon’s character actually existed, but now I guess I’ll have to look at Drew’s character in a new light.

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