Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball

Under a Loudoun Dusk

Random Thoughts Penned After Choosing the Internet Over 'Under a Tuscan Sun'

Friday nights sure used to be different. I'm 'watching' the Sox play the Twins (shocker - they had a man on third and less than two outs in the first and couldn't plate him) on CBS Sportsline while my wife watches a crappy chick flick, sipping a Sierra Nevada and hoping I can stay up late enough to catch 'The Daily Show' and its Democratic National Convention wrapup. (Aside - last night's TDS simply skewered the major networks' coverage of Al Sharpton's speech. Jon Stewart was as brilliant in his (supposedly fake) analysis as NBC's Brian Williams, CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Newsweek's Howard Fineman, and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly were insipid. I'm not kidding to make an post-ironic point. Stewart nailed it - and was funny doing so - and the network suits wildly missed the importance of Sharpton's message while falling over themselves to criticize his departure from the script. How long until Jon Stewart winds up hosting the CBS Evening News? You think I'm joking, don't you?)

Tomorrow ought to bring us a torrent of MetProse from our blue and orange hued pal. (He's blue and orange from the overexposure to alcohol and sun, not because he's a Met fan.) His boys got Benson and Zambrano, but parted with Kazmir and Pedersen to do it. If Rick Peterson is a good a pitching coach as advertised, and if Benson (as has been reported) is willing to resign in New York, and if David Wright lives up to his advance billing, well, then the Mets might be a really interesting team to watch. In 2005.

Question for Whit to ponder: Who's your favorite Met of all time? Marty Barrett used to be my favorite Sox player, but then he went and put on a Yankee hat while Clemens was going for win number 300. I think it's Yaz, now that Nomar's not long for the Olde Towne Team (he's sitting out tonight and tomorrow, coincidentally the last two days before the trade deadline, with an "inflammation" of his achilles' injury), but I'm hard-pressed not to go with Tim Naehring.

The Sox have loaded the bases twice in three innings and had a man on third with 1 out in the other and have but 2 runs to show for it. On the plus side, Mark Bellhorn's already struck out and walked, leaving him an error and a homerun away from the little-known but always scintillating Bellhorn Cycle.

Good to see T.J. Doyle (and guest) picking up the blogball and running (ambling? loping? walking 30 feet and getting winded?) with it at Gheorghe:The Blog. Particularly nice of him to link to the website celebrating Kris Benson's wife and her, um, charities. The Mets' may have to pay out injury claims to fans who suffer whiplash from craning their necks to peer into the wives' section at Shea.

Tizzle!

In other trade news, the Dodgers sent Paul Lo Duca, Guillermo Mota, and Juan Encarnacion to the Marlins for Brad Penny and Hee Seop Choi. Don't really understand this one from the Marlins' perspective. Penny's a solid, playoff-experienced starter, he's only 26 years old, and he's having his best season. Choi's also really young (25) and has tremendous potential - already 15 homers and an .883 OPS this year in his first full MLB season. Lo Duca's a fine player (actually, I think he and his .770 career OPS are a bit overrated), Mota's got filthy stuff (though he's already 31), and Encarnacion is serviceable, but they seem a steep price to pay for that much potential. I suppose the contract situations may play a role in the deal, but I'm too lazy to go figure out those details.

Sox have loaded the bases for the 3rd time in this game - and it's only the 5th inning. Every Sox player has been on base at least once already. Crikey.

Are the Texas Rangers done, or just in a slump? Would be great for the Sox if they were toast, because the Wild Card race just got surprisingly easy if they were, especially given Anaheim's injury problems.

Sox are doing their part, up 7-0 in the 5th. Is it too much to ask for Lee Mazzilli's team to win consecutive games against the Yankees? Sure appears that way.

Gabe Kapler's 7-for-15 with 5 runs scored since he kicked Tanyon Sturtze's ass on Saturday. Anyone else want a piece of the World's Most Sculpted Jew?

Rafael Palmeiro is toast. Sad to see, really. Very quiet, very classy ballplayer, but he simply has nothing left in the tank, and the O's keep running him out there to ground weakly to short and fail to catch up to mediocre fastballs.

Jesus, is this movie ever going to end?