Donde este roja caliente? |
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I'm Baaaack in the Saddle Again
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I'm Baaaack in the Saddle Again
Ridin' into town alone by the light of the moon
I'm lookin' for old Sukie Jones she crazy horse saloon
Barkeep gimme a drink that's when she caught my eye
She turned to give me a wink that make a grown man cry
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I'm Baaaack in the Saddle Again
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I'm Baaaack in the Saddle Again
Come easy, go easy, all right till the rising sun
I'm calling all the shots tonight I'm like a loaded gun
Peelin' off my boots and chaps I'm saddle sore
Four bits gets you time in the racks I scream for more
Fools' gold out of their mines the girls are soaking wet
No tongue's drier than mine I'll come when I get back
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I'm Baaaack in the Saddle Again
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I'm Baaaack in the Saddle Again
Ahhh It's good to be back... Since the last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind for me, I thought it best to wait until I hit a nice lull and then update y'all all at once with my thoughts, experiences and feelings on the events of the last few weeks.
ALCS - Holy shit. I think the last time I posted anything even remotely captivating on here I was basically bitching about the first three games of the series and calling for the heads of Mark Bellhorn and Dale Sveum. Much to my delight, Bellhorn turned his ass around and proved to be a solid asset for the Olde Towne Team, but I'm still waiting to run into Sveum at a local bar so I can bottle his ass for sending Johnny D in the first inning of game 7. The greatest part about that comeback is how my Yankee fan friends suddenly didn't want to talk about baseball anymore :?: Very curious, considering I've been participating in extended dialog with them throughout all the ups and downs of my team.
Another thing that I found to be more telling than startling were the reports that I heard from friends of mine in the Big Apple... Seems the number of fans dawning Yankee caps dropped from about 1 in 3 during the series to about 1 in 500(relatively non-existant) afterwards.
Is this an indication of a fan-base that is utterly disappointed in their team, or is it simply that they are - pardon the cliche - fair-weather-fans? You tell me.
Here’s to Bear and his contribution to the overall
happiness of us Beantowners! |
Bear's Visit to Boston - Well, we rolled the dice on this one. Anytime a dude you know from the internet comes to visit you, it can, for obvious reasons, be hit or miss. Sadly, I have nothing to complain about with the guy. He turned out to be quite the stand-up, smooth talking, gentlemanly southerner who stuck it out through the shitty weather and hard-core partying. Although, he did blame Ant and I for his lack of ass-getting when he was up here. Funny, I recall dancing with about five hundred Beantown skank-whores who were just dying to get their legs in the air Friday night at Tonic. :D
But I can’t give him too much shit, since he provided two-thirds of the greatest sports trifecta that I will likely ever experience.
Greatest Sports Trifecta Ever –
Saturday 8:15pm – World Series Game 1 @ Fenway Park
Sunday 4:15pm – New England Patriots vs New York Jets @ Gillette Stadium
Sunday 8:15pm – World Series Game 2 @ Fenway Park
Seriously. Could there be a better 24-hour period for a Boston sports fan? Best of all – THE HOME TEAM WON ALL THREE GAMES. The Sox kicked off the Fall Classic with two clutch wins, including late-inning heroics from Bellhorn and Keith Foulke on Saturday and then another Hand-of-God type performance by the Savior Curt Shilling on Sunday. The Pats extended their Regular Season winning streak to a record breaking eighteen with a solid defensive performance over their perennial division rival – and similarly undefeated – New York Jets.
Highlights include (but are not limited to):
-
Bear thinking he’d be fine to go out with just a long-sleeve shirt and his jacket. Luckily Lynchy hooked him up with a hoody to get him through the frigid Boston night.
-
Seeing Bear’s face when he first walked into Fenway Park. He was like a Todd in a Porn Store. There’s just something magical about Fenway. The old chairs. The steel girders supporting the roof-box seats. The intimacy of the fans and players being so close to each other you can practically spit on them. I’ve been to Fenway around a hundred times in my life and every time I walk in it feels like the first time all over again.
-
Going straight to my favorite Beer-Lady, Mary, who I hadn’t seen since July. You know you’re a Fenway regular when the beer people know you by name and right away ask, “Where’s Lynchy at?” Ahhh good times.
-
Embracing the complete stranger sitting next to me in a full-fledged borderline-gay man-hug after Bellhorn’s home run off of Pesky’s Pole. These things are acceptable at Fenway all year, too – not just the World Series.
-
The two Jet fan broads sitting two rows in front of us who – with that typical New York smug-ass Jeter face - cheered and taunted our section as Pennington drove downfield on their first possession on their way to what looked like a quick touchdown, only to sit down and sulk after Sowell fumbled in the Red Zone. I can’t even repeat what came out of my mouth at that point. Something along the lines of “Who’s Your Daddy Now, you dirty (rhymes with ‘Knuckin Scores’)?”
Glad this guy put down the Doritos long enough to
give us a lift to Fenway |
-
The absolutely insane 30-minute ride from Gillette to Fenway (normally one-hour) with a chauffeur who called himself “The Hustler”. This guy looked, dressed and talked like one of Jim Carrey’s sons from [I]Me, Myself and Irene. [/I] Seldomly do I ever fear for my life in a hired car in Boston like I did on that ride. But hey, he got us there with enough time to spare to have a beer on Yawkey Way before first pitch.
-
Having The Standell’s Dirty Water stuck in my head for a week.
-
Nearly getting kicked out of the park for waiting until the end of an inning to go to my seat after getting a beer. One of my biggest pet peeves about Fenway during the playoffs. Normally, the ushers praise you for waiting, so as not to disturb an entire row of people during a crucial at-bat, something that Fenway neophytes have an uncanny knack for doing. Not this time. With Security tighter than Melissa River’s cheeks, I was yelled at (not kindly asked) to get to my seats. I explained that I was waiting for the end of the inning before I went. The usher, apparently sensing that my next move was to pull a handgun and go postal, called four security guards over who proceeded to “take me for a walk”. I had pull a Jedi-Mind-Trick on them by turning around and calmly saying, “Gentlemen, can we talk about this rationally for a moment?” Seemingly awestruck that I wasn’t a rowdy, belligerent drunk causing mass chaos they let me go and asked me to walk up the another ramp and slowly make my way back to my seat.
Jeesh!
-
The slew of drunk Bo-Skanks who were lined up on Yawkey Way drunk and looking to slobber some man-pole. How Bear didn’t get laid in a dirty bathroom at that place is beyond me.
-
The most jovial atmosphere I’ve even seen at Fenway on Sunday. After winning the nail-biter that was Game One, everyone seemed very relaxed and confident for game two. Until…
-
…In the eighth inning, score 6 to 2 with two outs and a man on first and Edmonds coming up, Foulke came in for Timlin. As he was warming up, this geeky/yuppie dude behind me says to his young half-asleep daughter, “We’re up by four runs and Foulke needs to get 4 outs to win it. Don’t worry though, this is what we got him for.” Before I even had a chance to turn around and backhand him in the lip, a guy one-row back leans forward and says, “Well, I’m still going to worry a bit, if that’s okay with you.” Classic Old-School vs. New-School fan interaction.
All in all, it was quite the experience, and everything certainly ended up good for the hometown boys. It’s almost a sure bet that I’ll tell my kids someday about the weekend I watched my two 2004 Championship teams play three games in 24 hours, one of them on their way to…
The Dream Come True – After those two crazy games and the subsequent day off on Monday, it was then time to root heavily for the unlikely streak for one very important reason: I was heading off to Florida on Thursday morning. (gasp!) If the Sox didn’t sweep, I’d be watching the potential clinching game(s) from a cheesy, no-heart, makeshift sports bar in Orlando! :shock: Antoinette still doesn’t believe me that I was planning on canceling our Thursday morning flight if we were pushed to a game five. Trust me on this one, baby – if that had happened, we weren’t going anywhere.
As was the ritual for the last four games of the ALCS, on Tuesday we went to my sister’s condo, sat in the exact same seats, with the exact same pre-game ritual nervousness and the exact same mid-game celebratory hand-slaps. It was like there was this overbearing superstitious force powering the sports universe and we were the conduits. Game three almost seemed like a going-through-the-motions kind of game. Manny starts the scoring with a solo homer in the first. Pedro pitched a solid seven scoreless. The Sox chipped away another three runs in the fourth and fifth. Foulke gives up a solo shot in the ninth before finishing the game. Yawn. Onto Game Four.
Up 3-0 and this was STILL the scene at the
Cask ‘n’ Flagon |
Now the intensity of anticipation was killing
us. We were 27 outs away from glory with our stomachs in knots. I had my lucky Patriots lighter in hand as it had been since the NFL season opener two months earlier. Funny thing was even as confident as we should have felt, we were still so neurotic that we had refused to buy a bottle of champagne for fear that it would be left in storage for another 18 years. But it didn’t take long for us to regain that confidence when Johnny D slammed the leadoff homer to start the game. D-Lowe looked like the 20-game winning D-Lowe from 2003, with his stuff seeming virtually unhittable for seven strong innings, including mowing down Walker, Pujols, and Rolen in the bottom of the fourth.
I think the strangest thing about the World Series was the effortlessness that the Sox seemed to exude. Maybe the momentum was just so intense that there was no stopping the Sox after the ALCS? Who knows? It just didn’t seem like they were playing against the team that finished the season with the best record in baseball. We ROLLED them in such a dominating fashion that, in retrospect, there appeared to be no cause for angst at all, even though it was inevitable in this town. Weird conundrum.
By the time there were two outs in the ninth and Foulke – who, in my honest opinion would be a shoe-in for MLB Playoff MVP, if there were such a thing, considering he pitched in just about every game, sometimes even asked to get six outs – induced the game ending ground ball, it almost seemed to have snuck up on us. Mass hysteria took control of my sister’s condo complex. We all ran outside onto the terrace and were greeted by about 400 howling Sox fans, hanging off of balconies, hugging and high-fiving more strangers in that same semi-gay way, blasting air horns into the cold winter night, and blaring the standard celebratory tunes (Dirty Water, We are the Champions) out their windows. Phones starting ringing, emails came pouring in and tears of joy were flowing down the cheeks of a group or proud and collectively relieved fans.
This was the final piece of the puzzle that this town had been missing. The Patriots started it all off three years ago by showing this town that those unbelievable fairy tale moments in sports can indeed come true. Whether it’s winning the Super Bowl as a 14-point underdog, or coming back from three games down to oust the previously unbeatable Yankees. No feat is impossible. No goal is unattainable. When a city rallies behind a special group of guys, even on the brink of elimination, magical things really can happen.
Parents in Pitt let their daughters
go out dressed like this? |
What goes up must come down
Of course, the Pats had to go and limp around the field four days later while Ben Roethlisberger gave Brady the five-finger to the face treatment. I think the D.C. Prognosticator said it best, “I think that the town of Boston has used up entirely too much Sports God’s goodwill this week.” Well, it turns out he was a week too early with that prognostication. Of course, when a team is on a 21-game winning streak, it’s pretty easy to pick against them every week in anticipation of the inevitable collapse, which is what he did pretty much all season. Ahh the people that don’t appreciate greatness when it’s squirming all over there nay-saying faces. It actually reminds me of the foolish Boston fans who scream “Yankees Suck!” at random non-Yankee games at Fenway. It always bothered me and I never joined (friends and relatives of mine can vouch for me on this) for one important reason: They don’t suck. They’re a team built to be champions. Just like the Pats and just like the Sox.
Am I depressed that the Pats’ winning streak finally ended? Was I in shock that it happened? Am I in a state of panic with Law and Poole injured? Hell no on all accounts. First of all, it was going to happen eventually. Secondly, In Bill We Trust. This is a well-coached team that has shown the ability to plug the holes when key players go down. And Lastly, Hey… they got beat by a good team and they certainly didn’t help themselves out by making big mistakes in critical situations.
(Wait for it…)
(Wait for it…)
Now I guess I know what it’s like to follow the Colts.
(buuuuuurrrrrnnnnnn!!!)
In summary…
All and all, it was an incredible two weeks. Sandwiched in there somewhere was a well-needed trip to Florida where I got to sleep for more than 3 hours a night for the first time in weeks. And after watching a replay of the Sox duck-boat rally on TV – that’s right, I was NOT one of those foolish yahoos who jumped into the 40-degree Charles River or threw a Tim Wakefield fastball at Pedro’s head – and gotten back to work for a couple of days, I’m already noticing that things are a little different now in Boston. It’s the beginning of November, and people seem to be carrying themselves like they do in late spring, waiting for the flowers to bloom and the beach weather that’s on the way. Chins are up and people seem to be in good spirits.
Only problem now is, from Monday to Saturday what the hell do we do with our sports-loving selves? No NHL hockey in the foreseeable future means our attention is focused squarely on the performance of the Celtics. You think WEEI was tearing Kevin Millar to pieces for his loose-lipped banter about Jack Daniels shots in the clubhouse? Wait ‘til the Celts drop four-straight for the first time this season and then tune into the Big Show. They’ll be calling for the head of Doc Rivers on a silver platter to feed to a hungry Papi Ortiz.
Please set the time machine for April and end this incessant boredom.
(See it’s true – we never are happy in this town)
You knew it was inevitable to happen. Pimping out the car with flat screens, DVDs, playstations, Direct TV systems... You know some had porn playing in the background, especially on a guys' night out or perhaps a lonely, long road trip in the middle of the night (oh come on, don't tell me you haven't or at least the thought crossing your mind). The sensible ones would think twice and resist the temptation because of the worst case scenario(s). A) You get pulled over by a cop and would have to explain why your pecker was out or why you had scattered wet spots on your shirt/pants/kleenex/etc or B) getting into a wreck with a good possibility of severing your best friend.
Did you ever have one of those days? You know, when you are walking along, not paying any attention to where you're going and a sprinter plants you? Yeah me neither, 
Everybody is familiar with 
I have one question: Is there anything scarier in this world than a compulsive gambler on Sunday in October? Depending on the observer, you’re perceived either as an absolute lunatic or every man’s idol or more likely, both. My girlfriend crawls up on the couch and shakes her head in disgust. My friends come over and throw thanks and praise my way as they check their Fantasy match-ups online and drink ice-cold beer. When I have kids, they’ll be sent out on play-dates or to Nana’s house for the afternoon. Even my dog doesn’t bother to ask me to play or go out (of course, he’s a male and just knows enough to stay away from daddy when he has that look in his eye – we’ll call this gender-smarts) 
The tennis career of our favorite hoochie-mama,
Anna Kournikova, appears to be filled with uncertainty these
days. Her lackluster performance on the court coupled with
nagging injuries and a jet-setting, high-profile celebrity
personal life have left her once promising career in serious
doubt. But with never-ending endorsement deals, her much
talked about modeling gigs, and a foray into fitness and music
videos, television, and even movies, Anna has become a brand in
and of her own. There's absolutely no doubt that whichever
path her career takes she will be successful, and the world will
be following her every move -- not to mention the paparazzi.
There's
just something magical about women's figure skating: the grace,
the beauty, the elegance, the art. Oh, and I almost
forgot: the CHICKS.
