FECK

Times are feckin’ rough right now and I just wanna give the world the feckin’ fingah and tell everyone to go feck themselves, so instead of bitchin’ an whinin’ I’ll share a fun video that does justice to the glory of the word F*&k, particularly as used in Southie.

The Common Man’s Rivalry

0.5 Bitches. We’ve bounced back from the downward spiral. For now. And they just had to place that rainday makeup versus the A’s during y’alls red hot 8 game winning streak huh? Pesky half game….

Thought I’d share some gems of Sox and Yanks fans doing their thing.

I gotta give New Yorkers credit. Like most Bostonians, their asshole tendencies can and will victimize you sometimes. (See Below)

Have you ever heard of anyone who likes Manhattan clam chowder?….Yeah…me neither.

Dime Que No Es Verdad Papi!

That is my attempt at putting an original spin on the obligatory reaction to David Ortiz’ steroid scandal. No Spanish-speaking friends were contacted to verify the accuracy of this crappy blog title. Funny when these things happen how everybody tries to one-up each other’s clever facebook statii (or is it statuses?) Everyone does that “Oh, say it Ain’t So, Ortiz” line, or something kinda flat and generic like “Anyone who idolizes baseball players these days is setting themselves up for disappointment.” I gotta admit, these revelations just don’t phase me anymore. To be even more offensive, it’s kinda like how people reacted to Virgina Tech versus the hysteria after Columbine. We’ve just grown immune. And it’s NOT because I’m a Sox fan and in denial that it’s our turn to have our current and former stars martyred. Yeah, so more Yankees players got thrown under the bus a few years back than Red Sox affiliated players. Yankees players suffered the brunt of the steroid scandal before it became passe. So Yankees fans…..don’t bitch that we’re not catching enough heat over Manny and Ortiz. Bitch that the general public outside the New York market just isn’t phased by it anymore and you guys just look idiots harping over the fact it’s close to home for us now, too.

Yanks are very likely to lose shortly…..

but you never know considering the White Sox’ 6 run 2nd, and the Red Sox are warming up with a run in the 1st and Martinez making his big debut. Now I have to set about finding someone to watch the game with at a public venue, lest settle for my freeloaded MLB Gameday Audio subscription.

Just Say No to YES (Network) and Even Twitter!?

I miss NESN, but not a whole hell of a lot, to be honest. I only miss it because not nearly enough Red Sox games air on ESPN, TBS etc…. which is why I’m looking forward to our four game series versus the Yankees next week. I figure if we can roll over and die, or choke a fat one against mediocre teams like the A’s, the task of facing the Yanks for four full games is less daunting than exciting. Any L’s we drop will be justified, as we’ll be facing our most challenging opponent, although maintaining the streak in the rivalry for at least the first game or two wouldn’t kill me.

Other aspiring and more established writers won’t stop bugging me about how useful Twitter is. I can’t really say I agree. As far as I’m concerned, Twitter’s nothing more than a glorified RSS feed of shameless self-promotion and I’m not that eager to participate. I also admit I don’t like doing the whole 160 character play-by-play of my life, my reactions to the games, and so on. It’s a better platform for my purposes than facebook, but I still haven’t come around.

I always relish being that asshole at the bar who cheers when the Sox do something good. In fact, I prefer going to bars that don’t advertise themselves as “Boston bars.” 

I have become a bar fly at a popular place down the street called Landsdowne Road (free advertising alert!) Not only are they one of the few go-to places that have NESN around here, but they have a good balance between offering cheap beer specials and typically bad-for-your-cholesterol-level pub food, while maintaining a clean environment that doesn’t smell like dead rats rotting behind nooks and crannies like certain Boston bars I used to work at…. I may have indulged in 25 cent wings (hot I might add) all by myself during Monday night Sox games (that’s the only night wings are THAT cheap). And I think I’ve developed a rep with the staff as “that random girl who comes in for Red Sox games and seems like kind of a loser, but tips well.” What I like most about the place aside from my sports and binge-eating/drinking needs is that they play old school music videos and have a cool, albeit slightly useless ice bar to rest your beers on. Unlike Joshua Tree in Murray Hill, who plays similar music videos to a packed-to-capacity crowd of Jersey toolbags, Landsdowne is never overrun with random amateurs. Just local sports fans and a decent chunk of Yuppies during Happy Hour, the only time I consider it too busy (but it usually winds down by first pitch).

Catch Me if You Can

All these trades are starting to make my head spin. Every time I stop channel surfing to briefly check out a random NL game, or even see previews for a matchup on ESPN, another player is on a new team. Like Derek Lowe, who is now a Brave. Adam Laroche is Gone in 60 Seconds (a day or two after MLB.com runs a fluffy story about how well he was adapting in Boston), Kotsay is suddenly a member of the Sox who benefit from bleach and most importantly, we landed Martinez in a promising last minute trade everyone was hoping for. And oh yeah, we held on to Bucholz in the process.

Yesterday, I was reminded of Alyssa Milano’s baseball blog, which I checked out ages ago, during the off-season. When she released her book about baseball, I received a mailing from my neighborhood bookstore about signings she had in Brooklyn and Downtown Manhattan. I can’t say I love the blog, but I can see why she keeps scoring all those ballplayers! She’s got just the right combination smoking hot yet girl-next-door-esque looks, combined with genuine enthusiasm for the game. She’s not a bottomless well of baseball knowledge, or an exceedingly strong writer (she could afford to speckle in a little humor), but I give her kudos for carving out another persona. Of course, she has to say flattering things about the guys, unless, like Manny, they are caught doping, whereas I, a still-nobody, feel more free to run my mouth on players. I can’t help wondering who her audience is. Fellow female baseball enthusiasts like myself? Men who would never read the blog if she weren’t eight times hotter than the hottest girl they’ve ever banged? Die-hard Charmed fans? I’m under no illusions that my baseball knowledge is only superior by female standards. I won’t pretend that the strength of my blog lies in staying on top of the minutiae and giving you hot tips on who you should trade in your fantasy league. I appeal to the human interest side, as one might expect from a broad. I’m a casual fan who doesn’t feel the need to analyze every little detail. But I’m gonna quickly toot my own horn. I think my blog’s a wee bit better than Milano’s. Rebuttals apprehensively welcomed.

One more thing, while I’m in this confident self-aggrandizing mood. As a follow up to my Fantasy entry the other day, where I expressed my realization that men’s obsession over fantasy teams has way more to do with pride than the financial wins and losses, a male friend explicitly admitted the pride is why he exerts so much time and energy on his team. We’re talking hours a day, and the best case scenario for him is walking with about $170 come season’s end. Break that down hourly, and it’s a hell of a lot below minimum wage. You could even call it slavery or indentured servitude. Or if my friend doesn’t place in the league, he’s out $25, meaning that he payed money to work a bunch of free hours. I definitely don’t see this as sufficient incentive to root for individual players over your team just cause they’re in your league.