Why Not Us?
Game Three of the 2004 World Series
Pre-game
So here we go.
Only I'm stranded in California, where the World Series isn't a holiday like it damn well should be.
Joe and Jerry sound in good form, though. No sore throats or anything. That's nice.
Damn, rain delay doesn't look likely. I'm stuck listening to the radio and typing away in a little shell. Not quite the scene I had imagined.
By the way, during the game this page'll reload every minute and a half or so on you... just be warned.
1st Inning
The big story is that the Red Sox are starting Phyllis Diller at 1st base over David Ortiz, Kevin Millar, and Doug Mientkiewicz (I, seriously, got that right the first time) for her defensive skills.
Just kidding.
But it could happen. It'd give the press something different to write about, at any rate. Why has baseball gotten so much more complicated since 1986? Why has it got so many more references to Phyllis Diller?
Fox, in their infinite commercialitude, have delayed the broadcast a bit.
Manny knocks one out of the park, right after Joe mentions Suppan's gopherball-proneness. Nice one, Joe. On the radio, it looked around 420 feet. I don't have a color radio, so I can't tell you what color shirt the fan who may or may not have caught it was wearing.
1-0 Red Sox...
Bottom of the inning, it turns out someone's stolen Manny and replaced him with... well, Manny, I suppose, he did hit that shot in the top of the first. Manny, or this Manny replacement, just threw out Larry Walker at home plate in a fly 'em out, throw 'em out double play with the bases loaded!
As this is radio, unfortunately, I can't confirm whether or not they really have replaced Manny in the field and Joe and Jerry are trying not to blow the plan by bringing attention to it.
2nd Inning
Top of the inning, Bellhorn was up, and struck out looking.
Now, I'm no huge Bellhorn fan, he strikes out way too often for me. Or walks. Basically, I could stand up there with the bat on my shoulder and eke out a career like his. (Now I know that's not true, for one, I'm taller, and have a bigger strike zone, so I'd probably break Butch and Mark's K record.) But he's got leniency for the next couple hours, anyway, as promised when he finally came due and hit a couple out.
Both L and I had to give him a couple mulligans. But we're both pretty fickle, so I'll probably feel free to jump back on his back by around the 6th inning.
3rd Inning
Bottom of the third... I love the way Cardinals' pitchers run the bases.
All this talk about National League teams and their superior running game... they have been lovely. So generous. I suppose they feel bad. The Red Sox, after all, are an American League team, and not used to all the running, so it's only fair they fall over a couple times to sort of help our guys out. I mean, if you've seen David Ortiz run you'd have some pity on him, as well. He tries pretty hard, but it's not, let's say, gazelle-like. You might not take pity if he were running at you, though. Who knows what they're thinking. I hope someone asks Tony La Russa this after the game.
4th Inning
Sporadically, I've been taking off my headphones and picking them up a couple pitches into an at-bat to simulate Fox's television broadcast. If I only had ads for reality television shows playing in my head...
I'm telling you, Joe and Jerry must be psychic. No later does Jerry say Trot would love to smack one out than Trot smacks one pretty darn close to out.
I wonder if they'd take requests...
"A little duck snort," from Jerry... now this is who should be on Fox... take that Tim McCarver!
Bottom of the inning...
You know, I originally had the idea for doing something like this after game three of the American League Championship Series. To save my poor dear heart I figured I'd be best off keeping a log of the game. All that typing I'd never notice what was going on on the field.
That and I wanted to beat Bill Simmons to it. Seeing as how he was probably attending the games, I had a good chance of scooping him.
And, interestingly enough, I've forgotten my point. And the inning's over, anyway.
5th Inning
If you're not watching the game, or weren't able to, here's a little attempt to get McCarver-esque, as a little reminder of what you missed:
"Johnny Damon is probably one of the best outfielders ever to play with so much hair, had they let women players into leagues in the sixties."
Discuss.
These guys really do have something here... again, talking about Manny's hot hitting, and here we go, Manny knocks in Johnny Damon from third, Cabrera (miniManny) on second. Someone near home please call in and ask them to start talking about Varitek hitting a homerun... come on...
Ah, guess not.
But they have knocked out the pitcher.
Red Sox 4, Cardinals 0.
We're gonna Petey like it's nineteen ninety nine!
Pedro and his little friend Nelson de la Rosa (who hasn't been mentioned on the broadcast, but I'm sure he's out there, sitting on the mound or something while he waits for Pedro to finish the inning) have just cruised through the bottom of the fifth, three up, three down.
6th Inning
Okay, sixth inning, and no major Bellhorn complaints. The strikeout early on wasn't too bad, come to think of it. Not that I have any new info to justify my newfound chilled outedness about Bellhorn at the plate, I'm just mellowing. Done with work-related stuff, just sitting around, in the dark, in a certain sense, just listening to the game.
So he gets a reprieve. I still think I'd make a good Mark Bellhorn stand in, though. Maybe that's a Halloween costume. I'll have to work on my vacant stare and hockey hair.
Bottom of the inning...
Pedro throws de la Rosa home! He threw him home!
Larry Walker hits him to Bellhorn for the flyout! Just kidding. Larry did fly out, though. And it's nice to see Pedro get on so well with his old teammate from Montreal.
I'm sure it's like some exclusive, French-experiencing club for these guys: "Hey, Lar-ree! How you doin'? Parlez-vous 'HOMERUN!!'?" "Oh ho ho... Oui."
Man, the stuff you miss out on, not being a major league baseball player.
End of the inning, now the real challenge. I try to get back home, on the highways of California, while listening to the game on ESPN Radio. It's only ten miles, as the crow flies, but the crow doesn't have to deal with people who don't know how to use an indicator, possibly because they don't understand what those white lines painted on the road are for.
7th Inning
False start. I would have just been called for a balk, if you could get called for balks in real life.
That'd be an idea. You're getting ready for the big night out... "Which earrings should I wear? These shiny ones or these other shiny ones?"
"Balk called, on number female, runners advance, get in the car now!"
(I only use that one because L doesn't wear earrings. So I can point out that I'm obviously not talking about her.)
Manny's back at the plate again... this would be a great time for Joe or Jerry to talk about him hitting another one out...
What parent names their kid Kiko, by the way?
Obviously the Caleros, but, I don't know, it conjures up images of Koko, the sign-language-enabled gorilla... and I'm an adult. Kids can be a lot more cruel.
Oh, look, you can watch along at home. The DiamondCam has made a return.
The DiamondCam, though, sucks. Thankfully MLB.com upped their radio bandwidth, but this cam thing stil
l is pretty poor.
And while Amy Grant sings, we're heading out, braving traffic. Wish us luck.
8th Inning
Umm... Pedro Martinez just pitches like the Pedro of old, blowing away hitters one-two-three, and all Jon Miller can say is "Well, this is probably his last start, anyway"?
I know a lot of people don't like Joe Morgan, I happen to infinitely prefer him to Jon Miller.
Pedro, please come back next year, I'm begging you. I'll buy you a puppy if Nelson de la Rosa can't keep hanging around, please stick around, whatever it takes.
9th Inning
Oh no! I have to listen to Tim McCarver! What the hell is a 'stider'?
I know Tim is very proud that he just made that up, but he reminds me of my youngest sister, the day she came running in and said, "I just made up a new word! Listen, listen!" And she put her hands on the table, to give the moment proper weight, and said, "'Fidget!'" "Umm... K, that's already a word..." "No it isn't." "Yeah, no, it is. Really." "No it isn't! Its is now!"
That's Tim.
But here comes Keith, second place runner-up MVP for the ALCS!
Keith is hit! He's been scored on! This is a bit strange. Even though normally a Sox reliever giving up a homerun in the ninth and then giving up a longish fly out off the bat of one of the scariest guys in baseball I'm not panicking. Not swearing, not throwing anything, not weeping quietly into my hands... And Foulkie does it, he closes it out with a very sweet inside pitch.
I seriously think we're in some kind of alternate reality, these guys are unbelievable.
Sox win, Sox win!
Bring on Game Four!
This week's issue is a little something different. Honest.
For you non-sports geeks, well, I'm really, really sorry. Like really.
For you sports geeks who are sick of the Boston Red Sox, well, I'm pretty sorry, too. I am.
For you sports geeks who have been sucking up 38 hours of content a day dedicated to the Red Sox, Curt Schilling's bloody sock, Johnny Damon's hair, Orlando Cabrera's Columbian roots, Manny's act of being Manny, the fact that Papi is now the most feared person to meet inside or outside of a dark alley by nine out of ten people, and some nineteen something date, you might like this.
Then again, you might not.
Who knows, really? Not me.
Maybe our resident fortune teller. But then they're usually pretty crap at telling the future, to be perfectly frank with you.
So what we're doing, right, here we go.
Tomorrow night, Tuesday, the Boston Red Sox will be playing Game Three of the World Series, the first Game Three of the World Series the Red Sox have played since 1986. Back when Sane Magazine was a glint in my eye. Not that I could tell, but people would tell me this, because it really freaked some people out. Who walks around with the glint of a magazine in their eye? Me, I guess, is the answer.
We'll be covering Game Three of the World Series LIVE!
Or close-ish to it. A slight teevee delay, if you will. Or, possibly, just what we like to call a late episode.
So tune in tomorrow during the game, right here, and catch our slightly delayed, hopefully witty commentary on the game, and excellent supplement to the wonderfully insightful commentators FOXSports (TM, probably, though why they'd want to I don't know) provides.
Pedro Martinez versus some guy for the St Louis Cardinals. Tomorrow at 8pm, EST.
disclaimer:
Man are we on a roll. And the Sox are, too.
Here we go again.
And your ultimate in live coverage, Sane Magazine. As it turns out.
Barring the World Series going to a Game Eleven, we will hopefully resume your regularly scheduled programming next week.
And if you like this sort of thing, well, tell us.
And we'll make up pretend baseball games to commentate. Maybe on ESPN Classic or something. Who knows? Again, ask the fortune teller. But don't expect miracles.
Discuss this in the forums
Discuss the horoscopes in the forums
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