Fun With Neurotic Red Sox Fans

As previously reported right here in this blog, John Henry, owner of the Red Sox, actually did buy half the NASCAR Roush Racing team this winter, and now the partnership is coming to fruition. The target? None other than 2005 Nextel Cup 2nd place finisher Carl Edwards. Carl got a full makeover last week, his car and helmet repainted in Red Sox team colors, complete with a Red Sox logo on the hood and doors and the 9's redone in the font that Ted Williams wore on his jersey. Carl even got to drive his car into Fenway Park and threw out the ceremonial first pitch for Saturday's game vs. the Rangers.

As you might have heard, the Red Sox are doing pretty well this year. Best record in the majors, even. Carl's also having a pretty good year after missing the Chase last year - 7th place, pretty solidly in the running this year, and completely dominating the Busch Series by an astounding 784 points. It's far too tempting to draw comparisons between the two, as if Carl was an avatar for the Red Sox's season. Same ownership, right? Similar situations. As you can guess, this only served to further prove that Red Sox fans' psyches are about as formidable as Glass Joe.

Carl finished 2nd in Saturday's Busch race in Loudon, NH. Not so bad, right? Except for the fact that his car failed post-race inspections, and was fined and docked 25 points. Things seemed bright for Edwards in the Sunday Nextel race as well, racing towards the front of the pack and leading a few laps. Towards the home stretch of the race, Edwards pitted. As his tires were being changed, his car slipped and fell off the jack, taking up valuable time - 47 seconds worth, over twice as long as the average pit stop. He got back on the track a lap down and his day was over, finishing 13th.

Cars rarely fall off the jacks in NASCAR. It's a pretty rare flub for a team to have to go through. To make an analogy, it's almost like a routine grounder dribbling through an infielder's legs. It just doesn't happen very often.

I'm sure the Red Sox will be just fine this year.

Do You Believe In Hyperbole?

Last year, we happened to be working out at the gym on July 4th when Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Competition was being televised on the four-letter. If you have missed it in the past, I highly recommend it. From the "has eaten" list that stretches the imagination ("one tenth of her body weight in cheesecake ... 97 Krystal burgers in eight minutes ... 8.6 pounds of deep-fried asparagus spears in ten minutes ..."--see the full list of records if you really want to boggle your mind) to the quirky competitors, including a vegetarian who only eats meat at "sanctioned competitive events," it's a spectacle unlike any other. “Nothing represents summer and the Fourth of July like the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog-Eating Contest,” said Wayne Norbitz, president and COO of Nathan’s Famous, and notorious barbecue and fireworks hater. “This year our nation has new hope for glory.” Wait, what?

See, this year's tilt had the added bonus of a challenger worthy of six-time champ and Japanese national Takeru Kobayashi: San Jose's own Joey Chestnut, who broke Kobayashi's overall record for hot dogs eaten and seemed poised to unseat the champ and bring the "mustard belt" back to the good ol' U.S. of A. He did so in record style as both he and Kobayashi surpassed his previous record of 59.5, when thanks to an unfortunate "reversal," Kobayashi ended up three dogs short of Chestnut's winning 66.

The announcers are just as insane as the contestants. Bringing the championship back to America, the hysterical announcer exclaimed, was "the greatest moment in American sports history." Upon hearing that, an indignant Jim Craig immediately signed up for next year's contest.

Choking Hazard

Found this little gem off a comment from the Deadspin Post of the Year, 2007: The Chris Benoit "Deluxe Aggression" action figure! Get it while it's hot! The best part of it? The little "Choking Hazard" warning in the bottom left. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night.

Once again, proving that most of our (okay, my) content usually originates on Deadspin, here is the winning comment from all the hubbub about this tragedy:

"Why didn't his wife and kid just tap out?"

Who's The Next Steroid User To Murder Their Family?

The "NFL Europe" Never Really Existed

The most startling thing about this piece of news is not that the league that began life as "the Waffle" is going away, but that its actual name was "NFL Europa." Europa? Seriously? I guess if you consider the NFL to be Jupiter, then "NFL Europa" accurately describes the difference in scale between the two. Also, then we could call University of Phoenix Stadium the Great Red Spot.

Rotoworld Gets Their Sarcasm On

Rotoworld is a very interesting site. Like many people (but unlike most of my fellow contributors, as far as I can tell), I have a fantasy baseball team or five, and it's indispensable for news on my current players and pretty open about sharing information. There's a sidebar on Boston Dirt Dogs for Rotoworld information about the Sox, and occasionally they put out a really funny blurb. I think that's why I like them more than other knockoffs like Rotowire, KFFL, Stats Inc, etc. Plus they've got a nicer website. Anyway, some faithful Rotoworld readers compiled a list of really funny ones themselves, so instead of blatantly steal like I usually do, I'll just link. I particularly like the David Terrell and Taco Wallace ones. The reason for this post, of course, is because I came across a particularly cutting and amusing one tonight:

Kason Gabbard - BOS
Kason Gabbard issued two of his six walks with the bases loaded in the first and gave up four runs in 3 1/3 innings Tuesday against the Mariners.
It should have been worse, but Manny Delcarmen bailed him out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth. The Red Sox just butchered this one tonight. The first mistake was going to Gabbard against a team that is quite a bit better against lefties. They watched him almost completely blow the game in the first. Besides the walk, there was also a bases-loaded HBP in the frame. Then the Red Sox trotted out their worst relievers one-by-one. Perhaps the most incredible moment of the season so far came in the sixth. Lefty specialist Javier Lopez, in his second inning of work having already given up a two-run homer to Richie Sexson, intentionally walked the only left-handed hitter in Seattle's lineup (Ichiro) before being removed from the game. That it worked out hardly made it any less bizarre. Judging from Lopez's presence in the contest in the first place, we can only assume that Joel Pineiro passed away last week and no one bothered to alert the media.

This, of course, is quickly followed by:

Joel Pineiro - BOS
Joel Pineiro has been unavailable the last two days because he rolled an ankle working out on Monday.
So it wasn't his time after all.
Source: Boston Herald

Classic.

The Joys of Sox

It's 3 months into the baseball season, right? And this is a sports blog, right? And I am a massive Red Sox fan, right? And the Red Sox are currently leading the AL East by 10.5 games, right? Right. So why hasn't there been any Red Sox-related posts from the most rabid Red Sox fan on this site?

Well, for one, pretty much every news site/blog/major television network just keeps talking about the Red Sox/Yankees ALL THE TIME. Give it a rest, guys, or else this old lady is totally going to gently ask you to tone it down.. after she gives you some of her home-made brownies, of course.

For two.. Sox fans are big believers in karma, which is amusing considering Yankees fans, as a general rule, are complete akarmaists. Gloating about a big lead is just simply bad karma, and I don't want to tempt fate. I like our team a lot, and think we're going to win the AL East this year. (Gasp!) And yes, every Red Sox win and every Yankees loss makes me happy - not because I like to see the Yankees suffer, but because it means our lead is more and more secure. The most gung-ho about it that I'll get is my response to someone teasing me about whether I'm scared now - "Ask me that again when the Yankees are closer to 1st place in their division than Washington is."

I went to two Boston games at OaklandMcAfee Coliseum a few weeks back just so I could say I actually attended a game or two in this hopefully historic season. We lost both games pretty easily. (Yes, we lost the first one in extra innings, but we all knew Terry Francona wasn't too interested in winning when he paraded out Joel Piniero, J.C. Romero, and Kyle Snyder in order in a close game.) In fact, Schilling had to pitch an entire game himself just to keep us from getting swept. I should have felt upset at their performances, but I just can't. They're too lovable.

They're a great team to watch, especially since they have so much fun playing the game. They have a ton of chemistry, unlike another certain unnamed team that is pretty much a collection of All-Stars. It starts from the top, with Manny Ramirez selling pretty much anything he can get his hands on and grooming his teammate in the dugout and David Ortiz hugging the other teams' players, on down to Mike Lowell wanting to start up Manny's blog and Julian Tavarez.. well, where to start? Wearing a "Manny Being Manny" T-shirt? Dreaming of being a porn star? Even long-time announcer Jerry Remy is getting into the act, pulling a little air guitar on the air with predictable results and playing Zapruder in the case of the flying pizza. This clip is just about the funniest Red Sox-related thing I've seen all year. Enjoy. I know I am.

Part 1:


Part 2:

If Corporations Were Allowed To Vote On All-Stars

My office drinks a fair amount of Diet Pepsi, and in the latest batch, I noticed that one can had a baseball player on it, as part of an All Star Game tie-in. A few names sprang to mind: A-Rod, Griffey, Ordonez, Ichiro, Fielder, Bonds... not all of them leading in votes, but at least close. But no, upon closer inspection, the name of the player on the can is...Johnny Damon.
In fact, of the three cases of Diet Pepsi we got in this week, the number of cans with a baseball player other than Johnny Damon on them is: zero. I mean...really? Johnny "ninth in All Star voting even though he's on the Yankees" Damon? Johnny "one place above J.D. Drew" Damon?
When we go to the MLB site listed on the can, all is revealed: "Check out Pepsi's new MLB-themed commercial featuring Johnny Damon and Joe Mauer," a caption under a completely different video entreats us. I guess I can figure out who else is on the other Limited Edition cans.
Meanwhile, if this Damon can ever becomes valuable, we've got like a hundred of 'em here.