 Pedro during his last appearance at Fenway. Photo taken by Kelly O’Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission. |
I don’t like to complain about things I bring on myself. For example, I choose to live in New England, so I try not to whine about the weather. In the same respect, I choose to be a baseball fan so I shouldn’t complain about the All Star break – but I will.
If I choose to focus on a positive it’s that I get the part of my life back that isn’t baseball-related for a few days. I end up going to sleep at a normal hour, I socialize with people whose main topic of conversation isn’t baseball and I even get some fresh air and sunshine! But the downside is, I really find myself wanting baseball. Hell, at one point during the All Star Game, the other night, I actually flipped over to the “Extra Innings” stations to see what games were on. (Brief brain fart on my part!)
Based on comments, emails and various tweets I’ve read these past couple of days, many of you are pining for real baseball as well. MLB has scheduled eight games for today. (The earliest starting at 7:05pm.) None of those games include any team out of the American League East. Six out of the eight games are National League games so if you didn’t get your fill of watch the NL on Tuesday, if you have Extra Innings or MLB.tv…tonight is your lucky night! (The PawSox ARE playing at home tonight and you can follow that game here. Or you can take the trip to Pawtucket and see Kris Johnson pitch – tonight is Free PawSox Cap Night.) The International League won the Triple-A All Star Game last night and the PawSox’ own Fernando Cabrera got the save! Jose Vaquedano didn’t fare as well but at least they both got into the game! Congratulations, fellas! (Updated to add that the PawSox have reminded me that tonight’s game can be seen on NESN. See? You don’t even have to leave the house!)
I did get one bit of baseball in yesterday – I watched Pedro Martinez’ press conference on the MLB Network. I’ll say this about Pedey, he hasn’t lost a step. I have no idea how he’ll pitch, but he was ready at the start (well, once he got there) to banter with the reporters. I miss Pedro being on the Red Sox. I guess I’ll always miss him. But I’m extremely happy that he left when he did. I like there to be good memories of a great pitcher and a personable guy. Back in the day I was fortunate enough to see many Pedro-pitched games live (the last one being his return to Fenway as a Met) and those are the memories I’ll hold dear. He was dominating and just amazing on the mound and he made you want to pay more attention to the dugout than the game when he WASN’T pitching. I wish nothing but good luck for him with the Phillies – I really hope this works out well for him (I just fear it will be a colossal mess. As soon as they signed him, they put him on the 15-day Dl).
Friend of the blog, Dan Lamothe (at that link, he’s the last of the 3 of us!) was kind enough to invite me to be one of a handful of bloggers to help fill in for him while he’s on his honeymoon…so today there’s also a blog entry of mine over at Red Sox Monster. Thanks, Dan! Congratulations and have a wonderful time!
One more night, folks, and we get to see Clay Buchholz do his thing in Toronto. Sure it’s a Friday night, but you all know I’ll be watching so why pretend otherwise? We had no live blog this week because of the ASG so we’ll do a rare “Friday Night Live Blog” to celebrate Clay getting the call again! Hope you can join me!