boston-red-sox
Nowadays it seems that almost every sports figure feels the need to leave the comfortable realm of athletics and for some strange reason branch out and show that their hippety-hoppety skillz is fo’ realz. Well, David Ortiz is no different and here’s the hot fire spittin’ proof.
Damn, K-Fed, you just got skizz-ooled!
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[Can’t Stop The Bleeding]: Big Papi’s Reggaeton Debut
1. Winning 11: In one of the more intriguing pitching matchups of the season, Josh Beckett defeated Jake Peavy to retake the major league wins lead. Beckett improved to 11-1 as he went eight innings with two earned runs and eight strikeouts. Peavy had one of his worst starts of the year, with 5 innings and 3 runs allowed. It was his shortest outing of the season, and Peavy’s ERA rose above 2.00 for the first time since April. Beckett, however, became the league’s first 11-game winner, passing John Lackey and CC Sabathia. He’s on pace for a ridiculous 23-2 record this season, aided by the major league’s fifth-best run support for any pitcher. The Red Sox won 4-2, giving them a series win at San Diego as their division lead remains in double-digits (11 games over Toronto).
2. Five games, one run: The Atlanta Braves are on a five-game losing streak thanks to one of the coldest offensive stretches by any team in history. They’ve been shutout four of their last five games, with only a Chipper Jones solo homerun on Saturday saving them from the record books. They got swept by the Tigers at home over the weekend, including a 5-0 loss on Sunday Night Baseball. Tigers rookie starter Andrew Miller dominated the Braves with six shutout innings as Atlanta fell to 38-38. Andruw Jones ended an 0-24 stretch with a base hit, but his average is still the lowest in the NL at .199. For the Tigers, the sweep was their second in a row as they’ve now won seven straight games. This has given them a two-game lead over Cleveland in the NL Central division, thanks mainly to their incredible offense. Detroit has 451 runs this season, 53 more than any other team in the majors. They’ve scored more than 7 runs per game in June, most in the majors, while Atlanta has scored the fewest runs this month. Thankfully for the Braves though, they get to face the Nationals next after a brutal interleague schedule.
3. The Mets are Back: It took the Mets more than three weeks to finally win their first series in June, as the team finally ended a lengthy slump with a sweep of the A’s. The Mets outscored Oakland 20-3 on the series, including a 10-2 win on Sunday. They were back to form on offense and pitching, as John Maine threw seven solid innings and the lineup pounded out 14 hits. They still only lead the Phillies by three games in the division, but they have a chance to increase that lead as they travel to Philly next weekend.
Player of the Day: Dustin McGowan, Blue Jays: 9 innings, one hit, no runs, 7 strikeouts in a win over the Rockies. McGowan took a no-hitter into the ninth inning, but allowed a hit with no outs to Jeff Baker.
On Wednesday night Curt Schilling torched the Orioles en route to a 6-1 Red Sox victory, but that wasn’t the only story of the evening. That’s because the play-by-play voice for Baltimore Gary Thorne started yapping about Shilling’s bloody sock that he made famous during Game 6 of the 04 ALCS against the dreaded Yankees, and claimed that he was told by Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli that the sock was actually painted to give a dramatic effect to the game.
The great story we were talking about the other night was that famous red stocking that he wore when they finally won, the blood on his stocking,” Thorne said to broadcast partner Jim Palmer, the Hall of Fame pitcher, in a conversation that had begun with a discussion of Schilling’s blog.
“Nah,” Thorne said. “It was painted. Doug Mirabelli confessed up to it after. It was all for PR. Two-ball, two-strike count.”
Palmer: “Yeah, that was the 2004 World Series [sic].” Thorne: “Yeah.”
During a break two innings later, Thorne confirmed that’s what he said, and that Mirabelli had told him so in a conversation “a couple of years ago.”
“Go ask him [Mirabelli],” Thorne said.
Mirabelli was shocked, then angry, when relayed Thorne’s comments.
“What? Are you kidding me? He’s [expletive] lying. A straight lie,” Mirabelli said. “I never said that. I know it was blood. Everybody knows it was blood.
Now, this isn’t the first time that Schill has been accused of not bloodying the sock personally, but this is the first time that the source was linked personally to the pitcher. Not that any of this really matters, regardless of whether it was blood, paint, ink or anything else, all that matters is that Schilling put on a show that night and carried his team to victory in dramatic fashion. Just ask the Theo Epstein.
It is pretty stupid to still be talking about a damn sock three years after the fact. It’s time to move past all this nonsense and focus on something that is far more pressing subject matter. To be specific, was the 1985 NBA draft lottery fixed?
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[Boston.com]: Bloody mess
Manny Ramirez is no ordinary outfielder. In fact, the only way that most people can appropriately describe the guy without saying he is a nut-job is by using the old reliable description of “that’s just Manny being Manny.” Well, David Ortiz didn’t find that depiction to be accurate, so in an interview with The New Yorker big Papi stepped up to the plate and delivered a home run of a quote in regards to his vision of his teammate.
Now, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard something like this; Jim Rome has been saying for years that Ramirez lives on “Planet Man-Ram.” But according to Ray Negron, Ramirez is actually a pretty stable guy.
The reporter then reminded Negron that Ramirez too used to walk into the video room naked to study tapes of pitchers.
“Do you understand why I would see that as normal?” Negron said. “He wasn’t sitting on a birthday cake.
It’s pretty bad when the only way someone can find to describe you as “normal” is because you don’t sit on birthday cakes in the nude.
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[The New Yorker]: Waiting for Manny
Everyone has gone to the ballpark with the hopes of catching a prized souvenir to proudly show off to your friends for the rest of your days. Brookline Sole had similar intentions when he took in Monday’s game between the Red Sox and Angels at Fenway, but what he didn’t expect was that his dreams would end with a slice of pie to his face.
As J.D. Drew’s foul pop-up sailed into the stands, Sole saw his moment to shine but ended up in a minor collision with Angels’ outfielder Garret Anderson as the ball of his dreams bounced away. If that’s not bad enough, Sole had pissed off another fan, Matt Madore, a few rows back and he decided that this would be the perfect time to exact his revenge on Sole by hurling a large slice of cheese pizza at him. Madore’s buddy, Danny Kelly gave some insight into the hilarious incident that got his friend ejected from the game. Turns out Sole had been poking fun at the fellas for bringing a large pizza to the game.
The announcers’ reactions during the recap of the fiasco are absolutely priceless, and luckily for us they keep it up for a good two minutes.
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[BostonHerald.com]: Pepperoni with that? Flying pizza at Fens
Budweiser is launching their new Red Sox bottles today for the Boston home opener with the Red Sox logo is prominently displayed on new aluminum bottles of Budweiser and Bud Light. About 75,000 to 100,000 cases of the bottles are expected to be sold.
Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Bud, is the official beer of Major League Baseball so they get to do almost anything they want even though MLB has strict standards for alcohol advertising. For example, players are not allowed to do sponsorship deals with beer companies. If the players association was smart, they’d look into repealing this rule as Dice-K already has a beer commercial for Asahi and it features the Red Sox logo in the ad.
Sam Kennedy, SVP of Sales and Marketing for the Red Sox, said that the promotion didn’t cross any lines: “What would be unacceptable would be any targeted advertising that is in an environment where there is a larger percentage of kids [than adults].” Sure. The Red Sox can do whatever they want to make money but let’s not pretend that beer advertisement isn’t also targeted towards teenagers. This isn’t nearly as bad as alcohol ads on Nascar vehicles but let’s just own up and call it a cash grab, ok?
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[Boston Herald]: Bud’s latest pitch: Brewed for buffs
It’s Dice-K day in Boston as everyone is gearing up to watch Matsuzaka’s first start. Part of us wants to see him do well, but part of us always wants to witness the meltdown on Boston sports radio if he throws a clunker. Pressure? Just a little. And that’s the theme of this Nike commercial that’s only being aired in Japan.
It’s pure genius by the way. Nike and MLB are creating a huge legion of fans in Japan who will love the Sox and, almost as importantly, hate the Yankees. The ad takes a bit of artistic license. The opponent today won’t be the Yankees, but the lowly Royals. You see MLB working?
Manny Ramirez is a strange character to say the least, so nothing should be too surprising at this point. Still, we never expected to see Man Ram’s mug on eBay next to an “AMAZING” grill, but we did and here’s what Ramirez has to say about his item up for bid.
Apparently word has gotten out about Manny’s sales pitch because the offer has gone from an opening bid of $3,000 to the $99,999,999 that it currently sits at after 210 bids. That’s a pretty sweet profit, even for a guy who has over $100 million in the bank. Obviously this has become a joke but nobody got a bigger laugh than Bidder 13 who offered $5,111.11 for the grill as a reminder of the $51.11 million the Sox offered to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka.
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[eBay]: Manny Ramirez: JENN-AIR Grill
[SeattlePI.com]: For sale: Grill, used, by Manny Ramirez
We know that Dice-K mania is about to get underway real soon with pitchers and catchers reporting but this is a little ridiculous. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in Washington, D.C is looking into whether a Matsuzaka commercial for a Japanese beer aired in Japan might merit some punitive action.
Our jurisdiction runs to false and misleading ads,” said Resnick, who pointed to a 1995 ruling that says the bureau would consider unacceptable any ad “which depicts any individual (famous athlete or otherwise) consuming or about to consume an alcoholic beverage prior to or during an athletic activity or event,” or an ad that states that drinking alcohol “will enhance athletic prowess, performance at athletic activities or events, health or conditioning.
Did we mention that this ad only aired in Japan? MLB International said they sanctioned the spots and the use of the Red Sox trademark but are a little concerned. Maybe what they should be concerned about isn’t whether Dice-K is drinking a beer on camera (very impressively we might add) but whether drinking Asahi Super Dry is making him fat.
Here’s the commercial. As Tim Hardaway would say, there are more important things to worry about than Japanese beer commercials. We should be more concerned about President (George) Bush and all the people dying in Iraq.
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[AdFreak]: U.S. looking at D-Mat’s beer commercials
[Reason.com]: Feds Continue to Assert World Jurisdiction
[Boston Herald]: Trouble brewing for Dice: Pitchman’s beer ad catches flak
[Sportscolumn is running down the ten dumbest in-game injuries in sports. Here’s #6.]
We’re going old school with this injury. Clarence Blethen isn’t a name that most baseball fans know, but once you’ve heard his story he’s pretty hard to forget. Blethen was a toothless 30 year old rookie pitcher for the Red Sox in 1923. Climax felt that he appeared more intimidating on the mound when he removed his false teeth. In order to keep his choppers safe while pitching he would keep them in his back pocket. On September 21, it finally happened; he forgot to reinsert his dentures and while sliding into second base, he literally bit his own ass.