Red Sox Comeback

Well, in about another 15 minutes it'll be official, and the Red Sox will be down 3 games to 1 in the ALCS. I certainly haven't lost hope (see ALCS, 2004), but it's a dire situation. These Indians are good, and they've absolutely outplayed us.

Still, before things get into the whole inevitable finger-pointing situation that happens during each playoff series where the favored team ends up on the verge of elimination, let me make a couple points.

1. Terry Francona was absolutely right to start Tim Wakefield tonight. Wakefield had a great season (17 wins), he's the perfect sort of pitcher to put into a game when you're struggling in a playoff series because he's a knuckleballer and he throws hitters off their game, he was rested and starting him means that Josh Beckett is going tomorrow on a fully-rested arm.

In fact, let's review the possible situations:

A. If Beckett pitches on three days rest and wins, bravo, you're a genius, the series is tied, you get to start Schilling in Game 5 and Dice-K in Game 6, and then Beckett in Game 7. Great choice.
B. If Wakefield pitches and wins, the series is tied and the next pitcher you face is a fully-rested Beckett, who is nearly unhittable, and the game is in Boston. All of a sudden, the series swings back completely into the Red Sox's favor.
C. If Beckett pitches on three days rest and loses, the series is essentially over. Now you've got a very shaky Schilling going up against odds-on Cy Young winner C.C. Sabathia in a deciding game. Ouch.
D. If Wakefield pitches and loses, you get to go into the next game knowing you've got Beckett to fall back on, and so there's still hope.

We end up with Option D, unfortunately, but it's better than Option C. And Option B was better than Option A, so either way, Francona made the right choice. Plus, the statistics on starters going on three days rest are pretty horrific (I don't have them here, and I'm not looking them up). It's a big sign that says "we don't think we can win this game our way. We're desperate now." Three games in, when you're only down one game, you don't want to be holding that sign.

2. Outside of Beckett, none of our starters can make it past the third inning. That's not winning baseball, no matter how good your relievers are.
3. Of course, no one is hitting in any runs early in the game, which means that when Cleveland finally does break through (and always in the fifth inning), it's always disastrous for us. The energy just disappears. When Blake homered off Wakefield in the fifth, it was like the game was over right there, and yet we were only down one run. Part of the problem with being a knuckleballer is that big homers tend to happen - when you throw the ball at 65 MPH, it only takes one bad pitch for everything to turn around. But since we had no runs to back up Wake... it was a crusher for us.
4. And, of course, a good half the team isn't hitting at all. Ortiz, Ramirez, and Lowell have done - almost literally - all the hitting. Pedroia, Varitek, and Lugo are all well below the Mendoza line, and Drew asn't exactly been earning his salary. Meanwhile, Ortiz has an OPS of 1.8 this postseason. Ramirez's is 1.6. That's outrageous.

I'll be there in front of the tv for the next game, cheering an clapping (I really do clap, even when it's just me alone in front of the tv), but I'm worried about this team. We succeded all season even though half the team wasn't hitting. The pitching slacks off, and suddenly all that hitting trouble comes back to bite us. Sigh.

New Goal

I've decided that for the next two week - the longest period of time I can keep anything going consistently - I am going to post on this site every day. Actual content is unimportant, what's important is consistency. This will likely dissolve into posting about my fantasy football team very quickly. But a post every day, four sentences minimum.

Still, let's give it a try.

Justin encouraged me to listen to a book reading David Sedaris (author of Me Talk Pretty One Day) had on YouTube, called "Six to Eight Black Men," about Christmas is the Netherlands. I'll link to it here, it's a marvelous bit. While listening, I decided (again) that I need to join a library down here in Texas. I'd made an effort a few months ago when I first discovered I lived quite near the Barbara Bush library, which seemed the sort of place one cannot turn down the opportunity to be come a member of. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I drove up and down the road the map directed me to, I could never locate it. So I never became a member, which is a shame because that would have been a real talking point if I ever ran into Barbara Bush, and would have greatly increased the odds of us becoming fast friends. And - really - I think Barbara and I would get along swimmingly, given the chance.

New YouTube Videos

Hey guys,

I've put a few videos together of the past couple weeks - because, it is, you know, my job - and I figured I'd show you a couple. The first is the first song from a concert I helped shoot that I'm editing for Zach Hendricks. This song is called "So Slow." The other songs will go up as I get to 'em.

Here's the link if you have trouble.

The second is a video intro I threw together for the Loft. The instructions were "shoot a shot of yourself as a defendant and then another one with you as the prosecutor. Just do it in front of a blank wall somewhere. Also, it's due tomorrow." However, whenever I get a slightly more wide-open opportunity like this, it's more fun to try to push it a little further.

Here's the link if you have trouble.

Enjoy.

Things are looking up

When I first moved into my new apartment, I complained a lot about it. I had a right. No A/C, no stove, no fridge, broken toilet, broken sink, broken lock on the door, trash everywhere, etc. I was pissed, and I think I had a right to be. And my apartment complex adopted an incredibly laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing, passing the whole thing off, ignoring it as much as I would let them. But finally I got a stove and an fridge and an A/C and a lock and a sink and a toilet in, and so even though everyone was telling me I should just move out, I stuck around.

Well, I should've listened.

Since we moved in about six weeks ago, we have had:

1. A shooting in our parking lot. I wasn't there for this one, but Chris called me to let me know to be careful on my way home. Believe me, I was - I even had him unlock the door as I was pulling in, so that I wouldn't have to spend any time fumbling for keys.
2. Domestic disputes. Our next door neighbors are a somewhat troubled live-in couple who have about six kids who live with them. Every now and then they'll get in a fight and and one of them will call the cops, or one of them will come over and have us call the cops for them. By the time the cops arrive, the dispute is always taken care of, so they'll inform the cops that "nobody called them." As a result of this "prank calling" on our part, the cops don't like us much. On the other hand, the couple next door are our best friends at the complex by far.
3. A dead body in our parking lot. I couldn't go to work one morning because when I went out the door, the way out was blocked by police cars. Our landlady told me that there was nothing to worry about, and that the man had died of natural causes and wasn't a resident. This seemed a bit callous, and also probably untrue, since this didn't explain why there were 8 patrol cars and a detective examining the scene of this natural death. Our next door neighbor said he thought he'd been shot, but by then it was mid-morning, and so of course he'd already had a few.
4. A lot of angry men sitting in their vans staking out our apartment complex. I don't know who they're waiting for, I'm just glad it's not me.
5. A lack of good parking spaces.
6. Groups of brutish looking twenty-somethings pounding on our door, looking for "Luis." We don't know who Luis is, but we wish he'd stop giving people our address and telling them it's his.
7. A mass arrest. This afternoon, Chris arrived home to discover a group of undercover cops had come and arrested a good portion of the neighbors. We don't know what they did.

So it's been an interesting month and a half. What's funny about this is that my mom wanted me to move away from my old apartment because it was so dangerous, and I lived there a year and there was only one murder, plus my mailbox and car getting broken into a couple times. So really, in comparison, it was a very safe environment, a veritable Seahaven. How naive we were.

Still, maybe things will get better. Maybe this mass arrest is a good thing - it might solve some of the problems mentioned above. If nothing else, it should at least solve the parking situation.