The only thing cooler than making the post season is a man flying through the air on an alligator.



Beckett will get it done.

Josh Beckett flies through the air on alligators.

Clinch day is here. Enjoy.

9/22/08--Celebrate Good Times? Come on.

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.
1. Lost amid the hubbub of the Yankee Stadium closing is the news that the Red Sox will clinch their fifth playoff birth in six years tonight. Jose is excited about this because it means an insane celebration that will make Jose love this team.

But what if that doesn’t happen?

What if this group is so much more professional and serious than teams past that they refuse to cut loose? Millar is gone, Manny is gone, Pedro is gone, Damon is gone. Hell, we’re down to one Jew, so seeing anyone dance the Hora is unlikely. (Note: Who would lift the chairs?) All that we have no is Papelbon who, in fairness, may be crazy enough to compensate for all of them. But one lunatic does not an asylum make. Jose’s fear is that Papelbon will, like last year, celebrate by stripping down to his jockstrap, but that Sean Casey will quickly hand him a towel and tell him “Put on some God damn pants and quick making an ass of yourself.”

Will DJ Dru just celebrate with an understated fist pump? Will Mike Lowell party with a glass of chilled Chablis? Perhaps Dice and Oki will do nothing more than offer a simple bow. Maybe Mark Kotsay will do…well, whatever it is that Mark Kotsay does.

Frankly, Jose is worried. This is not the gang of idiots, so perhaps they need a more structured way to celebrate. So Jose will step in and offer a suggestion for a fun yet responsible way to celebrate.

Here’s what Jose has come up with: An arcade party at the Dream Machine in the Watertown Mall followed by pizza at Papa Gino’s. Jose knows this may sound like it lacks in drama, but trust him, it’s super fun. Jose did this for his birthday like five years. For an hour you can play all the video games you want for free. Like Curt Euro isn’t going to be in to that? Also, as a plus, there’s an Old Country Buffet there, so Mike Timlin will be good. On the down side, it seems absolutely possible that DJ Dru could injure himself playing skee ball.

2. Yankee Stadium is not the only New York institution to fold this week. The musical Rent also left Broadway after a 12-year run. Despite the fact that the 5,124 performances of Rent, greatly exceeds the number of games played since this Yankee Stadium finished construction in 1976, the close of Rent has not gotten nearly the same press attention. Thus, Jose presents a list of reasons why the closing of Rent is more important than the closing of Yankee Stadium.

• Rent is not being replaced with a new, $1.3 billion publicly funded musical.
• Rent only made Jose want to slit his wrists on one occasion in 1999. Events in Yankee Stadium made Jose want to slit his wrists annually from 1995-2003.
• While Rent includes many long annoying songs, it has never featured a 45-minute rendition of God Bless America.
• Amazingly, far less slapping in Rent.
• If a 12-year-old kid, had interrupted a performance of Rent, he would not have been put on television and given really great seats to the next performance.
• In Rent, the rich guys are the villains.
• If the star of Rent’s vocal repertoire can barely reach one octave, he is not praised for his amazing range.
• Even though Rent is a remake of an old opera called La Boheme, people don’t count performances of La Boheme in Rent’s run. Yet, people do count games at the old Yankee Stadium in the new Yankee Stadium’s run.
• Rent addresses many adult and disturbing issues, but nothing as disturbing or perverse as Wade Boggs on horseback.

For KEY 3, more snarkiness about Yankee stadium, visit http://keystothegame.blogspot.com/

"Confused, rambling, and dirty – much like its author"

Ahh clinch day, it is a thing of beauty. However, if I may be so bold fellow true believers let me offer up a bit of a metaphor. It was early April, a beautiful spring day -- the kind of day that makes you glad that they never found those bodies. On that day we strolled ourselves on into the 2008 bar. From the beginning there was this girl, we'll call her Wildacard (I think she's German, pretty sure her dad is a used car salesman from Wisconsin if you know what I mean). Anyway Wildacard was playing the field, she was getting drinks from some douchebag from New York, and these Canadian losers. But you could tell she'd be pretty happy to go home with us. We put in the work, told her how pretty she was, how she was all that we ever dreamed about, how she was the one who took us all the way in 2004. It went well.

So now, a few months later, Wildacard is all but sitting in our lap. She's got more than a few in her. And when she gets up to go to the bathroom she's grabbing our thigh on the way out, talking about how late it is, and how somebody needs to take her home and treat her like the postseason innovation that she is. I'm not gonna lie to you Sox fans, Wildacard is hot and I'd be very happy to head out to her place (which is all the way out in LA somewhere) and spend 3-5 days doing nasty things to her. But there are times when you need to dream big.

You see Wildacard has this older, hotter sister Aleasta (I think she used to be a dancer -- not ballet). She's got legs that reach all the way to the floor, and she smells like a good-smelling stripper --you know, the kind who wear perfume and take a lot of showers. You take home Aleasta and the upside is you don't even have to do much work. She brings in these friends of hers from Chicago, and you can just lay back and enjoy what's going on. There's no mystery as to what is going to happen – just a few days of good times, and then we move on. Sure, maybe it might get a little weird when this little Latin guy keeps swearing at you, but maybe that's what you are into. I'm not here to judge.

Now the odds are against us taking home Aleastaa. She's kind of a cougar and into the young guys from down south. But you know what, we got the fat wallets, and plus I'm pretty sure we bagged her last year (hard to remember I was drunk for most of September…and October…and really the early part of November), and deep down inside, I think she'd prefer us to those Florida kids. You see Aleasta likes to have a lot of people watch, and they've had trouble packing in 20k or so, where we got a waiting list full of old school New England freaks lining up to see us and Aleasta go at it. There's guys up in New Hampshire willing to throw down thousands of bucks to bring in the Missus and watch us get freaky with Aleasta – same as their dads did before them. Hell they might splurge and bring the whole family.

Getting toward last call. The safe play is to start telling ourselves how Wildacard is all we've ever dreamed of. But you know Aleasta is sitting over there with those Tampa jackasses, hoping we'll knock them flat on their asses. I'm saying its time to go buy some shots and get to work. Your play Boston.

I'm ERR and now you know

OH MY GOD THERE ARE TWO OF THEM NOW

Just to state it up front, Jose is the master. If this were dancing with the stars, he would be Fred Astaire, all style and effortless grace. I, on the other hand, would be Linda McCartney, awkward, but hoping you'll root for me anyways, because I'm trying really hard and obviously should be doing something else with my time (until you find out what a soul-less douchebag I really am).

Yeah, I don't know if I can take it!

The more the merrier, keep em coming! Hopefully a chance to smoke a playoff clinching cigar tonight and an aleasta one a few days from now.

I bet you were a Crystal Pepsi fan too.

Really, this is just awful, awful stuff. I do like any and all ABBA references, but in this case it's more like putting a birthday candle on a swirling dog turd.

I liked Crystal Pepsi. Don't diss on it.

I was gonna go with OK Soda (remember that?) but Crystal Pepsi seemed more shamelessly derivative.

CLEVELAND

Sizemore CF
Carroll 3b
Choo RF
Peralta SS
Hafner DH
Francisco LF
Garko 1b
Shoppach C
Cabrera 2b

Jackson P


BOSTON

Ellsbury Cf
Pedrioa 2b
Ortiz DH
Youkilis 3b
Bay Lf
Lowrie SS
Kotsay Rf
Varitek c
Bailey 1b

Beckett P

I like.

Let's get this done tonight.

The next two pitching matchups in this series suck. I don't want to wait until Thursday with Lester, nor do I want to depend on the Blue Jays.

Whither Covelli? Shouldn't he be in the lineup tonight?

Unless he's hurt, yeah. I mean it's nice that Kotsay is here and all but he simply shouldn't be starting games in September based on his play of late (he has a .485 OPS in 51 September ABs. Are you fucking kidding me?)

Beckett will dominate tonight.
The offense will run roughshod tonight.
The collar will get a bit more snug for TB tonight.
Frat will call 1-800-I-FEEL-OK multiple times tonight.

WIN.

FAKE EDIT: I assume the flying gator shot is from a David Hasselhoff music video. amiright or amiright or amiright?

Carmona given a 6 game suspension.
V Martinez (not in Line up) got 3
Cabrera (batting 9) also got 3

Sheff got six and is not appealing.

edit to add link

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-i...p&type=lgns

My god... what happened to Amalie Benjamin? She turned into an ugly, nervous guy named Kilgore.

That guy was horrible. I think he's supposed to be announcing the lineups and got lost.

His blogging sucks too. Horrible.

Poor guy is going to read this thread and start crying.

It's hard to read a whole game thread and not cry at some point.

This is the night, Josh, with a little help from your offense - early and often. Bring it, win it, kick ass and clinch.

GO SOX - CLINCH TODAY!

Hey, Injuns. Welcome back to Fenway. You will once again get to watch Josh kick your asses, and it will once again be followed by celebration.

Thank you in advance for your compliance.

I was only kidding, his blog posts are the longest I have ever seen. I just resent him for taking Amalie out of blogosphere for the most part.

The Globes new picture is pretty funny.

Good god I am in love with her.

Sneaky Hot

Beckett is going to fuck some shit up in the playoffs.

He's got his nasty back.

I agreed: http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?s=&...st&p=821731

Beckett is untouchable right now

Great Minds, I guess.

Also too much time on our hands, but I digress.....

10 pitch first. Good shit.

<-----------------------------

41.2 IP and 6 walks? I like this guy already.

Any chance Ellsbury breaks the sox steal record this week?

WIN for my friend Curly LaJolla, who is lucky enough to be in Fenway tonight all the way from Oregon. He and his wife are there with their daughter, who they came to see take her oath as she starts at Tufts Med.

Wow, Papi's really feeling the power of late.

2 pages and nobody puts this up yet.....must I do everything?

First Inning Squander ™

Maybe if you're a 15 year old boy.

Is there a bigger bust in baseball then Travis Hafner???
(excluding Andruw Jones)

What happened to this guy - other than the obvious PED question?

I'm not really digging Beckett's stuff tonight. Fastball is 93-94 and curve has been good 3 out of 4 times

Garko has enough fucking armor on that that's not going to hurt him at all.

Jesus christ come on Beckett.

OK, Josh, let's get with the fucking program.

Uh....yeah. That's not good.

Stop with the hitting guys will ya?

Josh is just doing his best Pedro imitation.