Faithful

reaching high to snag a bounce that should get over him. Lenny DiNardo’s frozen on the mound, so the runner’s safe, but it’s the kind of play (after Andy Dominique last night) that makes me want to see McCarty play more.

June 11th

In his first two games back, “Nomah” is batting in the five-hole. In last night’s game, the Padres elected to intentionally walk Manny Ramirez with one out in order to face Garciaparra with the bases loaded and the force-at-any-base situation in effect. #5 rewarded this strategy (which, the Padres’ manager would probably argue this morning, made sense at the time, with Garciaparra having been on the DL for the entire first third of the season) with a double rocketed off the left-field wall. That baseball-battered Monster giveth and taketh away, as Fenway fans well know. Last night it tooketh from Nomar Garciaparra: in parks with lower walls, that ball surely would have carried out for a grand slam. Oh well, we beat the Pods, 9–3.

The Yankees won again, of course. They have now won thirteen straight in interleague play. Damn Yankees is damn right.

June 12th

Baseball’s most delicious paradox: although the game never changes, you’ve never seen everything. Last night’s tilt between the Red Sox and the Dodgers is a perfect case in point. With two out in the top of the ninth, it looked as though the Sox were going to win their second 1–0 shutout in the same week. Derek Lowe was superb. Even better, he was lucky. He gave way to Timlin in the eighth, and Timlin gave way to Foulke in the ninth, all just the way it’s s’pozed to be. Foulke got the first two batters hefaced, and then Cora snuck a ground-ball single past Mark Bellhorn. Still no problem, or so you’d think.

That’s when Olmedo Saenz came up and lifted a lazy fly ball toward Manny Ramirez in left field. Saenz flipped his bat in disgust. Cora, meanwhile, was motoring for all he was worth, because that’s what they teach you—if the ball’s in play, anything can happen. This time it did. Manny Ramirez hesitated, glanced toward the infield, saw no help there, and began to run rapidly in no particular direction. He circled, back-pedaled, reached… and the ball returned gently to earth more or less behind him. Cora scored, tying the score and costing Derek Lowe the victory in the best game he’s pitched this year. David “Big Papi” Ortiz eventually sent the crowd home happy in the bottom of the ninth, but what about that horrible error by Manny? How could he flub such a routine fly? Here is the Red Sox center fielder, with the ominous explanation:

“I was the one person closest to the action,” Johnny Damon said after the game, “and I saw all these weird birds flying around. I think they definitely distracted Manny’s attention when he needed it most. That really wasn’t an error at all. It was a freak of nature.”

As one of the postgame announcers pointed out, this may have been the first use of the “Alfred Hitchcock Defense” in a baseball game.

Manny was even more succinct. “There goes my Gold Glove,” he said.

June 13th

A worrisome article in the Sunday paper: Schill has a bone bruise on his right ankle (his push-off foot) and is start-to-start. He’s been taking Marcaine shots before throwing and wears a brace on days off. What else can go wrong?

June 14th

Interleague play, my ass—why not call it a marketing ploy, which is what it really is? It fills the stadiums, and I suppose that’s a good thing (even the somehow dingy Tropicana Dome was almost filled yesterday, as the temporarily-not-so-hapless Devil Rays won for the eighth time in their last ten games), but let’s tell the truth here: fans are paying to see uniforms they’re not used to. Many of the players inside of those exotic unis (Shawn Green, for instance, a Blue Jays alum who now plays for L.A.) are very familiar. Or how’s this for double vision: In last night’s contest (an 8:05 EDT/ESPN-friendly start), you had Pedro Martinez starting for the Red Sox. He used to pitch for the Dodgers. And for the Dodgers, you had Hideo Nomo, who used to pitch for the Red Sox (only before the Red Sox, he used to pitch for the Dodgers). I’m not saying life was better for the players before Curt Flood—it wasn’t—but rooting was both simpler and a lot less about the uniform. One of the reasons I’m such a confirmed Tim Wakefield fan (and am sorry his last couple of starts have been disasters) is because he’s been with the Sox for ten years now, and has done everything management has asked of him—starting, middle relief, closing—to stay with the Sox.

Meanwhile, we won yesterday evening’s game, 4–1. Pedro (the one who used to be with the Dodgers and probably won’t be with the Red Sox next year) got the win, with a little defensive help—a lot of defensive help, actually—from Pokey Reese, who made a jaw-dropping leap to snare a line drive in the seventh inning and save at least one run. “Play of the week” ain’t in it, dear; that was a Top Ten Web Gem of the season.

Today we have off. We ended up taking two of three from the Pod People and two of three from the Dodgers, and still the Yankees mock us. Yesterday the Padres led the Yanks 2–0 going into the bottom of the ninth and blew that lead. Led them 5–2 going into the bottom of the twelfth and blew that lead, as well. The Yankees ended up winning, 6–5, to maintain their three-and-a- half-game edge. I looked at that this morning and reacted not with awe but a species of superstitious dread. Because that kind of thing tends to feed on itself.

The rest of the AL East, meanwhile, is bunching up behind the Red Sox in interesting fashion. Baltimore’s in third and Tampa Bay’s in the cellar; both to be expected. What’s not to be expected—except maybe I did, sorta—is that at this point, approaching the season’s halfway mark, those two teams are only two games apart, Baltimore 11.5 out and Tampa Bay 13.5.

June 16th

When I turned in last night at 11:15, the Red Sox were down a run to Colorado, 4–3, but I had a good feeling about the game, and why not? The Rockies have been horrible this year. Besides, I’d gotten a call from my publisher saying that Song of Susannah was going straight to number one on the New York Times best-seller list, and that’s the sort of day that’ssupposed to end with your team winning—it’s practically a national law.

I wake up this morning at 6:45 and turn on SportsDesk, feeling like a kid about to open his Christmas stocking. Unfortunately, what I get in mine is a lump of coal. Red Sox lost; Yankees won.

The Christing Yankees won again.

I can hardly believe it. Jayme Parker is telling me these bozos now have the best record in baseball, which is no news to me. I’m thinking they must have the best record in the entire universe. The Red Sox aren’t doing badly; by my calculations, we would have won the wild-card spot by two full games, had the season ended yesterday. But I am just so sick