Got to give Marathon Man some props - the seats were good, just past the outfield fence, on the fair side of the right field pole. David Ortiz's blast was hit into the seats above us. Literally - he hit it into the upper deck. How the Marathon Man gets these tickets all the time cracks me up - he has connections in every ticket office in the city. He got tickets at the last second for the Deadspin Pants Party at Shea (in the same section no less); he came through with tickets for Wilco for the show my GF wanted to go see (and drag me to), and he was able to get some tickets for the Rock The Bells all-day show out on Randall's Island. And those are just the events I went to; he goes to a show or game like everyweek (NIT Tournament, Big East Tournament, Blue Jays games with the McGill crowd, every Arcade Fire show - the McGill connection again). I'm not sure how he pays for all this sh*t, either. Especially considering how much food he eats (he is a Marathon runner, remember?). At last night's game he had 5 hot dogs, and would have had at least two more if the vendors hadn't stop selling hot dogs in the 7th inning.
He's a lock to pull a 9/9/9 one day soon - 9 beers, 9 hot dogs, 9 innings. The hot dogs is a given - he can definitely consume 9 dogs. The beers is tougher, but I do remember him double fisting beers on Randall's Island. It was slightly gully.
The award for most gully thing I've seen this month goes to this guy on 9th Avenue a few weeks ago. I was walking to get something to eat - I work around Columbus Circle - and noticed the smell of weed in the air. I didn't make much of it, since it's not that uncommon in NYC. But then I quickly realized I was following the smell, and noticed this old white guy (he looked like a vet - he had a flight jacket with an American flag on it) smoking a joint in his left hand while walking down the street in Midtown. That's pretty gully in its own right (most people would at least try to keep a low profile, i.e. smoke in a corner somewhere), but after finishing a puff from his left hand, he lifted his right hand to his lips and smoked from that joint. That's right - he had a joint in his left hand and his right hand, and was alternating hits, while walking down a busy street. That's pretty gully.
Moving along, we don't actually hang out all that often with The Marathon Man - he's usually pretty busy, with his marathon training and eating, but it is fun to hang out with the douchebag every once in a while. Don't take our word for it - ask Dan Shanoff or Becky if he's a douchebag. Although, to be fair, Shanoff did have the audacity to make fun of McGill when he graduated from Northwestern. With a journalism degree! Indeed, with those two it is kinda a Douchebag Draw.
Anyway, game notes and action:
-Roger Clemens did not pitch well, or have any control, last night. Still, he made it to the sixth inning with a no-no, and had me excited that I might actually be able to say I was actually in attendance at a no-hitter. I was getting ready to document it with pictures of the scoreboard, etc. But at the same time, Clemens was erratic
-The Red Sox lineup (and their team in general) is a bit of joke, especially without Manny Ramirez. It's basically David Ortiz and crap. Eric Hinske? Mister .205? Coco Crisp? Seriously, did the Red Sox really thinking Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkalis were going to keep overachieving like they had in the first half? And Julio Lugo?
-Oh, and then there is J.D. Drew. Wow, Epstein is a boy genius, huh? I mean, Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa are embarrassing for Cashman and the Yankees, but... Drew? That's absolutely inexcusable. With Clemens walking everybody, it lead to this exchange between MM and SML:
SML: "Clemens is running his pitch count too high. Instead of throwing 4 balls, he should just hit someone next time, save time."
SML: "I hope he throws at Drew. Can you imagine if he hits Drew? He'll... shatter."
MM: "Absolutely. He'll be out on the DL for the next two seasons."
MM: "He'll be listed in the paper as being year-to-year."
-MM had the misfortune to sit behind a woman with a weird big curled hairdo. It was hard to describe - I told MM to take a picture of it, but he's too shook to do it. Here's our conversation about it:
MM: "Yo, look at this sh*t. I'm stuck sitting behind 1970's Bill Walton over here..."
SML: "Yep, that's totally SuperBad right there."
-The graphic for Melky Cabrera is quite weak. Whenever he gets a hit you get "Tienes Leche" on the scoreboard. Cool... let's not make sense in two languages.
-Speaking of weird, random graphics on the scoreboard - there's a new one for runners on base. When the Yanks had two runners on, the scoreboard flashed "Ducks on a pond". What the f*ck? Did they just make up a new baseball euphuism
- Ducks on a Pond
- Sloths on a Road (for slow baserunners)
- Snakes on a Plane (leading to a pitcher getting frustrated and screaming at the baserunner: "I'm tired of all these mo-fo snakes on this mo-fo plane")
- Man on a Fire
Every Steven Seagal movie trailer is the same. And it's alway a three word title. It's like "They killed his family. They murdered his kids. They left him for dead. Now he's back for revenge. Steven Seagal is... HARD to KILL. Steven Seagal is... ABOVE the LAW. Steven Seagal is... OUT for JUSTICE... MARKED for DEATH."
-Josh Beckett cracks me up. He alternates between unhittable and crap. Not just start to start, but batter to batter. Even funnier is that when the Yankees first rallied off him, it was on weak stuff. Grounders up the middle. But there was one inning (I think it was the third or fourth) where Josh Beckett just reared back and started throwing fastballs, like he does when he's in trouble. But the thing about it is that it makes him less effective. The Yankee hitters all of a sudden started winding up and taking big hacks at his stuff. I remember joking when Matsui was at bat - "Hey, if Matsui is taking the running-start big swing at your stuff, that's embarrassing". Sure enough, Matsui laced a double into center field on that pitch.
-Jorge Posada is just assaulting the ball this season. Is there any explanation other than steroids for this? I mean, a career season at 36? Watch out, Jorge - the press is going to eat you up.
Finally, we'll end with yet another true-life Marathon Man story:
When I was in
I should have pressed him for more info, but that story cracked me up. Apropos of Montreal, here's the You Tube of Nothin' by N.O.R.E..; he's rocking the Expos jacket in the video. We had a discussion yesterday trying to figure which Houston Astro that throwback jersey Noreiga is wearing belongs to... Nolan Ryan? Mike Scott? JR Richardson? And which throwback Expos jersey would you get if you were going to get one - Gary Carter? Tim Raines? Rusty Staub?:
Alright, Yankees-Sox today at 1:05 - check in at Depressed Fan for the live blog/open game thread.
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Me and half the son of dippin crew was also in attendance, upper deck behind home plate. I can honestly say it was one of the more enjoyable games I've ever attended, Yanks-Sox, close game, completely packed house, a pretty good amount of fights in the stands, 5 no hit innings, and as much as Metallica sucks, I always get a rush when Mariano pitches.
The Ducks on the Pond sign has been there for a while. Nobody understands them.
As for Melky, you missed the weirdest part. On the center field scoreboard, when he got a hit, they flashed a sign saying - "The Melk-man Delivers" where they cropped Melky's head into a milkmans outfit which my friend correctly identified as "bosomy." It was weird, especially since they showed it on every hit.
Walked past an older guy with grey hair smoking on 30th and Lexington Avenue about a week ago, and noticed the overwhelming smell of weed, and when I passed him, I got intrigued and followed him for like half a block to verify, and sure enough, he was just smokin a doobie while he was walking down the street. It was weird, but kind of awe-inspiring.
The weird thing is that from my vantage point - directly above home plate - I could see that most hitters were swinging AHEAD of Josh Beckett's fastball from the 5th on. That shit has to be embarassing if you're a pitcher.
On Beckett: Exactly! They were not only guessing correctly (fastball), but they were digging in and taking big hacks at Beckett's fastball.
You never heard "ducks on a pond" before? I thought it was a pretty well-known baseball expression...
I thought that anybody who played high school baseball had to know what "ducks on a pond" meant...
SML, sorry that you missed a non-no, but it seems that you still got a treat...
and by the way how did JR "Richardson" (is he related to Jason?) ever slip by the SML crack editorial staff?
And BTW, JR "Richard" would be an easy HOFer without the stroke... and not only that, but a pitching staff of Richard, Ryan, and Mike Scott in the mid-eighties would have been ridiculous and might have taken multiple championships...
Good catches, Modi. Yeah, I'm not very good on the editing, often rushing without double-checking things like "JR Richard" last name!
SML,
Isn't Urbina rotting in jail in Venezuela now for attempted murder?
Lucky you for being at the game last night... I'm jealous. I've never seen Yankee stadium.