Rays at Red Sox, Game 3 ALCS Thread
October 13, 2008
“What tedium.” – Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies
Last night, after a day of doing nothing, I watched a baseball game. It didn’t feature the team I care about, but I had nothing better to do. During a break in the action I switched over to the football game. My television screen displayed a series of shots of angry fans, booing, many with their hands cupped around their mouths to better project the vocalization of their anger. Many wore the jerseys of the home team over their bulging, unathletic torsos. I had missed the moment that inspired the anger, and the announcers were choosing not to rehash it. It went on for quite a while, a stadium of people booing. I turned back to the baseball game without ever finding out why everyone was so unhappy.
When I say I did nothing yesterday, I mean nothing did me. Nothing seeped in through the window and sat on my chest so I could hardly breathe. Nothing shoved pretzels down my throat until my stomach hurt. It was one of those suffocating Sundays. I didn’t want to do anything or go anywhere or talk to anyone, and I didn’t want to not do anything or not go anywhere or not talk to anyone. I read some Beckett, his novel Malone Dies. It’s about a guy sitting around his room waiting to cease to be. He occasionally uses a stick to drag things toward him, look at them, then push them away.
Today, a work holiday, is shaping up as a repeat. But I have a baseball game to dissolve into later. I have been keeping score of games in these playoffs. What else is there to do. What else. I write the names of the Red Sox and of their opponents in my notebook, the one I fill with all my words, and I duplicate the action of each game with symbols and abbreviations. Every moment in this finite series of events will be recorded, as if it matters greatly, as if nothing could matter more.
Rays at Red Sox, 4:37 P.M. ET, TBS
Rays
1. Akinori Iwamura, 2B
2. B.J. Upton, CF
3. Carlos Pena,1B
4. Evan Longoria, 3B
5. Carl Crawford, LF
6. Willy Aybar, DH
7. Dioner Navarro, C
8. Rocco Baldelli, RF
9. Jason Bartlett, SS
SP: Matt Garza
Red Sox
1. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
2 .Dustin Pedroia, 2B
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Kevin Youkilis, 3B
5. J.D. Drew, RF
6. Jason Bay, LF
7. Mark Kotsay, 1B
8. Jason Varitek, C
9. Alex Cora, SS
SP: Jon Lester
Cardboard Gods 
1. I did not think Josh had a job where he could partake of the joys of the paid Columbus Day holiday!
2. Harold Reynolds has already written this game in as a Red Sox win.
3. 2 So has Alex Belth.
4. Craig Sager jacket report: Blue with white pinstripes.
But I think it’s strobing.
5. I mean Cliff Cocoran
6. Lester on pace to throw a 36-pitch shutout.
7. The way Chip Caray goes on about the Red Sox hitting with 2 outs, you would think that the team was never retired in any inning this year.
And why in the world did Taco Bell hire Bob Melvin for its ads?
8. Are the pinstripes white, or just powder blue? Loud, anyway. It’s the least objectionable yet. Though the tie is a fine representation of what I imagine an LSD trip, while lying face down on your grandmother’s paisley couch would be like.
9. 8
I was afraid that looking at Sager’s jacket would give me a photophobic epileptic seizure. Even though I’ve been tested and shown not to get those. But my doctor didn’t give me a Electroencephelosagergram.
10. Joe Morgan, paraphrased: it was the fans who won games four and five of the 2004 ALCS for the Red Sox.
Ha, stupid Morgan. It says here that the Red Sox’s CORF (Cheering Over Replacement Fans) in 2004 rated just 101 — league average.
11. Samuel Beckett above looks like the lovechild of David Lynch and John Hurt (which makes no sense, but you get the idea).
Go Ray Sox!
12. I’d forgotten how crazy the MLBTV Mosaic thing is. Watching four split feeds simultaneously. Makes me almost as dizzy as Craig Sager’s jacket.
13. BJ Upton has been eating his Home Run Creating Wheaties recently.
14. Whoa Nelly, as Keith Jackson would say.
15. In the future, we’ll know in advance which team is going to win just by counting how many Uptons they have in their lineup.
16. Dodger Rays draw fist blood. Will the RedSox ever score again with two out? What are they waiting for? Mike Lowell
17. Lester was due for a stinker.
18. Manny
19. Lugo
20. Young Varitek
21. Healthy Ortiz
22. Cliff needs to rewrite his preview.
23. These aren’t your Daddy’s Rays, these are your Dodger Rays.
Okay, I’m done. Go Rays Go Dodgers Go Juan Pierre
24. The number of Longorias will be the tie-breaker.
25. Never a good sign when Paul Byrd is warming in the buillpen.
26. Hopefully Justin will take as long to gestate as BJ did. That way when he finally lives upto the potential they will only get a few years of top performance due to the fact they started his clock last year at the age of 19.
27. Updating 6 , Lester is now on pace for a crisp 162-pitch 15-run complete game.
28. 25
Good sign for rest of the world.
29. Seems to be best when the 1st inning is rocky and then they settle down unless you are Jamie Moyer.
30. The old popout to shallow right caught by the shortstop.
31. Perplexing. Though I don’t mind seeing Youkilis pull one out of his hat.
32. Ahh, nothing like the gift walk/routine-grounder-to-first rally by the 8-9 hitters. To whom will Ellsbury pop out to kill this sucker?
33. Well, they got on the board. Only two more chances to score at least four though.
34. Cool when your favorite players on the team come up big. Upton, Longoria, and Rocco. This baby is at least going back to Tampa. Wakefield is not exactly the guy I’d want to keep this from going to 3-1.
35. The Rays are definitely firing on all cylinders. The use of Byrd at least sets up an all-hands-on-deck mentality for tomorrow. In knuckleballs I trust.