Games 48 - 51

Final Scores:

Game 48: Boston Red Sox 8, Seattle Mariners 4
Game 49: Boston Red Sox 4, Seattle Mariners 5
Game 50: Boston Red Sox 9, Seattle Mariners 7
Game 51: Boston Red Sox 4, Baltimore Orioles 13

Quite the topsy-turvy Memorial Day weekend. Pedro prevented the apocalypse and took his 13th game in a row against the Mariners on Friday. Wakefield failed to perform and the Sox couldn't recover completely from a 5 run deficit on Saturday. Saturday night Alan gave me a Yankee Hater hat (I've got the blue one) which I used to freak out friends and family (more on that below) while Foulke's perfect record was broken and the Sox pulled out a win which belongs with any of the classics of last year. I was at an outdoor party in Holden, MA and walked into the kitchen of the house where the party was being held, where a number of people were watching the game, to check on the score. Just as I walked in, McCarty hit his walkoff and the entire room erupted into cheers...one of those moments when being a fan is really special.

Last night I came back from Boston with the hopes of listening to the game as part of a relaxing evening at home - a good windup to a Memorial Day weekend. Instead, however, I found that DLowe had already blown the game earlier this afternoon, while I was in transit. Lowe's lackluster performance led me to reflect on the state of contract negotiations and I drew a few parallels between the end of this season and the movie Highlander. Because of money limitations (and possibly because the front office wants to see what it's getting into), not everyone whose contract is up at the end of this season will get an offer. For some reason, I imagine the number is four out of six possibilities, but I don't know where I'm getting that idea from. In any case, much like the Highlander, there can be only one (well, four, or whatever the number is) - there is certainly a competition of sorts going on here for a contract offer. I'd say with his performance so far this season, Derek is within a step of having his head cut off.

Look, if the metaphor doesn't make sense, go see the movie. It'll make a lot more sense and you can sit and figure out why Christopher Lambert sounds like he's German even though he was born on Long Island.

As promised, the shock value of the Yankee Hater hat: as you may have noticed if you opened the link, the Yankee Hater hat was created when someone had the ingenious idea of taking the diagonal bar in the "N" of the Yankees logo and making it horizontal, creating an "H." A few color changes and the addition of the "Yankee Hater" moniker later and the hat was born. Thing is, on first glance, it looks like a normal Yankees hat. I have a feeling Alan bought me the hat in the first place because he was worried about the corrupting influences of New York, but buying me a hat that is half camouflage was pure genius. A good ten or fifteen people, from my parents and sister, to friends at the party I went to on Saturday, to my roommate, all thought at first that I was wearing a Yankees hat and were consequently freaked out. I also didn't get any second looks riding the subway from 42nd Street back to Brooklyn. It was great. YANKEES SUCK!