Games 127 - 129

Final Scores:

Game 127: Boston Red Sox 5, Detroit Tigers 3
Game 128: Boston Red Sox 5, Detroit Tigers 1
Game 129: Boston Red Sox 6, Detroit Tigers 1

The back page of the New York Post today had a picture of Jason Varitek facing a picture of Alex Rodriguez, with the caption: "The next few weeks will determine who is the Beast of the East." I could only laugh.

So, another sweep under the Sox belt. One might say a corner has been turned. This weekend was a special one for me as well - I was up in the Northwestern corner of New Hampshire, visiting my dad with my sisters and mother at his temporary home while he restarts a paper mill over the border in Gilman, Vermont. Beautiful house, beautiful scenery (just north of the White Mountains) and most importantly for this diary, I got to listen to Friday and Saturday's games on the radio with my father. In some ways it was a lot like when I was growing up - crackly reception that kept fading in and out, no Internet to catch up on the other scores...just me and my dad sitting around a dining room table, listening to the game. As sappy as it sounds, I thought it was pretty special.

I also picked up (or re-picked up) another artifact: a Red Sox hat of the older school, with the one-size-fits-all snap in the back, higher cut cap and flat (instead of relief) logo. It is the shiznit and more so because before my sister stole it for a number of years, it was the hat that got me the nickname of Boston at CTY at Hamilton College in 1994. After I wore it all weekend, the Boston hat has officially joined The Pantheon of Artifacts.

Injury Report: For once good news. Manny avoided injury of the knee after hammering a foul ball off his leg on the 27th. Youkilis and McCarty are scheduled to come back on Wednesday (tomorrow), Nixon and Pokey Reese may be coming back as soon as next week, Pedro Astacio and Byung-Hyun Kim (yes, THE Byung-Hyun Kim) are probably coming up from Pawtucket at the same time as part of the forty man roster AND Scott Williamson feels himself well enough to come back in the next week or two. And that, as they say, would be HELLA clutch. GO SOX!