Final Score: Boston Red Sox 1, Kansas City Royals 7"Thump. Thump. Thump." A lone scribe sits alone in the dark of an early April evening, thumping keys on a Dell Latitude X300 and imagining he's one of those grumpy old sportswriters who still writes columns on a Remington typewriter because he's too full of cuss to deign to use anything else. This particular wannabe has a mind full of irritation and a heart full of disappointment, but so does every other red-blooded Red Sox fan out there, with an Opening Day affair against a team that dreams of .500, against a pitcher whose $55 million price tag made headlines for its underscoring of the flaws of the current state of free agency, all designed to be an easy transition from Spring Training to the big time. Instead: Boston humiliated, Schilling heading to the dugout (and, presumably, the blog) in disgust after four and a third disappointing innings, Gil Meche the master of the day and the Sox lineup reduced to one run on eight scattered hits.
As the game wound down and I watched a young unknown named Joel Peralta give the lie to his 2006 stats and surrender two hits over the eighth and ninth innings, I gave some thought to the thing about this game, losing excluded, that disappoints me most. Was it Schilling's pitching? How about our lead off man, who struck out three times? Maybe Big Papi's rally-killing strikeout in the eighth, or how Wily Mo still seems willing to swing at anything that comes close to the plate, or Manny's inability to hit anything on Opening Day for the past seven years? Maybe it was Wonderboy, who did his best to reinforce DC's faith in his future stardom by trying to turn a clear single into a double, getting thrown out by a mile at second? I'm feeling the Wonderboy pick; that seems to be the point where the game started to go south for the offense, when Mr. Meche realized he could, in fact, pitch a house afire. Anyone have another choice they'd like to voice?
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