I HATE THE BOSTON RED SOX !!!

Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

I found myself so excited when I got home from work tonight! I had had an exhausting day at work, and just after opening the door to my apartment, I bolted right for the couch. That was where I was planning to recuperate and find my second wind! For tonight was the start of the third series of the year between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

Like the two series before this one I was pumped! This is sports greatest rivalry! As a fan, if you can’t get yourself excited for this, what can you get excited for? But tonight there was added incentive! The games in the two series before were over before the ever really got started. The Red Sox had dominated the Yankees in every way imaginable. They had beaten the Yankees to a pulp. The Yankees had lost all of thier first five games to the Boston Red Sox in 2009. But since May 6th (the last time the two teams matched up) these have become two very different ball clubs. The Yankees have been on fire, winners of 21 out of 28. A-Rod is back in the every day lineup, Mark Teixeira’s numbers have skyrocketed, and the starting pitching has found its groove. Even the bullpen, as awful as it is, has not stopped the Yanks. As for the Red Sox, they are just two games over .500 during that time. (16-14) And have been nothing more then an average team over that time.

So certainly the match up was in the Yankees favor! Some sweet good old fashion payback! The dish best served cold- revenge! The Yankees, I thought, were sure to take two of three, if not a straight sweep of the dreaded Sox!

As I watched Pardon The Interruption on ESPN 2, I was counting down the seconds until 7:00pm. From 6:55 to 7:05 I was so impatient I could hardly sit still!

Then as Red Sox starter, Josh Beckett, finally delivered the first pitch of the game, Derek Jeter promptly grounded out to shortstop. It was obvious from the get-go that if the Yankees were to win, they were going to have to match Beckett’s dominance defensively. Yankees starter, A.J. Burnett, was going to have to be better then average. He was going to have to be almost perfect.

After one-and-one-half innings of play, the line score for booth teams was identical- filled to capacity with zeros. But in the bottom of the second it was obvious that A.J. Burnett had no idea what he was doing! A.J. was running up his pitch count, walking batters and drastically missing on location.

Then up came David Ortiz, the Artist formerly know as Big Papi.

I was thrilled to see Ortiz coming into the series with his .197 batting average! Ortiz has been a Yankee killer for a long long time! I have always found his tremendous success suspect. When Ortiz first came on the scene in 2003, he had been released from the Minnesota Twins. The Twins has found serious flaws in his hitting technique, and had outright released him. He was an out of shape, over weight DH, who couldn't catch up to a fastball, and couldn't lay off any pitch off the plate.

“Finally”, I thought!

Ortiz was once again starting to play like the Scube he was in Minnesota.

His skills had dropped so significantly, that Sox Manager, Terry Francona, dropped Ortiz to sixth in the batting order. And so as the sixth batter of the game for Boston, Ortiz came to the plate with one on and no one out. The fifth pitch of the at-bat was a four-seam fastball right over the plate. Ortiz drilled it to straight away center. Yankees Center Fielder Brett Gardner just looked up, as the ball sailed well above him.

2-0 Boston!

The game was over with one swing!

Ortiz might as well have hit a walk off home run!

How confident was I that the game was over?

Well, I actually posted this Blog before tonight’s game went final!

I was disgusted!!!

This is a darn conspiracy! I am sure Bud is in on it too! The Red Sox have the Yankees on a leash, in their back pockets! As a Yankee fan I find it aggravating, embarrassing, disgraceful, and downright repulsive!

After the Ortiz homerun, I started texting the Old Man with profanitites and exploitives that would make a truck driving sailor cry! I got off the couch and went out to jog the neighborhood by the fourth inning! And Tuesday night is not even my usual night to run! Blasting music on my I-pod and sprinting the sidewalks, I found no comfort for my vicarious frustrations.

Einstein was right!

Because tomorrow night, I will be back in front of the T.V. looking for a different result!

I am freaking insane!

Randy Johson Not The First Or The Last To Attain 300

Ready?

Cause here is comes!

It’s all the nonsensical chatter from every baseball scube who claims to be an expert!

It’s a question that will be debated for weeks, following Randy Johnson’s historic 300th victory this past Wednesday in Washington D.C. It’s also a question that has been debated every time another pitcher has joined the 300 win club for the last six years.

They all weigh in with their idiotic opinions on a subject that is just plain dumb to answer “yes” to.

The question is:

“Have we seen the last 300 game winner in baseball history?”

On the evening of July 13th 2003, Roger Clemens won his 300th game at Yankees Stadium versus the St Louis Cardinals. It was thought by the majority in the media at that time, that Roger would be the last player to accomplish such a feat. It was also thought that he would retire after the season. Not only have their been three other 300 game winners since, but Roger himself won another 54 games before he was forced into retirement. If given the choice, Clemens may still be pitching today.

On August 7th 2004, Greg Maddux won the 300th game of his major league career. All I heard from media outlets around the globe, was that this would be the last time a pitcher would win 300 games. The bold declaration would be proven wrong just three years later. As for Maddux: he won another 55 games before retiring last season with Joe Torre’s Los Angeles Dodgers. He was still a valuable part of the LA bullpen when he called it a career.

On August 8th 2007, Tom Glavine won his 300th game against the Chicago Cubs, at Wrigley Field. It was one of the very few highlights Glavine had while pitching for the New York Mets. Once again, color commentators, talk show hosts, and sports annalists alike, stated with certainty that on pitcher would ever win 300 games again. Glavine is still active to this day, however the Atlanta Braves did just release him.

Then this past Wednesday, June 3rd 2009, Randy Johnson became the 24th player to win 300 games in his thirty-one year career. Johnson is just the sixth left-hander to win 300, and maybe the most unlike able guy to accomplish the task as well. A constant snobbish swagger has shadowed Johnson since his early days in Seattle. An “I in team” attitude is a well-documented part of his character. And he certainly has no love for reporters of any kind. (I’m sure especially degenerate sports Bloggers writing without college degrees.) Johnson may also be the most ugly guy to win 300 as well. An insider nickname my family has had for Randy, for years now, is the Freak Of Nature. But regardless of my own opinions of Johnson, his accomplishment is fantastic, well earned and well deserved.

But with Randy’s historic victory comes the media circus of moronic commentary. I just can’t take the irresponsible journalism! All these desk jockey’s, dolled up in a T.V. studio some place, all with blank looks on their face when some host asks them if we will ever see another 300 game winner. The all fumble around, choose their words poorly, and conclude with the safe answer of “no”. They site things like pitch counts, pulling players out of games early, or the five man rotations as their reasons why. These are all weak excuses made by guys who simply have not done their homework.

I will be the first to agree that it is getting harder and harder for pitchers to achieve the 300 win plateau, however it doesn’t make it unattainable! Unattainable records are those like Joe-D’s 56 game hitting streak, or Cal Ripken’s consecutive game streak. A 300 game winner is certainly something I expect to see again in my lifetime!

I will refrain from commenting on the careers of Josh Beckett, Johan Santana, Tim Hudson, or Javier Vasquez. But will simply state that they too could be 300 win candidates. However, here is a list of just four players who could very well get the job done.
Here are my best four cases for baseball’s 25th member of the 300 win club.

Carlos Zambrano

Carlos Zambrano, of the Chicago Cubs, just celebrated his 28th birthday, last Monday. He also just celebrated his 100th career victory just four nights later. So at 28 years old with 100 victories under his belt, Carlos needs to average 13 wins a year for the next 16 years to enter the 300 win club. 13 is of course a very low and attainable number of victories for a given season, while 16 years from today would make Carlos 44 years old. Or one year younger then Jamie Moyer who is still pitching for the Phillies.

Roy “Doc” Halladay

Roy Halladay is 32 years old and already has 140 victories. He will win at least 10 more games before the seasons end. Which would put him half way to 300. So assuming Roy plays another 12 years, (retiring at 44), Roy would need just 12 wins a year to achieve 300. Roy is without a doubt the games most dominating pitcher and as a free agent after the season, he is about to move to a winning team, and score a major payday!

Andy Pettitte

Andy Pettitte, the Yankees 36-year-old left-hander doesn’t turn 37 for another two weeks. He currently stands at 220 career victories. If Andy applied himself and committed to the task of 300 wins he could do it. Andy would need to average 15 wins from now until he is 43 years old to get the job done. The trouble is Andy has no such ambition, to win 300. He also doesn’t believe his own left elbow could hold up that long with the riggers of pitching once a week. However Andy Pettitte is in place statistically and has enough youth in the fountain to do it!

Carsten Charles Sabathia

C.C. Sabathia is 28 years old has yet to win 20 games in a season, and yet has 122 career victories. Assuming he pitches to the age of 40 and avoids major injury, C.C. would only need to average 15 wins a season. This is something very practical while playing on the Yankees. A team that will always score him a ton of runs.

So in conclusion, please don’t tell me a Major League starter will never win 300 games again! As so long as these four starters are pitching every fifth day, a chance still exhists! And my advise for the Harold Reynolds’s, and John Kruk’s of the world- pick up a stat sheet and a calculator (like I did) and make some accurate projections for a change!