What?? WHAT?????

What's this crap I'm hearing about the Sox maybe trading Ellsbury for Hanley Ramirez????????????????????????????????????? (I would have put more question marks, but my pinky got tired.)

Has Jon Daniels invaded Boston or something?

Help?

Two things have happened recently that are creating great trauma for me.

The first one happened earlier this week when Mark Teixeira signed a contract with the Evil Empire. The very fact that a player that I have great respect for signed with "them" is bad enough. But anyone who knows my family and my youngest daughter knows that we are now going to have a problem of Biblical proportions in my household.

THERE'S ABOUT TO BE A @$#%$& YANKEE FAN IN MY HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!

I told her I hope she likes sleeping out in the back yard.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

---

The second thing happened yesterday.

My oldest daughter went out and ordered THIS!!





Ted? I can't breathe, man! This is what you have to look forward to someday! I've never had so many emotions going through me at one time.

We don't have an official date, yet. Probably won't be until sometime in 2010, but they've ordered the dress. It won't have pink edges. They will be hunter green instead.

Sigh.

TTFN, y'all!

Breaking News

In a move that has stunned baseball fans worldwide, shortly after signing Mark Teixeira to a multi-year 180 million dollar contract, the Yankees bought baseball.

No, I'm not referring to those little white, round thingies.

The Yankees bought Baseball. The game. Worldwide. Reactions range from ecstatic to suicidal. Terry Francona, manager of the Boston Yankees, was heard to say, "I figured this was inevitable eventually. I had hoped that John Henry would manage to at least come away with half of Baseball, but I guess this is it."

Michael Young, shortstop for the Texas Yankees, was actually more upbeat about it. "Maybe we'll finally be able to afford some pitching now," he was heard to say.

One of the first projects that will be taken on is the tearing down of every major league baseball park and rebuilding them to be exact replicas of Yankee Stadium. The first, of course, will be Fenway Park, mainly because the Steinbrenners are sick of hearing about how it's "America's most loved ball park," and "the oldest ball park in America." No more of that. And no more domes. "If we can play in an open stadium in New York, then everyone should have to," said Hank Steinbrenner. "Why the *bleep* do they need a dome in Tampa, anyway? It's never cold there." I guess no one told Hank it rains every day at 2pm in Florida.

It has yet to be determined how teams will be told apart when they play each other, since all teams will now be wearing pinstripes. And there will certainly be duplicate numbers on those uniforms, as well. "There are still a lot of details to be worked out," said Hank. "Not the least of which is deciding who gets to win the World Series each year." Of course, they have now made it certain that the Yankees will win every World Series from now on.

Anyone who attempts to form another league playing Baseball, will be sued and made to cease immediately. Many players are thinking of taking up cricket.

There are only two positive outcomes to this scenario that I can see.

1. Scott Boras will no longer have a job, because agents are no longer necessary.

2. Bud Selig will also be unemployed, because the Steinbrenners will now be making all the rules.

After hearing of this development, Jerry Jones began contemplating the possibility of buying Football. Mark Cuban has begun counting up his assets as well. Ironically, no one is interested in buying Soccer, and the over-riding sentiment seems to be that the Canadians can have Hockey.

TTFN, y'all.

No Tex for Now

Scott Boras must be pulling his usual crap. The Red Sox have, extremely abruptly, completely pulled out of the race for Mark Teixeira, after reportedly making the biggest offer out there.

Anybody remember Boras lying to the Texas Rangers and telling them that Raphael Palmeiro had a better offer? When he didn't? So Palmeiro wound up playing for the O's instead of the R's.

For a team like the Sox, with all their money, to just yank out like that, something's going on.

That's ok, though. I would love to see Tex in a Red Sox uniform, but, honestly, we don't need him that badly. We got Youk, man. Who needs a Tex when you got a Youk??

(Please don't take that personally, other "Tex." Of course, we need you!)

If we can't get him, though, I'd really like to see him play in Baltimore. Why not? It's his home. I just hope he won't take that Nats deal. Dear Lord, what a horrible team. Surely, he wouldn't want to play there.

In the meantime, the Rangers are adding all kinds of improvements to their Ballpark. Seats closer to the field, LED scoreboards (which I'm opposed to, though...I'm a purist. I like the manual outfield scoreboards), and some kind of high-tech video thingy around the middle deck of the stadium.

Seems like all that money could maybe buy a pitcher.

But what do I know? Rangers "fans" don't come to watch baseball, anyway.

TTFN, y'all.

Breaking News!!

This just in from The Borowitz Report!


December 14, 2008

Yankees Sign Iraqi Hurler

Shoe-throwing Right-hander Impresses Scouts

In their latest bid to beef up their pitching rotation for the 2009 season, the
New York Yankees today signed Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi to a three-year
deal worth $32 million.
The right-handed al-Zeidi, 28, impressed the Yankee scouts with his performance
in Baghdad yesterday when he threw both of his shoes at President George W.
Bush.
While neither of the shoes hit their target, both throws "had great
velocity and good movement," said Yankee owner Hank Steinbrenner.
"The first shoe was high and outside but the second one was right down the
middle," Mr. Steinbrenner said.
The Yankee boss said that he was also impressed with Mr. al-Zeidi's
fighting spirit when Secret Service agents tackled him.
"That could come in handy when we have a series with Boston," he
said.

Sad News

I regret to have to write that my wife's father passed away Saturday morning at around 4:30.

We'll be attending his funeral at 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon. It wasn't an unexpected thing, though. He had been ill for a long time.

---

Sorry I've been absent for so long. Kathy's right (in the comments for the last entry), there are other things to write about than the Red Sox.

Wait. What am I saying??

Hahaha...

Lots of stuff has been happening. The Yankees are once again trying to buy there way back into the playoffs by sucking up all the good pitchers. And now I hear they are throwing in on the Teixeira chase. Ugh. I've pretty much decided I want to see Mark Teixeira wearing Red Sox. Even Boras said he would like to send Tex to the Sox, that way he could send Manny to the Nats. But the Evil Empire has expressed interest in Manny, too.

In the meantime, the Rangers want The Big Unit. Yes, folks, the Rangers are trying to sign Randy Johnson, the oldest pitcher in baseball. If not the oldest, then certainly the ugliest. You know, if they are going to go after oldness, I'd rather see them get Curt Schilling. I have no clue why they want Johnson.

Of course, I have no clue why they traded their only starting catcher for two minor league nobody pitchers, either. And that deal of massive stupidity (has Jon Daniels never learned anything????) messed things up for a lot of people. It eliminated the possibility of any deal between the Rangers and the Sox for one of their backup catchers, both of whom the Sox were definitely interested in. It eliminated the possibility of Varitek going to the Tigers (I'm actually kind of glad about that one, but it made for one less option for Tek). At least the Rangers management is aware that they need pitching!

Stephanie and I will, once again, be attending the "Sluggers of the West" awards banquet in January. We had a nice time at last year's banquet, and I managed not to "boo" at Tom Hicks. The crowd's reception of him was somewhat less than enthusiastic, though. We got some nice pictures of Stephanie with players after the banquet, though, and I'm hoping we can do that again, this time.

---

In other news, we are rapidly approaching the end of our first semester of high school for Stephanie. At the moment, she is doing mostly ok. She's struggling with a science class, which they call "I.P.C." I think that means "Integrated Physics and Chemistry." It's supposed to be an easier level science class, but her teacher is not very good, from what I can gather. I'm hoping we can come up with some ways to raise that grade before the semester is over. She passed the first half, so we just need to get high enough to have a passing average for the semester.

Christi is doing mostly ok, after her father's passing. She is probably handling it better than most of the other family. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

The last thing is that the company I work for is cutting our wages by 10% at the beginning of 2009! Ugh! That's putting us back close to 4 years! At least I have a job, right? But still...that's a pretty hefty chunk. I'm having to cut my 401k contributions to make up for it. The sad thing is, our division is actually making money. It's the divisions that are union that are killing us all. So we have to suffer for it. That's SNF! Hahahahah!!!

I think that's got us caught up for now. I need to work on getting the rest of my Christmas shopping done.

TTFN, y'all!

Good Things Come In...Well, Boxes

Whoa. That was a long time between posts. See what happens when there's no baseball?? I'm bored and boring, both.

I got a pleasant surprise tonight. One of my buddies at work walked in carrying this box and gives it to me. (How appropriate that my other friend is listening to Pandora right now, and it's playing "Boston" by Augustana...) So, anyway...inside this dusty box (he found it in some dollar store somewhere) is *drum roll* (are you sitting down?)

A NOMAR GARCIAPARRA BOBBLEHEAD!!!!!

IN A RED SOX UNIFORM!!!!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

If he weren't a guy, I might have kissed him.

Let's don't go any farther with that thought, please...

Anyway. So now I have a "Nomah" bobblehead.

Life is good.

I'll see you next time something exciting happens.