Never Mind.

So much for that. It appears that Rich Harden will in fact be staying Oakland.

Trading Foreigners.

Resident of Planet Moonbeam, Lars Anderson (I like Lars and hope that he and his hippy-dippy ways can find success out where people don't care about baseball), has been traded to Oakland for her majesty's loyal subject, Canadian Rich Harden.

It's not a bad trade. With the acquisition of Adrian Gonzalez, Lars didn't *spin around in a clockwise circle three times, jump into the air, and spit* have a place in Boston and maybe Harden can prove useful for a couple of starts. Perhaps he could hold down the fort successfully until Clay can prove to be healthy *spin around in a counter-clockwise circle three times, jump into the air, and spit* and effective.

The thing about Rich Harden is that he looks similar (it's the turned-up nose) to my cousin's Yankee-loving husband from Vermont and on that basis alone, never mind the walks or the fly balls, like the woman in the commercial, it makes me nervous.

Like a Phantasma.

Last night I had a dream that my sister and I had taken a ferry to the Cape (oddball thing number one) and gone to do a presentation at our old elementary school. We were in the classroom of my first grade teacher (oddball thing number two; Mrs. Caswell was ancient when I knew her, there's no way that she's still around) and my sister was going to play her cello for the class. She was, however, reluctant to do so (oddball thing number three) but with a little goading she agreed. So she goes to start tuning the cello and her hand begins spurting blood; it turned out that she had cut off her finger while mowing her lawn (oddball thing number four; she rents and doesn't have a lawn to mow) and didn't want to tell anybody, so she reattached it herself. Then we were headed back to the ferries (there were two; after all, it's busy on the Cape) and everybody was saying that you didn't want to get on the first ferry because the Captain had sunk a boat just the week before and it was really dangerous to sail with him. As we're all waiting around for the second departure these people come running down the gangway screaming that there are people with guns on their helmets (I don't know) and there was a stampede. Then I woke up.

All of that makes more sense than losing to the White Sox.

Dying For A Cause.

(Reuters Pictures)

It would appear that last night, I unfairly blamed Red for getting caught off third. It seems that Francona (who I will not apologize to because bunts are stupid) handed Marco a knife and told him to end it all. But Marco missed the sign and stood there dumbly while Red attempted to do his part. Or in my suicide analogy, rather than cutting down the length of his arm Scutaro slashed across his wrist, nicked the tendons, caused himself a lot of pain, but couldn't get deep enough to complete the act. A shame all around.

Apologies Red, my brother does stupid things, it's easy to assume that you would also do stupid things.

Royal Blues.

You can tell that it's late at night and the Red Sox are being frustrating when I start swearing at the television (I generally keep it under control but I could make a sailor blush when I let loose). You can tell that it's late at night and the Red Sox are losing when the accent (when I was a kid I ended up in speech therapy because I had this out-of-nowhere extremely thick accent and nobody could understand a word I said. I was taught to talk properly.) comes back and I sound like a character from Good Will Hunting while swearing at the television.

Maybe it was the weather but from the outset this game felt like one of those late September games after a play off spot has been secured, when the outcome doesn't make a difference and so the only people who are really trying to win are the members of the other team. The whole thing was utterly unenergetic and rather blase, a tone undoubtedly set by Jon Lester, who is dry toast personified.

Now, it wasn't all your fault. There was some god-awful umpiring and it didn't seem like Francona put you in the best position to win but boys? That was a pathetic showing. The best offense in the American League manages one run against the Kansas City Royals? Really?

And brother-from-another-mother Red (Seriously: Josh Reddick is the spitting image of my brother when my brother was like eighteen. It's creepy how much they look alike.), my darling, way to fall asleep out there or whatever the hell that was.

May the next one come out better.

WaK(2 x 10^3)e.

When people get up in the morning they should say to themselves: Today I will try my best to be like Tim Wakefield. As an example of decent humanity and an all-around good egg, Tim is right up there at the top.

The Boston Red Sox existed before Tim Wakefield and (short of alien invasion or the success of my bionic arm project) will continue to exist after he goes his merry way but it's hard to imagine this club without Timmy. It seems like he's been here forever and as a testament to his longevity, today he struck out this two thousandth batter while pitching for Boston.

Congrats to him.

Beginning to See the Light.

"My takeaway is that we can beat the Red Sox and they know it. My takeaway from the 1-0 loss to the Yankees is that we can beat the Yankees, and they know it. We're not going away. It's just a temporary inconvenience right now."

Ah, Joe Maddon, my favorite aged hipster. They say you're a genius but I never really believed it: I saw a team of good players being led by Mike Scioscia-lite with questionable bullpen management. But this new strategy of not losing, just choosing not to win takes the cake. I can see it's value: you lie in the weeds all season and then right at the end, once you've gotten over the inconvenience of most of the season, pow! Nobody will see it coming. Of course, it probably would have been a more effective strategy if you hadn't said anything.

I'll be rooting like crazy for you and your stupid-little-hat loving self to choose to win your baseball game tonight but you really make it so very difficult.