Yet Another OOTP6 Dynasty, Year 2: One Flew Over the Pale Hose

[cknox0723]

Dear child, I also by pleasant streams
Have wandered all night in the Land of Dreams;
But though calm and warm the waters wide,
I could not get to the other side.

-William Blake, "The Land of Dreams"

Every year, every baseball fan with a pulse wanders in the land of dreams. Every year, all but a lucky few don't make it to the other side. But dreams don't have to equal championships and nothing less, either. As the 2006 Pale Hose season wound down, "the other side" was 70 wins.

We fell one short. It won't happen again this year.

WWPHD -- "What would the Pale Hose do?" -- 70 wins, 92 losses, enough to climb out of the cellar and into the foyer of the American League's Central division

[cknox0723]

just some random odds and ends that i feel like tying up and typing up before finally (finally! triumphantly!) starting the season.

- the pale hose will use their first round pick in june on a high school player. why? don't know; haven't seen the draft class; just a hunch.

- the mets will win it all, pleasing the great Y0DA, at the very least. it'll take six games for them to best their crosstown rivals.

- herbert mitchell, young catcher for los angeles of los angeles, won't be the third 22 year old to take his team to the world series champagne, but he will win NL rookie of the year. expect a .270 average and a dozen or so homers in 400 at-bats. chris scarborough will win the american league's award. let me cling to my dreams, modest as they may be.

- speaking of modesty, this year's pale hose preview is much more reflective of its author than last year's irrationally exuberant version. i think -- i hope -- more realistic expectations (i.e. not really being interested in wins and losses) will make for better reading this year. we'll see.

and...that's all i've got. it is finally, finally finally time for baseball. can't hardly wait, and i don't have to any longer. hallelujah...

Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew ya
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah...

[gordyhulten]

Originally Posted by cknox0723

just some random odds and ends that i feel like tying up and typing up before finally (finally! triumphantly!) starting the season.

[Vris]

Here we go Pale Hose, here we go! *clap clap

[cknox0723]

game i - chw @ bos - "bitter as almonds"

m. buehrle (0-0, 0.00) vs. p. martinez (0-0, 0.00)

last year: L 8-0 vs. kc as pavano dazzles. we've nowhere to go but up! right? right...?

There is nothing like the intermittent frenzy of a baseball game, those moments in between happenings. That few seconds just after the national anthem and just before the home team takes the field. Or when the pitcher grooves a fastball and wood meets sphere with a CRACK...and the noise that resounds as the ball just starts its descent from the peak of a parabolic flight...it'll send a chill down your spine every single time if you let it. The noise is somewhere between silence and a dull roar, and oxymoronic as that sounds, you know as well as I do that it's not too far from being accurate. All I can think of to otherwise describe it is that those moments are as close to a suspension of time as I've ever felt, at least in the realm of the diamond.

One of those moments has got to be the time just before the first pitch, but for the first pitch of the season, magnify it about a thousand times. Like lightning in a bottle, one of those across-the-room glances, or seeing the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, it's one of the 1.5 percent of things that stick in our memory more than 24 (or is it 12?) hours. Hell, why do you think I've spent the last two months previewing every single team? I don't remember what Opening Day was like in Pale Hose I -- but I wanted this year's version to be perfect. But, like David Wells, perfect I'm not. Nor are the Pale Hose.

Not that there's anything wrong with that! But after being rudely greeted in 2007 by Johnny Damon, I'm left thinking, "Hey, disappointment! I remember what this is like! I'd love to shove a shoebox down my throat right now!" After watching Ramon Vazquez take two pitches out of the strike zone -- how nice that is, after a year of the Hacktastic One swinging at pitches thrown underground! -- and then connect on the third, looping a liner into shallow center, I'm left numbly in one of those moments. You know, that frenzied, deafening, silent roar. My mind is screaming, thoughts racing at five thousand miles an hour. "Holy sh*t a hit a hit get down get down..." and then, without pause, "####!" as Alf Damon flies in at the speed of my thoughts, shaggy mop flying underneath his hat as he converges with the flight of the little white pill. Then, suddenly, he flops forward through the air with all the grace of an eight year old (or college student) with a Slip-n-Slide, and then crashes into the earth. A moment's pause, and then..."####!"

Glove cradles ball, in the manner of that damned cliché, like a goddamned Sno Cone. One away. What is it they say about the first batter of the season? "You can tell how the season's going to go..."

####. This is a sad, sad microcosm of the season to come.

[MattStewNYY]

My god, it has begun.

[Vris]

You tease!

[cknox0723]

Maybe I overreact a bit. Hell, I know I do, and not just in the realm of the Pale Hose. Just one batter, right? Remember Chris Scarborough's impending doom...based on two at-bats? Well, this is just one out, no matter how damn close it was to turning out differently.

But then Adam Kennedy gets overpowered on four pitches, the third of which is strike three, on a 94 mile an hour heater that he's about 94 miles behind. One out is suddenly two, and then two is about to become three when Maggs Ordonez pops the second pitch up into shallow center. Alf Damon squeezes it with both hands, and our unremarkable first half-inning of the season is in the books.

Alf Damon, quickly becoming the Joker to our Batman, singles to lead things off for Boston's side, but two fly balls in the range of M. Ordonez later, The Buehrle One's an out away from getting out of trouble.

Then Damon steals second. But reigning All-Star Nomar Garciaparra taps one right to Frank Thomas and all is well, for the time being.

Not so for Thomas, who strikes on a miserable three pitches to start the second frame and then slinks back to the bench as much as a 250+ pound behemoth can slink. But Raul Gonzalez, perhaps the most inconspicuous fifth-place hitter ever, connects solidly with one of Petey Martinez's less enthusiastic pitches and thumps it off the Monstah. Our Arch-Nemesis plays fetch in left-center, but for once, he can't twist that knife further into our side as his toss in is predictably weak and too late to nip Gonzalez sliding into second. A two-bagger, and suddenly we have an honest-to-goodness chance at a lead, with the man called the Clutch God comin' up.

But Jeremy Reed can only muster a hundred and fifty foot fly ball out towards Manny Ramirez, who bags it easily. Eric Munson follows with the bitter stench of a five-pitch whiff, doing absolutely nada to assuage my worries about his ability to make contact at the major league level. We come away with nothing but a pat on the back for The Element that might have been missing from our punchless offense much of last season.

Mr. Buehrle, great as he is, starts the second half of the second by sending a changeup right down Broadway, which Kevin Millar hangs back on and punches over Adam Kennedy for a base hit. No harm, no foul, but that doesn't mean a repeat performance is worth considering. Nevertheless, Buehrle misses out over the plate with a changeup on the very next batter, and the steady Bill Mueller fires his hips and clobbers the little white pill into the spacious right-center field gap of Fenway. Only Millar's svelte physique and interesting definition of base "running" keeps the game tied, but with no one out and two men in scoring position, that can't possibly last long. Can it?

[BadluckinOOTP]

Let see....a post an inning....2 to 3 replies between each one....162 games on the season

So only approx. 6192 more posts until the end of the season!

I don't know if I can handle this Craig. You leave me wanting more, and bam it ends. Write faster.

[Vris]

Way to up your post count, Craig!

[copper888]

The suspense is killin me man! I can't handle the half inning updates once every two days...I need more Pale Hose!

[cknox0723]

not to interrupt low tide here, but saw the chance to pad the post count, and couldn't resist!!

Originally Posted by BadluckinOOTP

Let see....a post an inning....2 to 3 replies between each one....162 games on the season

So only approx. 6192 more posts until the end of the season!

very nice! naw, i promise this is just a one-time deal. i love the level of depth (imagine that) but even i would burn out doing this for every game!

though 6192 posts may not be too far off, 'specially if y'all keep up with the replies as such. i'd say more, but...you'll see. eventually.

Originally Posted by BadluckinOOTP

I don't know if I can handle this Craig. You leave me wanting more, and bam it ends. Write faster.

also very nice, though in a completely different meaning. thanks for the kind words. would type more but it didn't make much sense the first time around. which is the perfect explanation for my slow updates.

Originally Posted by copper888

The suspense is killin me man! I can't handle the half inning updates once every two days...I need more Pale Hose!

heyyy...long time, no see! how's saint louis treating you nowadays?

and as for the content of your post...how's a six inning update sound?

ok, this was pretty much an out-and-out lie. sorry. wrote you a letter, but i just didn't like the ending. i blame the bad fish i had for dinner. but i'll have a few hours to myself tomorrow, so, everything willing, expect the exciting conclusion to this game, some other "stuff", and perhaps game...two! all for the low, low price of $9.95!

[cknox0723]

Boston's seventh hitter is Dave Murphy, a young left-handed batsman playing right field today. The scouts may rave about his saccharine-sweet stroke, but a left-handed hitter who hacks like Julio doesn't have a chance against the nouveaux Steve Carlton. Murphy's sent away after just four tosses and three weak swipes of the air, giving us a big first out. Also sets up an obvious intentional walk of Vance Wilson to load the bases for the pitcher Martinez.

And the floppy-haired mofo promptly clubs Buehrle's third pitch off the Monster on one hop. It's a two-run two-bagger. I'd curse or laugh or cry or something, but what's the point? What the hell you can do? What're the odds? Then Johnny "The Joker" Damon, another floppy-haired mofo, smacks a line drive past a lunging Frank Thomas, and runs three and four trickle onto the board for the Beantowners. 4-0? 4-0.

From four hits, the Sox gets four runs. Everyone's favorite Sox (even yours, Vris) end up with four hits -- five, in fact, though Yorvit Torrealba's fifth-inning dink probably shouldn't count. Guess how many runs we get?

[rem]

So, Craig, did AIM break or something?

[copper888]

St. Louis is Africa Hot right now...it's been 90 degrees the past like 5 days, with the expection of Tuesday when it rained. Other than that it's great...I graduate from high school tommorrow ('05!!) so life's pretty good right now. And how bout them Cards? Too bad the Tribe can't win any games...

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by remangiii

So, Craig, did AIM break or something?

fanboy!!

ps rem is the commish of the fantastic born to play league, in which yours truly is currently mopping the floors with the competition, boasting the best record in the league. see, don't doubt my managerial skills, suckas!!!

Originally Posted by copper888

St. Louis is Africa Hot right now...it's been 90 degrees the past like 5 days, with the expection of Tuesday when it rained. Other than that it's great...I graduate from high school tommorrow ('05!!) so life's pretty good right now. And how bout them Cards? Too bad the Tribe can't win any games...

sort-of belated congrats on graduating. may not seem like much but don't diminish it! what are your plans for next year, if i might ask? (particularly wondering since i'm blowing in the wind myself -- and feel free to shoot me a PM if you'd rather)

as for the weather in pale hose land, it's overcast. but finally we are making some progress. moving past the third inning, at least.

[cknox0723]

Five hits to Boston's six. Three extra base hits, one more than the other Sox had. But thanks to what seemed like a dozen Frank Thomas strikeouts and other nefarious doings, doubles by Gonzalez and Adam Kennedy and a three base-hit from Ramon Vazquez gave Mr. Buehrle absolutely zilch in run support. What the hell does it mean? Mr. Martinez, who's now 51-15 in his three plus seasons in this universe, can somehow consistently dial it up when it matters most? But that makes his margin for error unreasonably small. Perhaps this is what McCracken was trying to explain with the DIPS theory? Or is it the aliens that formerly possessed Juan Uribe, descending on Fenway and abducting the opposition's bats when they're needed most?

A 24 to 1 loss stung like hell, but you can explain that. Our pitching sucked, our hitting sucked, our intestinal fortitudousness sucked. Not so in this game. We may have lost by four and failed to score a run, but I can't help but feel we played reasonably well. So doesn't that spell doom for when we play poorly? Or is the glass half-full, and there some hope to be dredged from it?

God, we are
surrounded by liars
Mighty men
and the walls grow higher and higher...

If nothing else, for the second straight year, we've nowhere to go but up. But it could be an awfully long climb.

CHW 0 BOS 4

WP: P. Martinez (1-0)
LP: M. Buehrle (0-1)

Stunningly Mediocre: Kevin Millar singled and scored a run, but also struck out twice. He looks like a real dope in a fedora, too.

[copper888]

I'm Headed to Auburn in August...just hoping I don't flunk out. Some would question my work ethic...Thanks for the congrats on graduating. It was a long 4 years, that's for sure.

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by copper888

I'm Headed to Auburn in August...just hoping I don't flunk out. Some would question my work ethic...Thanks for the congrats on graduating. It was a long 4 years, that's for sure.

good for you; don't diminish that accomplishment, either. best of luck with it and if you ever feel the need to rant, my PM box is always open.

beyond that, i am pretty spent right now, so i'll just move on to this next post. it is not game two...it's a little bit of something new and a little bit of something old. i hope it will become recurring; i like it and i hope it stirs something within you, too. whatever that may be.

[Vris]

Bring it on1!!>!!!!