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Guest Column: A Game For The Ages, By Larry Bodin
By Administrator | August 13, 2008
SOX1FAN.com Comment Contest winner Larry Bodin attended last night’s slugfest at Fenway Park, courtesy of www.sox1fan.com and Higs Cityside Tickets, in Boston.
My wife, Carol, and I attended the Red Sox – Rangers game last night. We live in Maryland and make a rare pilgrimage to Boston to go to a Red Sox game, so this game was a great treat. I do go to the Red Sox games in Baltimore frequently.
What a wild and undisciplined contest. In more than sixty years of watching and listening to Red Sox games, only a couple of other games come to mind that rival this one. It resembled a slow-pitch softball game. There were not many cheap shots in the game.
Below are a few highlights for me from the game.
* Walking into the stadium, I asked the ticket clerk who was pitching for the Rangers, he said Scott Feldman. I turned to Carol and said that this could be a high scoring game. Little did I know how prophetic I would be.
* In the first inning, Big Papi came up with 2 on and no outs. I told my wife that we might get a souvenir. We were sitting about 60 feet from the Pesky pole in fair territory. Papi missed us by about 40 feet.
* With the score 12-2 after two innings, I sort of relaxed and figured this game was going to be easy. I wanted Charlie Zink to get his five innings in so he could get the win, figuring the vaunted Red Sox bullpen would then shut down the Rangers –- an inning each from Lopez, Delcarmon, Timlin and Okajima and we would all go home happy.
* All ‘hell’ broke loose in the top of the fifth. Francona tried to get Zink the win and left him in the game too long. Lopez was mediocre. Soon the score was 12-10.
* Delcarmon was terrible. They hit some major shots off him in the sixth and seventh innings. Fortunately, Okajima came in and introduced a degree of stability.
* The bottom of the 8th inning was terrific. The Red Sox tied the game on Dustin Pedroia’s double. Ellsbury was so fast, he easily scored from first. Papi was then walked and Youk delivered the big blow. The fans were in a frenzy.
* In the top of the ninth inning, Papelbon jogged in from the bullpen after giving the ‘Obama knock’ to the policeman standing about fifteen feet in front of the bullpen. We knew the game was over — or so we thought. But chaos broke loose again. Papelbon saved the game but he was knocked around a little. Chris Davis can be a difficult hitter, but Papelbon retired him to end the game.
In the 1950s, the Red Sox scored over 100 runs in a 7 game period. Also in the 1950s, they came back from an 11- 0 or 12-0 deficit against the Cleveland Indians to win a game. However, I think few of our fans have ever had the experience of seeing first hand a game like last night’s game. It was a terrific experience.
There was other good news last night as well. The Rays lost and the Red Sox picked up Paul Byrd. Byrd is a good 5-6 inning pitcher and should help to stabilize their rotation.
I cannot imagine Zink pitching another game in the near future for the Red Sox. His knuckleball was about 68 MPH but it looked flat. He does not appear to be the answer.
The BoSox Achilles heal is their bullpen and they have to do something to improve it. They need reliable set-up man and they do not have it consistently. They will need this player to go far in the playoffs.
One other note. We were in the Souvenir Shop yesterday morning and they had signs saying that the Manny Ramirez stuff other than the signed baseballs, etc. were half price.
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