The people demand to have a say

Artsy version of a favorite picture of mine that I took in 2006

If I learned anything from last night’s game and live blog chat it’s that the fans who I tend to surround myself with (whether my friends or fans of this blog) are made of better stuff than the bandwagoners and the sports writers.  (Thanks to all of you who stopped by and made last night much more bearable than it would have been had we not done the live chat!)

There is no way – absolutely no way – to spin anything positive about a 20-11 loss.  Sure the team came back and scored 11 runs (actually, that is a positive…the Yankees hammered away last  night but the Sox didn’t give up, not even in the ninth inning) but the loss was still tough.  But the comments last night and emails I’ve received since seem to reflect similar attitudes.  No one is  happy with Brad Penny.  Most feel sorry for Michael Bowden getting thrown into that situation and just about everyone thinks that a team giving up all those hits and runs is more fluky than anything else.  The Yankees are a good team, no doubt, but so are the Red Sox.  Of course, Nick Cafardo writes that last night shows that the Yankees are a championship -caliber team.  Now, they very well might be but I don’t think a 20-11 blowout is an indication of that.  Games like this, in my mind, are an aberration.  The Yankees exploited the suckitude of Brad Penny but the Red Sox also got 11 runs on 12 hits.  There was some bad pitching going on with the Yankees as well, the Red Sox just took longer to capitalize on it.  So you’ll pardon me if I don’t look at a game like last night’s and automatically crown the Yankees the World Champions of 2009.

Today’s game is on Fox so it doesn’t start until 4:10pm EST.  Since I’ll be at Fenway I will, thankfully, be spared the ramblings of the ballwashing McCarver and Buck but I’ll still be in the middle of drunken Sox and Yankees fans so it’s a bit of a wash.  I don’t usually go to a game thinking “PLEASE let them win” it’s always usually “I HOPE they win” but today I’m going to ask the baseball gods to please let them win.  I’m not sure I can deal with Yankee fan jerkiness or the fights started by drunken and annoyed Red Sox fans if they don’t.

Junichi Tazawa doesn’t automatically instill a sense of calm when pitted against A.J. Burnett and the Yankees but I’m still going into this game hopeful.  Why not?  I’m a baseball fan.  I’m a Red Sox fan.  Today I get to sit in the park and enjoy a baseball game.  There’s no reason to feel down about that.