Magic number

65

Come on Dice K.
Come on Devil Rays.

Keep chip chip chipping away

Hey Joe... the glass is actually MORE than half empty!

The Yankees should be in panic mode right now. Nobody can say "It's early... there's a lot of baseball to be played."

It's not early. It's past the All Star break. It's mid July. Soon it will be late July and teams will be getting reinforcements at the trade deadline.

And here, now well past the half way point of the season, the Yankees remain a sub .500 team... 10 games behind the Red Sox... 9 games out of the Wild Card.

If they are going to go on a wild 1978 or 1995 run to burst into the playoffs... time is running out. And there is no room for error.

In order to get to 95 wins, the Yankees needed to go 52-24... win at a .693 clip.
And when Roger Clemens is on the mound against Tampa Bay, that should be a win 11 times out of 10. I don't care that Scott Kazimir was on the mound... Kazimir is a nice pitcher but he isn't Johan Santana or Steve Carlton in his prime.

So what happened? They cashed in one of their 24 losses. They have 11 weeks left, meaning they can barely afford to lose 2 games a week and they let Pat and Christin's favorite team win.

So how did Joe Torre react?
What rage did he express?

"I have no trouble sleeping tonight, other than the final score."

Um... Joe. Glad to hear the new mattress is working for you, but you are aware that the final score is the only thing that matters at this point, right?

"You really have to let go of the final score because of a lot of times you can't control it. "

Is Joe a Calvinist? Does he believe the games are predestined? I always thought the final score was controlled by the team that plays the best and winds up winning!

"I learned through my years of doing this that even though everything is judged on winning and losing, it's the tenacity of the team."

Ah! It's that they are trying hard!
Play hard guys and win or lose, we're going to Papa Gino's after the game.

I didn't realize sub .500 teams with a $200 million payroll get credit for trying hard against one of the worst teams in baseball.

You don't want to play your team with a sense of urgency, Joe?
FINE BY ME!!!

Feels good to be amongst my people

I'm in L.A. working on a shoot and after work tonight, I stopped by Sonny McLean's in Santa Monica to catch the last few innings of the Sox game.

I realized how long it had been since I was around other Sox fans and it felt good to be cheering for OUR boys... especially during a win.

I sat next to a young guy who was a die hard Sox fan and Woburn native living in L.A. He was complaining about Doug Mirabelli and telling me how he's on his "boo list."

I said "you know it's a good season when the only guy on the boo list is a backup catcher."

He replied "Oh, there's a lot of players I'll boo and that I've had it with."

He proceeded to list off 10 players, nearly half of the roster, that he was fed up with. The List included the Captain, Jason Varitek and 2004 heroes Curt Schilling and Mike Timlin.

Here we are, our team in first by 10 games AFTER the All Star break and this guy wants to clean house on nearly half of the players.
Ladies and gentlemen, the most insecure fan base in sports!

I wonder how big a lead it will take for this guy to accept 40% of the roster.

Wat u wearing

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1800Mattress FAQ

8. What are the rules for napping during the day? My office allows nap breaks.

If you work in an environment that allows you to nap, you're lucky. Many employers are discovering that employees perform better when rested, and some have set aside "nap rooms." However, you should probably limit that snooze to ten minutes at the office.

Really? "Really?" on so many levels.

First off, "what are the rules for napping during the day" is an 1800 Mattress FAQ??

And secondly, really there are employers that set aside nap rooms? I demand one instance. I would love to go for a job interview at an office that maintains a "nap room." Here's how the interview would end:

"So uh can I check out your nap room?"
"Certainly. We find it helps our employees perform better when they are rested."
"Nice. Because I like to use my nights to do other shit than sleep."
"Cool. We 'get that' here."
"What a relief. Man, I could stand to catch some zees - bigtime!"
"Here is the company nap room..."
"Cool gimme a couple hours and I'll let you know if I'm still interested in the job opening."
"Thank you, Ms. Peretti!"
"Someone's trying to stab me!!!!!!" (nightmare)

(The potential employer chuckles and quietly backs out of the nap room, shaking his or her head knowingly.)

A lousy end to a great first half...

Well THAT was a strange way to end the first half of the season.

Julio Lugo, Javier Lopez and Jeff Bailey come up big but Dice-K, Manny, Papi and Varitek come up small.

Go figure.

And of course J. D. Drew pops up to end the game and the Sox are swept out of Detroit.
And the Yankees won their series against the Angels and go into the All Star break on a roll.

And I am sure many of my Red Sox fan friends, especially the brilliant Late Night with Conan O'Brien writer Dan Cronin, are panicking. In fact I am waiting for Cronin's inevitable e mail saying we need to cut Dice K.

Relax.

Let's look at some numbers...
The Red Sox have the best winning percentage in baseball.
They have the biggest lead of any contender.
They are nine games in front of the Yankees in the loss column and ten in front of the Blue Jays in the loss.

The magic number to eliminate the Yankees is 67...
66 for the Blue Jays.

In other words if the Red Sox just play one game over .500 the rest of the way during their final 75 games (16 of them against Tampa Bay), then they will finish 91-71.
And the Yankees will need to go 49-28... winning 2 out of EVERY 3 games.

And keep in mind, neither Papi nor Manny have busted out yet.
If the Red Sox get to 95 wins (a 42-33 clip) the Yankees would have to win nearly 70% of their games.

So let's relax... enjoy the All Star break... give the pitchers a nice few days off... and come back to play some winning baseball.

Seriously Cronin... untie the noose.

Rivera tied Franco... is that an honor?

Mariano Rivera recorded his 424th career save this week, putting him tied at #3 on the all time list.

And what legend is he tied with? Fingers? Sutter? Henke? Gossage?

Nope.
John Franco.



If anything shows how much the save stat has been cheapened over the years, it is the fact that John Franco has the third highest total.

Franco shouldn't be top three in ANY stat except maybe "Most Nobody Beats The Wiz commercials."

And even then he would rank 4th behind Esiason, Simms and of course the best, Namath.



I always wondered how this family got to celebrate Christmas with Joe Willy.