“Red Sox, not State”; Or, “No, the W on the Red Cap does NOT stand for Shrub, it stands for the Nationals.”

10 points to the first person to identify the title quote.

Fun times:Tigers 16, Yankees 0.

Even more fun times: Nats 3, Dodgers 2. (Knock on wood, so far so good.) His post-season chances be damned, when Nomar isn’t playing I actively root against the Dodgers. And of course they’re playing the Nats, so I’d be rooting against them anyway. It’s a relief really - it feels utterly, completely, and totally unnatural to in *any* way be cheering for Grady Little’s success.

Interesting thought: if we win tonight (and I’m by no means saying we will,) a sweep of the Blue isn’t wholly out of the question. Bergmann vs Billingsley is on Tues, and Billingsley is okay, but not wonderful. If Bergmann is on form I think we can grab that one. Wed is Penny vs Hill, and *that* is a marquee matchup. Penny is the ace of the Dodgers staff, but Hill is the ace of our staff. The Dodgers offense certainly isn’t setting the world afire, and we might be able to break through.

This isn’t at all likely, mind you. I think lack of homefield advantage would tell in this case, and Saito has been more consistent that Cordero. But it’s possible.

Edit - And we’re tied. Yeah, that didn’t last long. Come on Nats!

Edit part two - And there went the lead. Now was that nice, Jesus Colome?

Many of the commercials sap my will to function. The ones that are volume controlled to VERY LOUD LEVELS are bad enough, but WB Mason has a new commercial out that is causing me to grind my teeth back to baby-tooth levels. It’s supposed to be a musical theatre setting that leads into the theme song (”I want my double-youu-beee-ee”. Annoying by itself.) I’m supposed to like this sort of thing? The lead in tune sounds like an unholy combination of “There is Nothing Like a Dame” from South Pacific and “Not by Might and Not by Power” by Debbie Friedman, Jewish folk guitarist. This combination works about as well as you’d expect. I’ve started to twitch at the sight of WB Mason, which I suspect is not their goal.

Oh, the game? I missed the best parts because I had to buy a new cat carrier.* But isn’t it nice that we managed to split the series with the Rangers. I mean, they’re only one of the worst teams in the MLB while we’re one of the best, so we shouldn’t have had any expectations or anything like that.

*Long story. Short version: neurotic, neurotic cat.

Red Sox off-day. Nationals off-day. Which means a post on the absolutely impossible project I’ve been turning over in my head. See, it seems to me that the English language is filled with terms that if, say, you were a foreigner with new English and no baseball experience, you’d find utterly confusing. So this post is to keep track of baseball and baseball terms popping up in places you wouldn’t expect them. And there a lot of them. Far too many to list. Yet I try anyway, so…

For example, baseball in Damn Yankees doesn’t count, because the show is about baseball. But lines like this do:

Merrily We Roll Along, Now You Know - “The side is retired, but there’s still another inning. Right?” (Just randomly put in the middle of a song about the aftermath of a divorce. Makes perfect sense in context, might confuse the hell out of a Danish musical theatre buff who’s translating.)

Songs - Ragtime: “What a Game”

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown: “There is No Team, Like the Best Team”

Falsettoland: “The Baseball Game” (We’re watching 67 pounders, watching Jewish boys hit grounders…”)

Things like this. I’m going to add more, when I get home from work. (So, it’ll be a while.)