I caught this nugget in a Reuters article today:

The 2007 World Series-winning Red Sox baseball club last month became the first professional sports team to go solar, installing solar hot water panels that will replace a third of the gas used to heat water at Boston’s historic Fenway Park.

Note, I noticed the article caught it because someone from my company was quoted in it:

“The solar industry will look very different just two years from now,” said Ted Sullivan, a senior analyst at Lux Research, a New York market consultancy.

He said he expects “a shake-out among companies that aren’t prepared to thrive in this new environment — particularly crystalline silicon players that haven’t invested in new thin-film technologies.”

You know things are getting bad when you make the sign board at Mr. & Mrs. Bartley’s Burgers in Harvard Square:

[another recent honoree was Eliot Spitzer]

—subtitled, as we used to say in college—
“Make a Run for the Bathroom”

Exhibitionist has several good links to negative commentary about the Taco Bell world series promotion.

To appreciate the following quip from Editrix, you need one piece of information: her younger brother was Fox baseball commentator Joe Buck’s college roommate. She has many fine stories about his schmarminess even as a youth (apparently his closet was predominantly full of oxford dress shirts), but they are hers to tell.

Now, tonight, just after Manny hit the last in the string of back-to-back-to-back home runs, I swear, Joe Buck called Manny Ramirez “Man Ram”. I had to share this, so I jumped on ichat and had the following conversation with Trixie:

ME: i think joe buck just called manny ramirez ‘manram’
TRIX: you HAVE to be kidding
TRIX: we gave up and turned off the tv
ME: no
ME: not kidding
TRIX:manram. that is wrong on so many levels.
ME:alas
ME:”a long shot by manram”
TRIX: it’s like those “what if so-and-so had killed hitler when he had the chance” premises — my brother could have saved us from this horror.

“Sandra, what are the chances my daughter is pregnant?” the manager at “Kerbooz”, the bar in Penn Station where I had lunch since the Acela Express was 30 minutes late.

“Did you hear Phil Rizzuto died?” (same manager).
“Who’s Phil Rizzuto?” (same Sandra, behind the bar).
“I am not talking to you for the rest of the day. He’s dead so it doesn’t matter.” Pause. Manager visibly tries to stop talking to Sandra, and can’t contain himself. “He was a great Yankee. A great American. And I would say a great broadcaster.”
The manager walked into the kitchen.
“A great spokesman for The Money Store,” (me, not quite fast or jackassy enough to say it before the manager was out of earshot).
Blank look from Sandra, probably too young to remember those 80’s UHF-TV station ads for sub-prime personal loans.

Construction worker on a cell phone: “I got my hearing tomorrow. Yeah, I get to find out what they’re going to do to me. LIKE I FUCKING CARE.”

The first time I realized John Kerry was incapable of articulating a clear position on anything was when I saw him interviewed by ESPN’s Jon Miller about the designated hitter. Miller asked him what he thought about it, and his answer was something like “uh, well, I think it’s good, but, you know, some people think it isn’t.” (of course, the look in his eyes said “what is a designated hitter?”).

I do have a lot of problems with the way that we– or at least our proxies in the media– demand a foolish consistency from public figures when changing one’s mind is something that any honest person should be allowed. And I think in general that swaying with public opinion is a virtue for a politician in a democracy. But still. At that moment, my heart went out of my support for Kerry, to see him not even take a tiny baby stand, one that just didn’t matter.

Anyway, the exchange below between Tim Russert and Gov. Bill Richardson, where he comes up with a convoluted way to be both a Red Sox and Yankees fan might also be a fatal moment for this long shot candidate in my book.

Candidates, when Tim Russert asks you “Red Sox or Yankees?”, you are just going to have to order off the menu. There are two safe answers that spring to mind:

• The Chicago Cubs. Nobody can fault you for backing an underdog.
• The Dodgers, if you say it’s because they were the first team to integrate, and that Jackie Robinson was your hero. And then qualify it as the Brooklyn Dodgers.

MR. RUSSERT: You spent a lot of time in, in Massachusetts. Are you a Red Sox fan?

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan, but I got into trouble in New Hampshire. You know why? Because I said…

MR. RUSSERT: Luis Tiant, the fund-raiser. But, now, governor, this is very serious. In your book on page 18 it says…

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, about Mickey Mantle?

MR. RUSSERT: You said you’re a Yankee fan!

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no. I said—no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: I mean, you can, you can…

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT: …you can have different views on immigration, assault weapons…

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, no no no no. No, what I said…

MR. RUSSERT: But when it comes to Red Sox, Yankees.

GOV. RICHARDSON: What I said, the Associated Press asked me, “If you weren’t running for president, if you weren’t running for president, what would you rather be?” I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, but I said if I weren’t running for president I would like to be number seven, Mickey Mantle, playing center field for the New York Yankees.

MR. RUSSERT: “Because of Mickey Mantle, I became a Yankee fan.”

GOV. RICHARDSON: I, my favorite team has always been the Red Sox.

MR. RUSSERT: You’re a Red Sox fan.

GOV. RICHARDSON: I’m a Red Sox fan.

MR. RUSSERT: End of subject.

GOV. RICHARDSON: End of subject.

MR. RUSSERT: You better get rid of this book.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Oh, no! I’m also a Yankee fan. I also like…

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, now, wait a minute!

GOV. RICHARDSON: You can—Tim…

MR. RUSSERT: I guarantee…

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, I know, I got in trouble…

MR. RUSSERT: …if you go—if you go to Yankee Stadium or Fenway, you cannot be both.

GOV. RICHARDSON: But I like—Mickey Mantle was my hero. If I weren’t running for president, and the Associated Press asked me, I’d play center field for the New York—I wanted to be number seven. And—but I still love the Red Sox as a team. I mean, this is the thing about me, Tim. I can bring people together. I can unify people.

MR. RUSSERT: Yankee fans and Red Sox fans?

GOV. RICHARDSON: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Not a chance.

GOV. RICHARDSON: Well, I bet you I can.

Jerry Remy was just talking about how Joe Torre called a meeting with the ailing New York Yankees, who, as of this writing, are 13.5 games back in the AL East. To illustrate what a serious meeting this was, he said it was a one hour meeting. “That’s a looong meeting”. Play-by-play man Don Orsillo agreed: “that is a long time”.

Guys. If you think one hour is a long meeting… You have no. fucking. idea.

This is why the Sox keep you coming back. Even when it’s a 7-1 blowout, Remy and Donny O. keep it entertaining.

Say what you will about Curt Schilling, he’s a natural blogger. Mouthy, technophilic, annoyed at being misrepresented by the sports media, willing to have a direct relationship with fans.

Best post yet: an guest “post” by Kevin Millar of what it feels like to get fanned by Schilling.

Say it ain’t so! No more Trupiano?

My annual work group outing to Fenway Park was last night, and, man, that had to be one of the top 3 baseball games I’ve been to in my life.

I have seen the crowd at Fenway pretty revved up, but never that revved up. From the seventh inning on, it was really just deafening.

Kyle Snyder actually deserves a heck of a lot of credit for pitching a really good half game (he was supposed to start before it was clear that David Wells was coming back). Wells’ performance was a bit of a disappointment, though not a surprising disappointment.

But, of course, when it’s the bottom of the 9th, the Sox are down by two, two men on, and David Ortiz steps up to the plate, I’m thinking, no way. He can’t do it again. The crowd was just chanting M! V! P! M! V! P! And he does it! It just seemed totally unreal that something so astonishing happens all the time. The crowd was just totally pumped up, and nobody seemed ready to leave the park until they saw him say a few words to Tina Cervasio that got relayed to the jumbotron.

Excellent night at Fenway!

I seem to have a lot of baseball lovin’ knitters in my life (Editrix and Turnip and Margaret), so this one’s for yunz guys (sorry, watching the All-Star Game in the ‘burgh made me say it).

[via MAKE Blog]

It’s like “Get Your War On” but about the Red Sox:

You know, I don’t want to irk two of the handful of people who read this thing, but I just can’t cheer on the Fenway crowd for booing the Phillies’ Brett Myers last Saturday. And it’s not just because I have to disagree with Dan Shaughnessy on everything.

Booing a formerly-beloved center fielder, giving a standing ovation to a well-beloved part-time outfielder, these are things that are within the confines of the game. When the crowd acts like a jury of 35,000, making a decision with scant (though emotionally charged) evidence, on what will probably be a real criminal case, it feels wrong; it’s the kind of mass impulse that leads to the kind of awful things mobs can do. Even though the guy really does sound like a shit, even though what he is reported to have done is awful, and even though the only remorse he still seems to have shown is of the “I’m sorry you found out about it” variety.

I can’t get on the fans too hard. If I’d have been at Fenway, I probably would have joined in. But I can’t take the extra step and say it’s good or that I’m happy about it.

Really, if there’s anyone at fault here (besides Myers himself), it’s the Phillies management for starting him the next day. I mean, even if he had done something trivial, say got arrested for shoplifting some executive toys from Nieman Marcus, I don’t think it’s out of line for them to pull the guy out of the lineup the next day.

On a similar note, there was a good interview with Jaron Lanier in the Globe’s Ideas section last Sunday on the load of crap that is the whole “Wisdom of Crowds” idea. He draws what I think is a valid parallel between the mute acceptance of badly designed software and group think: the idea that “the computer must know better than I do” being a similar individual abdication of responsibility.

We made our first trip to Fenway Park this year to see the Sox take down the Nationals on Monday night, with Terri’s parents. Some random notes:

• Another reason to like Mike Lowell: his at-bat song is “London Calling”
• We got a chuckle when the Fenway sound crew played the “Three’s Company” theme song when two Nationals went out to the pitcher’s mound for a conference.
• Happy to see Gabe Kapler back at Fenway for the first time since his utterly bizarre Achilles tendon rupture last year. He got a standing O; in anyplace other than Fenway, a standing O for a part-time outfielder would seem weird.
• So, I can’t figure out if the Fenway sound people played “A Town Called Malice” by The Jam when lackluster reliever Rudy Seanez came out of the pen because Rudy picked it, or because the sound guys were making a comment on the fact that he was getting booed mercilessly. If it’s the latter, might I suggest “A Message to You, Rudy” for next time?
• Terri and I resumed our standing discussion of what our closer songs would be. I still stick by “Stigmata” by Ministry. Terri, in a similar vein, but far more ingeniously, sticks with, “Control I’m Here” by Nitzer Ebb, which I should let her explain, because I don’t want to steal her thunder more than I just did. I wish I had thought of it.
• And here’s an mp3 of the fans singing along to Sweet Caroline. A few seconds in you can hear an announcement that the Nationals put in former Sox and Damon-noggin-clocker Damien Jackson.