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Monthly Archives: October 2006

October 12, 2006: Twisted Fate (Baseball, Plane Crashes, and NYC)

“I saw the news about the plane crash while doing errands with a good friend yesterday. We were walking through Davis Square in Somerville, just as it was starting to drizzle, feeling good about ourselves for having visited the post office and farmer’s market before heavy rain started to fall. As we were passing Mike’s, a pizza joint that recently installed giant plasma screen TVs, the image on the screen of a building on fire caught my eye. I pressed against the glass, recognizing New York City the way a child recognizes her mother’s face in a sea of strangers…”

October, 6 2006: ALDS Game Three

“Well, I tried my best. Joe Torre always says that game three of a five-game series is the pivotal one, so I broke out the heavy artillery tonight. First, we switched bars, heading off to the Sports Depot in Allston to watch the game. The Sports Depot used to be a train station, and it’s this huge place with a vaulted roof and dozens of huge plasma TVs. We’ve never been too badly harassed there for being Yankees fans, and they have a decent menu, too…”

October 5, 2006: ALDS Game 2

“Stifled!

I hate it when cliches are true. The baseball cliche that applied most strongly in the Bronx this afternoon was “good pitching beats good hitting.” The Tigers’ 4-3 win over the Yankees was eked out without benefit of a single big inning…”

October, 4 2006: Reign Delay?

“There we were, at the bar, drinks in hand, scorecards ready, the HD TV splashing our faces with color, watching those dreaded words scrolling across the bottom of the screen: “Weather Delay.”

We passed the time playing Hangman and eating chicken wings. It will not surprise you to hear that the first word corwin attempted to stump me with was “grand slam.” I nearly got him with “mound ball,” and he eventually did trick me with “knuckle curve.” I had him almost hung with the word “championship,” and I think I would have finally gotten him on the next round when the game was called due to rain…”

October 3, 2006: ALDS Game 1

“Oh, it feels good to win in October, doesn’t it?

I watched ALDS Game One from the Forest Cafe in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The crowd in there absolutely loves baseball, but hates the Yankees. But they are used to me there, and we always talk baseball at the bar (even when it isn’t baseball season), so it’s my first choice of places to watch a big game in the Boston area…”