Long Day's Journey Into Night

As the World Cup title match was going on, I had a firm eye on the Red Sox-White Sox game, as well as the Mets and Yankees games. As the Italians were about to lift up the cup, Jonathan Papelbon gave up a home run to Jermaine Dye to tie the game at 3. It was the first run he has given up on the road this season. Astounding.

I just love those guys from the White Sox. Their feed was on TV yesterday, and their TV scoreboard reads: BOS vs. SOX. And those blithering idiots on their broadcast always refer to the White Sox as "the Sox,"even when there is another team called the Sox in the opposition dugout. Boy, they are really cute.

Ugh.

The Red Sox scored two in the eleventh, but the bullpen couldn't keep the White Sox down, and they tied it up on a double play the Red Sox couldn't turn to end it. So, the game continued to the 12th. Then the 13th, then the 14th...

I left in the 12th to play softball with some friends over on Hudson Street in the West Village. I had a blast, as I haven't played softball in a few years. I had played softball on the same field about 20 years ago with some buddies from Tower Records, so it brought back a lot of memories.

My pal Matt had a Blackberry, so we got constant updates of the game action. We had been playing for over an hour and fifteen minutes when finally the White Sox won in the 19th inning on a Tadahito Iguchi single. (We knew the jig was up when Rudy Seanez was brought in, as the last man out of the pen.) It was a disappointing loss, but not a devastating one, as the Yankees blew a five-run at Tampa Bay and lost, so the Red Sox remain 3 games ahead at the All-Star break. A sweep over the White Sox would have been really sweet, but I'll take the two out of three.

My team lost our first softball game, so we got in a short second contest. That was tied after four innings, so in the spirit of the World Cup, we decided to break the tie on "penalties." There was a soccer goal off to the side of the field, as it is also used for soccer. We moved the goal on to the field, and set up a competition. We had five guys from each team try to throw a softball passed a player from the opposition from a good distance away. After five tries, my team won, 1-0.

At least the night wasn't a total loss.