Monday, March 12, 2007

I Know It's Just Spring Training

It sure wasn't a game people will remember years from now, but the Red Sox defeated the Yankees, 7-5, in Ft. Myers last night. I watched the game over at Professor Thom's with other Red Sox fans. I noticed that the YES network gave priority to the Nets-Memphis Grizzlies NBA game, and had the Red Sox-Yankees on tape delay at 11 PM. (How generous of George!)

On my cable at home, I saw that Cablevision was airing the game live on the station that carries the TV listings (channel 14 on mine). But I went into the bar anyway. At 7 PM we braced ourselves to see what would happen: would NESN black out the game here in NY, or carry it live. We would have to search DirecTV if they blacked out NESN. And at 7 after the NESN pregame that we were watching, they stayed with the game. So a rare event occurred here on Monday night: watching a Red Sox-Yankees game without having to hurl obscenities at Michael Kay!

The Yankees had only had half their "A" team in the starting lineup, while the Sox had 8 of the 9 Opening Day regulars starting (Doug Mirabelli caught). Tim Wakefield gave up three runs in the first inning, and the Sox got two back in the second off Carl Pavano (who managed not to get hurt in this start). The Sox came from 4-2 back with two in the fifth and three in the sixth to win it, 7-5.

I can never get excited about wins in spring training, but it's always nice to beat the Yankees, no matter what time of year it is, and even if they only had four regulars in their starting lineup.

Nobody got hurt last night, and that's a good thing. Not even Carl Pavano.

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