Great Night For "The Great Gazoo"

It was another big night for the Red Sox, as well as the patrons at Professor Thom's pub in Greenwich Village on Friday, as Daisuke Matsuzaka continued his unbeaten streak against the Yankees, as the Red Sox rolled to an 11-4 win at Yankee Stadium.

Kevin Youkilis and Julio Lugo, who my friend Adam has dubbed "The Great Gazoo" after the cartoon character, both went deep. It was a really big night for Gazoo, er, I mean, Lugo, who went 3-for-4 with 3 runs scored, 3 RBI and 2 walks. It was his biggest day in a Red Sox uniform so far.

Dice-K had really only one tough inning, the fourth, when he threw 41 pitches, walked the bases loaded and gave up four runs. The Red Sox once again put up some runs for him against the Yankees, and he settled down after that and pitched back-to-back 1-2-3 innings before leaving after the sixth. It was another gutty performance by Dice-K, even if he wasn't at his best. The Sox bullpen was once again almost flawless, allowing just two hits in the final three innings. Hideki Okajima continues to be the surprise move of the offseason so far, looking solid once again in the eighth, when the game was still close at 7-4.

The Red Sox once again battered Mariano Rivera in the ninth, getting four runs off him and Joe Torre was forced to pull him from the game. Thom's was rocking as the score went to 11-4. Rivera continues to be a shell of his former self, and you have to wonder if he's seen his best days. If the Yankees can't count on him, they will have NO chance at the postseason. None.

During the game, their was a Japanese camera crew in the bar, filming us for a TV show in Japan. I was at the bar, wearing my Red Sox jersey, and they approached me and asked me about being a Red Sox fan in New York. They were very nice, and spent the entire night filming around the bar, especially when Daisuke was pitching. This will be the second time I've been filmed for Japanese TV, as two years ago I was part of report about the Sox fans here. (Once a media whore, always a media whore.)

BTW, my friend Peter has a correspondence going with a new blogger friend he's made in Japan, who does great animation and had a cool name: "Superbowl-san." Peter's a great guy and devoted Sox fan, and has a nice blog as well: http://peteronall.blogspot.com.

We were celebrating after last night's game, when my friends Gareth and Kim, who were at the game, told me about being there last night. Gareth said it was his worst experience ever being there, as the frustration among Yankee fans is at an all-time high. They tried to pick fights with him. He got some verbal abuse in the bathroom, as some idiotic fan grabbed him, and another tried to head butt him. Another group of mindless fans started calling him rude names during the game. Gareth has worn his Red Sox paraphernalia there all the time, and without any major incident. But he said that last night there was a really bad vibe in the place. (Back in 1988, I had beer poured on me while rooting for the Sox there, and except for my last visit there in 2005, I leave the Sox stuff home.)

Boy, what a surprise. Yankee fans acting like obnoxious jerks.

You learn something new every day.