The Bay Era Begins
Huh, winning a close game, there’s a novelty. I can’t say I’m sold on the Jason Bay era in Beantown, but he’s certainly off to a good start. He scored the Sox only two runs, eventually getting the winning run in the 12th after tripling off the Monster with two outs. Former Stanford product Jed Lowrie drove Bay in both times, once on a sac fly in the 2nd and 10 innings later with a 47 hopper up the middle that he beat out.
Sadly, such an exciting win was tampered by the fact that I had to listen to it on the radio with Dale Arnold. I can only think to describe Dale’s announcing with an SAT analogy.
Dale Arnold:Baseball Announcing::
(a) Keanu Reeves:Acting
(b) Eric Gagne:Pitching
(c) George W. Bush:Leading
(d) Curt Schilling:Keeping His Mouth Shut
(e) All of the above
And before you say, “no, Matt, he’s not that bad” let me present you with two of his calls tonight. First, in the bottom of the 10th, the Sox had the bases loaded, two outs, and Jed Lowrie up with a 3-2 count. For the call, here’s Dale:
Street’s pitch…LOWRIE!!!!!!!!… (3-4 second pause) uhhh….hits a line drive to center!…Gonzalez has it for the out
And his call in the 11th when Hannahan lost control of his bat and accidentally flung it into the stands:
WOAH!!
No, I’m not forgetting anything in that call.
What was missing from the trading deadline was not an extra bullpen arm, but a blockbuster trade to get rid of Dale Arnold. Hell, I’d even be willing for a Mirabelli-like trade to get Glenn Geffner back.
Jason Bay, welcome. I think he really sparked our offense last night. Oh, and there’s Dale Arnold’s announcing. He was real bad, I was never good at the SAT, but I got into college, so I’ll try my hand at this. Dale Arnold is to Baseball announcing as Manny is to running out ground balls? I dunno.
Comment by Matt E. — August 2, 2008 @ 8:52 am
I was listening on the radio too. An exciting extra inning game, and the guy was putting me to sleep. Zero personality. Where did they get this guy?
Comment by Matt — August 2, 2008 @ 10:23 am
Matt – c’mon, admit it, you might be wrong about the Manny trade.
Think of it this way, as a Sox player
Payroll for the Game: $822,446
Tips for the clubhouse staff: $2000
Limo to the game and home: $1000
Game without Manny’s BS? : Priceless.
And AMS is 100% right – the FO made Manny the monster that he became by NEVER slapping him down. Torre is not gonna put up with that BS. I would NOT be surprised to see on of two outcomes this season – Manny gets benched for being a putz, or he cuts the dreads, and chills out and plays baseball again. I see #1 as more likely.
Comment by Joe F. — August 2, 2008 @ 10:32 am
I might be wrong, and for the sake of the Sox I hope I’m wrong. But Manny was the most consistent hitter on the Sox for 7.5 years. One day of Jason Bay isn’t going to make me forget that.
Comment by Matt — August 2, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Matt – I was not talking about Jason when you were wrong, Jason has to prove himself with his work ethic and performance, but Manny . . . as in being more of a pita than he was worth. You’ll come to that conclusion eventually . ..
Comment by Joe F. — August 2, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
When I got the game over the radio on Friday and heard only Dale Arnold and Dave O’Brien, I had this horrified feeling that the Sox might have had to include Joe Castiglione in the deal to ship Manny to L.A.
But I’ll say this, Arnold is WAY better than Jerry Trupiano. WAY!
Comment by Steve Zeoli — August 4, 2008 @ 6:11 am