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Chat and Discussion Manny's own Red Sox discussion board
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Join the discussion now The interview room: Youkilis, Robert Parker, Johnny Pesky, Daubach, Leigh Montville, more. Remdawg's board Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer
The Nitpicked Venue of "Slavish" - Sean McAdam
"The Internet geeks are getting all the
interviews" HEADLINES 2004 2003 Please email for more information or questions. Contents Copyright 2001-2004 Boston Dirt Dogs, except logos used in accordance with the Fair Use provision (section 107) of U.S. Copyright Act. Photographic images posted with permission of Associated Press unless otherwise indicated.
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Tuesday 9.30 Pennant Express is Ready Out West
ARRIVAL IN CHOAKLAND
Game 1 in Choakland: Wednesday, October 1st, 10:06pm EDT TWINS TANK YANKS New York is Cursed! 3-1 Minnesota in Stadium Opener. Mime Games Pedro Won't Address National Media No MLB fine. Millar, Tek speak for Pete. Grady prefers his silent superstar speaks for himself. Manny Shows Up a Day Late No worries. The Pennant Express will not be derailed. Arroyo Gets Nod Over Suppan. Nixon Doing Better. 11 Mile
PeteyM – Win Yourself
Look, the Sox have one shot, or one
opportunity
Yo, his palms are sweaty, knees weak,
arms are heavy
[Chorus:]
New season's beginning, through his
bullpen hole that is gaping
[Chorus:]
No more games, Pete'll change what you
call rage
[Chorus:] This team can do anything they set their minds to, man - Matt Welch and Big Dog 8-mile - Lose Yourself - Eminem 8 Mile Video Monday 9/29 Don't Cry for Me Lou Pinella
My Team is Going to the Playoffs Tampa doesn't get 100th loss 3-1 Sox to Rebound Again in Oakland No One Better than Bill
Billy Ballgame Wins Batting Title
Sunday 9/28
Go to
Church and Say a Prayer
Don't
Kid Yourself, Wallottery "The last time Fenway fans saw their Red Sox, they were being hosed down with champagne and catching souvenir hats from their beloved "Dirt Dogs" after clinching the AL Wild Card. Who knows what will be in store the next time Boston takes the field?" - redsox.com lottery (Hey, if you get two, I'm the best guest ever, buying beers all day) McCartyism Communist Yankee Sympathizer Umps Rob Dave as Joe West Goes South
Suppan Gets Shelled in First. Sox
Trumped in Trop.
(In other news: Chad Fox Leads Florida
Relief Corps, Saturday 9/27 Fandemonium in the Trop
Sox-Yanks ALCS Tix on sale Monday via phone and web. Games 3, 4, and 5 (if nec.) at Fenway. (hey, if anyone has an extra, please email) "I'll Have a Tampa Devil Dog Daiquiri with a Mini-Martinez Chacer Please"
The Dominator Manny, Night Kap Give Tampa a Headache 7-2 Pete Ready to Cross Hudson Friday 9/26 Sober Up! Happy Hour is Over Champions Break Bad News to Manny (John Henry, unable to convince Manny himself by 4:30am, called on Larry Bird, Bobby Orr, and the New England Patriots to visit Ramirez at The Ritz with the sad news that the Boston Red Sox did not win the World Series last night.) ONWARD AND UPWARD
INTO THE WILD
Champagne Showers
SOX GIVE FANS
Touch 'Em All
I'm gonna tell you a story
Yeah, down by the river
Because I love that dirty water
Well, I love that dirty water (I love it, baby) Thursday, September 25, 2003
The Ghosts of Red Sox Past Cannot Stop Christmas from Coming Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1999
11 wins in 19 postseason
games is all it's going to take to get King Kong off our backs after
tonight .. let's step it up, cowboy up, and get up on our feet
tonight... everybody on their feet for the whole friggin' game...
not that hard... let's make some noise in this place, raise the
friggin' roof, and
Will Garciapopup Step It Up? Lucchino: Look for Wake in the Two Hole
Game 1 in Choakland: Wednesday, October 1st: Hudson-Pedro Will Grady's Extension Get Picked Up in Post-Season? All Systems Lowe Tonight
Derek Delivers Sox Into the Wild D-Lowe = Done Deal. Thursday 9/25 - The new intro song by Polyphonic Spree: Light And Day
Light and day is more than you'll say
You don't see me fly into the red
Just follow the day
You don't see me fly into the red
Just follow the day Mariners Can't Stand Pat Seattle Needs Anaheimlich Maneuver
M's Go Down Easy, Sox Can Go (Walker Steps on Scribe on 'EEI: "This Shaughnessy guy must have had a bad childhood, I'll tell you what, he's unbelievable... we don't put our confidence in guys like that.") Wednesday 9/24 Hold Your Horses
Cowboy Ups Get Crushed 7-3 Playoff Party Postponed John is Up to His Old Self
(First inning flop. Did
someone pop a champagne cork early?) Grady Denies "Hangover Effect" from Emotional Win Party Poopers Birds S--- All Over Sox Do You Believe in Tragic? Two for 'Tiz, Too Little, Too Late (I'm no Sabermetrician, but by my calculations, if Ortiz was in the starting lineup since April, he'd have 96 home runs and 212 RBI) Trot's Calf Still Tight, Not Right, Sits Tonight Nation Celebration Procrastination
It's Not a Cinch to Clinch Tuesday 9/23 DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?
BIG-O STEALS THE SHOW
DAVID IS GOLIATH AGAIN IN TEN Win of the Year, Boston 6 Baltimore 5 STAR OF DAVID SHINES TONIGHT All Cowboy'd Up!
FLUKE SKY WALKER TAKES JULIO TO SCHOOLYARD Todd Takes Julio Deep in 9th, After Visiting School Kids in 4th Grade Earlier 3-Run Jack in Bottom of 9th: Boston 5 Baltimore 5
"These Fans Make it All
Happen" The Bad News Page Was Ready to Go Live... Could Not Hit "Send": MatoSOS "Offense" Sinks Sox Scoreboard Watch is On Matos is One Man Army, This Bird is a Predator Brown Bagging It Stolen Summer: Yo Andrian, Nice Wheels
SauerbecK
finally steps up but Millar Kowboy Upchucks Again Kaplan Chokes Too. Tek Stuck at Third. Pen Does Their Part ArrOh-No! Charles Bronson Could Have Provided Better Relief. Grady Can't Deal with X's... and O's.
Curse of the Dog: "Wakefield is a 3-run home run waiting to happen." - 9.21.03 on NECN, Roll the tape Monday 9/22
Wild and
Manny, 'Tiz, and Trot Power Soup Hot Enough. Mr. Jones, Embree-Oh-No Make it Interesting, But B.K. = Bird Killer Get Damian Jackson Away from Second Sunday 9/21 Pedr000-000-0
Playoffs? Playoffs. Martinez Mojo Rising Manny "Hot Hand" on the Bat
OK Kim
Gets Through Inning. Cowboy Upset Late Inning Collapse #32 Indians Down Cowboy Ups 13-4 4-1 Lead Blows Up on Lowe After Jackson Hole Opens Up Game "Hot Hands" Williamson, Sauerwalk Light the Latest Alley Inferno in 7th and 8th Committee Remains Headless BK Translates "Cowboy Up" in Korean: "No matter who boos me or whatever the media writes in the paper, it doesn't really affect me because I have great pride in my job as a closer. I went out there and did my job. A situation like yesterday, you never know, it might happen again. I might get pulled again, but that's something I have no control over. I didn't ask to be a closer. They asked me to be a closer, so I'm just doing what I was told to do." Saturday 9/20 John Dough
Old Man Winner is On The Money Again.
Johnny Come Lately, Nomar Back on Track Kimpeached! Kimbecile Hits Two Batters in Ninth B.K. = Bad Karma Kimpotent Closer Can't Get Job Done. Kimmittee Closed. Grin Gone. Ruthless: As a way of reminding the Red Sox of their history of heartbreak, the Indians played a video replay of Bill Buckner's infamous error in the 1986 World Series following the sixth inning. I Love a Parade
Theo Row, Owner Boxes Empty at Fenway Thursday Night While Brass Was Out Finalizing World Series Parade Route Friday 9/19 Timpossible Dream
Wake Takes One for the Team, Closer-by-Kimmittee Shaky Again, Manny Blast Makes a Difference Mueller Joins the Walking Wounded Thursday 9/18 Curse of the HBO Sox Haven't Won Since Mockumentary Aired Everybody's sick, tired, or wounded. Wonderful. Gasoline Alley Gets "Edge" Watching Game on TV. Yeah Right. Wednesday 9/17 Into the Wild
Pedro Pushes The Dominican Dominator Bedevils Rays Petey Up! Complete Pete Repeats Feat
Wild Horses Couldn't Drag Comeback Cowboys Sox are 'Tizzling Hot 3-2. Lobel: "David is Goliath" HBOld: "Curse" Clueless, Useless
Predictable
Bambino Show Filled with Tired, Hackneyed Clichés, Same Old Media
Mouthpieces, Drones on About Ruth, (anyone in their right mind knows that game is gone after the passed ball) The Only People "Tormented" Were Those Who Decided to Watch, Sox Fans are Fine Dialing for Accolades: Original Dirt Dog Paul Sullivan Kills in '86 Phone Bit Our October 25, 1986 story. UMass crew (Rath in attendance for LA crowd), Saturday night houseparty in Waltham. "Ojeda vs. Clemens" printed on the funky invites. Game on the big screen. Mets fans welcome. Fenway franks. Tissue-paper green monster with netting and scoreboard running along living room wall. 55 people. Primed to win it all, we get everyone into one room for the last three outs. Roomate and I grab the two bottles of Moet to get ready for the big moment. Two out, none on (hurry up goes through mind) I peel off the foil, untwist the wire, and attempt to hand "loosen" the cork as Gary Carter steps to the plate... "POP"... cork flies across room, into faux monster netting. 55 people turn and look at me (mouths open wide) at the same time as I say "no worries, this game is over, nothing can go wrong now... hey, give me that cork..." stuff cork back in bottle... Carter, base hit. Mitchell, base hit. Knight, base hit. Stanley-Gedman cross up, Mookie Wilson... attempt to drink entire bottle of Moet in one sip, slouched, in corner while Red Sox and Mets fans taunt relentlessly... didn't sleep 'til Tuesday. Tuesday 9/16 Red Sox ReLowed the Big Guns
Sweet 16 Covered D-Lowe Does the Lowecomotion
The schedule is in our favor: Texas Messes with Seattle Dominican Dynamite Big Blows by ManRam and Big-O Steal the Show Mia Gets Laid Off, Nomar Expected to A$k for More
(Unless
he dumps her for J-Lo, There Was A Hero Among Us
R.I.P. Ron Burton
Catch the vision of Ron Burton’s
‘Springfield Story’ July 5, 2003 - HUBBARDSTON, Mass. — Ron Burton Sr., the first high school All-American football player from Springfield, two weeks ago today stood for the 19th time in front of a group of needy young boys, welcoming them to his Ron Burton Training Village for his annual five-week summer camp. "I’m not supposed to be here," he said, referring to his 12-day hospital stay that had just ended the day before when he talked his doctors into releasing him so he could be with his beloved "young men" once again. Some knew only that he had been sick lately. Others knew just how true the words were. Burton has been fiercely fighting his biggest battle since December of 1999 when those same doctors diagnosed him with multiple myeloma. The disease an incurable and excruciatingly painful form of bone cancer, and doctors told him he had one to three years to live. Christmas was three years. Yet, here he was, six months later, standing strong in front of boys who desperately need to see someone, anyone, stand strong for them. Only a shell of his former self physically, he was still spiritually the Ron Burton nearly all of the Boston area and a growing portion of Springfield had grown to love and respect. "Why would I put myself in jeopardy like that?" he asked his group of young men rhetorically. Then he answered his own question, "I want you to know that I love you. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it for you. I just want to share with you what I know." What Burton knows is that there is no gain without risk. That is a big part of his vision, one that has carved this beautiful retreat called a "training village" (for more reasons than meet the eye) out of 305 acres of unspoiled Massachusetts wilderness. But the biggest part of his vision is the unconditional love which saturated his every word for boys he hardly knew personally, but knew very well experientially. So while the pain just days ago was so unbearable "I couldn’t even move," it was unconditional love that lifted him out of his bed of affliction and powered him as he once again shared his “Springfield Story” with those who needed to hear it. Some campers heard it for the first time, some for the fifth and some of the camp staff, made up of family and friends (who feel like they are family), for the 10th time or more. It didn’t matter, because the story just keeps getting better. Burton’s “Springfield Story” started in the early 1950s when he was a little boy growing up around the Dilbert Avenue area where Davey Moore Park now sits. "I would lose at everything, and I would always cry when I lost," Burton recalled. "My mom got tired of hearing me cry so she told me I had two choices, either stop playing or start winning." It was a slow process, but he chose the latter. In junior high football, "I was the only kid in school who they wouldn’t give a uniform. Finally, they felt sorry for me and gave me one." His seventh grade season came and went without Burton seeing action on the football field. His eighth grade season looked like it would be a repeat, but in the last game of the season, the three players ahead of him were all hurt and there were 33 seconds left in the final game of the year. In came Burton, who got one carry and 10 yards. "Those 10 yards were the most important 10 yards of my life," he told his eager listeners. "A high school coach saw me and said that I was not that fast, and not that big, but that he liked my spirit, courage and determination." Still, that wasn’t going to take Burton very far in a town where "all there was to do was high school football," and the coach told him as much. So Burton asked what he had to do to get better and was told to run six or seven miles five days a week. Then he’d be ready. So while his friends were goofing off each summer, Burton ran those miles and became a great football player. "Up to that point in my life, I was laughed at, joked about, teased," he said. "When I came around, they’d say ‘Here comes nothing.’ So I was willing to pay anything to get better." In fact, those seven miles remain an integral part of his village’s training regimen. Boys are pushed with encouragement and fueled by love to get up at 4:30 each morning, Monday through Friday, and run a route that includes woods and steep hills. Burton tells them that it doesn’t matter if they stop and rest 100 times, as long as they finish the course and try to get better each day. “That’s what matters most,” he said. The rest of the story is Springfield sports history. As a sophomore, he beat all the juniors and seniors in the mile run. By his junior year, he had set nearly all of Springfield High’s rushing and scoring records, many of which still stand today. "It was the first time I had the opportunity to play football without the laughter," he said. But that sophomore year was rough. His mom died and his dad’s health was so bad that Burton had to go live with his grandma, “Shang” Burton, who was a gospel preacher. "We were so poor, but she literally prayed in the food," said Burton. "The people of the church had to give us food every day. I learned early that life is not a joke. My grandmother saved me." Instead of crumbling, Burton soared, becoming a high school All-American. "I cried. I cried because I had learned to be thankful," said Burton of the honor. "Three years earlier, no one wanted me on their team. Now I had 47 scholarship offers." Despite pressure at home to play for national powerhouse Ohio State, Burton chose to attend Northwestern and play in a then-floundering program for a man named Ara Parseghian, who later became a coaching legend at Notre Dame. Burton became an All-American running back and Heisman Trophy nominee for the Wildcats, who became a national power in their own right under Parseghian. Burton then went to play for the Boston Patriots from 1960-66. Upon retirement, he built a career as a motivational speaker for John Hancock, where he still keeps an office. "You can’t believe how far you can go if you do it right," Burton told his young men. Then he let them in on some secrets, upon which his training camp has been built, prefacing them by saying, "I am going to give you the answers to the exam." That would be life’s exam.
No doubt, some "young man" caught the vision that day. I did, sitting there in the camp dining hall watching Burton give yet another piece of his heart to yet another group of young needy boys. The Boston Red Sox have caught that vision. As was reported in this space earlier this year, the Red Sox partnered with Burton in November of 2002 to use his training village for weekend retreats they would sponsor for inner-city Boston boys during the weekends the annual camp wasn’t in session. The Red Sox’s Yawkey Family Foundation has caught the vision. It is finalizing plans to donate $1 million for a new bunkhouse at the training village. The New England Patriots have caught the vision. Owner Robert Kraft has begun a "Ron Burton Award," to be given annually to one individual who shares the vision that Burton has proven successful with his inspiring, risking and loving rags-to-riches life. "They want everybody to be like Ron Burton," said Burton, in humble but shocked tone. "For me, it is one of the greatest rewards one can receive." Unless, of course, you catch his vision. "If you do it my way," he told a group of needy young boys two weeks ago today, "you are going to experience a lot of joy." How about you? Have you caught the vision of Burton’s “Springfield Story?” Reach Kermit Rowe at krowe@coxohio.com (Our deepest sympathies go out to Steve and everyone in the extended Burton family.) "There's a Changing of the Guard on the Tobin Bridge Right Now." - Pete Sheppard, WEEI, 9.14.03 7:34pm EDT. a.k.a. Pats win. Sox lose. Sunday 9/14 STOP THE PRESSES!
A Funny Thing
Happened While the ChicaGoes all out against Boston (And that's just you-know-who being you-know-who above) LOST WEEKEND Burkett is Worst in First Again Lee, Thomas Bash BoSox Boston Loses Series and Game 7-2 No Nomar Lineup in Question. And No Questions Asked When Nomar's Sick. He's a Gamer. (From the Dumb and Dumberer Files: "Nomah's Sick... Blame the Media!" (um, yeah, OK) The Time is Now... Sox (and Pats) Have 15 Games Left to Lock Up a Playoff Birth. Buehrlehurelee vs. Burkett Today Saturday 9/13 Cowboy Upended
Scent of a Wow Man: Bartolo Gives Boston Complete Colonoscopy, 3-1 Bad Guys
(Third complete
game in a row for weight watcher... Bloom Comes Off the Rosalita Sox Go to Lip-Synch Millar Video and Lose Again No Offense, But The Infield Defense Was Mostly Horrible Tonight And Belli Bails Out on This One Killer Garciapopup™ in 8th. Ballgame.
... next scheduled clutch hit for Nomar is April 17, 2004. (Nomar not feeling well but "sucks it up" for team. Phary... nah) 9/13 Will Billy Ballgame and the BoSox Wake Up Tonight? 9/12 Walk This Way
Seesaw swingin' with Cowboys playin' fool Throw this way. TRAIN KEPT A WALKIN' ALL NIGHT LONG
Red
Sox Take a Walk Walking the Walk
Lame Game but Sox Get Job Done. Damon's
a Walkaholic, Kap was Klutch. The Cowboy Up with People Suppan Spin from Eric Wilbur at Boston.com: "The righty hurled six innings last night, and if not for a pair of solo homers off Chicago's bats, would have allowed only one run." -- Too bad home runs count too eh? Dauber Comes Home Will He Be in the Doghouse All Weekend? 9/10 Pistol Pete Cowboys Up Pedr000-000-00, 5-0 Playoffs Here We Come The Man in Black Sees the White Light
RIP Johnny Cash and John Ritter Three's Company? Keep a Dream Team of Doctors Near Johnny Damon, |
