Records
Game 37: May 15, 2005
Red Sox (22-15), 4
Mariners (15-22), 5
L: Tim Wakefield (4-2)
W: Gil Meche (3-2)
H: Shigetoshi Hasegawa (2)
H: J.J. Putz (8)
S: Eddie Guardado (10)
My sister was born in 1981. And yet she claims to be nostalgic when she watches VH-1’s “I Love the 80s.” I guess she could legitimately yearn for 1985-1989, but it’s not as if she really remembers facing the threat of death by combination of Pop Rocks and Coca Cola. She never used the term “record store,” or even “wrecka stow.” She’s not particularly fond of baseball, so it doesn’t matter to her that Manny Ramirez hit his 400th home run. At first, even Ramirez wasn’t overly concerned about his milestone, saying that it “means nothing to me” at first, but then later stating that it was “a great moment” in his life. The Zen of Manny, who cares and yet doesn’t all at once. He is only the fifth Red Sox player to reach 400 in a Boston uniform; the others are Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, and Andre Dawson are the others.
This loss ends the 5-game winning streak the Red Sox had in one-run games. They are now 7-6 in these types of games, and one of Terry Francona’s goals is to improve upon their 16-18 record from last year. Hopefully Keith Foulke won’t continue to allow games to narrow to a 1-run margin to pad the stats.
Rather than dwell on this series loss, be sure to see Opie Otterstad’s painting of the 2004 World Series celebration. On May 19th, the Boston Globe will have an exclusive on the creator’s motivation on the work. I guess it will be like a director’s cut of the canvas. Between that and Revenge of the Sith, my Thursday is all set.
