And speaking of…

So the Sox finally won last night.  About time!  Once again, Jason “Manny Who?” Bay has come through.

Speaking of guys we got from the Pirates, I wonder who we’ll be getting this time.  I heard on Twitter from @pawsox that the PawSox traded Jeff Corsaletti to the Pirates for the dreaded “player to be named later”.  Since the Pirates are still sucking this year, I doubt that they have any more guys like Jason Bay to send our way.

I just hope this won’t be another move that comes back to kick us in the ass later.  I always cringe a little bit when I hear about the Sox trading away promising young prospects.  I can’t forget how they traded away David Murphy and some other guy whose name I don’t remember right now, to Texas, in exchange for Eric Gagne.  And we all know how well THAT turned out.  I wasn’t the only one who started calling the guy *Eric Gag-me*.

And speaking of trading away young prospects for crap players, let’s hope that we don’t get the short end of the stick on the Corsaletti trade, as Seattle did years ago, when we traded Heathcliff Slocumbe to them right before the trading deadline.  Seattle traded away a couple of young prospects to get him.  You might have heard of these two guys – Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe.  Does the GM who made that deal still have his job?

I mean, Slocumbe was so bad, that Dan Duquette might have been happy to take some stinky sweat socks from the Mariners’ locker room, a broken bat, and a couple of used baseballs, just to get rid of him.

Speaking of Heathcliff Slocumbe, shortly after that infamous trade, I went to a Sox game where they were playing the Mariners at Fenway.  The Sox were losing, not by much, and Seattle brought in their intrepid new closer.  The Fenway fans started chanting “Heath-cliff, Heath-cliff!”  Now that he was on the other team, we WANTED to see him on the mound.  Before, we groaned when we saw him even warming up in the bullpen.

Well, “Heath-cliff” didn’t disappoint.  True to form, he blew the save and the Sox went on to win that game.  At least he was still being consistent!

And back to speaking of the PawSox…I wish I were at the game today.  Michael Bowden is pitching.  I remember that he was called up to the Red Sox for like one day, and he did pretty well.  I hope the Sox don’t do something dumb and trade him away, too.

I wanted to either go to the game last night, or today.  But Mike was being all whiny and didn’t want to go.  I still haven’t gotten around to getting my eyes examined and getting new glasses so I can feel better about driving myself, so that wasn’t an option.  And the one time I tried to take public transit to McCoy turned out to be a disaster.  The stupid cab wouldn’t come, so I ended up walking all the way from the South Attleboro communter rail station to the stadium, falling and ripping my pants along the way.  Then I had to literally beg the cab to come and get me when the game was over, so I wouldn’t miss my train going home.  Of course, he took the *scenic* route, I saw more of Pawtucket than I’d ever seen before, and was seriously ripped off.  Never again!  Either I drive there (or Mike drives us), or I don’t go.

But it’s such a beautiful day, I hate to waste it being inside when there is baseball going on.  It’s one of those days where you want to sit at one of the outdoor dining sets at McCoy, and enjoy the game.

And speaking of taking public transit, this is why I chose Portland as the place to run away to this week.  I know that I will have absolutely NO problems getting around there without a car.  I booked a room at the usual place, the Inn at St. John, which is a very easy walk to Hadlock Field.

I’m staying there Tuesday and Wednesday nights, with Sea Dogs vs. Fisher Cats games both nights at 6PM.  So maybe during the day on Wednesday, I’ll go hang out at the Old Port, maybe take one of those scenic lighthouse cruises if the weather is nice enough to do so.  Portland has a nice bus system, we’ve used it a lot during pst vacations.  There’s a bus stop across the street from the hotel, and the bus goes pretty close to the Old Port.  It’s just a few blocks walk to places like Gritty’s and the boats.  Yes, I am DEFINITELY going to Gritty’s.  I think their VacationLand summer ale is out now.

Since I’m taking the DownEaster from Boston, I’ll have to take a cab from the Amtrak station to the hotel.  I know from past experience that the cabbies in Portland are very nice and polite.  Since the buses stop kind of early, if we go to the Old Port at night, we need to take a cab back to the hotel.  We’ve often eaten dinner at Fore Street, and then walked over to Gritty’s, where there is a cab stand and no shortage of cabs.  No cabbie has tried to rip us off yet, they go straight up Congress Street to the Inn at St. John, no *scenic route* crap.

The purpose of this trip is to be a stress-reducer for me, and this is the most stress-free place I know!  I can’t wait!