Monday, August 23, 2004

I spent most of this past weekend at US Cellular Field, watching the White Sox take on the Red Sox. I should have just stayed home...they lost all 3 games.

After watching them for 27 innings, I've come to the following conclusions about the Carmines:

-There's a huge difference between Red Sox fans at Fenway and the rest of Red Sox nation. Fenway fans can provide a lot of insight into the team, but the fans I encountered at the ballyard this weekend proved to be just about on par with Cubs fans in terms of baseball knowledge. To them, Manny Ramirez is their Sammy Sosa. They were by and large an obnoxious bunch of drunks, although I did notice that they tend to have a lot of pretty hot female fans. I wonder how they'l manage to choke this October.

-Johnny Damon is a machine. Gets on base every single time he's up...I don't remember him being that good when he played with KC or Oakland. Back in 2001, Russell and I went to batting practice in April for a game against the A's, and Damon came over to us and chatted with us for a few minutes. Nicest guy in the world, and I guess I'm glad to see him do well.

-Manny Ramirez feasts on fastballs, and David Ortiz is a lot more dangerous now than he ever was as a Twin. Having the heart of your lineup be Ramirez/Ortiz/Varitek/Millar/Mueller is pretty damned scary.

Baseball aside, we went out to the new outlet mall in Aurora yesterday, and proceeded to get lost on the way back in. I did buy a new bathing suit, jacket and shoes, all at rock bottom prices.

Apparently my grandmother is doing a lot better...my sister is back in Dekalb and Mom flies back to Seattle tomorrow. The long term prognosis is still terribly bleak, but she seems like she'll be hanging on for a little while. We'll see.