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" Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado RockiesGame One: Red Sox win, 13-1. Boston leads series 1-0.  Matt Holliday slumps in the fifth inning as the Red Sox blew open Game One, en route to a 13-1 rout. Photo by Kevin Kreck/Colorado Springs Gazette. Scott Raab: Wowza. That John Williams extravaganza had to be the best, most stirring version of &amp;quot;The Star-Spangled Banner&amp;quot; since Jimi played Woodstock. I&amp;#039;m glad Fox didn&amp;#039;t ruin it by running tight shots up the Marines&amp;#039; nostrils at Iwo Jima.  I&amp;#039;m not gonna lie: I&amp;#039;m still pretty bummed about the Tribe snatching defeat from the jaws of 3-1 and watching those opening blimp shots of Fenway Park didn&amp;#039;t help -- could&amp;#039;ve been the Jake. And that would&amp;#039;ve been great, dammit. But it probably also would&amp;#039;ve meant hearing the Banner played at the opener by Wally and the Polka Chips.  Yaz looks pretty good. He&amp;#039;s 68 now; when he was 43, in 1983, he posted an OPS+ of 106 in 380 AB. The guys on his baseballreference.com age-43 comp list include Honus Wagner, Enos Slaughter, Cap Anson, Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, Carlton Fisk, Tony Perez, and Pete Rose.  Yaz had an awful (.227/.326/.391) second half in &amp;#039;83 -- though he still managed to pound the poo out of the Tribe for a 1.231 OPS in 40 AB -- and he called it quits after that season. He retired with a 1.067 OPS in 65 post-season AB, and I&amp;#039;m betting that even this October he could&amp;#039;ve strapped it on and still outhit the ghost of Travis Hafner.  While I&amp;#039;m pressing sour grapes, allow me to take one last run through Joel Skinner&amp;#039;s stop sign. Kevin Kennedy -- you ever wonder how incompetent an experienced, connected guy like Kennedy or Steve Phillips must be to not even sniff a job inside the game? -- refers to Skinner holding Lofton on third and adds, &amp;quot;rightfully so&amp;quot; during the pre-game.  Rightfully so? Look, I understand folks arguing that Skinner&amp;#039;s fuckup ultimately didn&amp;#039;t matter in a game that ended 11-2 -- even though I strongly disagree. But in 40+ years of watching baseball, I&amp;#039;ve never seen any third-base coach on any level of play do anything remotely as stupid and flat-out bizarre as keeping Kenny fucking Lofton from trying to score from second base on a bullet down the line, in the 7th inning of a one-run Game 7, with Manny Ramirez jogging toward the ball from his pedestal in left field.  Rightfully so -- I&amp;#039;m gonna quote Lee Elia here -- my fucking ass. The play was right in front of him. Joel Skinner played nine seasons in the majors; his father Bob played twelve. If the guy had any dignity, pride, or grace, he&amp;#039;d never set foot in a third-base coach&amp;#039;s box again. And if Wedge and Shapiro have any sense, Skinner&amp;#039;s tenure as a member of the Indians organization is over. That&amp;#039;s what would be best for Skinner, who&amp;#039;ll be booed in Cleveland forever, and that&amp;#039;s also what&amp;#039;s best for their team.  Maybe Skinner, Kevin Kennedy, and Steve Phillips can all pool their brain cells and figure out how a thermos knows whether to keep a beverage hot or cold.  ***** Eric Gillin: I watched (and took copious notes) on the entire game, but it was painfully obvious it was already over in the first inning last night. Josh Beckett opened the game with a four-pitch strikeout, followed it with a seven-pitch strikeout, and closed it with another four-pitch strikeout. He threw exactly one pitch: a 94-to-97 mph fastball. Then Little Dusty got up, knocked the first pitch he saw over the Green Monster, the Sox scrabbled together a couple more runs, and the rout was on. And the Colorado Rockies, after eight days of playing with and against themselves, didn&amp;#039;t have a prayer. (Well, that&amp;#039;s not true. They probably had prayers after the game.) My compatriots here on this blog might have more to say, but it&amp;#039;s pretty clear why Boston won: Josh Beckett is still dominant, and eight days of rest clearly affected the Rockies. They weren&amp;#039;t razor sharp in the field, allowing Kevin &amp;quot;Prison Break&amp;quot; Youkilis to score from first. And they were so slow at the plate, by my count -- and I am neither a pro scout nor a washed-up former ballplayer, so I could be wrong -- Beckett didn&amp;#039;t throw a curveball until the middle of the fourth inning, when he unleashed a wicked 12-to-6 knee-wobbler. In fact, 77 of his 93 pitches were fastballs. While I feel pretty good about the win, I saw some things in the Rockies that gave me pause for concern. For starters, when they do hit the ball -- and I&amp;#039;m thinking of Troy Tulowitzki here -- they positively mash it. And if you take away the two-out rallies, this was a 2-1 ballgame, so how much of this is rust? And how much of this is Beckett? All I know is the 12-run lead doesn&amp;#039;t carry over to tonight&amp;#039;s game and if and when these guys thaw out, they&amp;#039;ll give the Sox some trouble, I bet. I might not take the Rockies&amp;#039; franchise seriously, but it would be foolish to overlook their team. ***** Scott Raab: Yeah, yeah, so there was a ballgame, too. The Rockies infield defense looked sharp as always. Josh Beckett stuck his heater up in Matt Holliday&amp;#039;s grill to kick off Matt&amp;#039;s first AB (Tribe pitching coach Carl Willis should make Carmona and Sabathia spend the next few months studying video of Beckett), the Red Sox feasted on Jeff Francis, and Brad Hawpe is still waiting to make actual contact with a pitch. Nobody stole a base, which means no free Taco Bell crunchy tacos, which means no fresh E. coli outbreak for at least another day.  And Eric Gagne pitched, which really, truly tells you everything you need to know about the ballgame qua ballgame. ***** Jay Levin: Wait a sec...I&amp;#039;m confused. The Rockies lost? Worst Game One beating in Series history? But...I thought they were Magic! And had Momentum! And were Clutchety Clutch Clutch! Rewrite! Rewrite! New story: They&amp;#039;re just a bunch of Chokers! Sure sure, they won all those games because they thought they didn&amp;#039;t have a chance anyway -- playing loose, nothing to lose! The Padres basically handed them a playoff spot! The Phillies? Even bigger chokers! They just got outchoked! The D&amp;#039;backs? Sucked! That is...unless we can find another, even lazier storyline to write about...ah, yes. The Layoff! Rest equals Rust! For yea, the way of the slothful man is a hedge of thorns -- says so right there in the Bible! Look, I know everybody&amp;#039;s got their cute little stories to file, but this game wasn&amp;#039;t about rust, or choking, or Fenway. The Rockies had very little chance to win this game, in any venue, on any date. We&amp;#039;ve seen Beckett start four games now in this postseason, and he&amp;#039;s given up just four runs in 30 innings. He&amp;#039;s got 30 strikeouts, and he&amp;#039;s allowed only three walks and 19 hits. All very much in keeping with his track record. The Sox lineup faced their opponent&amp;#039;s ace in all four of those starts, scoring 22 runs over 20 innings. Four impressive performances, yes, but not exactly a shock. Rusty or fresh as a daisy, this game was looking like a rout from the start.  ***** Eric Gillin: A lot of people, like the entire borough of Manhattan, don&amp;#039;t like this Red Sox team. And I respect that. I really do. But for a bunch of whiny, unlikable, asshole millionaires, they sure look like they&amp;#039;re having fun out there, eh? In the midst of the blowout, the Fox cameras finally focused on something I&amp;#039;ve been obsessed with for the last two months: the Sox&amp;#039;s 4th-inning bullpen tribute to Stomp. It&amp;#039;s simply fantastic. A couple relievers rattle out a &amp;quot;tinkle-tink-tink-tinkle-tink-tink&amp;quot; beat on a metal pipe, a backup catcher comes in with a &amp;quot;whomp-whomp,&amp;quot; and it&amp;#039;s all rounded out by a man who goes &amp;quot;wizza-wakka&amp;quot; with two empty plastic water bottles.       You can&amp;#039;t hear &amp;#039;em very well in that clip, but you&amp;#039;re witnessing the &amp;quot;Manny Delcarmen Band,&amp;quot; which provides a fourth-inning musical interlude during every game. It&amp;#039;s part of a larger bit of madness. For whatever reason, the Boston relievers have adopted a pirate motif this year. Mike Timlin is the leader (his nickname is &amp;quot;The Admiral&amp;quot;), and everyone has secret handshakes, assigned seats on the bench, sunflower-seed spitting contests, and players who get out of line have to walk the plank.  How awesome is that? Between the 92-step syncopated handshakes and the in-game pranks, baseball is the sport of childish joy. It&amp;#039;s pure Peter Pan stuff. Such antics never go on other sports. NBA players don&amp;#039;t have freestyle battles at the end of the bench during a blowout. At the end of the game, football players don&amp;#039;t do the Riverdance at the 50-yard-line. (Instead, they do it after they score and get a $5,000 penalty from the No Fun League.) Baseball is a game for children, and I think the biggest kids on the field tend to win the tough games. If this team doesn&amp;#039;t win it all this year -- and look, that&amp;#039;s a distinct possibility, given that they&amp;#039;ll be going to play on the fucking Moon in a couple days -- I firmly believe they could revive vaudeville. Or at least modern dance. Papelbon&amp;#039;s moves are electric, and he might even go into rap. After last night&amp;#039;s game, Papelbon described his mental state thusly: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m chillin&amp;#039; like Bob Dylan on penicillin.&amp;quot; What a bunch of clowns. ***** Scott Raab: Ready for another session of Storytime with Old Uncle Scott? Because I&amp;#039;ve got a million of &amp;#039;em, and they&amp;#039;re all more interesting -- to me, at least -- than what&amp;#039;s going on between the lines at Fenway. If Ubaldo Jimenez comes out tomorrow night and throws a gem, or if the Rockies light up Schilling, hey, I&amp;#039;m on it. But tonight&amp;#039;s game was a rerun of a movie I saw just the other night -- and the night before that -- and I didn&amp;#039;t exactly love it the first two times.  This one&amp;#039;s about another Hall of Famer -- except that he&amp;#039;s not really in the Hall -- and Moonlight Graham.  Not the real Moonlight, of course -- Uncle Scott isn&amp;#039;t quite that old -- but one of the hundreds and thousands of kids good, lucky, and dogged enough to make it all the way up to The Show, sip a cup of joe, and vanish forever. The non-Hall of Famer is Pete Rose, back in early 1997. Pete&amp;#039;s signing autographs at a boat show in Odessa, Texas, for $15 bucks apiece. He&amp;#039;s not happy about the price of his John Hancock -- it doesn&amp;#039;t affect Pete&amp;#039;s guaranteed fee, but it&amp;#039;s less than some the ex-Dallas Cowboys here are charging, so he feels insulted by that. Plus, the traffic flow to his card table has shrunk to an unsteady trickle, and he&amp;#039;s mad about that, too.  So Pete&amp;#039;s sitting on a folding chair, munching a vending pack of peanuts, drinking a Diet Coke, and grumbling. He&amp;#039;s got his &amp;quot;Hit King&amp;quot; alligator-hide cap on, and his wafer-thin gold watch, and he&amp;#039;s just as sour as a Tribe fan in October. And a young guy -- mid-30s, maybe -- comes up to Pete&amp;#039;s table for an autograph. He&amp;#039;s holding a newspaper clip that he wants Pete Rose to sign. &amp;quot;I played a little bit,&amp;quot; he says. Sure enough, the clip is of a story about him as a scrappy minor-leaguer, about how his teammates teased him about being &amp;quot;Charlie Hustle&amp;quot; -- just like Pete. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what they called me,&amp;quot; he says to Rose now. &amp;quot;You were my idol growin&amp;#039; up. You were one of my inspirations to make it to the big leagues. They told me I didn&amp;#039;t have much. I broke my ass and made it.&amp;quot; His name is Brian Brady. He played for seven years in the minors and got two pinch-hit at-bats in The Show, in 1989, for the Angels. He smacked a 9th-inning RBI double against Seattle&amp;#039;s Mike Schooler in a 10-0 blowout on April 16, then whiffed in the 9th of a 4-3 loss six days later -- against The Eck. As you might guess, Pete isn&amp;#039;t quite all ears. When Brady ends his pr\u00E9cis of the pinnacle of his career, Pete looks up at him and nods. &amp;quot;Nice seein&amp;#039; ya,&amp;quot; Pete says. &amp;quot;How much longer ya gonna be in town?&amp;quot; Brady asks. Pete glances at his fancy watch.  &amp;quot;Two more hours,&amp;quot; he says. Brian Brady stands there for a few seconds longer, Maybe he&amp;#039;s waiting for Pete to say something else. Or he&amp;#039;s trying to think of what else to tell Pete. Either way, he comes up empty.  &amp;quot;Nice seein&amp;#039; ya,&amp;quot; he finally says, and turns, and vanishes again.  ***** Jay Levin: Watched The Big Lebowski all the way through the night before last, which is a rare treat. I pitched it to my wife thus: &amp;quot;This would really help you understand conversations with my brothers better.&amp;quot; Watching the game last night, I should have been thinking about the fact that while the Sox lineup isn&amp;#039;t as deep as a few years ago, they might be better 1-to-5. Manny and Papi are still the most devastating back-to-back hitters of my lifetime, second only to Ruth and Gehrig in the history of the game. Pedroia and Youk have real pop and on-base ability, breaking the mold of slap-hitting 1-2 hitters, and on most playoff teams, a guy like Lowell hits third. But last night, watching the ridiculous seven-run 5th, I wasn&amp;#039;t thinking about that. I was just shaking my head slowly -- maybe approvingly -- and thinking, &amp;quot;Boy...how you gonna keep &amp;#039;em down on the farm once they&amp;#039;ve seen Karl Hungus? ***** Eric Gillin: At the end of the 13-1 blowout, the guys at Fox put up the following stat: The Red Sox have won Game One by the largest margin in World Series history. The stat went on to say that the previous record-holders -- the 1959 White Sox and the 1996 Braves -- both ended up losing the World Series. What does this mean? It means that some producer in the Fox truck is absolutely shitting himself that people won&amp;#039;t tune in tomorrow night, thinking one game has determined the outcome of the entire Series. (Also, the game is going up against The Office and Survivor and Antiques Roadshow.) It also means: absolutely nothing! Baseball loves the late-inning useless statistic based on a microscopic sample. ***** Jay Levin: I&amp;#039;m a little surprised that even Tim McCarver can&amp;#039;t let go of the &amp;quot;bring back Beckett on short rest&amp;quot; idea, given that McCarver&amp;#039;s role on this broadcast team is supposed to be that of the &amp;quot;nonidiot.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m going to lay this out for Tim nice and slow: 1. Francona isn&amp;#039;t interested. 2. He never has been. 3. Unlike in the earlier rounds, you&amp;#039;d have to pitch a guy on short rest twice to get three starts out of him. 4. It&amp;#039;s almost as good to be able to bring him back in relief in Game Seven, and far less risky. 5. There isn&amp;#039;t going to be a Game Seven. 6. Beckett pitched the 6th and 7th last night because there was no downside to having him go from 70 to 93 pitches, under possibly the least stress of his entire career. 7. Given that, it was more valuable to save the bullpen than Beckett. But please, do go ahead and spend the next two games talking about how maybe -- just maybe -- Francona is thinking about using Beckett on short rest. ***** Eric Gillin: Today we have Curt Schilling going against some guy (Ubaldo Jimenez) I&amp;#039;ve never heard of and haven&amp;#039;t seen before. I&amp;#039;m not alone in this fact -- I&amp;#039;m willing to wager that most of the Red Sox have no idea what Ubaldo&amp;#039;s deal is either, since the 23-year-old Rockies pitcher only made it to The Show in August. Ergo: I&amp;#039;m not going to pretend to have any prediction other than to note that the Sox only need to get six solid innings from Schilling. Because they used Timlin and Gagne last night, some of their best arms -- namely, Okajima, Papelbon, and Delcarmen -- will probably see action tonight. ***** Visit the Baseball Blog Archive Don&amp;#039;t agree with something you&amp;#039;ve read? Kick dirt on Scott Raab and Jay Levin&amp;#039;s pants by e-mailing esquirebaseball@gmail.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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