The Sox, clearly happy to be back from the West Coast, put a hurtin’ on the Minnesota Twins last night. The newly returned Nomar Garciaparra hit a grand salami of his own to dead center field. And NESN, in slavish imitation of its bigger brother, Fox Sports (even the name of the feature’s the same—Sounds of the Game), decided to mike a player and pick up some ambient audio. The player they picked was the also newly returned Trot Nixon, a wise choice, since Trot, like Mike Timlin, is long on Praise Jesus and short on Y’oughta knock ’is fucking head off for that. It was a noble experiment, but a failure, I think. When Nomar’s home run brought the capacity Fenway crowd to its feet, cheering at the top of its lungs, the TV audience was treated to the sound of a laconic Trot Nixon: “Go, ball. Go on, now. ’At’s right.” And, greeting #5 as he crossed the plate, these immortal words: “Good job, Nomie.”

Nomie?

Well, everyone has his walk in life, or so ’tis said—the sportswriters have one, the ballplayers another. Maybe that’s the point.[24] And we kept pace with the Yankees. That might also be the point. And the hapless-no-more D-Rays won their twelfth straight. And Kevin Youkilis sat last night’s out while Mark Bellhorn did not do too much at third base. And Brian Daubach is still hitting meaningless home runs for the triple-A PawSox. Those things might also be the point. Multiple points are, after all, a possibility; even a probability in this increasingly complex world, but—

Git out, ball?

Caitlin’s graduation takes place on the high school’s baseball field. The stage is just beyond first base, and we’re sitting in shallow right. I’ve brought a pocket radio the Pirates gave away in the early ’80s with a single sneaky earbud, and as the speeches drag on, Minnesota loads the bases with no outs in the first. Lowe gets two ground balls, but again, we can’t turn either double play, and the Twins go up 2–0 without hitting the ball out of the infield.

Later, at the graduation party at our house, I tune in to find the Twins up 4–2 in the eighth. Pokey hurt his thumb and left the game early. It’s a worry because it’s the same thumb that put him out nearly all of last season.

The Twins hold on to win. I catch the highlights: Torii Hunter hit a two-run shot in the fifth to put them up 4–0. We got solo shots from Trot and Bellhorn, that was it.

Miraculously, the O’s beat the Yanks, so we’re still four and a half back.

June 24th