SO: I’m sure it’ll be a hoot. Wonder if we’ll agree. Manny’s about style, and I can dig that, but sometimes that feigned nonchalance leads to real goofs, like not running out pops down the line that end up falling fair, or forgetting how many outs there are. He’s got a good arm, but he loves to do that cool no-look throw from the corner so much that often he doesn’t get enough zip on the ball and ends up rainbowing one in. And of course my favorite was when he forgot to call time after a double, stepped off second and got tagged out. But hey, it’s all part of being Manny.

August 23rd

SK: In the Times piece about the Yankees’ lost weekend, there is, so help me God, this line: “Meanwhile, the Red Sox loom.” So take that, Chip McGrath.

Curt Schilling calls the Lincoln, Rhode Island, Little League team to give them a pep talk before their game tonight. The kids and their coaches are gathered around a speakerphone on a table. Everyone’s pumped.

“Are you gonna win it?” Schill asks.

“Yeah!” everyone says.

And then one kid—a skinny little joker—leans over the phone and asks, “Are you?”

Just as the room busts up (there’s no more explosive laughter than nervous laughter—Vincent Price Masque of the Red Death laughter), the ESPN crawl at the bottom of the screen reads: GARCIAPARRA (CHI-NL) OUT WITH STRAINED WRIST.

The advantage we have in the wild card is that with the unbalanced schedule the teams in the West will be facing one another while we feast on scrubs like the Jays and D-Rays. Tonight we plan to cash in, throwing Pedro against Ted Lilly in the mostly empty SkyDome. Reed Johnson leads off the Toronto first with a home run. Orlando Hudson follows with a triple. Again, Pedro’s come out like his brother Ramon, as if he’s not warmed up to game speed. He settles down after that and throws a great game, only giving up two more hits, but Lilly’s on, and with our lack of righty power (and Tek serving his suspension for shoving A-Rod), he shuts us down, 3–0, a three-hit complete game—only the second shutout against us (Jason Schmidt’s is the other). The Yanks beat Cleveland on a Sterry Sheffield home run, and the Angels won to pull even with us. And the kids from Rhode Island lost.

August 24th