Clubby, Check This Man’s Flannels!

Has there been a mix-up in the dressing room? Did the Bostons newly acquired speed-boy Carl Crawford receive a cast-off complement of flannels last donned by the beleagured between-sacker High-Pockets Lugo?

Because to this Rooter’s eyes, Crawford’s pockets are looking mighty high in recent days…mighty high indeed. Correspondingly, his swatting average is lower than a U-Boat in the North Sea.

To-night, Crawford received a full-grown chance to forgo his funk and when he entered the batting-box with the sacks clogged and no “outs” on the scoreboard. Could he muster a four-ply drive? A two- or three bagger? Even an infant bounder?

Sadly, no! Crawford “whiffed” and failed to plate a single run (which, if I had my way, would relegate him to bench-minding duties for at least the next contest).

Check that man’s flannels, I say. Perhaps he’s been hexed by wearing the high-waisted breeches of the long-gone Lugo.

Delivery from the West Coast!

The results from sun-dappled California are here just days after the contests began between the Oaklands and our flannel-clad heroes.

Let me tear the envelope and deliver the goods:

In two tilts, the Red Stockings squandered a surprisingly efficient performance by "Simple Jack" Lackey, falling prey to the Athletics and their shiny white shoes, and took full advantage of effortless twirling by Beanpole Buchholz to even the series at one apiece.

To-night, the Bostons, having traveled the length of the new outpost of fashion and cinema that is California, will acclimate themselves to base-ball in the dry desert conditions of Anaheim.

We may sneak downstairs after mother puts the children to bed and repair to the wireless with a short glass of Duffy's. I am not, however, inclined to root in silence. Give me strength to remain quiet should the infield react to sharply hit ground balls with heavy handed muffs and boners, or should to-night's twirling cause me to chew fretfully on my moustache.

Catch the spirit!

Get a load of these gents in Beantown! Laughing up a storm whilst playing the pinch-and-tickles on the dug-out steps!

And why shouldn't they? On a day when some prefer to prove their physical prowess in a footrace through the avenues and byways of our fair towne, I rather enjoyed the relentless offensive assault taking place in the Fens.

Give our heroes a cheer and a slap. In four tilts, our base-ballers sent the team from America's Hat home with just one "Victory" notched. Our wayward hurler, Matsuzaka-san, proved worthy this day, launching pills that darted this way and that, confounding opposing swatters.

But the sweetest of all meats was the cacophony of ash sticks on horsehide. Clouts rang out from the concourse to the box seats, where industry tycoons and Rooters alike twirled their moustaches in glee instead of fretfully gnawing on their whiskers.

On Jedediah Lowrie! On Yukon Youkilis! On Carlton Q. Crawford, basepath speeder and amateur detective who delights in solving mysteries large and small among the clubhouse clique!

My friends, the urgency of your swatting was unmistakeable: the Boston Red Stockings are again a base-ball team, not a collection of wayward soup kitchen transients who spend their day suckling on government's ample bosom and fashioning home-made tattoo pencils out of old bicycle spokes and writing ink.

Onward!

Post-script: Greetings, Darkman. Make yourself welcome, and fare thee well!

Giddyap!

Now these bean-eating Boston boys are cooking with gas!

Two games in a row! That must be some sort of streak for the record books, by our reckoning!

Friday evening's contest was a galling disappointment, of course. The bumbling and stumbling continued, and yet again it seemed as though there may be no scratching our way out from this slough of despond.

By Saturday, however, one could allow oneself to think that maybe the proverbial worm had turned. General Joshua P. Beckett was indomitable once again. And his fine effort was this time backed up by a more potent swinging of lumber than we've seen of late – most notably by the spry and sprightly short-stop, Jedediah Lowrie, whose hat trick of hits included an impressive circuit clout launched into the seats atop the Green Monster.

Sunday, too, the sluggers parade continued. Why, even banjo hitters such as Jared "Salty" Saltalamacchia and "Speedy" Jacoby Ellsbury were getting in on the act, driving in runs left and right! As I sipped from my foamy mug of Gritty McDuff's ale, it was hard to suppress a small smile of satisfaction.

But indeed, there is much work still to be done. Despite these recent sparks of life, still no team in all of base-ball has won fewer games than the heretofore hapless Bostons.

So now, with sincerest of apologies for the brevity of this post, Chippy shall be hitting the hay early to-night. For game time is early to-morrow! And much is riding on this pre-noon contest!

Because it is that greatest of all holidays, Patriot's Day, when we commemorate the heroic Minutemen of Lexington and Concord packing their muskets with powder and preparing their rout of those Red-coated scoundrels.

With luck, the Olde Towne Team will celebrate by booting those crown-loving Canadians back to the commonwealth with their toque-wearing tails between their legs

Hopefully that fifth victory might be notched into the W column as the thundering foot-falls of thousands of Marathoners descend from Heartbreak Hill into the majesty of Kenmore Square.

The beatings will continue until play improves

It's a simple recipe, what these boys need.

They need pep!

They need vim! And vigor!

They just have to put some spring in their steps!

A bit of the old get-up-and-go, see?

Some fire in their bellies!

Some piss 'n' vinegar!

A bit of spunk is all. Some pluck!

The fans want to see a bit of that old pizazz!

Some zip and some zing and some zest!

And most of all they've got to have moxie!

A Dark Night of Duffy's

The nine have failed to notch another victory since The General's stirring charge against the Gothams.

For several frames, "Nothin' Doin'" Jonny managed to deny the Tampas any trips around the pillows, and Rooters' hearts swelled with each perfectly aimed pill and cloutless "whiff" of the enemies' ash. Then in one chapter a wheel fell off Jonny's trap, and former Hub Hero "Dolty" Damon swatted a run-plating "hit" to tilt the tally in favor of the Floridians.

Now a desultory April rain has delayed this evening's contest, which this reporter confesses he was dreading. "Simple Jack" Lackey has failed to rise above the standards of a factory-league pumpkin-tosser in his recent contests, making him an unlikely candidate to snuff a losing jag. But perhaps an additional day to work with the medicine ball or slather his limbs with liniments from the Orient will prepare him to deliver horsehide with vigor.

Meantime, Rooters warm themselves with Duffy's and wonder when the marching bands and color guards will again parade proudly through the Fens, honored to support a victorious squad.

Sunk!

Base Ball is a simple game. A squad must perform with some degree of aplomb the arts of hurling, swatting, and field-patrolling. Urchins in their alley-ways and sand-lots regularly perform these arts with mirth and glee – and I are say more success than the current nine shaming the history of the Red Stockings by wearing the Hallowed Flannel.

To-night’s contest was marked by hurling of the weakest kind. Abominable, hideous hurling. Hurling that bedevils Rooters’ restorative sleep with night-mares. Hurling that turns a box score into a crime scene.

Seven tallies surrendered by the second chapter! Sixteen “runs” made by the lowly Tampas by the final frame! The Boston’s ’11 campaign, which one evening prior appeared rescusitated by the nifty pill-piloting of our fearless General, is again taking on water.

The cannons did roar!

Like a canny field marshal, massing his troops and advancing on enemy lines with ineluctable puissance.

Like Robin Hood, of shady green Sherwood Forest, letting loose his slender shaft and splitting the arrow in a far yonder tree.

Like a master marksman, imbued with drunken boastfulness, walking 100 paces, turning, leveling his musket and exploding a can of ale into rusty smithereens.

Such are some the stirring similes that leap to mind when one thinks back up on the indubitably magisterial performance of one General Joshua P. Beckett this evening last.

Despite the Bostons' teeth-gnashing inability to move their men along – their baffling proclivity to leave seeming legions more of their teammates languishing on base with each passing inning – Gen. Beckett was unfazed.

He attacked the dastardly pinstripers with guts and guile. He worked with speed and efficiency. And thus, one by one, the Gothamites were dispatched. Down they went flailing, like Icarus tumbling from a sun-streaked sky.

Good show, sir!

Would it be unsporting to ask for more of the same from your Nipponese fellow traveler?!

The bunting was hung by the field box with care...

...In hopes that victory would soon be there.

In the sixth chapter, it is Gotham with six plates, and the Boston Towne Heroes with seven visits to "home".

Dare to dream, fellow rooters?

Extra, Extra: It was no dream! The Heroes have smashed the demon on their collective backs, gouging an all-important notch in the Victory column! Onward, gents!

Night Terrors

There is no moustache left un-chewed on any Rooter from Hartford to Houlton on this chill April evening. No stores of Duffy’s remain in any cupboard.

To-night the Bostons presented such a dismaying pantomime of base-ball that I wonder whether these flannel-clad bumblers steamed into Cleveland in Pullman cars, or clattered into the Cuyohoga city in the shabby wagons of a traveling side-show?

Tho’ there is blame enough to serve each man seconds, I reserve the lion’s share for relief twirler Dennys Reyes. And with his girth-to-grit ratio wildly titled toward the former, he seems poised with a spoon in hand to accept it. The sum total of his deliveries in the sixth chapter: Two “bean” balls and a free pass that placed a Cleveland at each sack! When two of those runners eventually crossed the dish to add to the opponents tally, the contest was lost.

Ninety Feet to Victory

Wipe the week-end's tilts from your memory, Rooters of the Beantown Heroes! To-night, General Joshua P. Beckett will command the foot soldiers of Flannel Company A in their march on Cleveland.

I smell a Victory in the offing. Let the good General deliver his orders with haste, and his horsehides with the precision of a veteran soldier. Imagine the General staring down from his hurling mound, arm cocked like an infantryman's rifle, ready to fire his wadding!

Good General, shoot that wad! Shoot it straight and true!

Unpleasantness! Again!

Jumping Jehoshaphat! Losers once more. And worse this time. In fact, rarely since Heracles was compelled to clean the Augean Stables has such a deluge of excremental fetor been loosed upon this poor world.

Gazing upon box score in the middle innings of the Bostons' Texas-sized trouncing Saturday night, it seemed clear early on that few would come out of this mess of a match-up smelling like the proverbial rose.

Least of all, of course, was John Lackey, who, with his hangdog deameanor and oversized underbite brings to mind the town yokel who fell off the turnip truck.

Old "Simple Jack" was hardly covering himself in glory: 10 hits and nine runs in the span of a mere three-and-two-third frames is not a peformance one would expect or hope for from our newly-slotted Number Two Man.

Be they doubles, triples, solo circuit clouts, or the grandest of slams, Lackey was happy to oblige the Lone Star State crowd with a fireworks show the likes of which may not have been seen since the year 1264, when Empress Dowager Gong Sheng enjoyed a feast held in her honor by her son, Emperor Lizong, during the late Song Dynasty.

It was the sort of spectacle that would have seen those ancient, long-ago Chinese sipping lustily from flagons of firewater. Here at Full Circuit Clout, we felt compelled, of course, to grab for yet more hefty pours of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey. ("For When You Are Not Looking Well!")

In fairness, truly, Simple Jack himself was not looking well. The flop sweat fell in rivulets as the balls flew far and fast.

All in all, it was a horrorshow of an evening. Not even the second monstrous clout of the young season from The Colossus, nor a flawless inning from hefty new hurler Bobby "Weirdbeard" Jenks could help to put a cheery face on the proceedings.

But neither Rome nor the green fens of Boston Towne were built in a day. And despite the galling disappointments inflicted thus far by this vaunted squad, us Rooters must keep our heads high and our chins held up!

Courage! Onward!

Pain! Torment!

O, the despicable head-aches! The fuzzy tongue of whiskey and ale! The punishing and agonizing pain from a day that began with so much hope and splendor!

Indeed, yester-day was the debut of the Flannel-Clad Heroes from the Hub, ready and willing to take on all comers in 162 tilts from Boston to The City of Angels. Your humble correspondent, Hurdy Chadwick, gathered with several like-minded gentlemen in putting our ears to the wireless and listening, breathlessly, to the exploits of our Gang of Base-Ball Wonders.

The day began gaily, with much mirth and several cup-fulls of tonic and cheer. The mood soured as quickly as the horsehide caromed from the Texans' bats into the arms of their ever-loving rooters. Our starting hurler, Nothin' Doin' Lester, did nothing to prevent clouts from ringing out from seemingly every direction. An added insult was the muff-prone antics of the infield defensemen. Though their flannels clearly were embroidered "BOSTON", it was if they were a band of derelict street urchins who had learned the rules of base-ball just minutes before the nine innings began.

The dreadful missives from the wireless announcer meant one thing: Cups of Duffy's, one after the next! The result: A fitful night's sleep and a day spent in fog, despite the clear blue April skies above.

A luncheon of smoked meats did little to ding the effects of the previous nights' fugue. Alas, we will persevere, and resume our post in front of the wireless for the next tilt. Let us hope it brings us relief, rather than us seeking solace in nerve tonics and ale.