The Fenway Phantom

Rooters: I have seen a ghost!

In truth, I’m haunted by this spirit at least four times each night, when an apparition formerly known as “Ol’ Aches and Pains” Drew materializes in the batting box.

How else can one explain the inconsequence with which Ol’ Aches and Pains swings his stick? Ectoplasm has no mass, and without mass there is no kinetic energy to transfer from pine to pill.

Instead, an astral body wearing the Number 7 Flannels glides silently into a swatting stance for each turn at the dish and hovers there in the ether. When he chooses to wave his lumber we hear not the crack of a crisply-struck “hit”, but a feeble sigh from the spiritual realm.

Madame Blavatsky herself could not conjure a more astonishing demonstration of the “other side.” But I, for one, am tired of this spook-act, and would greatly prefer that Ol’ Aches and Pains returns to his corporeal form and applies the physical molecules of wood to horsehide.

The Physician’s Best Friends

Monitoring the clouting progress and hurling proficiency of our Bostons is one of the delights of spring base ball training. Less delightful is the need to recount the ongoing maladies of those players who don the hospital gown more often than the team flannels.

To wit: “Ol’ Aches and Pains” Drew seems unable to shake the dreaded lumbago that has afflicted him throughout the lushing season. Reports issued today indicate the hobbled out-fielder chugged north via steam locomotive for a meeting with spine specialists, who administered syringe-cure directly to the afflicted portions of his backbone.

For corn’s sake! At this rate, the brittle baller will have more pricks than a seamstress’s pin cushion before they’ve hung the Opening Day Bunting on Fenway’s Green edifice!

And what of our hapless short-stop “High Pockets” Lugo? Seems he’s once again looking peaked, blaming his condition on poisoned victuals! The Dominican’s delicate gut requires a steady drip of anti-fogmatics (Duffy’s, we presume) and filtered spring waters. If he’s not looking well soon, he’s sure to un-do all the muscular conditioning achieved through his rigorous sessions with the medicine-ball.

Note to team staff: Please determine whether one Mary Mallon is employed as High Pockets’ personal chef. In the interim, keep “Square Face” Lowrie on a diet of Graham Crackers and Ginger beer. We can’t afford two sickly scarecrows in the all-important position between the sacks.

The return of Ol' Aches and Pains

"Ack! My old spare tire!"

Amidst the cheers and well-wishes of the assembled ball-field heroes, this one solitary lament rang clear and true through the dressing room. There was little surprise that the one vocalizing his discontent was David John Drew -- or, as the cynical scribes of Boston-town have taken to calling him, "Ol' Aches and Pains".

Indeed, it seems that another season has begun with Aches and Pains sidelined by one or another malady. This time, it's the old lumbago flaring up, causing discomfort when leaning to field a well-struck horsehide or slicing his ash through the striking-zone with any of his butter-smooth swings.

What gives, Ol' A&P? Have we not shown you the proper respect and admiration for your clouting and mitten-wielding antics? For what do we deserve this latest malady? Or perhaps, it is just the body's way of alerting you that your playing days are on the wane.

Advice: Hot liniment and soothing ointments to refresh the blood vessels and assorted human machinery in the lower-back region. Then, to top it off, a nip or two of Duffy's for a well-rounded, purposeful feeling. Back to new!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Once these lads unload their milk jugs at Oakhurst Dairy in Portland, they'll motor south over the Piscataqua and through the coastal farmlands of New Hampshire to the bustling city of Boston.

The destination is Lansdowne Street, and Friday's job is thus: Pack the catching mittens of our trunk-legged Captain, and the ointments and slings for our fragile outfielder. Assemble the thick ash clouting sticks of our home-town Colossus, and the garish night-time clothing of our eccentric but loved hurler. Make haste to pack the salt pills and water jugs, for the Floridian sun is sure to wreak havoc with our Heroes' wintering temperments.

The trucking enterprise will include a caravan of flatbeds and diesel janes running the length of the eastern seaboard to deliver the goods to the Gulf Coast enclave of the Red Stockings' spring-time home.

Indeed, the entire Red Stocking squad will convene from far and wide in Fort Myers in just a few weeks' time, and the first sign of the end of the Lushing Season and the beginning of the hard work that precedes a 162-game season of professional base-balling.

Rest assured, Rooters, that intrepid reporters Hurdy Chadwick and Stuffy McInnes will deliver to you the finest of discussions regarding our Olde Town Team, and will cheer in the earliest sprouts of the newest base-ball season.

Huzzah, the grand game is nearly back!

Escape these chains!

The good lads of Boston are preparing for quite a fight this eve, when the Red Stockings engage the Floridians of the American Base-Ball League in the fourth of a best-of-seven matchup for league victors.

Today, the Bostons are in a two-games-to-one hole. One might say they are wearing the manacles of the underdog, those heavy steeled chains that apparently are binding our sluggers' hands to their leg-irons. Would that the Mighty Colossus and our Lil' Hands Pete have the strength to swing massive ashen clouts out of that abominable base-ball stade in the St. Petersburg area! Would that our hurling corps remind themselves of where "ball" and "strike" land, and how best to deliver the pill to would-be-swatters.

Tonight, let us remind our wobbly pill-man, Knuckles Wakefield, that all of Boston beseeches him to grasp victory with his well-leathered hurling hand.

Onward, Bostons!

NB: It has come to our attention at FCC that one David John Drew, whose clouting heroics against the Clevelanders were celebrated far and wide nearly one year ago this night, takes over the leading off position from our young buck, Jac Ellsbury, the human wind machine. Godspeed, David John! Round the basebaths so Little Horse and the Large Father may bring you home!

Speaking in clouts

Bleary-eyed Rooters awoke this morning still gobsmacked by the spectacle of swatting performed by our Bostons in last evening’s contest. Was it merely the fever-dream of the dyspepctic off his Duffy’s? Most certainly not!

It was, indeed, a contest book-ended by tremendous clouts from the Red Stockings, who have not let the unfamiliar environs of the Pacific Coast shake their resolve to achieve another World’s Championship Title. Fittingly, the decisive blows were delivered by two bats-men who share their names with mythical heroes from the mists of time.

First, Jason “Argonaut” Bay proved worthy to carry the name of that seafaring Greek adventurer, delivering a first-chapter four-bagger that achieved three “runs” for the local nine. Alas, frame after frame of pesky swatting by the Anaheims erased the Bostons superior run total, until our boys were down to their last three batting opportunities.

But then, “David” John Drew faced down the Goliath of closing-chapter hurlers, Francisco “Jowly” Rodriguez. Armed not with a sling, but with his ash bat, the result was the same. One stroke, and the villain was vanquished, as the pill sailed resolutely into farthest bulwark.

Huzzahs and congratulatory handshakes raced about the drawing room where myself, Hurdy Chadwick, and an extended gang of Rooters had been hanging on every hurl and swat conveyed over the wireless. The Bostons are as we speak steaming eastward to attempt a “sweep” of the Anaheims at Friendly Fenway Park. Gen. Joshua P. Beckett, scheduled to deliver the orb despite his recent infirmities, has no doubt been inspired by his team-mates to etch another heroic chapter in the legend of October Red Sox base ball.

A return to form

After last night's disheartening loss to the pale hose of Chicago, I was feeling gloomy about the Bostons' clouting skills. Except for a tremendous wallop by our magnificent midget second-sacker "Li'l Hands" Pedroia, not one of the nine seemed able to scuff the old pill, let alone strip it of its horsehide.

A few chapters into this evening's contest, and the pattern was the same. Weak taps, rainbow "fly" balls, and flailing three-strike "outs" left the Bostons with another awful "goose egg" on the score-board. Such was my dismay that I even beseeched Mr. Chadwick, "What's become of our batting?"

Well, the base ball gods must have heard my whinging and decided to teach me a lesson. In one frame, the ruddy-ankled roustabouts put on a classic assault from the batting-box: Speedy Ellsbury laced a "grounder" through the gloves of the sprawling Chicago fielders; Capt. Varitek followed with a solid single; Ol' Aches and Pains proved why his eye for the incoming orb is second-to-none, recording a base-on-balls; Li'l Hands once again weilded his large lumber for a run-scoring swat.

The decisive blow came, of course, from "Colossus" Ortiz, who swept the diamond clear of Red Stockings with a two-bagger that caromed off the left-field bulwark! Advantage, Bostons!

Jac Ellsbury's four-ply drive in the next frame seems to confirm that the lad is finding his stroke again, which is a portent all Rooters should find as comforting as a fine cigar and a leather arm-chair. Stuffy has been humbled to-night. I won't again doubt the dynamite in the Bostons' bats.

A double-fisted hero, with talent to spare!

What a gentleman ball-player! The previously derided David John "J.D." Drew, he of the "Ol' Aches and Pains" moniker, has been such a breath of fresh mountain air for the Bostons this first half-season. Indeed, his play has been a tonic for the spirit, much like a nip of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey to cure dyspepsia.

But until last night, David John's heroics were largely sequestered in the minds and hearts of Boston's Rooters. Now, his name is known far and wide after his most-valuable play at the All-Star shenanigans at New York's Yankee Stadium -- a park so festooned with bunting during its final victory lap amongst the base-ball cognoscenti that it nearly collapsed under the weight of the gaily colored felts and cottons.

And not only did David John drive the pill into the cheering throngs late in the seventh chapter to make a "tie", but he also surrendered his ego to volunteer for hurling duty as the match wound its way into the wee hours before a victor was named. Alas, there was no need for David John's knuckler as Tampa's Scott "Church Mice" Kazmir twirled the final frame to bring in the victory for the American League ball-players.

Clout! Clout! Clout! Clout!

In Sunday's deciding match between the Bostons and the Reds of Cincinnati, there was one single, immutable truth recognized by the thousands in attendance: Trotting out a starting hurler named "Homer" is not in a team's best interest.

Indeed, home-runs were the order of the day for the crack Boston squad, with even the littlest of the clouters swatting the pill over out-field fenceposts. "Lil' Hands" Pedroia and “Navajo” Jac Ellsbury burst four-ply drives from their ash sticks, and crafty veteran J.D. "Aches and Pains" Drew continuing his torrid affair with the full-circuit clout. Add a deeply powdered shot by Covelli "K.O." Crisp, our pint-sized pugilist, and the Bostons' order was shown to be particularly robust amid the sweltering Ohio summer sun.

But he-man heroics was not the only recipe in the kitchen. For the Bostons' fleet feet provided an extra dose of vigor and another means of posting numbers on the score-board. Take Ellsbury, the gazelle of the roster, whose snatched both second and third base in succession in the first inning after beginning the chapter with a one-bagger. That twin burgling surely placed the Cincinnati's on their collective heels, for the team never recovered and ended the day with nary a "run" on the board. Final score: 9-0, Bostons.

Today, the Bostons continue their swing through the unfamiliar National League parks as they visit the home of the Philadelphia Philadelphias. An exciting match, to be sure!

And the hills cried, "David John Drew!"

Send the doctor away! Have him pack up his leather kit and vacate the house! He must keep his tongue depressors, iron braces and vials of Duffy's, because the aches-and-pains have bidden our right-field-man good riddance! For as the robins sing high and low amongst the trees, J.D. Drew is alive and well!

Huzzah to the good fortune of the Bostons! There was once a time when Ol' Aches and Pains Drew routinely showed at the club-house and bee-lined for the medical office, complaining of one ailment or another. One day rheumatism, another the grip. Just days ago, Ol' Aches and Pains was laid low by the vertigo, that dastardly affliction that makes a sober man drunk and a drunk man cry for the soft baby Jesus.

Here at Full Circuit Clout, we have a theory behind his fragility: What stardust he must have taken into his lungs during his adventures in Los Angeles! Will all the motor cars huffling and chuffling past The Brown Derby, one would be lucky to enjoy a simple ham-burger without an un-wanted side order of soot and grime!

Alas, this particular West-to-East story has a turn for the happy, as Ol' Aches and Pains has become a veritable comet of base-ball brilliance in the last few matches. Against both the young Tampa upstarts to the recent hosting of the Seattles, Drew swatted the ash like a man stuffed with vim and quaffing vigor by the quart. He also roamed the right-field turf like a starved nightstalker awaiting his prey, gobbling up balls by the glove full, no matter how difficult and circuitous route he was to run.

Indeed, he wrapped a swell chunk of games with a fine catch of a Richie "Shorty" Sexson line-drive, and his four-ply drive in the sixth chapter became the deciding factor in the victory for the Bostons.

After a day of rest, Baltimorians escape the sweltering heat of the mid-Atlantic for the sweet New England summer.

Two mighty shots, and down go the Kansans!

There’s no more devastating blow in all of sport than a full circuit clout delivered with a full complement of base-runners on the bags. One such wallop is a rare and delightful enough sight. Two in the same contest? That is an embarrassment of riches, and a sure road to ruin for the hapless squad that receives such a battering.

And so, down went the Kansas City nine to the Bostons’ heavy batting. Ol’ Aches and Pains Drew and Mike “Two-Bags” Lowell made the most of their turns at the plate, when the diamond was studded with red-stocking’d gents. Not even our volatile, hydrogen-fueled relief corps could surrender the lead achieved on the occasion of those two mighty swats.

Onward to California, where our boys must again battle the discomforts of the cramped Pullman car, unfamiliar grounds, and the questionable availability of Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey. Let’s hope the heavy batting continues tonight, to support the always erratic twirling of Knuckles Wakefield.

It most certainly can!

Question posed by the inimitable Stuffy McInnes: Will the return to Fenway net the heroic World Champions a winning match after a slurry of tourist losses? Indeed so, my good man!

A notch in the win column is surely the tonic the home-town boys need to get their ash bats cracking. And though those sticks were largely silent in last night's epic twirler-on-hurler demonstration between Johnny "Seattle Slick" Lester and Roy "Smeck" Halladay, we were pleased to see fine play on both sides of the frame. Each pitching man delivered pill after pill, their deliveries obfuscating the horsehide and making the hitters contemplate the intersection of physics and athletics on the walk back to the dugout.

To make matters more difficult for the hosting team, Ol' Aches and Pains Drew came up lame early in the match, complaining of a touch of the gout after huffing-and-puffing his way to the first bag after connecting bat to ball. No whispers of his condition have circulated.

In all, each side managed just one hit through the eighth inning. In the ninth, it seemed as if the ball struck by Vernon "Not David" Wells, the Canada's Team's feared slugger, was destined for the open grass of Fenway's emerald turf. But huzzah to Li'l Hands Pedroia! The pint-sized pugilist struck a blow to the Canada Team by spearing the pill and delivering it with great gusto to the Beard of the Ages, first-base-man Kevin Youkilis. What thrills from the second-base-man who must quaff quarts of can-do before each match!

The heroics certainly rubbed off on The Beard, as the lasts of the final frame shone "Victory" on the home-team thanks to a sharp drive into the center-field, which helped The Colossus round the third bag and make his way homeward to applause from all the Rooters in attendance.

A fine way to begin a set of matches in Fair Boston!

The Bostons Triumph in Inaugural Match!

The season of match playing began today far from the local ball-field, with the Boston squad joining the Athletics of Oakland in a diplomatic expedition to the island nation of Japan. Despite the foreign environs, both teams played with vim and determination, offering a very fine display of the beauties of the game.

It must be admitted that Boston starting hurler and returning native Matsuzaka-san began the game poorly. Displaying little command of the pill, Matsuzaka issued five bases on balls during his first four frames. The Oaklands helped themselves by making several conclusive hits, including a shocking four-bagger gotten by the second batsman of the match.

Meanwhile, the Boston bats remained stymied until the 6^th inning, when noted swat-artist Manny Ramirez hit a magnificent drive for two bases that allowed two Bostonians to cross the home plate. There was much celebrating on the field and clamor from the assembled spectators. A subsequent hit made by the yannigan Brandon Moss brought Ramirez full-circuit, and knotted the score in a three-run “tie.”

Alas, the Bostons lost their advantage quickly, when lanky twirler Snyder served up the sphere on a platter for Hannahan of Oakland, who clouted it over the wall for another two Oakland runs.

Just when the game seemed lost, young Moss toed the dirt in the batters box and declared his presence again, smashing a drive out of the park to notch the equalizer in the top half of the final inning. It was his first-ever four-bagger for the major league club, and certainly one that will be recounted for years on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

The feat was even more impressive considering Moss was a late addition to the starting nine, after Ol’ Aches and Pains Drew became a late scratch. It seems he’s suffering from a bout of dreaded lumbago -- most likely caused by tight quarters during the long steamer trip overseas.

With both clubs recording four runs, a tenth inning had to be played. Again, Ramirez delivered a merciless blow to the old pill, sending it caroming off the out-field wall and allowing two more of his club-mates to round the bags. It proved to be the edge the Bostons needed to prevail on this day, a memorable opening day, from the faraway land of Japan.