The picture of comfort!

Update! My concern over "Speed-Boy" Crawford's dismal stickwork reached such heights over the week-end that I slipped a copper to a messenger-boy, with instructions to deliver a bottle of Duffy's to the Fenway club-house attendant.

Affixed to that shiny flagon of sweet brown relief was a brief message about securing a new set of Flannels for Crawford -- preferably ones that had not been tainted by the miasma of failure that once made "High Pockets" Lugo the object of such scorn among Rooters. Message received, and the switch made to a fine set of looser-fitting togs, the Speed-Boy emerged envigorated on Sunday, striking the decisive blow to secure a victory for the Bostons!

He's a new man out there, poised to punish the horsehide and demonize the base-paths with his bag burgling! Meanwhile the nine continued to dominate the Anaheims on Monday evening, breaking up a fine hurling duel with a symphony of clouts in the seventh frame.

Not unnoticed, however, was the shameful Sunday afternoon performance of shaky twirler Jenks, who cost "Knuckles" Wakefield -- the sport's finest Gentleman -- a much deserved "win" for his sparkling deliveries during emergency mound duties. Jenks had apparently chewed his mustache clean off his lip in an attempt to reverse his spate of dismal luck, yet the troubles remain.

March on, mighty Bostons!

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.

With a whimper...

So it has finally come to pass: The Bostons advance to the Series of Divisional Champions, where they will contest the right to raise a World Series banner above Fenway's gleaming green battlements.

And yet there is no rejoicing in the McInnes household. Tho' I have spent weeks crossing this nation in clattering steam trains on assignment for my gainful employers, I have glumly followed the seeming evaporation of our heroes' vigor in recent weeks.

Their shameful display of shabby hurling and swatting of late is an insult to the beauties of the game. What they have been playing can barely be termed "base ball."

Something must change before the first tilt against the wily Angels of Anaheim in the Los Angeles region of California: Order double rations of Duffy's for the squad! Coat their athletic supporters with mentholated liniments! Anything to strike a fire under this beleaguered band of bumblers!

The glory awaits, but not for the faint-hearted!

Gentlemen, show your cards!

While rooters across New England chew their moustaches clean off their lips, Red Stockings General Manager Theo "Boy Wonder" Epstein is waving cigar smoke from his visage, reading ticker-tapes, dispatching messenger boys and cranking his telephone device in an effort to secure new troops for the remaining months of the 2009 base ball campaign.

Scuttlebutt is flying faster than an aeroplane as the clock marches inexorably toward the 4:00 trading deadline. When the hour tolls, who will remain, who will depart, and who will join the squad?

Alas, I am moments from boarding a steamer-ferry for a summer cottage colony on an island in Casco Bay! I hope to receive a strong enough wireless signal to remain current on the latest news, but if nothing else, I will rely on the daily broadsheets and tabloids to recount the results during the week-end.

Until then, keep a tight hold on the Duffy's and remain faithful!

Yrs.

Stuffy McInnes

In the woods, the Rooters cheered!

The above photo-types were snapped this week-end in Winthrop, Maine, at a sylvan site on Little Narrows Pond where Stuffy, Hurdy and an assorted band of miscreants gathered to raise glass after glass to the Topsham Ham Fighters, that talented band of pond-hockey enthusiasts of which we all belong.

On Friday evening, a-fore the campsite was thronging with various ladies and family members intent on swimming and carrying on, the men dug holes, pondered glasses of Duffy's and tossed metal washers in an ingenious game dubbed "O'Connor". (It is most certainly a regional game, perhaps a variation on the Midwesterner's popular game of "Cornelius".)

But as we doled out generous drams of Duffy's and punctured several canisters of ale, we also bent our collective ear to the traveling wireless, which L.A. Gray, captain of the Ham Fighters, had carted down to the waterfront after fashioning a block-and-tackle system from several stout fir poles and hand-wound roping.

We listened intently as Jonathan "Nothin' Doin" Lester twirled a glorious set of ace-less frames, and engaged in rousing choruses of cheers as Dustin "Lil' Hands" Pedroia belted a winning two-sacker in the eighth frame.

The following evening, we sat quietly by the fire-light, the Duffy's having left its mark on our now-fragile constitutions, and listened as the Red Stockings see-sawed with the visiting Kansas City. The visiting yannigans scratched ace after ace despite the ash sticks of the home team supplying much early clouting and plating of lads. Indeed, it was as if the Red Sox hurling corps had taken an early leave and left the pill to a gaggle of fresh-faced pennant-hangers from the nearby colleges. In the end, our moustache-chewing was not required, as the Bostons regained their menacing stance at the home pentagon. Another win for the heroes in Red and Blue!

And Sunday, after a morning of sweeping pine needles from our britches and trucking southward to home, I again settled in for a hurling demonstration from the Good Gen. Joshua P. Beckett, whose pill tossing set the gold standard among pretzel men around the league. The ale was cold, the camaraderie excellent, and the tavern most welcoming.

From the woods to Westbrook, a weekend to recall when the snow begins to fly and I replace my cotton duvet with a Pendleton blanket. Summer, I love thee.

Fare-the-well, Col. Westbrook!

The good scribe, Col. Westbrook

Allow me a brief departure from base-ball happenings and Red Stockinged conquests about this great land, for I have news.

It is with heavy heart I relay to you, dear readers, that the editor and publisher of my most favorite local news gathering organization, Westbrook Diarist, has shuttered its doors, ran its inkwells dry and moth-balled its printing presses.

At first mention of the closing of the most esteemed periodical to grace the banks of the Presumpscot since Nell Cavanaugh's Studies of Cumberland County Loam: A Land-Tiller's Quarterly Reference, I retired glumly to my sitting chair. Pondering the news, I poured a healthy dram of Duffy's and, with not a little moisture in my eyes -- which I ascribed to the summer catarrhal, of course -- raised my glass to Col. Westbrook, the brave and enterprising documentarian of all things of note in the Paper City.

Though a relative newcomer to the lush boundaries of Westbrook, the good Colonel has educated me and the local citizenry as to what it means to live with local fervor, and to heartily celebrate this burg on the periphery of Portland's bustling seaport.

What's more, Col. Westbrook was magnanimous with his observations, and took time to share with Full Circuit Clout his fine rememberances of when the Red Stockings deigned to travel north from Boston to share the shining loot of World Series Victory with the men and ladies of Maine. We at Full Circuit Clout are honored to feature his writings.

So to Col. Westbrook, we salute thee with a flagon of Duffy's! Huzzah to the Diarist from the Banks of the Presumpscot! May your writings live on and invigorate future generations of Westbrookians!

Mister, can you spare some vim?

Let us acknowledge the corn: The first week of the Bostons’ 2009 base ball campaign has been nothing short of wretched.

Last evening, I was filled to the brim and ready to over-flow with sad words for my fellow Rooters. But after a sleepless night of moustache chewing and Duffy’s-taking, I settled my brain with the notion that the first moments of a long campaign are rarely indicative of its conclusion. After all, Napoleon’s Grande Armee looked formidable as it commenced its march on Moscow in 1812. Recall from your history lessons the result of that folly.

Instead, I have puzzled through the Bostons apparent lack of base ball skills by turning the question from tip to tail: Which members of the local nine appear to be in fine fettle, and what is their secret?

The answer, gleaming like a spire in the spring sunlight, is our resolute first-sacker: “Yukon” Youkilis!

Altho’ noticeably less hirsute, Yukon is nonetheless scalding the horsehide in the same terrible fashion he displayed last season. He’s making hits in roughly every other plate appearance, while his teammates can barely manage to reach the first station in one quarter of their attempts. He is swatting four-ply drives and “extra” base hits as if to register his disgust with the offerings of opposing hurlers!

Perhaps Yukon’s bottomless reserves of vigor can be attributed to his off-season conditioning and gustatory habits. I’ve heard from my club-house informants that team-mates have asked him to prepare a luncheon of the bush victuals he regularly consumes while recuperating from the season (and cultivating his whiskers) in the remote northern wilderness.

On the menu today: Beaver-tail soup, bear sausage, and raw lake trout pulled directly from the icy waters and still flopping in protest. Let us hope this meal restores the rest of our Nine to their optimum hurling, swatting and fielding condition.

We shan't take this lying down!

After yesterday's thrilling wallop of the upstart Tampa Bays -- and the courageous hurling of the good Gen. Joshua P. Beckett -- to-day's tilt was one step back for the boys in Red.

Jonny "Nothin' Doin'" Lester certainly was doing something. And that "something" apparently was not prodigous hurling, for our twirler offered free window dressing to the lads from the Sunshine State rather than confounding pretzel deliveries of the pill. Though Nothin' Doin' had some agreeable moments, the Tampa Bays put ash stick after ash stick on the old horsehide, knocking it to and fro about the Fens.

It is clear that my constitution is not up to snuff at such an early point in the base-ball season, as this one "loss" has muddled my head and made me reach for the Duffy's on more than one occasion. Still, one must remind oneself that it is far better to follow a losing base-ball contest than to toil at a menial task or other mundane drudgery. And for that, I am certainly thankful for all that this season of base-ball promises to offer.

To-morrow, fresh tubes for the wireless and a refill of the Duffy's jug. It is time to settle in for a season of hurling and clouting!

Dukes up for St. Patrick!

The lads added a dash of green to their home whites to-day, in a jaunty salute to old St. Patrick, the patron saint of four-ply drives and corkscrew hurling.

And what a day to be from Boston! The heroic Red Stockings laid bare those crosstown yannigans, the Minnesotans, to regain the lead in the Mayor's Cup competition. What's more, fun was to be had at the expense of Lil' Hands Pedroia, when The Colossus Ortiz tricked a little man in green to wear old Lil' Hands' numbers.

Indeed, good friends, a satisfying time was had by all at the ball-park confines this day! Levity was on special, and shenanigans were being heaped by the plateful. What a time to be alive -- even yours truly indulged in a few thimbles of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey as the gents started hurling and twirling. (Truth be told, I am now tight as a tin drum, good people!)

To-day, celebrate. On the morrow, it is a return to the business at hand.

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!

Let's go down to Florida Town!

The slush piles continue to grow in the northeast, but Red Stockings hurlers and their prodigious mitt-men already have escaped the winter wind.

As I write, our heroic batterymates from all points in the country are chuffing on railroads toward sunny Florida. Buchholz, Lester, Beckett, the gang's all here! Saito, Smoltz and Penny, the new crop comes with freshly oiled mitts and a willingness to learn the game the Bostonian way -- with courage, grit and flaggons of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey at the ready!

Tomorrow, the Lushing Season ends and Spring Training begins. Glory to be alive, for spring can't be far behind in New England!

The Gift That Keeps Giving

With the Yuletide season reaching its apex, we Rooters are as frenzied as the urchins awaiting a visit from Jolly Old Saint Nick.

But while they dream of sugar-plums, jelly candies and the latest mechanical tin-toy marvels, we hope that the Oligarchs that control the Red Stocking Base-Ball Franchise will deliver us a special gift for the coming season: Perhaps a slugging first-sacker shipped in from the Western Coast? Or another fire-balling hurler to complement our ranks of horsehide heroes?

Yet amidst the aching want, I was reminded of the true "spirit" of the season. For today, un-announced, the letter-carrier delivered to me a special package by parcel post. Inside, lovingly secured in a bed of cushioning chaff, was a bottle of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey, sent to me from none other than Mr. Hurdy Chadwick.

A warming gulp filled me with the glow of the Christmas star, and reminded me that base-ball will come again, bringing rooters together in fine company for songs and cheers and even the occasional hoots of derision when our boys on the diamond fall short of their goals. No matter who wears the flannels next season, we will be rooting. We few. We Happy Few. We band of brothers!

So let the wee ones enjoy their stockings full of trinkets and sweets. I shall be preparing a special Wassail this season with Duffy's finest elixir. The green of the Tannenbaum shall stand in for the green fields of the ball-park until the Spring returns -- and with it, our timeless game.

Prepare for battle!

One-hundred and sixty-two games in the musty old books. Thousands of pills delivered to home-plate, hundreds of erstwhile sluggers mystified by the Red Stockings' vexing hurlers. Numerous clouts beyond the reach of mortal base-ball fielding men, an uncountable basket of fine feelings among the Rooting set.

Tonight, the Bostons have completed their steam across country to the orange grove capital of the world, Anaheim, Calif., where they will take on the Angels of Anaheim in Los Angeles County. Halos be damned! Our boys are heading to battle, and Stuffy and I, Hurdy Chadwick, will be glued to the wireless, no doubt salving our anxious souls with a dose or two of Duffy's as the Bostons begin their post-season campaign.

Clear the women and children from the room: This is October base-ball!

Whither the General?

And so the long base ball contesting season has reached its terminus. The irrelevant New Yorks may have taken some solace from their two “wins” during the week-end, but a squad of Boston yannigans delivered a rousing victory in extra frames last evening that reiterated the essence of the thing: Boston continues the quest for a Pennant, while the New Yorks have a long winter of moustache-chewing ahead of them.

Yet an “extra” flashed across the wires late Sunday night that added a disquieting note to the celebration. It seems our great and terrible hurler, Gen. Joshua P. Beckett, has suffered some kind of ailment in his “oblique,” which necessitates a delay in his mound-helming duties. I’m no sawbones, but I’ve seen other fine ball-players sidelined for extended periods with such injuries, and we can not be sure if the General will indeed be in top performing condition when he returns to duty.

Sweet fancy Moses! Let’s hope the Boston medical men are administering frequent doses of Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey during the upcoming days. And if it comes to it, let them stick the General with a shot of Soldier’s Joy before his scheduled appearance. Whatever it takes to put the pill in his hand for a play-off game.

Let us kindly offer those New Yorks a firm tushy slapping!

For Rooters of the Bostons, venturing into the Bronx in the recent decade has been an exercise in girding ones constitution and preparing for a heaping helping of downtown fisticuffs. We're talking square-legged, arms spinning, clothes rending fisticuffs, like the bare-knuckled brawling Rooters so often would see outside of Rosie's Portland Tavern after a clutch of patrons had imbibed more than his or her alloted share of Duffy's old brown medicine.

This year's trip, however, has a rare feeling. Where is the bluster and swagger of the Blue Pinstriped Youth of the Bronx? Where are the ripe words of Boston's finest scribes? Where is the general kerfuffle of a weekend feature red versus blue, Boston versus New York, good versus crummy?

Nowhere, friends, and that's what bothers ol' Hurdy Bird. For while the once-potent New Yorks may be shrinking in the looking glass, they still possess the power to upset the Bostons' 162-game marathon with a few choice swats of the ash. I, for one, would like nothing more than to see those Bostons steamroll into the soon-to-be-former Yankee Stadium of New York and apply their collective hands to the ample tuchus of the Steinbrenner-led Goliaths of base-ball.

For while ash on horsehide will be sweet, nothing is sweeter than the red handprint of the Bostons on a Bronx heinie! Let fly, boys!

A change of address

At long last, the beleaguered “Beanpole” has packed his gripsack and boarded an express train out of Boston. He punched his own ticket with another dreadful hurling performance last evening that, mercifully, lasted barely two chapters. It was long enough, however, to let Victory drape her gentle cloak over the Birds of Baltimore.

His destination: The junior-league squad of Portland, Maine. That being Hurdy’s and Stuffy’s local metropolis, we shall endeavor to witness a contest from the grand-stand to provide for you, Rooting readers, a first-hand account of his remedial twirling training. I am also prepared to offer the lad free reign over my private stock of Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey, if it should restore his nerves.

Tuesdays with Hurdy: The lushing youth

Tuesdays with Hurdy is a weekly exercise allowing Hurdy Chadwick to ponder issues of importance to the general Rooting public. Today's installment finds Hurdy evaluating whether the nation's youths are taking to drink at too fresh an age.

Dear friends,
This week-end, I had occasion to traipse through the old college courtyard, shuffling through the dewy grass and gazing skyward at the bright blue of a late summer ceiling. It was a rare feeling I had that morning, and one that only a hearty extended tramp through a collegiate quadrangle can bring to the lungs and chest. Huzzah, fresh summer air and ivy-covered brick facades!

However, a scourge was afoot. Indeed, directly under my foot, as I stumbled over a barely conscious college man. The lad was lying on the brick walk-through wearing a sweater emblazoned with my alma mater, his left hand clutching a pennant to root for our foot-ball squad. In his right hand? Why, an empty beer stein, its foamy remains long since spilled between the bricks on the walk. His lower half was clad only in underpants, I am reluctant to admit.

As I pondered this character, he blinked his eyes and, in a crusty voice, queried as to why he was in the bright sunshine and not under his duvet. I cuffed him twice in the ears and picked the youth up by the shoulder, dragging him from the quadrangle to the dormitory I divined was his, for the pants-less lad's britches were hung on a small dwarf spruce framing the building's entrance.

Inside, I cuffed him once more for good measure whilst I ran a cold shower in the lavatory. Finally awake, I sat the lad down and asked for an explanation of why he would tarnish the fine reputation of my alma mater by laying pants-less on the carefully laid bricks of the quadrangle's walk-through.

His answer? "Why, I'm now 21 years of age, old man!"

It seems our young friend, who even in the daylight hours was still quite tight, had celebrated his birth-day the previous night at the local tavern. And by the looks of his shaking hands and puffy eyes, he was not quaffing vats of vim and determination, unlike that hero in red stockings, Dustin "Lil' Hands" Pedroia. Nor was he taking to the Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey, which is scientifically proven to knock dyspepsia off its pedestal with a one-two punch of good manners and thoughtfulness. No, our good friend was higher than a kite thanks to bubbly bottles of beer. (It was indeed true: I could smell the hops and barley strongly, for they seemed to have saturated the fibers of his good ol' college sweater.)

Now, your friend Hurdy Chadwick is not immune to the temptation of a few pints of bitter, or perhaps the occasional "shotgun" drunk straight from an aluminum canister, not through the pull tab, but through a mighty hole pierced in the side at close range. I even have been overserved and found myself pants-less on some infrequently traveled thoroughfare in the early morning hours. But never, ever, have I attempted to sully the reputation of fair alma mater, the place of my higher learning and the home of those men and women of substance and academia!

The state of that lad begs the question: Should U.S. Americans implore their congressional representatives to reduce such exploits through responsible introduction to booze, spirits and liquors at an earlier age? Or is that idea nothing but a slick of banana oil?

Friends, I beg you to respond below in the commentary section and let me know your thoughts. On the one hand, I am loathe to run across such a louche character in the early morning. But on the other, don't the Stars & Stripes all but guarantee a man of any age the right to lose his britches once in a blue moon?

Discuss as you will...

Yours in hurling and twirling,
Hurdy Chadwick
Westbrook, Me.

In next week's serial: Hurdy displays his arthritic grasp of world geography. "Russians invading Georgia? Alert the Atlanta Militia!"

And happiness dries up...

I believe all the sweeping motions performed by the Rooters swept an accumulation of dust and crumbs into the joints of the Bostons, the lot of which were nothing but creaky and feeble in the face of the Canadians come down from the North Country.

Little to say, friends. Which way will the wind blow for this band of base-ball heroes? Will their ash clouts streak the sky like August lightning, or will their maddeningly inconsistent talents continue to result in a cavalcade of aces being scored upon them?

For the sake of my indigestion, I sincerely hope it will be the former. Else, it's the Duffy's for poor old Hurdy Bird.

Tuesdays with Hurdy: An aquatics wonder!

Tuesdays with Hurdy is a weekly exercise allowing Hurdy Chadwick to ponder issues of importance to the general Rooting public. Today's installment finds Hurdy gazing at the wondrous physicality of American aquatics champ Michael "Duckfoot" Phelps.

Dear friends,

"Laps to go before I sleep! Laps to go before I sleep!"

Such must be the night-time mantra of Michael "Duckfoot" Phelps, the prodigiously talented aquatics champion. The Duckfoot moniker, of course, references his enormous paddle-like feet, which so closely resemble those of a common mallard. Ol' Duckfoot sure looks at home in that water, and his fellow Olympians must glare with envy at his American splendor cutting through the swimming-pool venue in these quadrennial Olympic matches.

But my favorite part of Ol' Duckfoot is his good-natured countenance, which shines brightly from his dearly lopsided head from morning 'til night. For a youth to have such command over aquatics events from Siam to Seattle yet still possess child-like enthusiasm is enough to give one cause to brush away the doldrums and the ill-temper caused by the workaday world.

Indeed, Ol' Duckfoot is certainly the human form of a dram of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey. I am confident that one look at the youthful Phelps is enough to settle indigestion and cure distemper altogether. With that power, one must wonder whether some enterprising young Chinese lad isn't bottling all the sweat from Ol' Duckfoot's workout garb, bottling it in lantern glass and marketing it as an old Chinois remedy passed down through the generations!

If that's the case, then sign me up! I'll take two, and charge it to my home account, Mr. Wang!

Yours in hurling and twirling,
Hurdy Chadwick
Westbrook, Me.

The fate of The Wonder, and The Bostons, hangs in the balance

Rarely is your humble scribe at a loss for words regarding our beloved squad. But rarely have I observed a week of such dismal performances on the diamond, combined with a public feud as ugly as the current tangle between Manuel "The Wonder" Ramirez and Red Stocking ownership.

Scuttlebutt amongst the news-paper men says that representatives from several teams are ensconced in a smoke-filled room, tallying a fiendishly complicated swap of players that would result in The Wonder no longer wielding his ash clout for the Bostons.

Replacing The Wonder's heroic feats of batting skill is neigh on impossible, so these tales of player swaps fill me with dread. No out-come seems likely to improve the squad's chances at another Pennant and World Championship. And for that reason, I must withhold a comprehensive dispatch until the ponderous process has reached its conclusion.

I believe I'll retreat to a darkened room for the day, clutching a bottle of nerve-tonic in one fist and a jar of old Duffy's in the other.