Late-chapter clouts dispatch Gothams!

What a match last evening! At times it was a most frustrating endeavor to listen to the incompetence of the Boston batsmen. Each time the sacks were clogged with runners in position to score an ace, the would-be clouter at the bat-box would smack a daisy cutter directly to an opposing handler -- usually the between-sacker -- who would toss the apple to both the second and first bags to record two "outs".

"Arrgh!" I moaned so constantly I was in need of a throat compress by the seventh chapter! I received a dispatch from Stuffy McInnes near abouts those chapters which told me he was in the same pickle, physiologically speaking. These Heroes in Flannel were causing significant body strain!

The recipe: A dram of Duffy's and some fresh April air. A quick stroll around my Westbrook neighborhood did the trick and I returned to my sitting room reinvigorated, ready for whatever crackle of Red Stockings news came o'er the wireless.

What I was not prepared for, good friends, was the high drama to be experienced in the latest of chapters, the home-team's last "ups", where stickmen faced the dreaded Mariano "Fruit Bat" Rivera, who had locked many a late-game victory for his team with his crafty pretzel delivery of the pill. For this night, Jason "Argonaut" Bay had a different tale to tell, when his ash stick connected to a poorly hurled sphere that was rocketed out of grounds of Fenway in a Colossus-sized clout! The four-ply drive tallied two "runs", knotting the match at four aces apiece.

Meanwhile, the Boston hurlers, which for much of the game had exhibited poor direction and a proclivity to lay damp noodles positioned perfectly for whacking, rose to the occasion, with Dancin' Jonny Papelbon engineering a picture-perfect "strike-out" of Mark "Turncoat" Teixiera to close the 10th "inning". What guts on that young bulldog of a hurler!

Fortunately, Kevin "Yukon" Youkilis, the beard of the ages, connected in the very next chapter, commandeering a pill delivery and rerouting said pill directly to the ale-swilling patrons at the Cask and Flagon.

Bedlam in Fenwayville, and unbridled joy on a late hour in sleepy Westbrook.