July Skyrockets!

30,000 perplexed Rooters rushed home from Fenway Park yester-day evening to check the date on their wall calendars. Did we not, as a nation, just complete our Independence Day celebrations, or was Father Time somehow turned about to revisit the Festival of the 4th?

Their bafflement was understandable, given the pyrotechnic spectacle performed by the Boston bats-men: A sextet of screamers!

Hapless Oriole hurlers held the Bostons’ clouting prowess much too cheaply, as evidenced by the repeated launching of the sphere into the July night sky. Hub-area reflexologists will undoubtedly be overwhelmed to-day with patients seeking relief from the crick-necks developed after watching six pills arc over the stadium fences!

Yet no Rooter will complain for his discomfort, as the offensive explosion propelled the Red Stockings to the pinnacle of the Eastern Division standings. Let us enjoy this lofty perch a while, gents!

The Stockings continue to slide!

Not even a cloud of dust from a muffed bag-burgling can obscure the fact that the Red Stockings are in the midst of a base-ball cataclysm. For even those upstarts from the Tejas Territories hosted the Red Stockings and kept the Boston heroes from tallying more than a small child's handful of aces on the board.

Back at the emerald-hued confines of the Fens is sure to do a body good beginning to-morrow eve, as the Home Towners take on the Birds from Baltimore. And in the dug-out there are sure to be some new faces, with General Manager Theodore "Boy Wonder" Epstein coming out aces in a series of backroom shenanigans with two National League squads.

And alas, it is good-bye to our stone-fisted between sacker, Mr. Julio "High Pockets" Lugo. May your britches always be uncommonly hitched upon your lithe frame, and let the breezy winds of St. Louis turn your stern countenance into one of mirth and child-like wonder.

Sometimes, there are just no words

Ponder your failure, relief-hurlers. Your epic, world-beating failure.

Ponder, and remember.

Never again.

(Back to my day-bed with a tumbler of Duffy's)

The stealthy bag-burglar

As a resident of a border state, I have always kept a weather eye on our neighbors to the North. Although generally amiable, the Canadian is nonetheless a sneaky type -- all quiet footfalls developed through years of game-stalking in deep woods and selective deployment of a cryptic version of the French language.

Yet, when it suits the Canadian, he may walk freely among us and appear as American as any Tom, Dick or Harry you’d meet at the local tavern. Thus, in this manner, he maintains his secret Canadian posture -- Listening. Observing. Waiting.

It is precisely those characteristics that allowed Jason “Argonaut” Bay to startle the opposing Baltimores -- and all Rooters! -- during Saturday evening’s contest.

It was the third frame, three “runs” already made when “Yukon” Youkilis blasted a four-ply drive. Bay, the steady stick-man, achieved a free pass to the first pillow. Without hesitation, he seized upon his opponents’ slumbering and hurtled himself down the base-path. The backstop hurled the pill, but too late! Bay had burgled the second bag!

“What’s this?” I asked myself over the sound of joyous cheers on the wireless, “I never took the Argonaut for a sack-snatcher!”

Indeed, the Argonaut burgled only 10 bags in all of last season. Still, his selective approach and unremitting stealth placed him in position to complete his circuit when “Two-bags” Lowell connected for a “single” during his at-bat.

It is through such gamesmanship that the Bostons can vanquish their formidable rivals in the Eastern Division of the American League. Yes, the full-circuit clout has immediate effect, but it is just as important to fabricate “runs” through savvy base-running. A tip of my bowler hat to you, “Sneaky J.”