Who's minding the store?

Hullo? Hullo?

Is there any-body here?

Please forgive the dingy appearance of Full Circuit Clout these past days. Your genial proprietors Hurdy and Stuffy, Esqs., have been plundering the depths of their inkwells and scratching parchment after parchment to satisfy their day-do-day employers.

Indeed, such joy as is taken from maintaining this enterprise, your friends of the pen haven't kept up the store as we'd like. That said, we assure you, dear reader, that we haven't forgotten our mission, to produce a periodical where "we celebrate this fine pasttime of base-ball, a sensible game for sensible men, where morals reign and comradeship is paramount."

In the coming days and weeks, we will make certain to weigh in on matters of import to the base-ball fandom the world over, including:

• Manny "The Wonder" Ramirez' running afoul of league inspectors, and a rumored visit by the Pinkertons to inquire about unlawful shipments of contraband whisky from our friends in Canada.
• Dustin "Lil' Hands" Pedroia and the state of his beleagured frame. Will the extra days' rest refill his flagon of grit and determination to overflowing?
• The crafty willow-wielding by our offensive juggernaut, Jason "The Argonaut" Bay
• Our cadre of scouts in the garden, who have of late patroled the green grass of Fenway's outer-field with speed and aplomb
• Will our Colossus return? "Fear not," say base-ball compatriots!
• The redemption of our stout-limbed Captain Varitek, who was content on a recent night to hoist the entire team to victory thanks to a well-timed swat of his ash club.

All that and much more in store for you, dear reader. Until then, onward to victory, you flannel-clad heroes of the Red Stockings!

The end, and the beginning

Spring’s glorious rebirth inevitably leads the Dog Days of summer. A time when our spherical Earth-ark transverses a treacherous section of the heavens that brings unsettling ill-winds, madness-inducing heat, and general lethargy.

The ancients blamed this temporary frenzy on the prominence of Sirius, the dog star. Accordingly, they sacrificed helpless canines in an effort to appease the stellar pot-stirrer.

So it is today with our Bostons: The Dog Days have disrupted our once-reliable hurling, merciless swatting and pill-gobbling glove-work. The malaise demanded a sacrifice, and it was delivered. Manuel “The Wonder” Ramirez has thrown off the white flannel and red stockings and boarded an express locomotive to the Western coast. His clouts will no longer sunder the New England sky and punish opposing flingers. His dubious diamond antics, a veritable one-man vaudeville show, will play now for the moving-picture set in Los Angeles.

Exiling the malcontent masher seemed the only course available to club officials. But we Rooters are left pondering whether the sacrifice has appeased the base-ball gods. Can the Nine, so recently strutting as the World’s Champions, reclaim their great and terrible prowess on the pitch?

Contests resume to-night, with a chance for this club to prove that they still have the stuff. I’ve thrown open the curtains, removed the damp cloth from my aching fore-head, and placed the nerve-tonic back on the remedy shelf. Let it begin.

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.

Victory for the hungry!

My compatriot Stuffy McInnes was in attendance for last evening's drubbing of the New Yorks, where much of the action was provided by our mid-lineup stalwarts, David "The Colossus" Ortiz and Manny "The Wonder" Ramirez. The pair were a sure catalyst for the victory, as their ash sticks gobbled pills like a wide-eyed Bowery Street doper.

The winning score did much to make the assembled Rooters forget the sad state of affairs of their beloved home-town team, which in recent days has more resembled a ragtag "Little League" squad than a collection of world-class hurlers, twirlers and clouters.

But the best news? Stuffy reported following his return locomotive of a secret treasure buried amid the bowels of the Fens: A purveyor of one-foot-long frankfurters that are just pennies more than the delightful Fenway weiners those yellow-shirted urchins hawk amidst the Rooter faithful. I can assure you that next time Hurdy Chadwick steams to the Fens from his parochial home north of the Piscataqua River, he will stuff his gullet with the fantastic "weiners" found beneath the stomping throngs cheering our base-ball heroes to victory.

Where are these magical meats? I cannot say, for Stuffy has sworn me to secrecy. But perhaps, for the cost of one measly "hot dog," directions can be had. Such is the price of greatness!

Giving up ground to Gotham

All too suddenly, the Fenway Park that has for the first one-half of the base-ball "season" been a house of mirth and playful frivolity has become as dour and humorless as the soup salesmen on Boylston Street.

And for what reason? In what manner have the Bostons given up run after run to the Anaheims and the New Yorkers, with just a brief layover in Victory Land with a three-game thrashing of the Seattles? As we wait for the first pitch to be twirled and hurled in tonight's Boston-New York tilt, let us survey the American League: The Bostons are sandwiched like luncheon meats between league toppers Tampas and the advancing New Yorkers.

The answer, good pals, is unclear. What is clear is that the collective base-ball heroes of the Boston Red Stockings must regain their vim and vigor. Rooters from Pawtucket to Portland need to see fellows like Lil' Hands Pedroia and Jed "Square Face" Lowrie quaffing flagons of grit at each turn on the diamond. They must see clouters like The Colossus and The Wonder swatting pills into the grand-stands and bleacher areas of each ball-park the Bostons visit. And the fellows in the club-house before each match must remember why they play base-ball, a sensible game for sensible men, where morals reign and comradeship is paramount.

Regroup and redeploy, Good Boston Fighters!

Thank you, Wonder!

No sooner had I wired over a dispatch decrying the lack of clouts from the local nine than Manuel "The Wonder" Ramirez answered with a tremendous four-ply drive deep into the New England summer night.

As the pill screamed across the sky, three Bostons completed their circuit of the diamond to "tie" the game at 5 points apiece. The Wonder had done it again!

To-day's match will be contested under the brutal mid-day sun, with Gen. Joshua P. Beckett assuming the hurling duties. All Rooters should report immediately to the ball-park or a local tavern (preferably those with the wireless) to hoot on the hometown squad while staying cool with a fine tankard of suds.

Bring back our Colossus

The recent epidemic of ineffectual swatting has worked my patience to its limits. “High-Pockets” Lugo stands at the dish with the countenance of a street urchin caught in the path of trolley car. Capt. Varitek swings as if underwater. And Coco “The Brawler” Crisp appears to be suffering ill effects from his recent tussle with half of the Tampas. How else to explain his inability to square ash to horsehide with any effect?

Even The Wonder is afflicted with some variation of the swat-sapping disease (despite knocking the pill for a deciding “run” last evening). That so many are failing so spectacularly at their batting duties makes us ache for the return of our Colossus -- the Mighty Ortiz, the one with the fists as big as hams.

Reports that he’s facing live hurlers again -- albeit in pre-match warm-up swatting -- are heartening. We can only hope his recovery continues apace, so he can bring his great and terrible clouting back to the diamond in time to help the Bostons capture another American League pennant.

"The Wonder" Of It All

Had the public-relations experts on Madison Avenue truly done their bookwork, they would surely have found the plum pitchman for their glittering Emerald gaming establishment, the Foxwoods: One Manuel "The Wonder" Ramirez*. The Wonder of It All is not in the Mystic Region of Connecticut, but in the heroic beating chest of Slugger Ramirez.

The clout driven by The Wonder in the last night game against the Texans was so far as to perplex motorists on the thoroughfare to Boston, which abuts the Fenway turf. Many a wheelman was said to exclaim "Beans!" when The Wonder's clout bounded across the turnpike. Meanwhile, inside the park, Rooters remarked on The Wonder's shot with different exclamations -- some of which may have made the ladies in attendance blush.

The Bostons triumphed due to The Wonder's prodigious drive with a score of five homeplates to three for the Texans.

(Note: Photographic subject is not The Wonder Ramirez, and is used for illustration purposes. Few photographs exist of the right-hander's trademark swing.)

Death by Four-Ply Drive!

For two consecutive evenings, a queer, concussive sound has pealed through the firmament, causing confused citizens to look sky-ward, scattering rooks and pigeons from their perches, and waking babes from their slumber. But the clamor is not a strange arrangement of Nature’s forces -- it is the echo of the tremendous clouts issued from the Bostons’ bats!

The local squad has slain its challengers with a spasm of four-ply drives, leaving no doubt as to the mighty swats that await opposing hurlers. First to fall: The New Yorks, who scowled as Manuel, “The Wonder” Ramirez sent the pill sailing into the grandstand not once, but twice! Eight bags for the Wonder!

Next came the squad from the dusty wilds of Texas, contesting their base-ball skills on the green turf of Fenway Park. But our boys were not in a hospitable mood, and on this night, the conclusive swing came from a bat that had been quiet of late. Colossus Ortiz approached the dish in the third frame with the bags heavy with red-stocking’d gents. Then he struck with devastating effect, launching the sphere over the high fence of left-field, sending himself and his three team-mates full-circuit. A glorious blast!

A few chapters later, the diminutive infielder Dustin, “Li’l Hands” Pedroia collected four bags of his own when he slammed the pill into the night. Nearly the opposite of Colossus in stature and girth, this tiny tempest must consume flagons of grit before each match to render himself such a terrible force on the diamond.

A Win For the Ages!

To the base-ball gods, the Boston Rooters salute and lay down their appreciations for such a well-played match!

The night's gamer had in the home half of the scoreboard the Cleveland squad, whom the Bostons bested in last year's Championship Series after losing three games and winning but one. Twirler Jake Westbrook pitched for the natives, while Jon "Seattle Slop" Lester took the riser for the visitors. Neither delivered the pill effectively, though Westbrook emerged from near-scrapes in many innings, including the first. Old Seattle Slop varied his delivery, but fooled few of the opposers.

Indeed, the match seemed lost for the Bostons after Seattle Slop hucked mush-ball after mush-ball at the natives, allowing multiple home-team runners to stamp on the final base in consecutive chapters. Fortunes happy, however, as Julian "Tele-phone" Taverez ponied up to the challenge of his rivals, eliminating three consecutive lumbermen with three strikes apiece. In all, he knocked down four men in two-and-two-thirds innings. Huzzah, Tele-phone!

But with a two-notch deficit, the visitors had no quit in their eyes. The Beard For the Ages stirred trouble in the eighth inning with a decisive full circuit clout. The ball skyed into the chill of the evening and landed earthbound into a crowd packed at the left field concessionaire. Alas, that plating was all that would occur in that frame.

But into the final inning of the evening, when all was at its most dire, Julio Lugo led off the frame with a taunting double-bagger off the home-team closer, Joe "Soapy" Borowski. What followed was base-ball at its best: A run manufactured by bunt and sky fly ball, the latter walloped by the diminutive Dustin "Spats" Pedroia.

A "tie" game!

But not for long, as the Collossus improved his average with the second of the evening's two base knocks, and The Wonder stepped up to the plate and smacked a drive that could favorably be compared to the Great Pyramids, the Hanging Towers of Babylon or the Cable Cars of San-Francisco, California! In fashion of The Wonder, he rounded the bases with jazz hands flapping, a game-ending sight to see for the Rooters who had steamed to Cleveland to glee with the Old Town Team!

State-side to victory!

One-hundred and sixty games to go for the season, and the home-town boys begin a tangle with the Oaklands. Fresh-faced Jacoby Ellsbury starts the first state-side chapter by rolling the pill to the first bag and games are underway.

What will the season bring? The intrepid Red Sox began by steaming their way to the Far East, playing before hospitable fans whose admiration for the full-circuit clout was evidenced by much standing and clapping. Then the vast coliseum of Los-Angeles, wherein opposing manager Joseph "The Neck" Torre was a welcome sight in the light blue colors of the Dodgers. Oh, to have that man shuck his pinstripes and bring his heavy-handed management of hurlers to another coast!

Sofar as this young season begins, the Colossus Ortiz has been eerily quiet, and the sly Manuel Ramirez has provided deafening clouts by the lumber, going full routes from Tokyo to Los-Angeles. What power and paunchy goodness! A man to take all comers!

From the squad of hurlers, pretzel deliveries abound to throw off opposing would-be swatters. Let us hope the balls of the Oaklands are hit obligingly to our field-men during these following chapters!

The game is afoot, and Full Circuit Clout will dutifully report on all comers as the base-ball season winds into the gloaming of autumn.

Huzzah, base-ball!