Back in First

After last night’s comeback, the Sox having taken two of three, they were back in first place in the AL East, a game up on the Yankees, and nine games up in the wild card standings. Better than that, the series reminded the Sox of two important things: one, that they can hit Sabathia, the Yankees ace, who has been virtually unbeatable against the rest of the American League, but who has been a different pitcher entirely when he faces the Sox. I don’t think it’s because of the Boston lineup; they’ve had their problems against a number of AL pitchers. Look at the job Freddy Garcia did on them last night. No, I think it’s something in Sabathia’s head; for some reason he just doesn’t have the same confidence pitching against the Red Sox. And whatever that problem is, I hope he doesn’t get it fixed any time soon.

The second thing was perhaps even more important, and that’s that Mariano is mortal. I know that he blew a couple saves back in 2004, but that was a long time ago, and an almost entirely different lineup. These guys, the young guys, they have to know that even when Rivera is on the mound, they still have a chance. It’s hard to think of Dustin Pedroia having a crisis of confidence, even if he was facing Sandy Koufax. But Rivera has been so good for so long, you never know. So I was glad to see them not only win last night, but come back against Rivera to tie it up in the bottom of the ninth.

Still, nothing was settled last night, other than one game out of 162. Yes, they seem to have a lot of heart this year; there have been a number of walk-off wins over the past few weeks. And the lineup continues to look strong, top to bottom -- Scutaro getting the lead-off double in the ninth against Rivera; and Reddick getting the game winner in the tenth. The bullpen seems to have steadied itself. And if Buckholz can come back, then they’ll have their rotation again; Wake has really filled in great for a number five starter. But there are another fifty games to play before the post-season. So let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Go Sox.

Billy Collins

He sounds like he should be playing second base for the Red Sox – Billy Collins. As it turns out he’s a poet. Now I have been a reader for close to five decades, ever since some kid lent me The Lord of the Flies. But in all that time, I’ve never really enjoyed or appreciated poetry. Even with the guidance of my man Bloom, who reawakened my interest in the classics, and who was clearly willing to take me step by step through the canonical poets, I never seemed to get much out of it. I did read Leaves of Grass, much of it aloud to John when he was an infant. Here he was, all of six days old, and I was reading him I Sing the Body Electric. But I only remember that poem because it had such a great title. And after much work, I guess I was able to appreciate Whitman’s masterpiece , When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed, but would I reread it for sheer enjoyment, the way I might watch Casablanca for the seventy-fifth time? I don’t think so.

Anyway, my friend Steve stopped by one night to have a couple scotches, and brought this little book of poetry, from which he read aloud. At first I thought that Steve was slightly off his rocker, because, really, Poetry? But after the whisky, and after Steve and the lovely Sheila had gone home, and I spent some time alone with the book – it’s entitled Sailing Alone Around the World, and is sort of a greatest hits volume -- I was amazed to find how much I enjoyed the guy.

Collins is at his best when his poems are about nothing much at all, just a different way of looking at things. There is a zany, absurdist element in many of the early poems that I found most enjoyable. And he tells us about his unpretentious approach in one of his earlier poems, entitled, appropriately, Introduction to Poetry:

………..

I say drop a mouse into a poem

And watch him probe his way out,

Or walk inside the poem’s room,

And feel the walls for a light switch.

…………

But all they want to do

Is tie the poem to a chair with rope

And torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

To find out what it really means.

Later in life, whether he felt the weight of having been selected Poet Laureate, or just because he was older and saw life slipping away, his stuff became heavier, more serious, darker, less fun. I was making a list of all the poems I wanted to go back and reread, and I found that as time passed, I was adding fewer and fewer poems to the list. Maybe they were just as good, but I didn’t feel like reading about loss and death. Or maybe as a serious poet, he just didn’t feel like he could write about some dog barking his way through Beethoven’s Seventh, and ending up in the orchestra, in the oboe section. Maybe when you’re a serious poet laureate, you just can’t write that kind of goofy stuff any more.

Anyway, when this blog opened in 2005, one of its topics was supposed to be the essays of Michel de Montaigne. Over the years, whisky and baseball have pretty much squeezed literature off the page. But I’m glad to be able to return to that subject every now and then. And I was really glad to have found, at this advanced age, that there was something new and different for me to enjoy. Thanks Steve.

The Haters Ball

As everyone knows, for the past few years the venue for the Haters Ball has been Keens Chophouse, where else? But with G-Man no longer living in Jersey, it became necessary to rethink the Ball. After much consideration, and through the kind of consensus-building that apparently can now occur only outside the Washington Beltway, we decided that the loser would host the Ball, but that the winner would have to travel. The result was, I’d like to think, a dinner every bit as good as Keens, and even if the selection of scotches wasn’t quite as broad, we still did pretty good in the whisky drinking department. Danny came up with the additional touch that the loser should also wear the winning team’s gear, in one fashion or another. And so here you have it; I am decked out in a Yankees cap, and receiving the affections of one of their fans, whether because I am wearing the cap, or just because this was after much red wine and malt whisky, I really don’t know. But this is the kind of thing that can happen at the Haters Ball.

Speaking of haters, the Sox and the Yankees are back at it this weekend in Fenway, and off to a bad start. The series opened with Lester on the mound for the Sox, and he had not previously lost to New York. The Yankees started with Colon, so one would think that the opening game favored the Red Sox. But New York’s bullpen shut the door on Boston’s lineup; Lester gave up three runs in the sixth inning; and the Yankees took game one, by a score of 3 to 2. The upshot is that New York now leads the AL East.

Later this afternoon, Sabathia faces off with Lackey, and on paper at least, that doesn’t even seem close. (It would be close if all they did was compare contracts; Lackey after all is the best paid five hundred pitcher in the universe.) So Boston will either need a miracle, or a strong outing from Beckett tomorrow night in order to prevent a sweeep. Carl Crawford was quoted this morning to the effect that the race will go down to the wire. That’s probably true; and it should also mean that one of these two teams will be hosting the first game of the ALDS, and the other will go on the road as the wild card. In either event, Go Sox.

Ellsbury

How hot has Jacobi Ellsbury been of late? Last night, for the second night in a row, Ellsbury beat the Indians with a walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth. Tuesday night, it was a single with two men on base, Saltalamacchia sliding home around the tag; and last night, it was a two-out home run into the first row of the center field bleachers. Thank goodness no one paid any attention to the pundits who speculated that Ellsbury might be trade bait after his unproductive 2010. Those broken ribs look like ancient history right now. As soon as JD Drew's contract expires, I think that job one for Theo is to sign Ellsbury to another one of those long term contracts he used to lock up Pedroia and Youkilis. Boston should keep this guy at the head of their order for as long as possible.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, Ellsbury is among the American League leaders in a number of offensive stats. Fourth in stolen bases, but that's what every one would expect. Third in hits, with a .317 average, and that's what everyone would want from a lead-off guy in this lineup. Second in runs, and that's no surprise for a guy batting in front of Pedroia and Gonzalez. But how about fifth in doubles, and better yet, ninth in on-base-plus-slugging? Not bad for a speedy lead-off batter. After last night, he's got 18 home runs, and 65 RBIs, to go with all those runs. No wonder the Sox are leading the league in runs scored.

It was too bad Wakefield didn't get his 200th win, especially because he pitched pretty well. But at least he kept things close for Boston, allowing the team once again to walk off with a win. Wake will get that two hundredth before too long. Wakefield just celebrated his 45th birthday, so he's got at least another ten years to go before he thinks about hanging up his spikes and glove.

Despite having played great in July, and even with the best record in the American League, Boston has not opened up any room between them and the Yankees. As predicted, the pennant race has stayed neck and neck. Big series coming up this weekend that will determine who leads the AL East. It would be nice if Ellsbury stayed on fire all through that series. That, and some good outings from the starters. Go Sox.

2011 Whisky Lovers Ball

It’s that time of the year. Every summer, at the height of the grilling season, when the days are long, and the evenings remain warm, the whisky lovers gather for smoked fish, red meat, good red wine, fellowship, and of course, lots of single malt scotch whisky. So last weekend, when G-Man was in town, we convened the whisky lovers for that mid-summer culinary celebration.

We began with the fish -- trout, sockeye salmon, and best of all, steelhead -- all of which had been smoked in the Weber Bullet. Naturally, everyone loved the fish. I hate to be tooting my own horn here, but it’s more a function of the Bullet, which allows one to smoke at low temperatures, keeping the fish moist, not overdone. And that steelhead especially absorbs the hickory smoke and comes out so tasty. We paired the fish with a selection of before-dinner whiskies. I made everyone taste an eighteen (see my earlier post) and then opened up the selection. The whisky lovers were just about evenly divided between Bladnoch -- a sixteen-year-old Signatory bottling that I found at Century a couple years back, and the new William Larue Weller bourbon that Mike had recommended. It’s 125 proof, so either it needs to be watered, or else drunk on the rocks. Either way, it was a big hit among those of us who might have preferred to drink an American whisky so close to the Fourth of July.

Next, we served grilled quail over a bed of greens -- the salad course. The quail had been marinated in red wine and spices for a couple days, and the trick was to cook those tiny birds through (served them about medium, not too well done) without charring the outsides. I’ll need more practice before I get this down just right, but all in all they came out pretty good, and were well received. At least nobody complained out loud. I know we should have served a light bodied red, or even a white wine, maybe a white bordeaux, with this course, but who among the whisky lovers wants to drink white wine? (Actually, I did purchase a chardonnay for a couple of the gals, who preferred a glass of wine instead of a cocktail before dinner.) Anyway, I opened a bottle of Bonny Doon, Le Pousseur, which was a big hit. More on this later in the posting. Bonny Doon is one of the Rhone Rangers, and this particular bottle came courtesy of John and Mike, whose contributions to the ball did not go unnoticed.

But as good as the fish and quail were, the whisky lovers come for their red meat. So after a decent interval, we grilled some big fat strip steaks, which had been rubbed with brown sugar and a nameless Israeli red rub. Spicy and sweet on the outside, tender and juicy throughout. We washed the steaks down with a 2007 Chateauneuf-de-Pape - very nice. But here’s the thing -- as good as the Chateauneuf was, the Bonny Doon was every bit as good, maybe even better. More fruit and less earth, as you would expect from a California Syrah. But rich full flavor, perhaps more complex than the French wine. This is a very nice Syrah at a pretty reasonable price. Highly recommended.

After dinner, out came the smoky scotches -- Ballechin for Tony; Bunnahabhain for Dr. Ron (and for Danny); Lagavulin and Laphroaig. And then, after everyone had enjoyed a dram or two, not to mention some of the two wonderful fruit crisps that a couple of the gals had contributed, we capped off the evening with a taste of Talisker 25. I’ve come to realize that these great whiskies taste best when they’re shared. And who better to share them with than the whisky lovers -- guys who really appreciate good malt whisky?

It was great having G-Man here for the ball, and there is yet another posting to come, because as it turned out, what with our schedules and everything, this evening had a dual purpose. Two balls in one, so to speak. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I love these evenings with the whisky lovers, folks who really enjoy good food and beverages. Sometime this fall, when Danny is back in business, we’re going to convene the whisky lovers at Good Luck for another long evening of eating, drinking, and good cheer. Maybe the leaves will have turned, and maybe there will even be some snow on the ground. But even if it’s cold outside, I know it will be warm and inviting around the table. And no one will go home hungry or thirsty.