When you think of it that way, it actually makes some sense that the Boston Red Sox, who are especially known for their charitable endeavors, would partner with their state lottery.  The Red Sox normal charity is The Jimmy Fund, which focuses on kids with cancer, but individual players also are active in other charities.

The new Sox scratch off ticket will be an instant-win $10 ticket, and is expected to raise more than 14 million dollars for communities in the state.  Along with money, prizes will include Green Monster tickets and memorabilia.

The words?

disgruntled.  Sox. fans.

What, you were expecting something a little more…romantic?

See,  Martha Coakley, late of the Massachusetts Senate race crucial to healthcare reform, was busy dissing Scott Brown because Rudy Giuliani was campaigning with and for him.

Right there on the radio she spoke, which everyone in New England knows is like a Wicked Big Deal (since after all, people use it to talk about sports. Which in New England, is sort of like using it to disseminate air, or food, or basic shelter.)

Coakley bemoaned the state of the race, which any politico even as basic as we are can tell you was pretty much hers to lose. She pointed out that Giuliani is clearly bad because he’s a Yankees fan. (Unspoken, but deeply implied, was the conclusion that Scott Brown must thus also be spawn of the Evil Empire, or at least have some subtle pinstripes someplace.)

The radio host to whom she was speaking pointed out that Scott Brown’s also got Curt Schilling on his side, bloody sock and all (and what could be a more appropriate symbol, health-care wise?).

Coakley responded: “And another Yankees fan.”  Nobody knew what she meant. Wait, did she mean Schilling, the host asked?

Yes, she clarified. Yes she did.

Now, Curt is not a man to anger, cause see, there’s this box he has.  It used to hold soap, and he likes to stand on it and Make Pronouncements.

Like this:

“I’ve been called a lot of things…But never, and I mean never, could anyone ever make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan. Well, check that, if you didn’t know what the hell is going on in your own state maybe you could….”

ahem.

We’ll let this post (like Coakley’s campaign) end on that note.

The ALCS will begin tomorrow, and the Yankees will take it.  Now, don’t get us wrong: we’re rooting for a freeway series–great for the city of L.A. and good for baseball.

The Angels have a lot of momentum: they have never before swept a postseason series, and to do so against the Red Sox, their postseason nemesis in recent years, probably means a lot to the clubhouse.  Their pitching has improved hugely from last year (when they got swept by the Red Sox in the ALDS), and they added the Rays’ Scott Kazmir for the stretch run.  Their starting pitching in the Division Series was nothing short of great.

But….they never added a bat.  Remember a couple years ago, when people started feeling that Vlad Guerrero, their big bat, was mostly done and/or couldn’t walk anymore.  This is still so true that, with two outs in the ninth, Terry Francona opted to walk someone else to get to Guerrero.  Admittedly, he got a hit, but it was his first off of Papelbon, and his first clutch hit in…long. Real long.

The Angels added Torii Hunter in the 2007 offseason.  Even their management knew that wasn’t enough, though–thus the addition of Mark Teixeira for their playoff run, which didn’t turn out to help.  This year, no new bat.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have always had bats.  Too many bats.  (DH options at the beginning of the 2008 offseason?  Johnny Damon.  Hideki Matsui.  Bobby Abreu.  Jorge Posada.  Among others.) What they didn’t have was team chemistry, and Joe Girardi feels that his club has loosened up and is having more fun playing the game.  This is due, in our opinion, to the addition of Nick Swisher, who clearly has a ton of fun playing the game.  Nobody smiled bigger than Swisher last week when the stadium crowd laughed as he forgot how to count to four and tried to take a walk on a 2-2 pitch.  (If it had been A-Rod, he’d probably have burst into tears.)

The Yankees have a veteran playoff pitcher in Pettite, their bullpen is solid with the settling of Phil Hughes into the eighth inning setup role.  Every time you think Mariano Rivera is out, he pulls you back in, Corleone style.  Their bats are huge, and their clubhouse is finally getting rowdy.

We think that Angels have their work cut out for them, and we wish for their sake they hadn’t swept the Sox.  (No, really. A longer break means less momentum headed into the ALCS, which begins Friday.)  But we’ll go ahead and say they’ll take a game:

Yankees in 6.

For now, a bit of updated playoff analysis.

Clinched

The Yankees have clinched the division title, but playoff questions remain.  Specifically, after you start C.C. Sabathia, then what happens? A.J. Burnett has been good at times, but terribly inconsistent.  Pettite–despite the sore shoulder–is probably your best bet for a number two, because he at least eats some innings, even when he’s off.  Because of the extra days off in the first series, this won’t be an issue right away.

The Angels have also clinched. But they always get swept in the first round.  Will this year be different?  Well, last year they needed a bat, and got swept despite the addition of Mark Texeira.  This year they didn’t add that bat. So….you be the judge.  (They have, however, added Scott Kazmir, late of Tampa Bay, so their pitching is solider than in past years.)

St. Louis….looks like St. Louis. They clinched their division behind Pujols, and they’ll play in the playoffs behind Pujols.  They’re not especially exciting, but they’re getting the job done. Again.

Playoff Bound

The Dodgers have clinched their second playoff berth in a row under manager Joe Torre, and they look good going into the playoffs.  With Manny Ramirez’s famously torrid postseason play on their side, they could go far.

Questionmarks

The Red Sox had a magic number of 1 to clinch a playoff berth …three days ago.  They still have that 1.  They’re imploding, and if Texas weren’t quite so far back…well, actually this might still be a race.  The Sox just got swept by the Yankees and lost one to Toronto last night. Why? Who knows.

Texas is less than likely to make the playoffs–their collapse in the month of August was nothing short of spectacular.  They control their own destiny only minimally, but hey, miracles happen.

The Rockies, the little team that could, could also still make the playoffs.  We’ll see…

Detroit and Minnesota: playing a doubleheader today with the Twins two games back.  Update on that one later.

This year, the coolness is today’s Sox-Yanks game, which matters because one of the two teams will clinch a playoff berth today.  If the Yankees win, they’ll have clinched the division, but if the Sox win, they’ll have clinched the wild card and still have a shot at the division.

Luckily, ESPN has the game…of course, we were roundly outnumbered by those around us and are watching football.

And then….an error on a routine play and a bobbled throw led to a 5 run rally for the Sox, and they were off.  Eventually, the Sox won 9-8 in the 9th, but they did it in a weird way: two questionable calsl that would have been the third strike kept the Sox alive with two outs, even though they were down by a run.  Nick Green, the batter, ended up drawing a bases loaded walk, and Alex Gonzalez followed up with a bloop single that plated the winning run.

So, the Sox beat the Angels.  This is hardly newsworthy, since the Angels straight up can’t win at Fenway.  They’ve lost their last ten games there.  But the pitcher who gave up the winning run blamed the umpires.

Closer Brian Fuentes, who blew his seventh save of the season, characterized the umps as too “timid” and “scared” to make calls against the will of the crowd at Fenway, and decided that’s why his team ended up with the L.

Where we come from, they call that being a bad sport.

Senator Curt Schilling.  Yes, you read that right.  Gov. “The Body” Ventura…”The Governator” Schwarzenegger…and now the potential for a Sen. Schill?

Well, as Theo put it best in his text message to The Boston Globe, “He would be good at filibustering.”

Certainly Curt Schilling will never be what you might call, “a man of few words,” but take a closer look.  Beneath that exhibitionist exterior is…a very patriotic exhibitionist.  However, in a post on his blog from last week, Schill makes a valid point.  In an article about Congresspeople trying (or not trying) to push health care legislation through right before a Congressional break, one prominent member of Congress makes the comment that Speaker Pelosi should have tried to push it through if she was smart.  This Congressman goes on to elaborate that Speaker Pelosi’s “strategic error” was in letting members of Congress go home and hear what the people have to say regarding the health care bill, and how those members of Congress might decide to vote against that bill after hearing the people’s feedback.

Wait–we’re sorry–wasn’t that what we elected our Congresspeople for?

In his blog post, as in many other comments he’s made recently, Schill points to this as yet another reason he thinks…well…to borrow from the Blood-Socked One himself, “we’ve got a political system and a group of people that suck, and that needs to change.”

And why not?  Maybe he’s wrong…and maybe he’s right.  The point is that Schill, as an American, is voicing his dissent and at least considering the idea of taking a more active role in changing what he thinks is wrong.  Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t, but more power to him for putting it out there for discussion and looking at ways to be an active participant, rather than sit back and contribute nothing.

Curt Schilling may be a lot of things to a lot of people, and you are certainly all entitled to think what you want (as you should), but the man has a strong opinion and some intestinal fortitude and his heart seems to be in the right place for the moment.

Seems like this pitcher might just be ahead in the count…

But this doesn’t work for everyone.  And when it doesn’t, it tends to not work sort of…epically.

This week, it’s Brad Penny–whose first start after being released by the Sox (for whom he was serviceable, but only because he got ridiculous run support) was for the Giants…and involved eight spotless shutout innings.  Last week, it was John Smoltz, for whom Boston clearly didn’t work out.  Since he joined the Cardinals, he’s been stellar.  Smoltz and Boston both wanted the pairing to work, though Smoltz expressed some frustration with the pitching coaches.  Penny spoke highly of the organization as a whole and thanked them for giving him a chance.

So, why are these pitchers so good outside Boston? Not to mention players like Julio Lugo and, even more so, Edgar Renteria, who just don’t reach the same heights they have with other teams or, maybe worse, don’t fulfill what looks like their potential.

A lot of people might pass this off on the media, but we don’t think that’s it.  Certainly, there’s a lot of media pressure in Boston: maybe more than anyplace else, especially since 2004 and even more since ‘07.  The downside of a citywide culture of sports excellence?  Fans and media who expect more of the same.

But we’re also seeing something else here: maybe a downside to the clubhouse culture that’s been so vaunted.  Hell, we’ve vaunted it ourselves.  If that’s a verb.  (Even if it isn’t!)

We know the clubhouse is supportive of slumps, of injuries, of its players.  David Ortiz shows us that.  But this is a clubhouse that’s vulnerable to non-clubhouse guys.  Nomar caused problems, Manny caused even bigger ones. A truly strong culture wouldn’t be affected so strongly, but this one was.

Not that any of the guys I’m talking about–Penny, Smoltz, et al–are clubhouse cancers: far from it.  But we remember Doug Mientkiewicz* talking about how on the planes, he would try to read, which nobody else did, and he’d get mocked–goodnaturedly of course–to the point that he couldn’t read.

Our theory’s simple: if you don’t fit the mold, the rest of the pressure gets to be too much, especially if you’ve come from a place like Atlanta (considered a good team because of a tradition of what we’ll call low-key excellence, and with a respectful media presence and fanbase).  If you don’t make friends right away, if you don’t connect, even though everyone in the clubhouse may want to adopt you right into the fold–if that doesn’t work for you, Boston’s too much.

The upside? Players like Alex Gonzalez, who hit two homeruns all season…until August 15th when, once acquired by the Red Sox, he went on a tear. He’s hit four more since.

So maybe it isn’t a curse, but it’s happened too often for Theo Epstein and his hot-shit Moneyball guys to ignore.  There’s no stats in this post for a reason. Some things (just ask Jeter!) are intangible.

*You probably won’t believe us, but we spelled it right on the first try! That’s the ONLY time this has ever happened.

While we were gone, planning lessons for 90 fifth graders (The Sports Chick’s a teacher, in case you didn’t know….if only blogging paid bills!), Jacoby Ellsbury did something quick.

In fact, by stealing his fifty fifth base of the season, he set a single season record for the storied Boston Red Sox franchise.

Ellsbury, who is also the MLB’s only Native American ballplayer, is probably the second fastest player in baseball right now.  Carl Crawford of the Rays, who currently has 54.  He’s the player who will probably at some point hit the century mark: a hundred stolen bases in a season.  However, Crawford plays for the Rays, which in our mind gives Ellsbury a chance to pass him up.  Here’s why:

1. The Rays don’t win. OK, this isn’t exactly true anymore.  The Rays do win, and even made it to the World Series in 2008, where they promptly got swept by the Phillies.  However, ugly World Series play aside, this is a team with some serious potential.  The problem is just that they don’t consistently have the kind of performance that can lead to padded base stats–those eighth inning stolen bases in blowouts that nobody on the opposing team minds, for example.

2. They’re in the wrong division. Ellsbury, at least as long as he plays for the Red Sox, will get chances to steal bases in the playoffs.  The Rays, even though they’re now pretty good, are not good enough to contend in the stacked AL East.  If they’d moved to Vegas, as was the scuttlebutt a couple of years ago, and were in a different division, this would be a different story, but assuming Crawford stays in TB, Ellsbury’s likely to play significantly more games.

Congrats to Jacoby…keep it up and the Sox might even have a prayer at the playoffs….but we really still don’t think so.

And then he named names.

He talked about dreadlocks, and clearly that’s Manny Ramirez.  He talked about showing up and mailing it in or deciding not to play at all.  That’s…well, actually that could also be Manny Ramirez.  He said today’s players didn’t compare to some of the guys he played with and against.  And then somehow Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez came up.

Now, love or hate the Yankees, and specifically A-Rod, but they play hard.  The clubhouse culture of the Yankees might be dry, it might not have a lot of soul, but it’s definitely a place where serious players come and take care of their business: day games, night games, every day, week, and month.  Arguing against that’s probably all but impossible, assuming you’re making any sense.  Derek Jeter, meanwhile, has to be the class act of baseball.  He came up with a bunch of players that flamed out (calling Daryll Strawberry!) from partying and drugs.  Sure, he’s been in the tabloids some, but not in recent years.  The man dated Mariah Carey and Scarlett Johanson, and we STILL don’t have any dirt on him.  He calls Joe “Mr. Torre.”

You just don’t say those things about Derek Jeter.  And you sure as heck don’t say such things to a bunch of kids, about anyone.  The only explanation we can come up with is that Rice let the whole Sox-Yanks thing eat his brain entirely.  Most baseball fans are pretty good about this–good enough baseball fans that they recognize good baseball everywhere, even on the opposing team.

He claims he was misquoted, but we’re not really sure how that could happen.  Jeter isn’t sure either, as the end of this article points out.  He said that Jeter and A-Rod–by name, mind you–couldn’t compare to the guys he played with.  He said it, and now he’s backtracking.

The rivalry does a lot of things, and some of them suck–this is one. Just because you’re a Hall of Famer–finally–doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want, Jim Rice.  Got it?