How to catch lightning and smoke.

Oh man. Oh. Man.

What a game.

Claire treated me to some excellent Tier seats at Yankee Stadium for my 25th birthday, which is a bit over a week away. And what better way to ring in my impending quarter-century than watching my beloved nine? There is no better way, my friends.

Of course, the whole thing was mighty tense. It was a close game throughout, and when the Sox stranded eleventy billion runners in the early innings, I began to sprout my first gray hairs. I kept the bilious oaths to myself for the most part, though, as I really feel most comfortable shouting those at the television. We also managed not to scream with schadenfreude when poor Hideki Matsui broke his wrist in the first (that was way grosser up close, as it turns out).

We were very fortunate to sit among other Red Sox fans (including a guy who flew in for the game from Boston, and gallantly bought us a beer in the 7th), much to the consternation of a group of date rapists/Yanks fans who were in front of us. You know the type: red-faced, thoroughly tailgated, lots of swearing, creepy dancing, homoerotic physicality with each other when the Yanks score. Also, they ate a bucket of popcorn the size of a baptismal font that probably cost them their first born. They put their rally caps on in the bottom of the 9th, but we knew it could do nothing against Jonathan Papelbon's mojo.

And what mojo it was. And Johnny Damon? What fantastic impotence.

Wake's knuckler danced, Youkilis's bionic sight was in top form, and even Willie Harris contributed. It was the best ten-days-before-my-birthday ever. And it didn't rain much at all.

Many thousands of thanks again, Claire.

And finally, if you like baseball, you should read Summerland. It's where I got this blog title, you see.

photo of Wake from boston.com