A Sports Post (For Once)

So here's the thing: I'm here in Venezuela, one of the up-and-coming baseball countries in the world, at least according to some rag called ESPN The Magazine, and I've yet to write about the MLB playoffs, the start of the Venezuelan League season, or any other Red Sox-related nonsense. Finally, it's time.

First of all, Mérida is not a baseball town. Not at all. This is soccer country, as evidenced by last night, when the entire city tuned in to the Venezuela-Ecuador game of the South American World Cup qualifiers. After getting pasted a week ago by Brazil, La Vinotinto came out and whupped up on pobre Ecuador, 3-1. And with the win came, well, something like a riot here in Mérida. I mean, we're talking about a two-plus hour traffic jam in which all the cars are laying on their horns in that doo-doo-do-do-dooo rhythm. People were running around chanting Vennnnnnn-azuela! Hoo! Flags everywhere. It was nuts. Brooke and I were back at our posada, defeated after another empty day of apartment hunting, and all we could hear for two hours were horns and screaming. Good times.

But aside from all of that, the MLB playoffs have been something of a mystery to me. I didn't see the Sox trounce the Angels at all, although I did see national hero Johan Santana pitch twice against the Yanks. But come Game 1 of the ALCS, I was right there with every pitch, blissfully enjoying an ESPN Deportes telecast without Tim McCarver. (By the way, Brandon Arroyo? How does McCarver still have a job? Can we just put him and Keith Jackson and Lee Corso in a room together so they can ramble on incessantly until each keels over?)

But two things struck me in both losses at the Stadium. First, opposing starters had an ERA of like 6.00 against the Sox this year. (By the way, if the stats are wrong, I apologize ... Elias is a long-distance call from Mérida.) Be that as it may, the Sox managed, what, one hit in the first six innings of the first two games. Awesome, guys, awesome. You're supposed to get hammered after the games, not before and during. Secondly, why is it that every time the Sox are in a close game, the manager or the third base coach decides its time to lose his mind. We saw it often with "Wave 'Em Home" Wendell Kim in the past and with Dale Sveum earlier this year, and of course with Jimy and Grady in the playoffs. But why do we have Mike Myers on the roster if he doesn't pitch to Matsui in Game 1? I mean, we got the out, but it doesn't matter. That's the kind of BS that I just have to deal with here in Venezuela, with no one to talk to. Sigh. My time's running out. More on this later.