Red Sox sweep Brewers 11-7

We got to see another great game of baseball at Fenway Park today. Josh Becket pitched seven innings followed by Delcarmen and Papelbon as the closer.

It was a great pleasure to watch the four home-runs: two by David Ortiz, one by Dustin Pedroia, and one by Kevin Youkilis. This performance by the Red Sox brought the inter-league series finale to a nice close.

We also had the great pleasure of being on the field during batting practice today, and were catching some balls while the Brewers warmed up. In doing so, we were close to the Red Sox bullpen and watched Clay Buchholz as he was working with the pitching coach:

It is the same Clay Buchholz who pitched a no-hitter in September 2007 as only his second start as a rookie for the Red Sox.

Best Christmas Present Ever

The holiday season is upon us and today we did a little Christmas (and Hanukkah) celebration in the office. I got the Best Christmas Present Ever from the entire staff here at Altova, Inc.:

These are authentic Fenway Park Bleacher Seats, removed in November 2007, and they come complete with certificate of authenticity, holographic authentication stickers, and - most important of all - some chewing gum still stuck on the bottom.

As part of their renovation program for Fenway Park, the Red Sox did apparently sell the old seats to fans, and the gang here at Altova managed to pull off the impossible and get me a pair.

For the time being I am keeping them in my office - until the new house is ready in a few years - and we've rearranged the furniture to make them part of the seating area. That way they will actually be used for our weekly team meetings and are also available for visitors.

If you want to know how happy I am about these seats, just look at the grin on my face in this picture to the left.

Thank you guys! You've really made my day!!

Red Sox are World Series Champions 2007

The Sox have done it again - and no 86-year wait this time. With a 4-3 victory in game 4 of the World Series, the Sox complete their 4-game sweep of the Rockies to become MLB champions for the second time in 4 seasons!

Time to celebrate and buy some stuff...

Sox win ALCS, go to World Series 2007

After being down 1-3 against the Cleveland Indians, the Red Sox did the impossible (again!) and just won game 7 of the ALCS defeating Cleveland 11:2 to go to the World Series 2007. Similar to the great come-back of 2004 (they were down 0-3 against the Yankees then), they just focused on one game after the other to take back the series.

So how do I know about this, despite being in Europe on a business trip this week. Well, this is another fun story all by itself: I woke up at 5:18 am this morning (due to a bit of Jet Lag coming in from Las Vegas yesterday). Since I couldn't fall asleep anymore, I turned on the TV to see if they would have any channel broadcasting the game - but alas, there was none. However, I did find a channel broadcasting a time-delayed version of the Patriots game against the Miami Dolphins, and so I am watching that right now, and that is great fun to see, too. Amazing work by Tom Brady and gang.

Anyway - back to the baseball story: so I ended up using my iPhone to watch the pitch-by-pitch reporting of the game on wap.mlb.com from the top of the 8th inning on. It took me only a little while to realize that it was still before midnight in the US, so after reading about the fantastic double by Pedroia with all the bases loaded, I called up my lovely wife and we "watched" the rest of the game together with her reporting to me on the phone pitch-by-pitch and we cheered for every single out counting them down during the top of the 9th. It was great fun, and we had to laugh so hard, because it reminded us very much of Kishon's classic phrase "Die beste Ehefrau von allen...".

So there you have it: I'm sitting in a hotel room in Vienna, watching the Pats on TV, cheering for the Red Sox and talking baseball with my wife, and blogging about it at the same time - all before even remotely considering the idea of breakfast. Can we get any more "americanized"... :)

Josh Beckett shuts out Angels

Josh Beckett, in top form today, throws a complete game, shutting out the Angels in in the ALDS game 1 at Fenway Park tonight. Final Score Red Sox 4 - Angels 0.

Go Sox!

Red Sox win AL East Champion title

The Red Sox won their first American League East Champions title in 12 years tonight (the last one was 1995). After defeating the Twins 5-2 (thanks to Daisuke Matsuzaka), fans in Red Sox nation kept their eyes on the Orioles - Yankees game for another hour - until the Orioles defeated the Yankees in the 10th inning, thereby losing the pennant race.

Red Sox clinch post-season ticket

Last night the Red Sox became the first team in the MLB to clinch a playoff spot in 2007 thanks to a three-run ninth-inning rally: Jason Varitek tied things up with a solo homer, and then Julio Lugo launched a two-run tater to cap the comeback.

The game didn't go too well for the Sox earlier, but the 9th inning turned it into a 8-6 victory over the Rays.

This makes Terry Francona the first manager in Red Sox history to reach the postseason on three different occasions...

More info on redsox.com...

Red Sox 10, Yankees 1

Last night's defeat was easily forgotten, as we watched today's game at Fenway Park from the Right Field Roof Deck.

Beckett held the Yankees to a mere three hits and one run over seven innings: Beckett walked two, struck out seven and, aside from a solo homer by Derek Jeter in the first, basically never blinked.

More details about the game on the Red Sox website.

Good thing I missed that end...

Sometimes it can be a good thing to not watch the end of a game: I was on the plane yesterday (returning from a day in New York), so I watched most of the game by looking at the MLB mobile play-by-play page on my iPhone during the first 2 innings (while still in New York), then I listened to the game on the radio (WRKO 680 AM) as I drove home from Logan airport - and by the time I was home the Red Sox held a commandig lead. Feeling good about that lead, and being exhausted from the trip to New York (i.e. getting up way too early), I was so tired that I simply went to bed instead of watching the end of the game.

That turned out to be a good thing, as I missed the utter devastation that followed in the 8th and 9th inning.

Buchholz no-hitter at Fenway Park

Red Sox Rookie Clay Buchholz shuts out the Baltimore Orioles in just his second start in the major league - what an unbelievable game, and the crowd at Fenway Park went wild!