Baseball

Strange guy, Manny. (No one in Malaga knows about Manny, the Red Sox, or baseball.) Sin Manuel, so far, so good. What would have happened had Manny had Carlton Fisk as a teammate? Maybe Pudge could have straightened him out. (Above, the portrait of Fisk by Susan Miller that Peter donated to the National Portrait Gallery in memory of Duane. Thanks, Peter! That's a truly wonderful gift.) Or maybe Manny would have stayed happy had Spaceman Bill Lee been around. That guy strikes me as a false nutcase–he's not really crazy, just likes to act that way. But I've never met Lee, so I can't really say. And early this morning on the computer I saw Manny hit a single, then go first to third on a single to right-man, nothing wrong with those knees, no way. He was going all out. So what's the deal? It appears that Manny was definitely tanking it, and if that's the case, well, he should have been docked some pay before being shipped out. Unconscionable. Apropos nothing: when are they going to stop playing "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch? It's time to put that to rest, and long overdue is a clamp on all the obnoxious noise they blare you with at games. That's when I stopped going to Senators games at City Island. It was so wonderful when it was just baseball. It's too bad. (Noise pollution is a big problem in Malaga.)