"Okay, Papi, you gettin' tired of me yet?"*

(Photo from Yahoo! Sports)

"You know," Marianne said, after watching David Ortiz knock what would turn out to be his eleventy billionth game winning home run, "Someone should edit together all of Papi's walk-offs and game winners and set them to like, a badass gansta rap song."

"This is an excellent idea," I confirmed.

Annette, when informed of our plan, agreed. "Absolutely," she said, "I would buy that. In fact, I would buy several copies. For every member of my family."

After all, I can only assume that while drilling said home runs, from follow through to bat flourish, Ortiz has the refrain, "Damn, it feels good to be a gansta," running through his head. I mean, wouldn't you?

It wasn't all sunshine and puppies, though. Gabe Kapler, the Hebrew Hammer, the World's Most Perfectly Sculpted Jew, ruptured his Achilles tendon while rounding second on a Tony Graffanino home run and is most definitely out for the remainder of the season and the potential playoffs. Allow me, if you will, a moment to indulge myself with a primal scream of rage and anger:

AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

*deep breath*

EEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

*deep breath*

AAAANNNDDDDD...FUCK!

On a scale of things that suck a momumental amount, this ranks just below "waking up to find your head covered in honey and superglued to an anthill," and just above, "mandatory 24-hour shirtless Rod Stewart marathon on VH1." In short, this blows. And it blows hard. It blows more than, as Sam would say, something Denny Naegle would pay.

Why Kapler? Of all people. Not that I wish harm or misfortune to any member of the Red Sox but damn, another Achilles injury? Didn't we just go through this? Some dude named Nomar? It's not that Kapler is of Ortiz-level importance, at least offensively, but I don't believe that his impact on this team's chemistry can be overstated. I'm a big believer in chemistry and it's importance in contributing to championship teams and I believe that Gabe Kapler was a huge part of last year's team and has continued to be a major part of this year's version. And yes, it's true, as David Wells said in his postgame interview, "at least he'll still be in the clubhouse." But there's a difference between cheering from the bench and tearing ass out onto the field your own self to fire up your teammates. We know Kapler can do both. It's just too bad that from here on out, he only gets to do one.

And while we're on it, screw Skydome, or whatever the hell it's called now. That place is a veritable house of horrors for the Sox, and I don't just mean their abysmal record there. First there was Bill Mueller's issues with the turf last year, then there was Johnny Damon's collision with the outfield scoreboard at the beginning of this season, and now this. Kapler rounds second, and goes down with a ruptured Achilles. Fucking turf. Baseball is played on grass, not plastic. I can't even begin to explain how mad this makes me. Evidently, there is speculation that he caught a seam in the carpet and went down. Or that the concrete underneath the turf had something to do with it. Hmmm, concrete. Yes, that seems like an excellent surface on which to play a game where players routinely fling their bodies with abandon. Good idea! Fuckers. Seriously, this is not Kevin Millar we're talking about who could trip while sitting down. This is Gabe Kapler, a gentleman usually in control of his faculties. Argh.

It's also upsetting because of all that Kapler's been through in the last season and a half or so. On the postgame show, Gary DiSarcina kept referring to Kapler's "escape from Japan," leading to speculation on mine and Marianne's part that he either tunneled under the entire country to freedom with the aid of nothing but a Hello Kitty spoon or rode the crest of a lava wave on a surfboard all Kurt Russell "Escape from L.A." style. "It's like there's a Gabe Kapler action cartoon or something," Marianne observed.

"Absolutely there is," I agreed.

Because if there's any Sox player worthy of an action figure, it's Gabe Kapler. Unless it's David Ortiz who, blasphemy be damned, is a fucking god.

*Tizzle on the postgame show to NESN's Eric Frede.