Up is Down! Left is Right!

(photo from Yahoo! Sports)

Dudes! Why didn't anyone tell me yesterday was opposite day? I started to get an inkling of it when Wakefield opened the game struggling against the Devil Rays who have traditionally looked at the weaving and bobbing butterfly and collectively curled up into the fetal position waiting for the beating the end. And then Millar hits a home run? Kevin Millar? The same man who has quite possibly been drinking straight Jack or, you know, the hair dye has seeped directly into his gray matter if he thinks that color is doing him any favors? That dude hit a home run. Weird.

And then...then it happened again? Millar hit another home run. This one, a vintage rocket off the Coke bottles above the Monster. Remember when Millar used to hate those Coke bottles with a white-hot passion? Yeah, me too but damned if that doesn't seem like eons ago. Perhaps the bartender at Copperfield's accidentally gave him Diet Coke with his Jack after the game yesterday and Millar chose to enact vengeance by knocking the Diet Coke bottle into next week. I wonder if you slow down the replay of his swing if you can read his lips saying, "I said regular, goddamit!"

So Millar hit two home runs. Okay, that's bizarre in and of itself but it's not like it hasn't happened before, albeit for a long, long while. But this is when things got truly twisted. I swear the Twilight Zone theme song started playing in the background. Doug Mirabelli stole a base. Lemme say that again so you can comprehend the full magnitude of the weirdness. Douglas Anthony Mirabelli, the perfectly square-shaped catcher, not known for his fleetness of foot or his excess of speed, took off for second base and...made it. And then, THEN!, on a throwing error by the Tampa Bay pitcher, Dougie booked it around and made it to third. And I swear to you that before his foot touched the third base bag, my phone rang:

Kevin: Ahem.
Me: Dude, my TV is all fucked up. It's showing Millar hitting home runs and Dougie stealing bases.
Kevin: I believe that makes us even. Tek's runners thrown out vs. Dougie's stolen bases.
Me: Pshaw. For now. I'm'a win this though.
Kevin: DOUG MIRABELLI STOLE A BASE! AGAIN! That is all.

As soon as I hung up, my phone informed me that I had a message. I listened:

Mom: Someone certainly owes her brother something big!

I always knew they loved Kevin more.

And that's how it went down. 7-6 Sox thanks to, *gulp* Millar, and Wakefield deciding he wasn't gonna take any more of this pussyfutting around with freakin' Tampa Bay. He caught fire somewhere around the fourth inning and retired something like the next eleventy billion batters in a row. Good on ya, Wake.

Next time it's opposite day, I need someone to tell me so I won't be so surprised and I'll stay seated instead of rushing to adjust the picture on the TV or spitting coffee all over my laptop. Those things are expensive to replace.

B. takes the hill tonight in the series finale against Doug Waechter who should lose simply because his name is far too difficult to spell. And because I said so.

Oh, and also? Guess what came in the mail yesterday? Sports Illustrated's N! F! L! Preview! Issue! Oh yes, that's right. It's almost football time, kids. Along with my complimentary Patriots long-sleeved T-shirt that could double as a tent for eight of my closest friends if we decide to play living room fort, I got the NFL Preview issue wherein the good folks at SI predict that Carolina will be the champions of Super Bowl XL. Pshaw, okay. Mark it down: football teams that wear teal do not win championships. You heard it here first.

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