FanHouse Red Sox

Just five games into his minor-league rehab stint at Triple-A Pawtucket, Jed Lowrie was hit by a pitch in the knee. He hasn't played since June 28 because of that, and his knee is still swollen and bruised. Not only has this setback slowed down his progress toward rejoining the Red Sox, but now the team has sent Lowrie back to Boston to have his knee examined by specialist Scott Waugh.

Lowrie was expected to miss six to eight weeks following wrist surgery in April. Prior to surgery, Lowrie played in five games getting only one hit in 18 at-bats.

The knee injury almost certainly assures that Lowrie will not rejoin the Red Sox, as originally, scheduled before the All-Star break.

I was at a museum bar this past week, playing some pool with a buddy when golf came up in the conversation between us and our playing competitors.

One of the guys, slightly inebriated, lambasted me with this theory – Tiger Woods is killing the PGA Tour.

No, there were no bigotry in his voice, he didn't care if Woods was black, white or the color of Paula Creamer's golf ball, he just believed that the onslaught of Tiger fans has brought down the competitiveness and interest of a regular PGA Tour event.

At first I thought this guy was a complete moron. I hit my pool shots, had a sip of beer and mused over the idea that the best thing to ever hit golf could somehow be bringing it down? Hogwash, I thought.

It didn't hit me until Saturday afternoon, on the golf course for my lemming-like weekend tee time, when I realized this guy might be on to something.

Maybe Tiger is killing the tour. No, he isn't killing golf, he's turned a sport reserved for higher class businesspeople into a global phenomenon. He's changed the pot-bellied golfer into a gym rat. He's merged two types of golfers, the one that bombs it off the tee and the one that chips and putts well around the greens, into one golfing freak. He's brought mock turtlenecks, Nike Golf, the first pump and red on Sundays to our regular conversation.

Tiger has changed golf, which is obviously clear.

With that said, has he killed the PGA?

Kyle Farnsworth getting suspended for ANYTHING is Dugout-worthy news, much less getting suspended for throwing a fastball at Manny Ramirez's head. I don't know if he deserved the three-game suspension. I also don't know if he purposefully pitched at Manny's head, but honestly a part of me would be pretty disappointed if he didn't. We came up with your nickname before your announce team did, you might as well do something for our benefit every now and then. He should've thrown the ball at Manny's head, and while Manny was reacting Kyle should've ran up and tried to punch him.

Today's Dugout is the undoubtedly true story of what happened before, during, and after the at-bat. Inside this Dugout you will hopefully find a snippet of dialogue (unfortunately) lacking in misplaced curse words but still ridiculous and unnecessary enough to replace "go rerish" as the thing we're most remembered for. I don't want to be solely remembered as the "go rerish" guy. I mean, I didn't even come up with that. Some oriental guy did!

hold onto your butts; Big Country vs. Manny, after the jump.

Gabe Silva, Yankee fan morose human being, reflects on the world of sports talks to himself in his room.

As the World Series arrives, I've come to terms with the fact that Dane Cook is invited to the game, but Joba Chamberlain is not. Here, I make his head s'plode at the 1:20 mark. Enjoy.

Sorry, No Photos

International Pastime will look at baseball's influence outside the U.S. This is the first ever post in the series. Hooray!

In the wake of his moderately dominating debut performance yesterday, here's a Dice-K commercial from Japan. It's a neat little spot, sort of a dream sequence of all of the things that probably run through Daisuke's mind every time he suits up to pitch. Interesting stuff.

Like the Baseball Prospectus post says: You can't have too much Matsuzaka.

Previously at FanHouse:
How Would You Like to Eat Some Dice-Kream?
Dice-K's Gyroball Is A Myth
Dice-K Impresses In Longest Outing Of Spring

This comes directly from Baseball Musings, who heard on the radio that Schilling may have injured his arm in a car accident sometime this morning. From the site:

My daughter just heard on the radio that Curt Schilling broke his arm in a car accident in Kansas. I'm looking for a story now.

Update 8:10 AM: Still nothing on the web, but our local radio station says that Schilling stepped off a curb this morning and was grazed by the side-view mirror of an SUV. There's no official word from the Red Sox, but Curt either has a bone bruise or a fracture. Daisuke Matsuzaka might end up pitching the opener this afternoon. Stay tuned.

It could be nothing, but BM is as reputable as they come, so if the author didn't actually hear this he wouldn't be posting it. There's still no story on Google News about anything injury-related, but that doesn't mean much, as it's still pretty early in the morning, the one time of the day most newspaper reporters and especially editors are still sleeping.

Also, Schilling's blog makes no mention of any injury, but that doesn't exactly clear the air either.

We'll keep this updated throughout the day. If this is true, Scythehands Voxslayer is going to need some sort of mana boost if he plans on pitching in Kansas City today.

UPDATE 10:23: Two of our Boston-area FanHousers said they've been listening to WEEI all morning, and there's been no mention of it. April Fools joke, maybe?

UPDATE 11:00: David Pinto at Baseball Musings has added his own skeptical update: "Update 10:20 AM: It's been too long without confirmation of this story, so like a lot of people in the comments I'm becoming suspicious. I just wrote a friend from ESPN and he hasn't heard anything about this. I'm checking with others who might know something."

UPDATE 11:09: It's a hoax, a lame (and late, might I add) April Fool's Day joke. From Baseball Musings: "I just called the radio station that reported the story, and it was indeed a hoax. I'm very sorry to have been fooled by this, but being April 2nd, I assumed the jokes were over. My apologies to all. The DJ who pulled this wasn't on the air yesterday, so he decided to do it today. What a jerk."

Somewhere along the line, I remember hearing that English was one of the most difficult languages to learn. I can buy that. Through vs. thorough? Those are like the exact same word!

So I can understand Daisuke Matsuzaka's desire to learn English through a more enjoyable route: movies. But I fear that Dice-K might be getting some, um, incomplete linguistic lessons:

Matsuzaka said he watched movies to help him learn English - ''Lethal Weapon" with Bruce Willis, ''Cliffhanger" with Sylvester Stallone. In the midst of a string of Japanese words, he spoke two familiar ones: ''Meg Ryan."

First of all, dude, Meg Ryan is so 1998. Cute, yeah, but we've all moved on since then. (Have you met Scarlett?)

Second: if you're trying to learn English, Sylvester Stallone is the absolute last person you should be paying attention to. Bruce Willis is borderline -- "Zed's dead" is simple enough construction -- but Stallone? He doesn't even speak English! He speaks a primitive, HGH-enhanced system of grunts and mumbles. You might as well buy a "Communicating With the Primates" tape, because if you model your speech patterns after Sly Stallone, they're going to be the only ones that will understand you.

(Via Fark)

If you played Little League, you've likely dealt with Creepy Old Baseball Guy. He's the guy that has no tangible tie to the team but still shows up to every practice and game, sits in the dugout chawing, yelling at 12 year-olds and occasionally recording game stats. You assume he's someone's grandpa or uncle or something ... but you never really know for sure.

Well, with the exception that he's respected and well-liked, Johnny Pesky is Creepy Old Baseball Guy to the Boston Red Sox ... and now Major League Baseball is asking him to vacate the dugout:

Red Sox manager Terry Francona said the team was told by the commissioner's officer it will enforce the rule that limits uniformed personnel in the dugout to players, managers, and six coaches. Francona said the Red Sox received a stern letter from baseball threatening substantial fines.

"They warned us so many times, I think they got tired of it," he said Friday before the Boston's exhibition game against the Philadelphia Phillies. "I've seen the letters in the past."

Pesky took the news hard when Francona told him this week.

"I sat down with him and talked with him about, and he was hurt," Francona said. "I understand. But the rules are what they are."

Like the time your real Little League coach asked Creepy Old Baseball Guy to stop berating the opposition, this has to be a major blow to Pesky. And unless they can find some reason to keep him in the dugout -- fire DeMarlo Hale and let Pesky coach third, maybe? -- Mr. Red Sox is going to have to find a seat with the yuppie Fenway masses. Ouch.

But hey, this isn't all bad: Manny Ramirez was getting really tired of "that weird old dude" trying to give him fielding tips.

(Via Baseball Primer Newsblog)

I summarily reject the stereotype that bloggers are basement-dwelling, underwear-sporting dweebs, because a) most of us aren't and b) too many people laugh when you tell them you "operate a blog" and "live with your mother." Judgmental jerks.

So when Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling started a blog, I embraced the notion, not only for the dearth of information he can provide but for the way a superstar athlete can help us ditch the blog-nerd moniker once and for all.

Unfortunately, as the guys at Fire Joe Morgan found, it turns out Schilling is actually a giant nerd, a nerd who calls himself "Scythehands Voxslayer" when he plays Everquest. Sigh:

Q: Tell us some of the most interesting adventures you have had while playing Everquest? Did you ever do something really stupid? Something that you are really proud of?

A: My first foray into Lower Guk was a lot of fun. My favorite memories are pretty basic. Completing the Robe of the Lost Circle quest was a blast. Camping Raster was a nightmare, but I got stupidly lucky. I had pretty much resigned myself to camping Scythehands in the Mino room, logging in, seeing another monk already there camping, and waiting. One night I log in, and there's a 55 level monk there. Great guy. He's been there for like 12 hours. No Raster -- pop, despawn, pop, despawn -- still no Raster. Now I'm in about my 3rd day there -- total time camping him maybe 5-10 hours tops -- but getting some good groups when I did have the camp (lotsa guild mates showed up and we pulled and got great exp)....

That answer is, believe it or not, Curt Schilling talking about a particularly embarrassing quest he embarked on in the popular MMORPG, Everquest. (MMORPG stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Duh.) But yeah: that was Curt Schilling, giving this interview with an Everquest fanboy site several years ago, and man, is it dorky.

So, to review: Curt Schilling -- bloody-sock wearing, foot-injury fighting, World Series- winning tough dude -- goes by the name "Scythehands Voxslayer" in an online videogaming community and blogs in his spare time. That sound you just heard is your head exploding.

In yet another strong spring training outing from Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Japanese right-hander threw a no-hitter for five innings against the Reds today.

He was sort of deceptively wild, or wildly deceptive, as he walked five but struck out six in the five innings. And even Dice-K wasn't pleased with his control:

While his command wasn't there, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched five hitless innings Monday against the Reds.

Matsuzaka walked five and struck out six. He was displeased enough with the way he threw that he declined to talk to the media after his outing, instead issuing a statement. "This time of the year, I think the content of my pitching is more important than the result on paper," the statement read. "I'm not happy with the content of my pitching today. I threw a lot of walks and wasted balls and it was tough for my fielders to defend and to get into a good rhythm on offense. It's something I want to pay attention to in the regular sesason."

Five hitless innings are impressive enough, but when you consider that, without placement, Matsuzaka was probably just getting by on movement alone today, that he was so unhappy with his performance he released a statement about it ... well, that's a scary thought for the rest of the American League.

Previously:
Dice-K Impresses in Longest Outing of Spring
Schilling Has Very High Expectations for Dice-K
Matsuzaka Not Untouchable, Roughed Up By O's
Dice-K Looked Pretty Good Last Night