The season ends, and I get depressed. But the offseason still needs Dugouts, so I bust "A" and work hard to find stories and interesting situations for Dugouts throughout the offseason, when no baseball is occuring and everything is heresay and conjecture. Five months go by and we've done 2,000 Dugouts about (essentially) nothing. We keep saying, "Man, I can't wait until the season starts, and doing Dugouts will be easier!"
Then the season starts. Suddenly, it is three weeks later and we've been sitting on our butts loving baseball. We turn to our left, see our computer, go "OH CRAP THE DUGOUT" and spend the entire season making up for the first month we missed.
Oh, and I almost forgot: tonight's Dugout is after the jump.
As former President Andrew Johnson reported earlier this week, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are not, in fact, the same team. I've never thought of them as an autonomous unit, but rather a set of bookends. Between them lies history, science, geography.. all of the important stuff, everything you need to know. Everything outside of them is just crap on your shelves.
As Andrew pointed out, the teams are run very differently. The Yankees have unzipped their, uh, coin purse and put their dense, cylindrical wrapped coins on the table, scooping up the available big names in a grand fashion that leaves nothing but a cloud of smoke and gold-laced footprints in the faces of the competition.
The Sox have responded by holding up a picture of Dustin Pedroia and trying to find every free agent who looks remotely like him. It's been a running gag in our strip for a while now, but the Red Sox need to sign Delmon and Dmitri Young to keep me from going snowblind next season.
The original title of this Dugout was "JOSH BARD TO RED SOX," because I want the skimming people to read it, too. In case you're skimming this too, Boston has reportedly reached an agreement with catcher Josh Bard for $1.7 million. Yes, if you can somehow make it to the Major Leagues with the ability to hit .200 you too can be a millionaire. They will pay you almost two million dollars to sit in the minors and suck the ass of baseball. I guess everybody else there is a millionaire and they don't want you to feel bad.
For a greater hit-count, please enjoy tonight's Dugout, a straight-forward affair about... oh you aren't falling for this anymore, it is as crooked-forward as I could make it. Please continue via the jump.
Red Sox captain Jason Varitek is only being offered a one-year deal by the team. Given the circumstances, he's likely done in Boston. So in 2009, Varitek will hit .246 for, like, the Newark Blood Hens, and the Sox will be left with an empty captain's chair.
Why do baseball teams assign team leaders with a naval rank, rather than "field general" or something? What does a captain do? And once he's gone, will they even be able to tell?
What's great is that that guy on the right can reuse his sign if it doesn't snow in Philadelphia until January. Why did he draw snowflakes in the corners? Did he need to fill the negative space that badly? Maybe this is his 756th sign and there was a problem.
In case you did not read part 1 and are unable to scroll your browser down slightly, tonight's Dugout is a two-parter that seeks to celebrate the accomplishment that is winning a World Series and condemn any team that did not win said Series as a "bad team." Maybe it's the Cleveland sports fan in me. If you made it to the World Series and won 1 game your season has ended in SHAME and MISERY for all who support you! Sign Mark Teixeira and call me when it's next September!
Wait, what am I typing again? Part 2 actually contains an undercurrent of "yay Phillies" while maintaining that "uh oh, everyone else" thing I've been bred to feel. Part 2 of 2 is after the jump.
After a game like that, even an unprofessional, jobless hack like myself has to put aside the jokes and give the propers where they're due. So instead of doing a Dugout tonight full of pop culture references and off-topic cursing, I've decided to recap the game for those who didn't see it, and report the events of the night as closely as possible to the way they happened.
Tonight's ALCS box score and recap are after the jump.
What a game. My good friend/Dugout associate Mike was in attendance and had the time of his life, a life which included Massachusetts native and former WWE champion John Cena there in Rays gear. LeBron James was also in attendance, wearing a Yankees hat, a Patriots jersey, and San Antonio Spurs shorts. And a hockey thing.
To help his cause, the aforementioned Mike has designed new Dugout playoff shirts that are available to purchase from our foreign warehouses at Spreadshirt! Support your favorite player or team (or hackneyed photo-comic comedy blogger) by buying one or more in any of our new styles.
For further information about the ALCS and "The Dugout," please click below.
This seriously happens to me every year.
As former President 
The original title of this Dugout was "JOSH BARD TO RED SOX," because I want the skimming people to read it, too. In case you're skimming this too, Boston has reportedly reached an agreement with catcher 
What's great is that that guy on the right can reuse his sign if it doesn't snow in Philadelphia until January. Why did he draw snowflakes in the corners? Did he need to fill the negative space that badly? Maybe this is his 756th sign and there was a problem.
What a game. My good friend/Dugout associate 
