"I was a little bit shaking"

Well, I would say a good time was had by all last night.  It was really nice to see everybody relatively relaxed and having fun, except for Terry Francona, who I thought might actually start ripping his hair out by the end of the game while Clint Hurdle continued blowing bubbles with his gum.  The dugout kind of looked like a clown car, with about a hundred players in there, and the cheerful inter-team conversations were fun to watch, whatever they may have been about.

I spent a lot of the game praying loudly that Carlos Marmol wouldn't pitch badly, because I feel like that would have destroyed his confidence forever.  I feel like so much is psychological with him; he looks so nervous a lot of the time.  Anyway, I was relieved that he did just fine, and that Z and Dempster put in a good showing.  Z casually lobbing that pitch over Manny Ramirez's head cracked me up, and apparently Rami as well.  Geo and Fukudome didn't hit anything but looked good behind the plate and out in the field, respectively.

The title of this post is a quote from Z about last night; in the same article, Geo says, "On a scale of one to 10, I'd rate it a 50.  It was awesome.  A better stage, you couldn't have."  I guess I can go along with him on that.