Ones are wild

By Eric Wilbur, Boston.com Staff, 9/25/2003

One more. That’s it. They’ve got 93 of them already, what’s one more?

With Derek Lowe on the hill (10-2 at Fenway Park this season), the Red Sox have as good a shot as any at clinching that wild-card spot tonight in the regular season home finale against the Orioles. I mean there’s just something to be said about celebrating on your home turf in front of your own fans rather than Tampa Bay, in which case, they might as well throw the party at the Burlington Mall if they’re looking for staid atmosphere.

Then again, if they win the World Series, the rally will be at Government Center, so same difference really.

Tim Hudson officially got the call for Game One next week when the A’s and Red Sox begin their best-of-five division series, barring a collapse of epic (and we’re talking monumentally epic) proportions. He’ll be opposed by…well, take a wild guess.

If Lowe and the Red Sox are able to clinch tonight, don’t expect to see Pedro pitch very long against the Devil Rays tomorrow night. Perhaps five innings max. If he’s got a no-hitter going through five in St. Pete, expect to see Pedro go perhaps five innings max. Pedro’s got a playoff game to get ready for. It’s been a while since he’s been able to look forward to one of those.

Meanwhile in Seattle, they’re sifting through the rubble and trying to figure out where the season went wrong. Of course, mathematically they’re still in it, if, as Seattle Times columnist Larry Stone puts it, “the M's won out the rest of their games, the Red Sox lost out the rest of theirs, Ben and J-Lo reconciled, Arnold Schwarzenegger pulled out of the California governors' race, and Gundar from Planet Xeron declared himself empire of the universe, then Seattle would still have a chance to tie for the wild card.”

So, yeah, technically the Sox aren’t the wild-card champs, but the only thing separating that technicality from reality is being able to spray that champagne over the clubhouse walls. (But I did hear from a source to watch out for that Gundar announcement any day now.)

Ghost buster

The Herald’s Jeff Horrigan brings us a scary tale from Sox reliever Scott Williamson involving ghosts, apparitions, demons, and goblins.

OK, maybe not demons, possibly goblins, but definitely ghosts.

“The 27-year-old said he never believed in ghosts prior to early June, when the Reds checked into the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and he had a run-in with a spirit or apparition that still spooks him to discuss today,” Horrigan writes. “I looked away and looked back quick but he was there,'' he said. ``It was a guy wearing old-fashioned clothes, like something you might see in the 1930s or '20s. He had a top hat . . . and he was just looking right at me. It was almost like he was trying to get a point across to me or something. I jumped up and turned on the lights but he was gone.”

One too many viewings of “Three Men and a Baby?” I didn’t think Williamson could frighten me more than when he was on the mound, but this tale comes close.

Giant leap

The Sporting News’ Ken Rosenthal looks into the crystal ball to predict the playoff future, and sees Barry Bonds hitting a home run over The Wall in Game Seven as the San Francisco Giants beat the Red Sox in the World Series, only because, he admits, he can’t think of anything else.

Therefore, I can’t think of any comment.

Don’t cry for us

The Detroit Free Press’ Mitch Albom tells the rest of the baseball world, you know what, we don’t really care that much about the Tigers.

“It's just that we have no tears left to shed for the Tigers. They may be a new story to you, Mr. and Mrs. America, but we've been living with it for 10 years,” he writes. “To be honest, telling us the Tigers are going to break the Mets' record of 120 losses is a little like telling us the engine on our old clunker just died. Yeah. Well. It was bound to happen sooner or later”

Sooner or later, sure. So is uncontrolled flatulence, but it’s still embarrassing just the same.

More Valuable

Will the real MVP please stand up? Garry Brown of the Springfield Union News tells us that many of the Red Sox are pushing for David Ortiz to get some votes. Who can argue with that? We’ll tell you who, a couple of folks from the Standard Times, who this morning, have different ideas as to whom the MVP rep should be from Boston.

The players mentioned, Jason Varitek, Bill Mueller, Ortiz, Martinez, Nomar Garciaparra, and Kevin Millar are all fine choices. But the sad part is, not one of the writers chose to nominate Manny Ramirez. If we took their view of the voting, Manny would get as many votes as Chad Fox, and that’s just plain stupid.

The top choices are Ortiz and Manny. As for the Yankees, their top choices are Jorge Posada and Ramiro Mendoza.