A long while back when I did the College Football Bowl Game Contest, I offered the winner a guest post here at SOX & Dawgs. My mother Sue won the contest and told me when she got around to writing, she would send that along to me. Well folks the longly anticipated day is here. Without further adieu, here is the guest post from Sue. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

It always amused me that baseball aficionados truly go crazy the days before and after the MLB All-Star Game. I remember my son (your host) saying that these are the only 2 days in the year with no professional sports happening (I guess he means major sports). So, I started thinking that if you cannot watch a game on TV those 2 days, maybe you can do what to me is the next best thing and read about it in a book. (you remember when you actually had to hold an item to read it!!!)

I already know you all own Big Papi’s book already, but lets explore what else is out and about to keep you Sox fans occupied.

Jim Bresnahan has put together a collection of musings called Play it again : Baseball Experts On What Might Have Been. Ponder the question of what might have happened if Ty Cobb had played with Shoeless Joe Jackson. If you want to see what might have happened had Bill Buckner fielded Mookie Wilson’s grounder…..

The View from the Upper Deck by DJ Gallo is a collection of satire from SportsPickle.com, sort of the Onion of sports. Taken from the cover was this title: “Yankees not even sure who they’re in a bidding war for.” Enjoy the humor of it all.

The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History’s Most Desired Baseball Card by Michael O’Keeffe and Teri Thompson tells the story of baseball’s most desired baseball card, the T206 Wagner American Tobacco cigarette card. Wayne Gretzky recently paid a reported $451,000 for one. It’s a story of greed and in some cases deception and controversy.

Enjoy your days of rest from clicking and staring at your screens, be they TV or monitor.

Game will be recapped in the morning.

Are you interested in what type of music Daisuke Matsuzaka listens to? Well if you are, then this CD is for you. “Music From the Mound” is a collection of Dice-K’s favorite Japanese, American and English songs.

The album also features the new original track “Gyro Ball”, which includes guest performances from former J. Geils harmonica player Magic Dick, former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt as well as Boston Red Sox television announcers Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy.

A portion of the proceeds from all albums sold, as well as the download of “Gyro Ball”, will be donated to the Red Sox Foundation, the official team charity of the Boston Red Sox.

The CD will go on sale July 17th at www.dicekcd.com or can be pre-ordered at amazon.com. As stated above, part of the proceeds will go to the Red Sox Foundation. So get the plastic out Red Sox Nation and start ordering.

Much to the happiness of Red Sox skipper Terry Francona, interleague play is over and done with in 2007. He doesn’t like it because it doesn’t allow him to put his best team on the field. I agree with him on that because most teams, the Red Sox especially, are built around their DH. So this means, he had to rest one of his better players to get David Ortiz in the lineup.

However, I do like interleague play. I think it’s great for the game and it’s nice to see some different teams. Seriously think about it for a second, how many times do we get to see Barry Bonds play in Boston. Unless the Giants and Sox made it to the World Series, it would never happen.

I don’t like the idea of a natural rival. Since when are the Braves our natural rival. I understand some cities have two teams, (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco). The schedule makers can keep those games on the schedule but for only 3 games. Six games is overkill to me. Just alternate it between stadiums each year.

The American League won this year with a record of 137-115. The Detroit Tigers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anahem were the best of the AL, with identical 14-4 records. The Colorado Rockies took the NL with a 10-8 record.

One of UConn’s biggest women’s basketball stars and possibly UConn women’s basketball biggest villain each made news yesterday.

Diana Taurasi (UConn 2004) was suspended by the WNBA for two games for her inappropriate conduct towards the game officials during the game on Friday night against Detroit. She was notified Saturday by the league about her suspension. She will miss games Today (Sunday) and Saturday against the Houston Comets.

Taurasi flipped her lid in the games final seconds. Taurasi tried to get open for a final shot but Plenette Pierson stood between her and the ball. Pierson then fell to the floor, referee Michael Price blew his whistle and the Mercury never got the last chance to tie the game.

Taurasi charged Price irate, screaming and gesturing as Mercury assistant coach Corey Gaines got between the two trying to remove Dee.

Dee, who as we know never fails to hide her displeasure, didn’t stop there. “He’s terrible,” Taurasi said of Price. “That doesn’t surprise me. He is what he is. We played so hard for 40 minutes and not even get a chance at the end to make a play. They just took it away from us. That’s complete (bull).”

“She flopped and she does it the whole game,” said Taurasi, who finished with only 15 points and eight assists. “She flops and flops and flops and they keep giving her calls. It should be like in soccer where if you flop you get a red card, you get the penalty.”

“If you’re going to decide a game (with a foul) then people are going to stop coming to the games,” Taurasi said. “The way they’re calling games this year, less people are going to come watch.

Nice to see Dee learned post game commenting from Geno as well.

Meanwhile on Friday night in Tennessee, Summitt, who was once listed in Sports Illustrated as Connecticut’s biggest sports villain, got dizzy and fainted at her house. She was transported to a local hospital and held overnight for observation.

She was released Saturday morning.

Doctor’s say she was dehydrated possibly from conducting several basketball clinics in non-air conditioned facilities.

She probably fainted over the stress of canceling the UConn series but something tells me Geno will be blamed for the lack of A/C and for stealing Pat’s water bottle.

On a night where the strike zone seemed as big as California, it was Chris Young and not Tim Wakefield who took advantage of it by striking out 11 Red Sox batters as the Padres destroyed the Red Sox 6-1. Khailil Greene was the main villain on Saturday night as he smashed two Wakefield pitches into the seats in left field. Just like when he was with Boston, Josh Bard hurt the Red Sox this time with his bat, as he had a homer, a double and 3 RBI. In case you have a short memory, Bard was Wake’s personal catcher for the first month of the 2006 season and allowed 10 passed balls in 7 starts before being shipped out to San Diego along with Cla Meredith for Doug Mirabelli.

The Red Sox never had a batter reach 3rd base during the game until two outs in the 9th when David Murphy had a triple. Murphy would come around to score on a Mike Lowell double, for the only Red Sox run of the night. They also didn’t make a groundball out until the 7th inning as all the outs were either strikeouts or flyouts during that time.

Young struck out 2 batters in the 1st inning, 2 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, 1 in the 4th, 3 in the 5th and 1 in the 6th inning. He was perfect through 4 innings but lost the no-no in the 5th when J.D. Drew led off with a single. Lowell reached on an error by Kevin Kouzmanoff but then Young struck out Mirabelli, Julio Lugo, and Wake to get out of the inning.

After an easy inning for Wakefield in the first, the Padres struck for a run in the 2nd. Mike Cameron led off the inning with a bunt single and promptly stole second with Bard at the plate. Bard launched a double driving in Cameron with the first run of the game. Greene got Bard to third with a deep fly out but with the infield in, Termell Sledge grounded out to second, keeping Bard at third. Kouzmanoff stranded him at third by flying out to Coco in center.

Wake was solid in the 3rd and 4th innings, getting 2 batters by strikeouts, 2 on groundballs and 2 of the flyball variety. The 5th wasn’t so kind as Greene launched the first of his two homeruns, making it 2-0 Pads. Wake got Sledge to strikeout for the first out of the inning. Kouzmanoff followed with a single and went to second on a sacrifice by Chris Young. Wake then hung a first pitch curveball to Marcus Giles who hit it into the gap in left-center for a double that scored Kouzmanoff and made the score 3-0.

The 6th inning brought the end of the night for Wake and also for manager Terry Francona. After a Adrian Gonzalez fly out, Cameron doubled to deep center. Bard then hit a long fly ball to left that was initially ruled a foul ball. This brought Padres manager Bud Black out to argue and ask 3B ump Brian Knight to get some help. After a conference, it was ruled the ball hit the foul pole and was ruled a 2 run homer. TV replays clearly showed they made the right call. Francona took exception to this and went out to argue the call with Knight. They actually had to stop arguing for a second as some idiot threw a water bottle at Francona. When they moved our to third, Francona finished his arguing and was given the boot out of the game. The homer by the way gave the Padres a 5-0 lead.

Greene followed all that with his second homer of the night and that chased Wake from the game. Mike Timlin came in and got Sledge and Kouzmanoff to end the inning with the Padres leading 6-0.

Wakefield’s line: 5 1/3 innings, 8 hits, 6 runs (all earned), no walks and 4 strikeouts.

Young’s line: 7 innings, 1 hits, 2 walks and 11 strikeouts.

Sunday’s game brings the best pitching matchup of the series as Josh Beckett takes the hill for the Sox. He will be opposed by Jake Peavy. Gametime is 4:05 PM.

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I am bored. I will admit it. So I started going around to a few different sites to see who they had listed as the Sox starting pitcher on Tuesday night in Seattle. Even though Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe is reporting that Kason Gabbard will start on Tuesday night, the folks at ESPN.com, Rotoworld.com, and FOXsports.com think that Jon Lester will be the starter. CBSSportsline.com was the only one who didn’t have him listed.

Now I know these are only the probable pitchers, but if it was reported that Gabbard was going to start, why not put him in the probables. Whomever the Red Sox decide to start, they are in good hands.

The beautiful ladies at Ladies… finally crowned a winner in their hot blogger contest.

With Leather points out that Bob Barker could have joined ESPN.

The Darkman nickname for Hideki Okajima is sticking in Japan. Head over to Darkman Sticks for a cool picture. Blog is in Japanese.

Anthony at the Oriole Post has a really good article about Miguel Tejada and his streak.

Kissing Suzy Kolber has a guide to American football for the fans in England.

Yankees Chick looks at the other 29 teams in 10 words or less.

Valentine’s Views has a look at this year’s disabled list All-Star team.

J.D. at SporTech Matter tells us why the Dolphins’ Jason Taylor is growing impatient.

Christine at Boston Red Thoughts got a very special gift. So did Peter at Peter’s Red Sox Forever.

SawxBlog via the Boston Phoenix has a great article on why Dan Shaughnessy is the most hated man in Boston.

And last but not certainly least, your favorite part of the salute and mine. A look at Fitzy’s “Wicked Pissah” webcast for this week. As always, it is not NSFW.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZynyzoLVrvY[/youtube]

In what looked to escalate quickly into a possible disaster in the first inning turned into a 2-1 nail biter in favor of the Home Town Team at PETCO Park in San Diego on Friday night. The Sox behind the grittiness of Daisuke Matsuzaka, a stellar bullpen and a 3 for 4 night from Coco Crisp came away with their 3rd win in four tries on the 9 game road trip.

Crisp lead off the game with a base hit to center and stole second, then went to third on sacrifice by Dustin Pedroia. He would die there and the Sox would squander a great opportunity. Then disaster nearly struck.

The bottom of the first saw some wildness from Matsuzaka as he walked the first two Padres and threw a wild pitch in there as well. That brought out pitching coach John Farrell for a conference. Matsuzaka then walked Adrian Gonzalez to load the bases with no one out. Mike Cameron fouled out to Pedroia but newly acquired Michael Barrett followed with a RBI single to center to score Marcus Giles from third and keep the bases loaded. Khalil Greene took strike three looking on a fastball for the second out and Russell Branyan then hit a towering fly out to Wily Mo Pena in right field to end the threat with only one run coming across. Disaster averted.

Padres starter Greg Maddux, 2nd on the active list in wins with 339, was cruising with a pair of 1-2-3 frames in the second and third. After the lead off single by Crisp to start the game he had retired 9 Sox batters-in-a-row.

On the other side of the bump Matsuzaka seemed to settle in as well.

Since Barrett’s RBI single in the first inning, he retired the next 7-in-a-row including four on strike outs before he issued his 4th walk of the game to Mike Cameron with two outs in the third. Barrett was able to strike again with another single to left, moving Cameron to second. Greene then flew out to Coco in center to end any semblance of another Padre up rising, but with it Matsuzaka was now at 73 pitches through just 3 innings.

The Sox broke out in the fourth inning against Maddux getting a pair of runs on four singles to take a 2-1 lead. Pedroia lead off with a single to right, after a David Ortiz fly out to left Manny Ramirez would single to center. Kevin Youkilis would follow with a single to center to score Pedroia and tie the game at 1-1 but Jason Varitek would send Matsuzaka back out to the mound with a lead with a RBI single to center to score Ramirez. Maddux would then get a fielder’s choice by Pena and a strike out of Julio Lugo to end the inning.

They say it’s important to hold the other team off the scoreboard the at bat after you score. Well the Sox and Daisuke were able to do that getting a 1-2-3 inning that featured Matsuzaka’s 5th and 6th strikeouts of the night against Branyan and Maddux.

Maddux started the fifth by getting Matsuzaka on a ground out to start the inning and Crisp followed with a one single but got caught stealing second by Barrett then Pedroia lined out to end the end the inning.

The Pad’s threatened in the fifth. Giles struck out to start the inning, Cruz Jr. singled and stole second and Gonzalez popped out to Pedroia. Matsuzaka then issued his 5th walk this one to Cameron but Barrett’s ball that was ticketed for center field and a tie game was intercepted by Pedroia with a running, leaping catch behind the bag to douse the flames.

Both teams tried to do some additional damage in the 6th. Boston got a one out double by Ramirez and a two out intentional walk to Varitek but Pena grounded into a fielder’s choice to Kevin Kouzmanoff at third to kill that rally. San Diego had a lead off single by Greene but Matsuzaka whiffed Branyan, got a fielder’s choice out of Kouzmanoff to Youkilis at third for the second out. Chase Headley pinch hit for Maddux and got an infield single but Giles K’d for the third time on the night and that was that.

The Sox tried again in the seventh but all they could muster was the third hit of the game by Coco, who now is officially “EN FUEGO”. The Padres as well could only muster a single to left by Gonzalez off of Javier Lopez. Manny Del Carmen then came in and got the last two outs of the inning against the clean up hitter Cameron and the five hole guy Barrett who seemed to always have a chance to do damage tonight.

In the 8th Hideki Okajima came in and dropped yet another 1-2-3 inning into the book with a pair of strikeouts of Greene and Kouzmanoff.

Lefty Royce Ring, who was recalled Friday from Triple A, pitched a 1-2-3 inning in the 9th striking out the side of Varitek, newly recalled David Murphy and Lugo.

Jonathan Papelbon came on in the ninth and preserved the 2-1 win for Matsuzaka and the Sox allowing only a two out single to Cruz Jr. Paps was able to shut the door on the win when he closed out Gonzalez with his second strike out of the inning for the final out of his 17th save.

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Records and streaks are meant to be broken but at some point they have to come to an end. I am pretty sure that this wasn’t the way Miguel Tejada wanted his consecutive games played streak to end.

After being hit with a pitch on Wednesday by Padres reliever Doug Brocail, Miggy tried to play in Thursday’s game. All he was able to do was to try and bunt. He was then removed from the game by Orioles interim manager Dave Trembley. Then the rumors started. Was it going to be end of the longest active consecutive games played streak? Miggy wanted to try and play thru the injury.

But after further testing was done, it was determined that he had a non-displaced fracture of his left wrist and was placed on the disabled list today by the Orioles, thus ending his consecutive games streak at 1,152 games. The last game Miggy missed was back on May 31, 2000. He had a long way to go to break Cal Ripken’s record of 2,632 games.

Given the Orioles plight right now, Miggy could have been possibly moved to another team. But being out for an undetermined amount of time, nothing will probably happen with that until after the season.

Juan Pierre now takes over as the active leader at 344 games.

Top 5 All-Time:

1. Cal Ripken – 2,632 games
2. Lou Gehrig – 2,130 games
3. Everett Scott – 1,307 games
4. Steve Garvey – 1,207 games
5. Miguel Tejada – 1,152 games