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Anthony from the Oriole Post had the good fortune of going to last night’s game at Fenway Park and took a lot of pictures. He was gracious enough to let me share them with you.

A big thank you to Anthony for the pictures.

Cleveland Indians vs. Boston Red Sox: Game Two – ALCS Fenway Park

You may have noticed but I have decided to change the look of the blog again. I have reasoning for the madness.

For one, the old theme was causing my site to crash a lot. You may have noticed that when you came buy it said, you may have used too much of the CPU and seen a gray screen. That was due to some errors in the coding of the blog theme itself.

Secondly, while I did like the color scheme, this new look is more professional and sleek.

You may notice it is a little narrower as well. I am working on that as well. I have tested it on a 15 inch regular monitor as well as my 15.4 widescreen to make sure it fits. The site is optimally viewed with at least a 1024*768 screen resolution.

There are some things that need to be changed still as you may have noticed. The archives and about links at the top don’t work. Also I do need to change the header pictures. I am currently working on that as well.

I may make a few other changes to the style but nothing too extreme.

Thanks to Steve for helping me out this afternoon and pointing out some missing things. I will do my best to get everything back that was here before.

Thanks for reading. Your support is much appreciated.

The Cincinnati Reds have hired former Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants pilot Dusty Baker to their new manager. Baker was given a three-year contract to replace Pete Mackanin who took over when Jerry Narron was fired midway through the season.

The Reds are the first team to fill a managerial hole with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals still looking and the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees still unsure about what route they want to take.

Baker, who worked for ESPN this past season, last managed in 2006 with Chicago. In his fourth and final season in the Second City, the Cubs finished last in the NL Central. Lou Piniella replaced him this season and the Cubs won the division title.

Baker took over the Cubs in 2003 and had the club five outs from going to the World Series when Steve Bartman interfered with Moises Alou on foul ball down the left field line in Wrigley. That turned the tide and the Cubs lost that game and the next one to Florida who beat New York for the championship.

Baker followed up in 2004 with another winning season even though they didn’t make the playoffs. It was Chicago’s first back-to-back winning years in more than three decades. After two losing seasons Baker’s contract expired and Piniella was hired.

Prior to coming to the Cubs, Baker managed the San Francisco Giants for ten seasons and led them to the 2002 National League pennant. The Giants lost to the Anaheim Angels in seven games in the World Series. With the Giants, Baker won two division titles and got the World Series as a wild card. Baker won 103 games in his first season as Giants skipper in 1993 and won 90 or more games four other times and twice Baker led squads have won 89 games in a season.

In addition to managing Baker was a fine major league player having played 19 seasons with the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s and he hit .278 with 242 HR’s and 1013 RBI.

His career managerial record is 1162-1041 for a .527 winning percentage.

Rather than wait for Tuesday’s upset edition of “Tidbits from the College Gridiron“, I decided to present this story to you now. Steve and I have followed Mike Flynt’s story each game so it’s only fitting that we continue.

At the 11:03 mark of the first quarter, the 59-year-old Flynt made his second “debut” on special teams as he was the left end on the kicking unit. He took part in nine plays during Sul Ross’ 45-42 win over Texas Lutheran on Saturday.

Flynt was pretty ecstatic after the game as you could imagine,

“We won this tonight for each other; that’s what matters,” Flynt said. “I’m glad my family was able to be part of this and see this. That’s important to me personally. From a team standpoint, it’s their victory.”

“I’ve been at a lot of great schools and experienced a lot of this stuff,” said Flynt, who was a strength coach at Nebraska, Oregon and Texas A&M. “These guys, they’re learning every bit of this.”

Flynt hopes to back to his old position of linebacker but I am pretty sure that he was happy just getting some playing time in front of his family and friends. Does anyone sense another Disney movie in the near future.

A little later than usual look at the headlines this morning as last night’s game didn’t get over until the wee hours of the morning. Obviously if you went to bed early and have already looked at the Sunday paper, you saw what happened at 1:30 AM last night. A Trot Nixon single. And then the flood gates opened up. As a Sox fan it’s hard to understand why Tito keeps going to Gagné but last night he almost had no choice since Curt Schilling didn’t have his “A” game and he owned up to it in the post game press conference last night (early this morning). The guy (Gagné) is lost in outer space right now. He looked good on the first batter (Blake), whom he struck out. Then a Sizemore single, a walk to Cabrera, next thing you know Javier Lopez is on the mound giving up to single to the Original Dirt Dog. So while you recover from last night’s loss or last night’s beer drinking, take a look at the headlines and happenings from the Boston and Cleveland area media as well Red Sox 1B Kevin Youkilis.

Putting a tough loss in the rearview mirror. [Yooooouuuuukkkkk]

This time, Schilling fails to deliver goods [Boston Globe]

Hitters rescue Carmona [The Plain Dealer]

Gone baby Gagne: Sox vanish vs. Tribe in 11 [Boston Herald]

CLIFFHANGER [Akron Beacon Journal]

7-Eleventh [Hartford Courant]

Bullpen meltdown costly in 11th [Pro Jo]

No relief in sight for Gagné [Boston Globe]

Sizemore heats up [The Plain Dealer]

It’s clearly time to put ineffective Eric on ice [Boston Herald]

Red Sox no longer defined by Fenway as sluggers [NY Times via Akron Beacon Journal]

Schilling Fails To Match His Postseason Form [Hartford Courant]

Sox, Indians have only just begun [Pro Jo]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hartford Courant, Providence Journal, The Plain Dealer and Akron Beacon Journal websites.

Eric Gagné’s struggles continue for the Red Sox.

Indians skipper Eric Wedge was scratching his head at the numbers Manny and Big Papi are putting up.

Today’s forecast in Colorado calls for a temperature of around 42^o and showers.

The Diamondbacks are confident they can bounce back against the Rockies.

The Rockies lead the NLCS 2-0 and will play Game 3 today and Game 4 tomorrow. If a Game 5 is needed, it will be played on Wednesday night.

Has Terry Francona lost his mind? Has he not seen Eric Gagné pitch in a Red Sox uniform? Seriously, WTF was he thinking? This might be worse than when Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in too long.

Long story short, Gagné got one out in the 11^th and then gave up a single and walked a batter. Javier Lopez came on and Trot Nixon delivered a single to start the onslaught as the Indians took Game 2 to tie the ALCS up at 1.

For the second night in a row, the pitcher’s duel never materialized as both Curt Schilling and Fausto Carmona both struggled didn’t make it out of the 5^th inning tonight.

Schilling started out the 1^st allowing a lead-off double to Grady Sizemore after he had gotten ahead of him. Asdrubal Cabrera tried to bunt Grady over but he ended up popping the bunt up to Mike Lowell in foul territory. Travis “Pronk” Hafner flew out to Manny in left just short of the Green Monster for the second out of the inning. Victor Martinez brought in Grady with the first of his three hits against Schill, this one a double to give the Erie Warriors a 1-0 lead. Schilling finished off the inning with a ground out to third by Ryan Garko.

Carmona got a little wild in the Sox half of the 1^st after he struck out Dustin Pedroia. He issued free passes to both Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz. He ended up working out of it though as Manny Ramirez grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

Big Schill settled down in the 2^nd as he allowed a single to Jhonny Peralta and then got the ageless Kenny Lofton to fly out. Schilling ended the inning by inducing a 6-4-3 double play of his own off the bat of Franklin Gutierrez.

The Red Sox went in order in the bottom of the 2^nd and Schilling set down the Indians in order in the top of the 3rd.

Carmona ran into a little bit of trouble in the Sox half of the 3^rd as his control wasn’t there. Coco Crisp led off with a single and stole second with Julio Lugo at the plate. Lugo ended up striking out. Carmona then issued a base on balls to Pedroia. With Coco stuck on second, Youk ended up striking out as well for the second out of the inning. Big Papi lined a ball up the middle but Carmona got his glove on it and knocked it down keeping a run from scoring but loaded up the bases for the RBI machine that is Manny. Carmona’s wildness returned as he walked Manny to bring Coco to tie the game at 1. Lowell followed that up with a 2-run single bringing in Pedroia and Big Papi to give the Sox a 3-1 lead. Carmona got out of the inning after that as he got J.D. Drew to ground out to Cabrera at second.

Unfortunately for the Sox, Schilling couldn’t hold the lead in the top half of the 4^th inning. He did get Hafner to fly out for the first out. Martinez and Garko followed the out up with singles. Peralta got a pitch he liked as he crushed the ball off the camera well in center field for a 3-run homer and a 4-3 Indians lead. Schilling watched it the whole way and knew it was gone. Big Schill settled down though as he got Lofton to ground out to second and got Gutierrez to strike out swinging for the final out.

The Red Sox couldn’t get anything going in the their half of the 4^th as only Lugo reached base on a 2-out walk. Carmona got Pedroia to strikeout swinging for his second (Carmona’s) strikeout of the inning.

Harry Doyle’s favorite team added another run in the 5^th inning. After Lowell made a nice diving grab of a Casey Blake liner, Sizemore took a Schilling offering and put it out of the park in right to give the Indians a 5-3 lead. Schilling got Cabrera to strikeout for the 2nd out but then Hafner and Martinez singled. The Martinez single chased Schilling from game after 4 ^2/3 innings. Manny Delcarmen came in and did his job as he got Garko to ground into a fielder’s choice.

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Key mistakes at the wrong times for the UCONN Huskies cost them the game today as Virginia got a late field goal to beat them 17-16. Virginia’s kicker Chris Gould hit the game-winning field goal from 19-yards with 3:20 left to go in the game to win it for the Cavaliers.

UCONN had a chance to win the game after the Virginia field goal but those big mistakes came about. After UCONN QB Tyler Lorenzen had back-to-back 11-yard runs to give the Huskies the ball in Virginia territory, the center snapped the ball low and Lorenzen recovered it at his own 35. After a false start penalty on the Huskies, another low snap did them in, as the Cavaliers recovered the fumble.

The Cavaliers ended up missing a field goal try to extend the lead to 4 points but it didn’t matter. UCONN got the ball back with 27 seconds to go but they were stopped by Virginia.

The game was on ESPNU and unfortunately I don’t have ESPNU. I listened to the game on the radio but it’s really hard to give an accurate description of what happened.

From listening, UCONN really had trouble getting anything going on the ground again. They also had trouble moving the ball in the first quarter. They started to move the ball well in the 2nd quarter but a D.J. Hernandez fumble at the 5-yard line cost the Huskies a touchdown. Plus they only got 6 points off the two Virginia turnovers in the 1st quarter. They really need to put the game away at that point. They didn’t and now they have their first loss of the season.

UCONN returns home on Friday night to host the Louisville Cardinals.

For more about today’s game head over to UCONNHuskies.com.

Scoring Summary:

1st Quarter

10:47 UCONN – CIARAVINO, Tony 45 yd field goal
6 plays, 26 yards, TOP 2:35, UCONN 3 – UVA 0

09:07 UCONN – CIARAVINO, Tony 21 yd field goal
4 plays, 9 yards, TOP 1:33, UCONN 6 – UVA 0

00:38 UVA – Keith Payne 1 yd run (Chris Gould kick)
11 plays, 59 yards, TOP 4:18, UCONN 6 – UVA 7

2nd Quarter

05:19 UVA – John Phillips 8 yd pass from Jameel Sewell (Chris Gould kick)
6 plays, 65 yards, TOP 2:20, UCONN 6 – UVA 14

3rd Quarter

10:31 UCONN – BROUSE, Steve 6 yd pass from LORENZEN, Tyler (CIARAVINO, Tony kick)
2 plays, 6 yards, TOP 0:41, UCONN 13 – UVA 14

4th Quarter

08:06 UCONN – CIARAVINO, Tony 25 yd field goal
9 plays, 81 yards, TOP 3:22, UCONN 16 – UVA 14

03:20 UVA – Chris Gould 19 yd field goal
11 plays, 79 yards, TOP 4:46, UCONN 16 – UVA 17

The starting lineups for tonight’s game are the same with one exception. J.D. Drew is back in the lineup, taking the spot of Bobby Kielty.

Indians

1. Grady Sizemore, CF
2. Asdrubal Cabrera, 2B
3. Travis Hafner, DH
4. Victor Martinez, C
5. Ryan Garko, 1B
6. Jhonny Peralta, SS
7. Kenny Lofton, LF
8. Franklin Gutierrez, RF
9. Casey Blake, 3B

SP: Fausto Carmona

Red Sox

1. Dustin Pedroia, 2B
2. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Manny Ramirez, LF
5. Mike Lowell, 3B
6. J.D. Drew, RF
7. Jason Varitek, C
8. Coco Crisp, CF
9. Julio Lugo, SS

SP – Curt Schilling

Here is a look at how the two teams have fared against tonight’s starters:

Lineups courtesy of Amalie Benjamin from the Boston Globe.