Hate With The Passion Of A Thousand Suns: Cossack Vodka

Cossack Vodka.

The Vodka brewed in Sommerville Massachusetts. Why not “from the cool, clean waters of lake eerie!” or “from the rolling hills of Chernobyl!”? It is the worst tasting vodka in the history of history. Poor Siberian farmers made better vodka in their toilets. Seriously, it tastes like an awkward combination of sludgy and yet chalky. Basically, it tastes like elmers glue.

But there’s a bigger story here. Cossack Vodka is tied in with the story of the worst night of my life.

It was back in College when I lived in a two floor house with my 6 of my best friends from school. The night was none other than the disparaging game 3 of the ALCS in 2004 and the Red Sox had just got their asses handed to them on a silver platter by the Yankees. My roommates were also having a party at the time. It wasn’t a huge party, but there were enough people to constitute a large get-together. And most of them I didn’t know for some reason. I was extraordinarily depressed by the game and a number of other recent and decided to take out my sorrows with the time-tested approach of copious amounts of alcohol. I’m normally quite the merry drunk, but this night was bad news bears.

We didn’t have much of a choice. The liquor stores were closed and all that was left was a bottle of “Cossack Vodka” that had been sitting around for some reason. My good friend Little Mike and I decided to start taking shots in effort of comraderie. We started of with 3 quick shots to get that “quick drunk” buzz. What struck me immediately was the horrible taste in my mouth. It was Epic-Fail bad. The horror-striken taste was totally analogous to the terrible night. So we started drinking more in an effort to stop tasting it. It started an epic streak really where we consumed 11 shots in 30 minutes. I proceeded to take 4 more in the approaching 15 minutes to little mike’s two. That means in 45 minutes I had 15 shots of horrible vodka to Little Mike’s 13.

That’s a lot of awful booze.

Apparently somewhere during that home stretch we were going back and forth at our neighbors house. I don’t really remember much anymore, though I did remember this stuff the next day.

Anycrap, flash-forward a half an hour and I feel awful and I make my way to a toilet, to perform my santicmonious duty of throwing up. I immediately start thinking “this is good, just get it out, you’ll be fine”.

Thirty seconds into the proceedings Little Mike is being pushed into the same bathroom after throwing up on our friend. Needless to say, she wasn’t amused, but she was being a good sport. So there I am throwing up in the toilet as Little Mike pukes (rather messily) in the sink. It sounded like two horses dying in heat.

This went on for hours. It was not one and done. It was puke-fest 04. Getting up constantly in the night to hurl. All the next day, to hurl. I couldn’t get it off of the lining in my stomach. It was horrible. And all the while, I tasted that awful chalky texture of Cossack vodka.

Maybe the worst part of all of this was that Little Mike somehow still uses this as night where he “beat me” in a drinking contest. The first problem with this is that the drinking contests with myself and Little Mike didn’t develop til later on in the semester, all of which I won handily. The Second problem is I drank two more shots of vodka.  The third is if I knew it was a contest I could have easily handled the next thirty seconds and held it in. Fourth, I never would’ve puked on a girl. Ssssssssssorry Little Mike.

The only good thing about it is I think of it like my “baptism by fire” and the Red Sox went on to do the impossible, win 8 straight, win the world series, and lift the curse.

But damn. When I think back to that night. I can still taste it.

Damn you Cossack Vodka.

Damn you to hell.

Like: Terry Francona

The Red Sox have an Incumbent Manager who isn’t going anywhere.

I’ll let that sink in for a moment… wow. It’s so… different.

Terry Francona is in his fifth year as manager and barring any massive fallout, he will enter his 6th year in 2009 (especially after his extended contract). We haven’t had a 6 year manager since Joe Cronin retired in 1947 after an amazing 13 year run. In Francona’s short time he’s won 2 world series and the last Red Sox manager to do that was Bill Carrigan in 1915 and 1916.  The Red Sox have an amazing history of running with a guy for a years then ditching them after a single mistake or for “new blood” (remember, Yawkey wasn’t exactly the most reasonable owner… and he owned the team for 44 years).
And all of this is makes it all the more remarkable.

It’s so soothing to look over and see a guy in charge who you know is going to be there. He makes a few odd calls on not using pinch runners, but for the most part he plays it solid, safe, and traditional. He’s widely heralded as a players manager which seems to be the way to do things these days. Everyone always calls Torre a players manager which I would actually disagree with (I think he’s a media manager first). So I’m really happy for the guy. He’s got one of the most high-pressure jobs on the planet.

Thanks Tito, I’d love to see ya around Boston for years… especially if it means more rings.

Like: Dennis Eckersley

Besides being a hall of fame pitcher, a former Red Sox player, and an all-around great competitor, Dennis Eckersley is a whole bunch of other things I like too. Right now he works doing analysis for NESN and he’s sharp, fun, and no-holds barred. Not in that dumb shock-value way either (i’m looking at you ESPN). He just says what he thinks and he’s got the brain and experience to back it up. Thank god he’s comfortable talking in front of camera. Besides, I love analysts who actually played ball (because they usually have good insight) and his light yet somehow intense personality totally works. I love it.

Also the Eck is one of those guys who never looks any older. Like Tony LaRussa, Steve Martin and Dick Clark (pre-stroke) the dude always looks the same. It’s one of those reassuring things in life… Like seatbelts.

He even threw sidearm. Sidearm! Nothing is more responsible for blowing out young arms like crazy-ass side arm motions. Well… maybe kids trying to throw curves… or kids trying to pitch a ball that’s way too heavy for the that motion period.

The Fountain of youth…

Like: Roy Halladay/Last Night’s Red Sox Game

I love Roy Halladay. He’s completely awesome and total throwback to when pitchers actually pitched deep into games (and subsequently had like 3 year careers before injury). I mean he pitches complete games constantly. His last four games have been complete games. UNHEARD OF today. He has a devastating sinker and throws nothing but strikes.  He even throws complete games when he’s losing (he’s lost 3 of those last 4 games). Why? No balls means hitters swing early and he keeps his pitch count down. It’s so wonderful to watch even if it means little excitement in back and forth scoring.

Any crap, he went up against the Red Sox last night and Jon Lester went 8 innings against him in a genuine old-school pitcher’s duel. I was fucking loving it. Through 8 innings it was a 1 hitter/3 Walks (Lester) to a 2 hitter (Halladay). In the 8th Lester had two great strikeouts and Dustin Pedroia saved a run with a fantastic play up the middle. Paps came in during the 9th (Lester was at 98 pitches and exited on a great note) which means Tito was going into “we’re ending this now.” Low and behold, Papi and Manny both get on base in the bottom of the ninth. Immediately I question Tito not putting in a pinch runner on 2nd.

Seriously, it made no sense. Not wanting to take away Ortiz’s bat? You already brought in Paps to put it to bed and now you want to save Ortiz’s bat for 3 innings from now? Totally contrary. Youk hits a bloop single and there’s bum-kneed Ortiz chugging around with a good chance to be thrown out. I’m gasping and fearing for Tito’s life on that non-pinch runner. Luckily, Wells bobbles it and it’s game over walk-off style. Just awesome.

Not so awesome for Roy Halladay who loses another easy win. If the jays could just score a freaking run or two he’d be unbeatable. If he was on the Yankees this man would be a god and they’d be naming the new stadium after him. But he plays in Hockey land and casual fans have no idea who the hell he is. He’s probably the best pitcher in baseball but whatever.

He was not happy when Wells bobbled it and obviously swore. Puddy thinks he said “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” which is probably correct. I like to think he said “I’m going to stab your kidney in the shower. WATCH OUT!”

Don’t Like: Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, and Joba Chamberlain

I love the idea there’s a couple of young Yankee pitchers I can openly root to fail miserably. They’re the “future of the franchise” and right now they’re pretty much sucking it up. They seem to be dealing poorly with the pressures of New York and the fact that they passed on Johan Santana and bet the farm on these guys makes it all the sweeter.

Joba’s actually good though. Let’s be honest, he’s throwing lights out. The great thing about him though is  he just has that perfect “I hate that guy” look. Red Sox fans know what I’m talking about it. It’s just a look. Paul O’Neil had it.  It’s a mix off huffy/way too serious/i’m awesome that’s infuriating. Of course Yankees fans just see the opposite and think I’m insane. They see tough/no-nonsense/gritty players who are emotionally involved. How can they hate Joba? He must just be jealous! But that’s not it. Yankees fans, you know how you absolutely hate Kevin Youkilis? That’s how we feel about Joba.  And that tough/gritty thing is exactly how we see Youk. Weird huh?

Look, I love pitching. I understand how incredibly difficult it is and how difficult it is to pitch with consistency in the majors. I admire Joba’s talent and like Hughes and Kennedy’s “stuff”. But it’s really about the uniform. And this is just a joke. Anyone who takes the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry seriously is treading into the inane. I like the rivalry cause it’s fun It’s fun to see Hank Steinbrenner stammer around being an attention whore. It’s fun to see a team that decimated your childhood team come to fail in later years. It’s just amusing. So there.

Like: When Athletes Obviously Swear

We all see it on TV and it’s great. A bad call, a dumb play, a simple strike, really anything incurs it. Athletes are a temperamental bunch and they just love to drop a clearly lip-readable F-Bomb in front of a national family audience. It’s great stuff. I sometimes wish TV’s could have caught Ty Cobb going on one of his famous on-field profanity laced tirades. That woulda been the best. I guess we’ll have to settle for the sweat-monster Kevin Youkilis screaming “Shit!” in front of 8 year olds in the first row. It’s not like they haven’t heard it before.

Like: That I Have a TV in My Cube that Gets East Coast Feeds

It’s incredible really. We need legitimately need TV’s in our cubes to check our on-air programming. But I also get to watch regular TV too. We get every single Fox and Fox Cable Network, ESPN, NFL network, every single regional FSN feed, and NESN! Best of all, we get the East coast feeds so I get to watch everything 3 hours early while I’m still at work. And yes, I do all my work and it’s not a distraction. If it was I couldn’t watch because I seriously do have a lot of actual work during the day. But I’m lucky, the whole thing is wonderful. I get to watch every Red Sox and Celtics game.

I may never leave my job. Ever.