Jen’s sister ran the Boston Marathon yesterday in 3:29, which reminds me that Chris’s friend Cheri won the Boston Marathon yesterday (wheelchair division). Also, my sister ran the Pi Mile Road Race at Georgia Tech on Saturday in 26:22, so I totally feel Jen’s pain about being the sister with less natural athletic talent. I’ve been running for three years and can barely get under half an hour, while Katie starts running to keep in shape for her wedding and reels off a 26:22. Big dork. 😉
Last night Jason and I headed downtown to watch the spectacle that was Roger Clemens vs. Tim Hudson. It was a fantastic game, the pitchers matching each other pitch for pitch, and the teams matching hit for hit. Hudson got hit on the leg by a line drive, and a couple innings later Jason remarked “what if Clemens get hit on the leg?” No sooner had he said that, and I’m talking like, seriously, two seconds after he said that, Clemens got hit on the leg with a line drive. It was SPOOKY, I’m telling you.
Clemens threw seven scoreless innings with Lidge coming in for the 8th and 9th, while Hudson tossed a nine-inning four-hitter. At the end of “regulation” the score was still 0-0 (and it wasn’t even 10:00), so we went to free baseball! Qualls pitched a scoreless 10th for the Astros, while Reitsma got into trouble when the Astros loaded the bases with no outs. They failed to score, though, which I still can’t wrap my head around. How do you fail to score with the bases loaded and no outs?? All you need is a long fly! Geez. Anyway, on to the 11th, where Wheeler pitched scoreless inning and Sosa did the same for the Braves. Wheeler came back out for the top of the 12th and made one bad pitch, which Ryan Langerhans (who??) hit for his first career homer. Kolb came in for the bottom of the inning and the Astros continued to not be able to hit for crap, and lost 1-0.
It was a great game, minus the outcome. It was sort of a shame that neither Hudson or Clemens got the win after they both pitched such stellar games. Clemens has a ERA of 0.43 for the season so far, and yet he hasn’t won a game because he’s gotten only one run in support. Ugh. Such is baseball, I guess, but it sure is frustrating to watch.
Afterwards, I found myself thinking about other great games I’ve attended. The best baseball game I’ve ever been to is (as if there were any question) last year’s NLCS Game 5 when Brandon Backe pitched an 8-inning 1-hitter and Jeff Kent won it 3-0 for the Astros with a three-run homer over the railroad tracks in the bottom of the ninth.
The best football game I’ve ever been to was the 1998 Georgia Tech vs. Virginia game when Tech came back from being three touchdowns behind to win 41-38. Virginia had been ranked #7, and we all swarmed the field and took down the goalposts.
Ahh. The memories.
