DUSTIN PEDROIA IS A MONSTER and no one can stop him. Batting cleanup tonight (protecting Big Papi!), he went 4-for-4 with an intentional walk, scored three times, stole two bases (one with a slick headfirst slide into second) and made a bunch of crazy plays, including a giant leaping grab on a liner.

"A lot of people talk about Manny leaving," Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen said before the game. "I wish Pedroia was leaving."

The gamer at YFSF said it all:

Yes, a four-foot thireen-inch second baseman who weighs about a buck-thirty-five soaking wet is bringing his laser show to the four-slot for Beantown.

UPDATE: Pedroia left a few stranded in yesterday's game, but the romance with Guillen continued:

When Pedroia, who leads the AL in hitting at .326, made his first out of the series with a tapper back to the mound in the third inning, Guillen asked for the ball and held it out for Pedroia motioning like he wanted the All-Star second baseman's autograph. He then gestured to Pedroia again as Pedroia took the field before putting the ball in his back pocket. Eventually, Guillen flipped the ball to a kid in the stands.

Much more on the budding love affair between Ozzie and Pedey.

A WEIRDLY HOMOEROTIC POETRY MASH-UP in which every instance of the word "love" is replaced with "Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Player Carlton Fisk" in this poem:

"And know you not," says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

(Via kottke)

IN THE AFTERMATH of the Yankees' loss in "The First Game of the Final Series Between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium Ever!!!!", the Boston Globe rounds up the reaction in the New York media. With A-Rod going 0-5 with two strikeouts and two double play balls, including one with the bases loaded, there's this zinger from the New York Post:

We will remember Rodriguez dallied with Boston, didn't go there, came to the Yankees instead in 2004, and in his time here the nature of the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry has reversed to Red Sox champs, Yankees chumps. Rodriguez is the face of that historic flip-flop. He has bought into that role twice now, first when he forced his trade here, then last offseason when he accepted the largest financial package ever to return through the backdoor. He is all outsized. His greed. His lust for attention. His insecurities.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MANNY RAMIREZ, as chronicled in the Boston Globe's blog, includes a bet between Joe Torre and Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers on whether Manny will cut his hair:

As you know, Joe Torre asked Manny Ramirez to cut his hair, but I have this hunch it will never happen.

Torre disagrees, so now one of us will be making a charitable donation.

If Ramirez returns to Dodger Stadium a week from today to open the team's next home stand with all his hair, Torre said he would make a donation to Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA.

As part of the deal, Torre agrees he will say nothing more to Ramirez about his hair, believing Ramirez heard him the first time they talked.

If Ramirez shows up to Dodger Stadium without the dreads, Page 2 will make a donation to the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation.

As part of the deal, of course, I will say nothing more to Ramirez about his hair.

But just between you and me, who is Torre kidding?

You think he's going to bench Ramirez because the guy doesn't get his hair cut?

You think if he fines him it will make a difference, Ramirez knowing he's not getting paid by the Dodgers, so there's no money to take out of his pay?

You think the Red Sox are going to take it out of his pay, and do a favor for the former Yankees manager?

TOM WAITS INTERVIEWS HIMSELF, which is predictably a bit self-involved, but at least it's more interesting than your usual music magazine article.

Q: What's wrong with the world?

A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year . . . and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.

IT AIN'T OVER UNTIL IT'S OVER, and then sometimes it's not over even after that. The last two games against the Toronto Blue Jays each had do-overs. The first one featured a walkoff win, complete with dress rehearsal:

Few things are more embarrassing than premature exhilaration. That's what the Red Sox were guilty of last night at the Fens when they came storming out of their dugout to celebrate another apparent walkoff win, only to have plate umpire Sam Holbrook stop them short when he signaled that Jed Lowrie was out at home, the left leg of Toronto catcher Rod Barajas blocking Lowrie from his destination in the bottom of the ninth.

Instead of being in the vortex of a swirling bunch of delirious teammates, Lowrie was staring at a monitor in the runway behind the Sox dugout, watching a replay of the throw from Blue Jays center fielder Vernon Wells that deprived Brandon Moss of a game-winning hit.

"I got done with my clip, and on live TV [Jason] Varitek was hitting the ball," the Sox rookie said.

The following night was less dramatic, but just as silly:

No ninth-inning thunder last night. . . . But there were fireworks - after an apparent game-ending fly ball by Coco Crisp was nullified by second base umpire Bruce Dreckman, who called a balk on closer B.J. Ryan before he threw the pitch. The umpire ruled that Ryan had not come to a stop before throwing plateward.

"We saw it," Sox manager Terry Francona said of Dreckman's call. "He threw his arms up and we knew it was going to take a second."

With the crowd already headed for the exits and the Jays lining up for postgame high-fives, Jays manager John Gibbons, who had already begun strolling onto the field to slap some hands, flew into a rage when informed of Dreckman's call. He confronted the umpire, and was ejected.

"Their whole team was on the field," Sox catcher Kevin Cash said. "It was kind of like us [Wednesday] night, when we all ran out and Jed [Lowrie] was thrown out at the plate."

AND, OH YEAH, can we have more of these, please?:

The start of the game was delayed 15 minutes by rain but it lasted just two hours, 18 minutes, Boston's shortest game of the year.

"Great pitching on both sides is what it came down to," Toronto manager John Gibbons said.

AS MUCH HARD LUCK AS THE RED SOX recently had with great pitching but tough losses, Roy Halladay had worse:

It was Halladay's fourth straight complete game. He's lost the last three.

But then again, Pedroia was there to make sure everyone knew the Sox earned the win:

Lester allowed just one hit in eight innings, a clean single on Lyle Overbay's liner in the fifth over second baseman Pedroia's head. But Pedroia kept the game scoreless in the ninth when he dove to his right and nabbed Wells' grounder after Scott Rolen had doubled off Jonathan Papelbon (1-0) with two outs.

Pedroia gloved the ball and threw out Wells.

"Anybody's diving for any balls in that situation," Pedroia said. "It definitely got the crowd involved. It's a little bit of momentum. They could have had a run and it gets taken away."

Wells wanted to hit the ball up the middle.

"I saw it get by the mound," he said, "and I saw Superman at second base."

That play also earned Pedroia Baseball Tonight's number one Web Gem, by the way.

THE SCIENCE OF BASEBALL sometimes includes mad scientists. Sure, there's the famous shift – often employed against Big Papi – where the field is stacked on the right, leaving the entire third base side wide open. But then there's craziness like this:

Braves manager Bobby Cox was desperate, and he was plotting an ingenious plan. He was nearly out of right-handed pitchers, and players can't re-enter a game after they've been removed. If Mr. Resop, a righty, could play the outfield, that would allow Mr. Cox to replace him on the mound temporarily — and use a lefty specialist to pitch to Adam LaRoche — without losing him entirely. So after Mr. Resop pitched to three batters in the top of the 10th inning, Mr. Cox had him go to left field. When Mr. Resop returned to the pitcher's mound one batter later, it marked the first time a pitcher had pitched, played the field and pitched again in the same game since Jeff Nelson of the Seattle Mariners in 1993, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

But if Mr. Melvin had his way, the Brewers organization might be even more progressive. He has another counterintuitive idea: using relievers to start the game, and delaying the "starting" pitcher's entrance until the third inning or so. The thinking is that starters are typically among a team's best pitchers, yet nowadays they often pitch only through the fifth or sixth inning, well before many games are decided. By having them pitch later, they'd be around for the higher-leverage innings.

The idea would need to be tested first in the minor leagues, Mr. Melvin says. The only problem, it appears, is that it's too unconventional. "I can't get anybody to do it," he says.

THERE SEEMS TO BE A THEME DEVELOPING on ESPN.com's baseball widget. Today's headline: "Gagne blows save, but Kapler lifts Brewers in 12th." Good news for Gabe, at least.

ON A NIGHT WHEN BECKETT, VARITEK, LOWELL, CORA AND CRISP are all unavailable, this is a pretty great sentence to be able to read:

Jacoby Ellsbury hit two solo homers and Kevin Youkilis added a two-run shot for Boston, while Pedroia went 4-for-5 with three doubles and a single.

It's their sixth straight win and third late-inning comeback.

ESPN.COM WIDGET HEADLINE: "Reds rally off closer Gagne in 10th, stun Brewers." Isn't it more shocking that the Brewers were stunned?

TURNS OUT THE HEX WASN'T A HOAX, but did it actually become a pox on the Sox, and not a prank on the Yanks? It may have seemed like a great idea to bury a Red Sox jersey underneath the new Yankee Stadium as a curse on the Yankees, but the symbolism never really made sense to me. Turns out the jersey buried in concrete bore the name of one Mr. David Ortiz, whose .070 average and 3 for 43 slump definitely borders on the supernatural, but in a bad way. Looks like the construction worker's well-meaning curse may have backfired. Oops. Now that the Yanks have excavated the jersey, let's see if Papi gets his mojo back.

BOSTON.COM'S MOST EMAILED FOR THE DAY includes one notable news item from the Bronx.

BASEBALL PLAYERS MIGHT BE THE FUNNIEST OF PRO ATHLETES — but then again, the only sport I really follow is baseball so my theory might be full of crapola. Still, the personalities that make up, say, the NBA and NFL seem to me mostly humorless and/or too full of themselves to say something actually funny as opposed to just buffoonish-ly funny. Of course, Barry Bonds is pretty much the poster boy for "humorless, hyper-competitive, self-important meathead." But then you also have wiseasses like Kevin Millar, goofballs like Manny, clowns like Big Papi and a bunch of other fun-loving guys trying to keep things light over a long season. An interview with Dustin Pedroia in the Globe, while not hilarious, at least shows these guys aren't totally unimaginative dumbass jocks who take everything too seriously.

GLOBE: No marriage proposals?

PEDROIA: There was yesterday! [A woman held up a sign that said] "Pedroia's future wife" and had an arrow pointing down. I was like, "Jeez. This woman must be blind. Poor thing."

A CAT NAMED OSCAR IS THE HARBINGER OF DEATH in an old person's home, according to articles in the Boston Globe and New England Journal of Medicine:

Since he was adopted by staff members as a kitten, Oscar the Cat has had an uncanny ability to predict when residents are about to die. Thus far, he has presided over the deaths of more than 25 residents on the third floor of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death, allowing staff members to adequately notify families. Oscar has also provided companionship to those who would otherwise have died alone. For his work, he is highly regarded by the physicians and staff at Steere House and by the families of the residents whom he serves.

That sounds nice and all, but I have an alternate theory: I think the cat is killing off the patients one by one and stealing their souls. Why does no one else suspect this?

WATCHING 23-YEAR-OLD JON LESTER PITCH in his first big league start since being treated for cancer wasn't as interesting as watching his parents watching their 23-year-old son pitch in his first big league start since being treated for cancer:

In the third, Sizemore connected for a two-run homer off Lester, who was in trouble again in the fourth.

The Indians loaded the bases with one out but Lester broke Josh Barfield's bat on a comebacker that he bobbled before throwing home to force Garko. With Sizemore back up, Lester's mom, Kathie, couldn't watch as her son battled Cleveland's leadoff hitter.

When Lester finally blew a fastball past Sizemore for strike three to end the threat, his father, John, and Kathie jumped up and pumped their fists in celebration. However, she quickly sat back down and resumed her doubled-up position, seemingly afraid to watch anymore.

THIS JUST OCCURRED TO ME ABOUT THE HULK — the military was probably right in trying to bring that crazy mofo into custody. I mean, that guy was out of control, a serious threat to public safety. Sure, he was misunderstood. But he was a giant, violent, angry green ball of misunderstanding that could smash buildings and swing tanks over his head. So, yeah, let's get the guy some professional help so he can work out his issues — but for god's sake, let's get him that help under federal custody. I don't know why that didn't occur to me when I was a kid. Or maybe it's yet another sign of being old and fearful now.

ROGER CLEMENS MAKES ANOTHER COMEBACK in the year 2057 — a fun little short film by Michael Barber and Matt Oates.

EVEN WITH THE YANKEES 10.5 GAMES BACK, there are always reasons to keep watching. For one, the return of the Rocket means there's never enough distance between the Sox and the surging Yanks (their pitchers are pitching, their bats are hitting, their runners are stealing, and they've won 8 of their last 10, including a five-game winning streak and a Chien-Ming Wang complete game victory).

But beyond the ever-present fear of a Yankees uprising and Red Sox collapse (once a Red Sox fan always a Red Sox fan), there are also the little rewards that baseball bestows upon those who stick with the long season. Like taking satisfaction in watching wily Julian Tavarez (6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 5 SO) put up about the same pitching line as Clemens (6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 7 SO) – for approximately a gazillion dollars less per game.

Or there's Schilling getting one out away from a no-hitter, shaking off Varitek's call for a slider ("He's swinging"), and banking on his fastball instead ("He's taking"), on that fateful (second-to-last) at-bat against Oakland's Shannon Stewart. Or, as Schill himself puts it in his blog:

Now comes the infamous ‘shake’. In talking with Tek after the game it’s clear to me that he was 100% spot on with his thought, and I was completely wrong with mine. Why would he take a strike at this point? I had gone to 1 three ball count all day. I wasn’t going to walk him and the only thing you do at that point, by taking a strike, is allow me freedom to use my split. There was no way in hell he was taking. I was sure otherwise. So I shake off the slider, execute the pitch I want, and he lines it to right.

It was a game of minor statistical importance (hey, we're 10.5 games ahead!) played on a school day, so many of us caught on late that potential history was in the making. But that's because we're cubicle monkeys, checking in on the team between meetings and emails. Big Papi, however, realized what was going on even later than the rest of us, and he was actually there:

It was Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills who alerted the media to the fact David Ortiz was in the dark about Schilling taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning.

"Ortiz came up to me and said, 'I swear on my children, I didn't know it was a no-hitter,' " said Mills, who had the manager's office to himself after the game because Terry Francona decided Mills deserved some attention after his son, Beau, was drafted by Cleveland in the first round (13th overall). "After the game, he came up to us. You can go ask him."

Francona said Ortiz told him the same thing, and the big man owned up to his ignorance.

"I didn't know until after the first out in the last inning," said Ortiz, whose home run in the first inning gave Schilling the run he needed to win his sixth game against two losses. "That's when I got nervous. I looked at the board, saw all the zeroes. [First base coach] Luis Alicea, he asked me, 'What would you do? Would you bring the closer in?'

"He was messing around with me. I was like, 'He's pitching good, why bring in the closer? Later on, I looked at all those zeroes, and I see the zero under 'H,' I go, 'Wait a minute.' I'm looking around and everybody goes, 'Shhhh.' That's when I started getting nervous."

Utility guy Alex Cora had this response:

Sox infielder Alex Cora was dubious of Ortiz's claim. "How many people were at that game?" Cora asked. "Thirty thousand? Twenty-five guys on their side, and 24 [on ours] . . . he was the only guy not watching the game."

And random Red Sox fan Bill Chuck had this:

After reading David Ortiz's claim that he didn't know Curt Schilling had a no-hitter in progress Thursday, reader Bill Chuck e-mailed: "The fact that Big Papi was not aware of Schilling's no-hitter until one down in the ninth can only be attributed to David being Manny."

So there's the painfully close bid at a history-making no-hitter — and then there are the little things, like Julio Lugo's hidden ball trick, which brings its own kind of drama to the June proceedings:

Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell did not see Julio Lugo tag out an unsuspecting Alberto Callaspo Friday night, but he was ready to pronounce judgment on the play.

"That's not a real hidden-ball trick," Lowell said yesterday , "although I'm sure the stats say it is."

Lugo tagged out Callaspo when he strayed off second base, not realizing that Lugo — who had taken a throw from right fielder J.D. Drew — had not returned the ball to pitcher Josh Beckett, even though Beckett said afterward he was calling for the ball.

"I saw it on the replay," Lowell said, "I didn't see it while it was going on."

Lugo said once before he'd executed a similar play, but said the umpire missed it. "I try it all the time," he said. "It just didn't work.

"The umpire [Chris Guccione] was right on top of the play."

Lowell executed a similar play in 2005, when he was with Florida, and it also came against Arizona, when the third baseman tagged out Luis Terrero, who also strayed off the bag with Lowell still in possession of the ball. Why, then, was Lowell's play superior to Lugo's?

"Because [Lugo] didn't have to do anything," Lowell said. "[Pitcher Todd ] Jones had to sell it more than anyone.

"Jonesie, the only reason I didn't get rid of the ball was he was backing up home plate. I wasn't going to throw it to him. So I just waited. Then I glanced over to third and the third base coach and Terrero were both looking down at the time. So I said, I'll just walk over until Jonesie gets to the mound. If he asks for the ball, I'm going to give it to him. But we made eye contact and he saw me, then he walked around the mound, he's at the back, he started stretching. We were, honestly, about three seconds away from just forgetting about it because we couldn't wait anymore. And right there [Terrero] took a step off the bag, and it worked out."

No-hitters and hidden ball tricks both display some of the particular fun of baseball. It's a game with a long memory for little things and big things, each moment adding incrementally to a player's stats while also echoing the accomplishments of games past. So even though it's a long season in a game with a long history, even the smallest things begin to carry strange significance.

One day, Trot Nixon steps into the batter's box as a player for the opposing team, but what takes the stage is appreciation for the 13 seasons he spent as an original dirt dog. And on that same day, Kevin Youkilis has the first inside-the-park home run at Fenway since . . . Trot Nixon.

So, Mother's Day comebacks aside, there are other special moments that have nothing to do with winning and losing that are worth watching.

Or if you don't buy that, then remember this: 10.5 games is nothing when you're talking about the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

Suprisingly, it takes a New York Daily News columnist to remind us of how the tides can turn. After all, when the Red Sox were 8.5 games back on July 1, 2004, everyone began to count them out then, as well.