Deleted Scenes and Bonus Footage

Continuing to make as much use of the internet as I can before the hiatus...

• The line I referenced before in SI, "With a little more than a third of the season gone, baseball has one bona fide superpower (the Red Sox) and a small handful of bottom-feeders," was something of a throwaway line in an article about whether teams will be buyers or sellers at the trading deadline - not a full analysis, but certainly careless.
• I'll concede the giddiness of Yankees' fans when the Sox are down on their luck. The dynamic of the rivalry seems to go like this: The season begins and the Red Sox are up, the Yankees are down, Red Sox fans gloat, Yankees fans ignore it; The season continues, the Yankees surge, the Red Sox fade, Yankees fans gloat, Red Sox fans pout.
• Barry Bonds has yet to homer against the Sox this series (though he did go wide right of the Pesky Pole on at least one occasion), but today the Sox are putting Wakefield on the mound, and his flutterball tends to facilitate batters trying to "Dial 8". Has anyone else actually heard that expression - "Dialing 8"? I came across it the other week as a euphemism for hitting a homerun - apparently it has something to do with needing to hit the number 8 prior to making an outgoing call in a hotel.
• With the possibility of Bonds lurching closer to Aaron's record, I'm sure Curt Schilling will be hunched over his own laptop, typing on his own blog, throughout the game. This may be the day that he demands to be traded to every team that the Giants play for the rest of the season sequentially, pitching in the remaining 95 games this season, walking Bonds every time he faces him, and automatically receive a $13 million extension from the Dodgers. (Interesting Note: After being traded to the Red Sox, Schilling had an incentive clause built into his contract, guaranteeing an option year if the Sox won the World Series. This kicked in, of course, after '04, and I believe that this is that option year. Shortly thereafter, MLB banned this incentive clause, so Schilling remains the only player to benefit from this. Had the Sox not won, Schilling would have been a Free Agent this past offseason, coming off a 15-7, 3.97 ERA, 183 K/28 BB year)
• Donnelly went on the 15-day DL, so the Sox have called up Manny Delcarmen. Manny D's been pitching better than I thought he had been in AAA (3-2, 3.49 ERA, 37 K/12 BB, 19 G, 28 1/3 IP) and he looked all right against the Yankees in his one ML appearance this year - a scoreless 1-2-3 inning. The next two weeks will give us a chance to see if Manny can be a contributor this season.
• Some fun with names in the draft - the Nationals drafter the pitcher with the best pitcher name - Josh Smoker ("And Smoker smokes another one!"). The Sox picked 4 guys named Scott in the 6th round and beyond. Did they not know the last name of the guy they wanted? ("With the 1099th pick, the Red Sox will take... Scott," "You mean Scott Lyons?" "Uh, yeah, sure.") In the 43rd round the took lefty high school pitcher Scott Cure ("Matsui, the Yankees' big lefty, is coming to the plate - and Francona is going to the bullpen - he's got just the 'Cure' for Godzilla!")
• I'm going to see the Charleston Riverdogs later his afternoon - the Yankees of the future, up close and personal!