J. and I just got back from an overnight trip to Cooperstown this evening. We had a great time and I'll post a full report in the next couple of days.

We did make it to our hotel in time to catch the last few innings of the Yankees-Red Sox classic last night. As you probably already know, the Sox scored 5 in the 8th to come back from a four run deficit and win the game.

There were many beautiful parts of the game. Beating the Yankees was the best, of course. The great Mariano Riviera gave up the key hits in the 8th. Hideki Okajima came in for the 9th in place of Papelbon, who had thrown 26 pitches the night before against the Jays. Okajima did a nice job and got the save.

The best part, however, may be who got the key hits off Riviera. Two guys who have been really struggling with the bat, Varitek and Coco Crisp, drove in the key runs in the 8th. Coco and 'Tek both had two more hits today, so hopefully those guys are both breaking out of it.

Today was a nice game as well, with a big home run by Papi. The most impressive thing,I thought, was the way Beckett bounced back after giving up four runs in the first two innings and throwing a ton of pitches. In the middle innings he set down ten Yankees in a row, having 8 pitch innings in the 4th and 5th. He ended up going 6 and 2/3 before giving way to Okajima, Timlin and Paps for the save.

Two out of three from the Empire, and Dice-K to go tomorrow. Hopefully we can score some runs for him tomorrow, but I feel like we're playing with house money at this point.

OK, here's one thing from Cooperstown I did want to share tonight. After we finished at the Hall of Fame, J. and I were walking up and down Main St. checking out the various stores. We walked into one and I noticed about a dozen of these on a rack:



That's right. This poor store owner has an inventory of a bunch of Matt Clement Red Sox jerseys. I wonder how much they have to pay people to take them away?