W0000000000T!
Yep, the Sox won again last night, and we did get to watch it at TGI Friday’s, as planned. We got there maybe half an hour before the game was scheduled to start, and snagged the last two seats at the bar. This place has a huge, sort of U-shaped bar. No matter where you sit, you get an excellent view of a TV, because they have TVs on all four walls. When we got there, half the TVs were tuned to the Bruins hockey game, and the other half to some college football game.
They put TBS on most of the TVs at 8PM; the Bruins game was over by then anyway (the Bruins won, in case anyone cares). And many, many loyal Sox fans who were there to watch the game then got royally pissed. TBS was apparently having “technical difficulties” and could not show the game. Instead they showed some idiotic sitcom that I’d never seen before. I swear, I think TBS actually preferred to be showing that crap, rather than the ball game. We’ve seen enough of the TBS coverage of the ALCS/DS, in bars and in the motel in Sturbridge a couple of weekends ago to get the feeling that they really don’t care much about the sports. They seem to care more about wanting to be a comedy channel and promote the Bill Engvall and Frank TV shows than in the sports. That’s a bit surprising, because don’t they show all of the Atlanta Braves’ games? They even have Chip Caray, who does the Braves’ coverage, as ne of the announcers during these playoff games. But TBS sure has changed since I had cable at home, they seem to want to be a clone of Comedy Central or something.
If these playoff games MUST be on cable, at least they should be on a dedicated sports channel. How many flavors of ESPN are there these days? A lot, from what I have seen. Let THEM get the rights in the future. They would not make us sit and watch a stupid sitcom if they had technical difficulties. They’d probably put on some baseball news/talk show, something that we’d actually be interested in.
Well, they finally did get the game on, but we missed the first inning or so. The Rays had already scored a run. At least the announcer guys tried to show people what they missed. I’m sure they were just as pissed over the “technical difficulties” as we were.
Given the importance of this game, especially it being a must-win for the Sox, no doubt the TBS offices were getting flooded with phone calls and emails from angry Sox and Rays fans. If I were at home or someplace where I could have looked up the phone number, I’d have called them, too.
The only other annoying thing about the evening was when I had to use the restroom, and the door was being blocked by a woman with a humongous Bob stroller. This is designed to be a jogging stroller, it has big tires that make it good for pushing on unpaved roads and bumpy sidewalks, and keep the baby comfortable while Mom or Dad goes for a run. It is NOT designed to bring into crowded places like restaurants.
The child in the stroller looked old enough to be able to sit up in one of the restaurant’s high chairs safely. In fact, the kid looked big enough to be walking. Why bring the stroller in at all?  Why not just leave it in the car?
They had to have come by car, as there is only one bus that goes to this particular shopping center, and it stops running pretty early in the evening. There are no residential areas in walking distance. NO reason to bring a large jogging stroller into a crowded restaurant that I could see.
Anyhoo, we stayed for the entire game, which ended at around midnight or so. We’d never stayed at this place that late before. Usually, they have one Everett city cop stationed in the bar to keep an eye on things, but I guess they expect more trouble on weekend nights, because they had three of Everett’s finest on duty. Must be nice to get paid to hang out in a bar and watch a Red Sox playoff game! Seriously, it was good to see them there, because that means that this restaurant means business about keeping people in line. I assume they have to pay for the cops to be there. The cops are not allowed to drink, of course, but I saw that they were getting free coffee, soda, and even appetizers. That was cool.
Now we’re down to Game Seven tonight. We’ll have to listen on the radio, since we can’t be staying out so late on a Sunday night, not when Mike has to get up and go to work on Monday. So let’s hope for another miracle! 
