Baseball In The Daytime: Patriots' Day Breakfast Special

Of all the days contained in a baseball season, the finest are ones that promise day games. And of all those days, the absolute pinnacle is today. It's Patriots' Day, folks, and so if you live in Massachusetts or Maine you're off work today.

Actually, if you live in New England you've been drinking since sunrise and have probably already punched a cop, thus you'll be missing BITD this morning. Unless your holding cell has StubNets access.

On this day that we remember the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Boston Marathon is scheduled to snake through the streets of the old colonial hub. The Red Sox are always home as well, and to accommodate the race they schedule the first pitch at 11:05 Eastern, 9:05 Mountain. On the West Coast I think the game is already in the sixth, please don't spoil it by telling me the score.

Fun side note: we almost started Baseball In The Daytime on Patriots' Day last year, but we, um, didn't.

I geared up for today's pseudo-holiday by diving into HBO's John Adams miniseries, which concluded last night but I just started watching on the TiVo. Excellent. The wife and I made it through the second episode, in which the Battle of Lexington and Concord takes place, so I feel good and historied up to drink a bunch of Sam Adams at work and not answer the phone. Stay tuned after the jump for more fun Red Sox homerism, U.S. history and...a game in Canadia? Oh fuck that...

Texas @ Boston, 9:05 The morning contest at Fenway features a pair of products of the Red Sox farm system. Clay Buchholz is the rail-thin righty who raised expectations to unreachable heights with a no-hitter last autumn. Kason Gabbard was a serviceable lefty who carried a 3.86 ERA with the big club last year before Theo Epstein shipped him off in the Eric Gagne deal. Whoops. The Sox are white-charcoal-hot right now, after a 5-1 week that saw them win four games that they trailed after seven innings, including a comeback from 5-0 down yesterday.

My favorite part was the lineup jitterbug that took place after Manny Ramirez got ejected for arguing balls and strikes in the second. Some farmhand played left for a while, and then Francona inserted rookie phenom Jed Lowrie as a pinch-hitter during the eighth inning rally. This forced shortstop Julio Lugo to left field defensively in the ninth, and the final popout was snagged by Lowrie directly in front of Lugo, who looked annoyed at the kid. It's a metaphor, Julio--he's literally taking your job right in front of your eyes.

Detroit @ Toronto, 10:37 God damn Canada bugs me. You still start your games at 10:37, for no fucking reason other than to be difficult. At least you dumped Frank Thomas, he's horrible. The only way the Blue Jays can redeem themselves in my eyes is to acquire Barry Lamar Bonds as their new DH. Today the home team starts Shawn Marcum against Armando Gallaragga of the Tigers.

Play Ball!