It's all about the bricks.

This year, in anticipation of the 100-year anniversary of Fenway Park, the ownership team of the Red Sox started selling bricks. I'm not shitting you. For $250---and that's for the smaller brick---you can purchase a brick with a personal inscription to be placed in Gates C or B at Fenway Park. But that's not all. Oh no. You also receive a replica brick, a custom case to display your brick, a certificate acknowledging your brick, and your very own map so you can point out your brick to your friends on your next visit to Fenway Park. Chances are if you can afford $250 for a fucking brick, you can also afford Red Sox tickets where you get to watch other filthy rich men underachieve to the tune of $2 million a game and, rest-assured, your brick money is helping to pay their salaries.

You see, the brick is an apt metaphor for 2011 Red Sox season---ridiculously-expensive, inert, and ultimately useless, unless all of your replica bricks can come together to make a wall.

The brick is the perfect symbol of The Pink Hat fans who have been "selling out" Fenway every night for the past eight summers, where they sing "Sweet Caroline," start a wave, and leave in the top of ninth to beat the traffic out of Boston. These so-called "fans" have no real interest in the game of baseball and could care less if the team wins or loses. My hope only is they'll stop coming to games after this season's debacle, and I'll be able to afford to take my son to Fenway like my own dad took me.

For the past month, The Red Sox also played with the emotional torque of bricks, and in the end, it was impossible to light them on fire.

And the last game on the season was definitely a brick to the nose. In fact, it almost felt like old times, and I found a trace hint of nostalgia in my anger and dejection last night.

If I had $250 to blow on a brick, I might be tempted to buy one and really personalize my inscription:

Dear 2011 Red Sox,

Go shit a brick. You suck.

Yours,

The Asshole Who Bought a Brick

All in all, you were all just bricks in the wall.

A dubious distinction

There's an afternoon game today on Fox, which translates to: don't make plans before 9 p.m. And there's the pleasure of listening to Joe "Fuck" Buck and Tim "Windbag" McCarver audio-blow the Yankees. There's a double-header tomorrow in the Bronx where the Yankees could do what I once dreamed the Red Sox would have the opportunity to do, which is play the role of the sniper. Then there's three in Camden Yards where the suddenly mighty O's can take the final dump on their corpses.

Yeah, it's been a great season for Red Sox fans.

In the end, The Red Sox will probably worm their way into the post-season, and God help me if they have the nerve to celebrate in their locker room if they clinch. There should not be a single bottle of champagne, a single can of Bud Light or Papelbon sucking on a stupid cigar and dancing like a jackass. If they make it to the post-season, they should simply thank the fates for aligning, take Ambien, and get a good night's rest so their sore backs and stiff necks don't keep them out of playoff games.

It's supposed to rain most of the weekend in New York City, and it's going to be unseasonably warm in Baltimore. If you clinch, the Pink Hats will be there on Yawkey Way to cheer you when you come home. They'll sing "Sweet Caroline" in their authentic David Ortiz jerseys outside your bus. They'll chant for J.D. Drew. They'll pay $200 a seat to watch you get smoked in the playoffs. Don't expect the real fans to be there, boys. You'll still have a lot of explaining to do.

Hell freezes over.

I never thought this day would come. It once seemed unfathomable, blasphemous to say what I'm about to say. If you listen to sports talk radio, however, you've been hearing this from the die-hards all day; meanwhile, the Pink Hats have been loosening their vocal cords to assure they really belt out "Sweet Caroline" in the 8th inning tonight. Here it is:

I hope the Red Sox lose.

There. I said it. I hope Tampa hands this bunch of overpaid, underachieving whining Delilahs their asses in the final three games of this series, takes possession of The Wild Card and sends these apathetic douche bags home to play golf in October.

In my lifetime, I'd be hard-pressed to recall a more contemptuous Red Sox team than the one that will take the field in a couple of hours. Minus a couple of hot streaks, the 2011 Red Sox have played without passion, without fire, without personality, and without the will to win. They weren't prepared to play in April, and they're playing their fiddles as Fenway burns around them now. It's as if the entire team has morphed into clones of JD Drew, collecting their paychecks and caring less. This ball club's nonchalance has made them a veritable snore to watch and easy to hate. And, in my opinion, the king's share of this epidemic apathy falls on the shoulders of the manager.

Tito Francona has sat in that dugout spitting seeds and shrugging while his team has swirled down the shitter. Tito makes excuses for his players under-performing. Then Tito shrugs. Tito tells the press that Bard looked good after blowing the second of what would be three straight blown saves. Then Tito shrugs. Tito stands by idly as his superstars bench themselves because they slept wrong on a plane ride. Then Tito shrugs. But the one Tito can say is that all his players love him. He's a great fucking guy. Guess what, Tito? They loved Grady Little, too.

As Tito shrugs and spits and shrugs, Joe Maddon wins with a quarter of the salaries.

Right now, Tampa is playing for their lives, and honestly, it's refreshing to see a team who cares out there on the field. That team, regardless of their jerseys, deserves to win. Maybe the Red Sox will come out of the dugout and sing along to Neil Diamond with the dipshits at the ball game tonight as Tampa hands them their jocks for the sixth straight game. I say, "Good!"

I used to say it'd be a cold day in hell until I'd root for a team against the Red Sox, and mind you, I'll still never root for the Yankees. But, sadly, the day has come, and a small part of me just died.

The cliche says that "money can't buy happiness." In the case of real Red Sox fans, nothing has ever been truer.

The Red Sox in September

I have nothing to say.