"Sick of playing that game," said Kevin Youkilis when it was all done. And can you blame him? The Red Sox had to wait out a rain delay, wait out the surprisingly resilient Joel Piniero, overcome a Papelbon blown save, and endure 13 muggy, soggy innings to finally beat the Cardinals 5-3. Youk's second homer of the game finally sent everyone home.

The Cards touched Jon Lester for two in the sixth, while the Sox struggled to get anything off Piniero until Youk homered to break the drought in the seventh. Coco Crisp tripled past a whirling Rick Ankiel to lead off the eighth; Lugo sacrificed him in, then the Sox walked their way to the go-ahead run. But Papelbon faltered in the ninth, issuing a walk and a double just beyond Coco's lunge.

Each team had chances in extra innings; the Sox kept getting leadoff doubles that led to nothing, while the Cardinals faced J.D. Drew's arm, throwing out the potential go-ahead in the 13th. Finally, Youk decided enough was enough, and slammed the 2-run shot off Mike Parisi (St. Louis' seventh pitcher) to call it a night.

Tonight's a nice pitching matchup, as Beckett takes the mound against Arizona's Danny Haren. The Diamondbacks were the talk of the league as they blew out of the gates in April, but they've since been hovering just above .500 (still leading the God-awful NL West, though), and now everybody's leaping on the Cubbies' bandwagon.

We were about nine when our parents taped a Johnny Carson (yeah, we're old) show where some cranky guy came out and talked for a few minutes about all the differences between loopy, lackadaisical baseball and violent, military football. We loved it, it stuck with us, and we later found out that the same cranky guy talked a lot about sex, drugs, and the decline of American culture. But we still think the baseball/football thing's the best we ever saw of his. Here's a version of it. Thanks, George. We're gonna miss you.

Flickr image by david.nikonvscanon, under a Creative Commons license.