Raise Your Hands If You're the Boom King

One night, two games, and two walk off hits. Frankly I think we deserved this, these playoff games are longer than Drew's Jambaroo. Manny Ramirez answered my prayers (not for a Red Sox win, just for the sweet release of sleep) and ended the long night with a thrilling walk-off homer to break the 3-3 deadlock in the bottom of the ninth. But Manny wasn't the only hero in Red Sox Nation Boston last night. 17 year-old fan Dan Vinik, the son of one of the team's owners, interfered with foul ball preventing LA-of-A's catcher from making the catch. The extra out allowed Boston to tie the game at three in the fifth inning. Who wants to bet that kid lost his virginity last night?

"I just reached over and tried to catch the ball," Vinik said. "I don't know."

What next?

"More or less, I started getting jumped on," Vinik said, "and applauded and high-fives and everything."

Did Mathis say anything to him?

"Not that I heard," he said. "I was just focusing on other things. I couldn't hear anything."

Did he hear from anyone else?

"A bunch of people," he said. "Like 15 or 20 people called me — guys who saw me on TV."

Dan, there will be time to chat up the guys later, you need to get your skinny ass to a bar.

In other on-field news, Dice-K gave the Red Sox a serviceable 4.20 innings (pitching a fifth of an inning is no easy task) before letting the bullpen take over—and take over they did. Delcarmen, Okajima, and Papelbon each contributed 1.1 innings of no-hit ball. The trio combined for four strikeouts with the win going to the totally extreme closer.

The Sox are now two games up in the five game series and Dane Cook is wicked pumped.

Update: PostmanE has video of the climax (Manny's not Dan's) over at FanHouse

Fan intervention works in Sox's favor