ALCS Celebration: Warming It Up Pregame

You know how you know it was a good night? When there is so much Sox-y video goodness, it can’t be contained in one post. So I’m gonna break it up into pregame, gametime and postgame video- dole it out in bite-size chunks. Some of these bits and pieces have been floating around, some haven’t- but everything should be in nicer quality than your standard Youtube fare (thanks, AOL Video for much nicer video resolutions!).

So since they kicked off the game last night with a first pitch by my favorite Oriole and yours, one Kevin Millar, it’s only fitting I kick off this video barrage with some Miilarage as well. Here’s the video of him throwing out that first pitch to Dougie “Fresh” Mirabelli to start the game. Not content with that, and despite his assertions he wasn’t pulling for either team (to avoid incurring the wrath of one Trot Nixon, who I picture grumpily crossing his arms and scowling at Millar from the visitor’s dugout), Kevin also read out the starting lineup for the Red Sox. And true to form, Millar gets in digs at Mike Lowell (”biggest eyebrows in baseball”) and Jason Varitek (”the only guy to wear a flattop in 2007″).

I applaud the Baltimore Orioles for letting Millar come and participate in the fun- it takes a set of cojones to do that, and more than a little bit of heart as well to understand the emotional ties the Sox fans have to Millar. Letting a current player be free to root like hell for his buddies… that play for a division rival? This can’t have been an easy decision for the Baltimore front office – and the Sox did get permission (they also asked the Mets’ front office for permission to have Pedro participate as well, and that never materialized). Not everyone is happy about it- but I say thanks to the Orioles fans, too, for letting us have him back even if only for a short while. There’s a big part of my heart that will always be reserved for Millar, and I suspect most other Sox fans feel the same way. So thanks for sharing him with us. After this, and the Mora bunt? Well let’s just say we owe you, Orioles.

More video after the jump…

Couple of other pregame bits- two little video montages put together for Game 7. The first is a nostalgic mix of shots of the teams, interspersed with video of guys who used to play for Boston and Cleveland back in the day. Look for the wink- it’s a killer. And the second is one of those “angrymusic! let’s make it sound like this is life or death or war or something” montages. I love those kind.