Me and the boyfriend have been apartment-hunting, and are currently on a demoralizing 0-for-21 slide. That’s right, 21 apartments viewed so far and 0 leases to show for it. So, I’m doing what any good manager would do: benching us. Clearly, what is needed here is a day to clear the head. And how better to clear said head than with some good hardball linkage?

First, Baseball Reference’s Stat of the Day blog has a quick take on winning with no hits, as the Dodgers did last night.

SportsbyBrooks weighs in on the issue that wouldn’t die: the unkillable pink Red Sox hat debate.

Towel Drills has the Ozzie Guillen-Lou Piniella “rap” commercial, which I hadn’t seen yet. It’s horrifying, and it makes me grateful that Boston only has one baseball team.

Half Street Blues has the news of a rather interesting (read: desperate) marketing ploy from the offices of the Washington Nationals: today’s first 10,000 fans who bring in any non-Nats baseball merch and trade it for a free Nationals hat, the one with the curly little “W” that looks like a pig’s tail.

In this week’s Metro column, I assess Curt Schilling’s HOF chances.

River Ave. Blues and Blogging the Bombers are both chuckling over today’s oddball Yankee lineup. Oh, that Joey Girardi! He’s such a kidder!

Razzball has an “interview” with “Spike Lee.”

Balls, Sticks, & Stuff has some simple steps to “Phix the Phils.”

“Eyre placed on DL,” begins the headline of this MLB.com piece. Naturally, I supplied the rest in the blink of an eye: “Expected to be out at least six weeks with malnutrition, exposure to typhus, smoke inhalation, and a broken heart. Will return only when Mr. Rochester finally calls.”

Do you often hear ghostly voices crying your name over the lonely moors? Tell me about it!

Usually, I’d wait until Friday for your procrastinatory reading of the week. But seeing as how many of you will be calling in sick tomorrow (coughcough! hackwheeze! sniffle!), let’s get to those links today.

Babes Love Baseball has the new SI cover and it’s….bizarro!

Walkoff Walk has an amazingly destructive Albert Pujols leaving nothing but carnage in his wake. Gaslamp Ball has the pictures.

Home Run Derby has video of CC Sabathia farting. Hey, we try to put in a little something for everyone in these posts.

Bus Leagues Baseball wants you to help come up with a nickname for Jay Bruce. “The Bruise,” anyone?

Call of the Green Monster has breaking news: already-diminutive Sox infielder Dustin Pedroia seems to be shrinking.

River Ave Blues makes a strong case for using instant replay to get home run calls right, on the heels of yet another blown call. Earlier this week it was Delgado. During the 2007 ALCS, it was Manny, with the 390 foot “single.” Who else has to get robbed just so we can preserve the “human element”?

The Hardball Times takes the media to task for dismissing the Bonds/collusion whispers as conspiracy theories. For the record, I’ve also dismissed those whispers. But this post is the first thing I’ve read that has made me think again.

DRaysBay makes the case that Tampa Bay has the best 1-2 punch in the AL East. In case you’re keeping score at home, there’s only a week left of May and the Rays are just two games out of first place.

Joe Posnanski has another curiously long post touching on, in no particular order, Mike Piazza, Yaz, and whether Pedro Martinez’s 9 perfect innings should count as a perfect game. He notes that after he wrote this column, in which he included Pedro on a list of great no-hitter hurlers, he received a number of emails from people (including yours truly) saying, “Hey, wait a minute! that’s not technically a perfect game!” Joe posits that while that is technically true, he considers it a no-hitter, “record books be damned,” since Pedro pitched 9 perfect innings (he gave up a double in the 10th). I kind of like the idea that we can damn the record books and restore a perfect game to Pedro, a great pitcher who never seems to get any real run support. However, I think this is dangerous—for instance, can we say that Varitek has called five no-nos because he actually called for the right pitch in Curt Schilling’s eight-and-two-thirds bid last year? I mean, Tek was sure Shannon Stewart was swinging. He called for the slider. Schilling was equally sure Stewart was taking. He wanted to throw heat. Schilling threw a fastball, Stewart swung, and there went history. (Incidentally, Pedro also shook off Tek in the 9th inning of his no-hit bid in 2000. Tek called for a curveball. Pedro, like Schilling, insisted on throwing the fastball. He gave up a single.) To me, that game in 2007 and Pedro’s games in 1995 and 2000 are just examples of those bittersweet moments in sports where greatness just slips away. As Schilling put it last year, “I get a big ‘what if’ for the rest of my life.” And so does Pedro. But maybe I’m full of crap. What do you guys think?

And finally, if you’ve got the extra coin, you can get a Marlins World Series ring on ebay for the buy-it-now price of $6,250.00.

Oh, and I’m going to shamelessly plug my own Boston Metro column too. It’s weird, I wrote this post on Lester’s no-hitter first, and then decided I wanted to write a Metro column on it too. It’s damn hard to write about the same thing twice and find something new to say!

What else should I be reading? Email me!

I was there last night for Jon Lester’s no-hitter. It was our annual company trip to Fenway. I was sitting way back in right field with about fifteen of my coworkers, and we spent the first five innings drinking beer and trading office gossip. Then we realized what was happening in front of us.

Until about then, the crowd had been heavily invested in Manny Ramirez’s pursuit of his 500th home run. But as Jon Lester retired one Royal after another, the atmosphere in the old ballpark became increasingly giddy and electric, with moments of expectant silence broken by cheers after every strike, groans after every ball, and gasps after every grounder. The sunset blazed pink and orange over the left field wall.

I woke up this morning and it seemed like a dream. Last night I had this crazy dream, and I was at Fenway Park in May but it was really really cold, and for some reason, all my coworkers were there, and then Jon Lester threw a no-no!

I’ve seen a lot of great moments at Fenway over the past 26 years, but when Lester recorded the final out, the cry of jubilation that erupted in the Fens sounded unlike any other cheer I have ever heard there. It wasn’t the lusty roar I’ve heard at playoff games, and it wasn’t anything like the triumphant crowing you hear at Yankee games. It was the sound of 37,000 people surrendering themselves to euphoria, falling into 100% pure, unadulterated, grade-A baseball love. In fact, I may have given in to the euphoria of the moment a little too much, if possible. No need to go into too much detail, but if you were in Kenmore Square last night and saw a blond woman, about 5′6″, leaning into the brick facade of Fenway Park and apparently attempting to hug the venerable edifice, let’s just say you weren’t hallucinating.

The night was better suited for October than May. There was a wind whipping through Boston that put whitecaps on the Charles. Dust blew into my eyes on the way to the park. It was the kind of night you expected fly balls to become home runs and pop-ups to become singles. That Jon Lester threw a no-hitter is amazing enough. That he did it in such a gale? Unbelievable. Except that I was there and I saw it with my own eyes.

I walked back across the river, the moon and the Citgo sign shining brightly on the water. I could still see the white glow of Fenway’s light towers. The night didn’t feel so cold anymore—the wind had died down. I fell into talking with a couple of guys who were also making the trek back to the Cambridge side of the Charles. I’ve high-fived with strangers in Kenmore after a great game, but I’ve never had thirty-minute conversations with them. But maybe this is just normal, post-no-hitter behavior—who knows? They told me a great story. They were sitting next to an elderly woman. Last year, she gave her tickets to Clay Buchholz’s no-no last year to her daughter and granddaughter. There may be no crying in baseball, but I do believe there is karma.

Free coffee and baseball: This is a match made in heaven, from Sarah’s point of view. Two notes: 1. Jose Canseco is worried that he’ll get poisoned via free coffee. 2. Jonathan Papelbon is advertising free coffee (with purchase of either a flatbread sandwich or a pizza) at Dunkin’ Donuts, available the day after the Red Sox win. Sounds a bit complicated to me—and it’s cheap of DD to exclude their own employees. Not to mention that Paps looks like a cheeseball in this photo. Why didn’t they just go with a real post-game shot?

Speed: the Blue Jays are going to be swiping more bags this season. And speaking of speed, I enjoyed watching the A’s relievers throw over to first with Jason Varitek standing on the bag. Yes, let’s make sure the 35-year old catcher doesn’t steal.

Fans: It just goes to show you that the Dodgers really do have a special relationship with their fans, as LA hurler Brad Penny warmed up with a lucky fan yesterday. Across town, Angels owner Arte Moreno bought souvenirs for several fans. And it seems that Baltimore’s long-suffering faithful are finally abandoning their ballclub. Just don’t get mad when the Sox come to town in May and bring their hordes of free-spending fans with them, transforming Camden Yards into Fenway South. The O’s need the revenue.

No-hitters: Yesterday, ESPN.com carried a teaser for the Chicago-Detroit game saying the Dontrelle Willis was throwing a no-no through five innings. To me, that’s just false advertising. Sure, it’s technically accurate to say that D-Train ended up one-hitting the White Sox, but it would perhaps be more descriptive to say that Willis went five innings, while walking seven and striking out none. It was the least dominant no-no bid I’ve ever watched. An outing more worthy of ESPN’s hype would have been Jake Peavy’s two-hit complete game or Manny Parra’s legit seven-strikeout no-hit bid, carried through five innings.

Reds Rookies: On the heels of Johnny Cueto’s stunning debut Thursday, another Reds rookie pitcher impresses today. Edinson Volquez has pitched five innings so far, with seven K’s and one earned run. He’s scattered three hits and two walks.

Sleep: The Red Sox really do need it. Their odyssey from Florida to Japan to California to Toronto is starting to tell, and it’s most readily apparent on defense. Boston has already committed two errors halfway through today’s game. They had two errors yesterday, too, and have racked up a number of sloppy near-errors over the past few games. They have a day off tomorrow and open Fenway Park on Tuesday.

Via Deadspin and The Fanhouse, Dodgers Broadcaster Steve Lyons would like his homeowner’s insurance to pay for a little accident…that time a couple years back when he grabbed that woman’s wrist and demanded she show him her boobs, and then got sued. It was an Act of God, I’m tellin’ ya! But seriously, what would Vin Scully say? (Interesting aside: his official bio includes the line, “He has earned national notoriety as a staple of Fox Sports’ coverage of Major League Baseball from 1996-2006, where he earned an Emmy Award and two additional Emmy nominations during his tenure with the network.” I’m not sure “notoriety” was quite the word they wanted right there, but it certainly seems appropriate now.)

Over at Salon, King Kaufman has an interesting meditation on the no-hitter—why it’s superior to other athletic achievements and why he tries to jinx them at every opportunity.

DBacksBuzz notes that Randy Johnson did not fare well in his start for the AAA Tucson Sidewinders last night. ExtraBases notes that Bartolo Colon was strong in yesterday’s AAA Pawtucket Red Sox opener.

BlessYouBoys on Detroit’s April stupor.

DodgerThoughts defends bloggers against—guess who?—Murray Chass. The blog’s author, Jon Weisman, followed the New York Times columnist on Charlie Steiner’s XM talk show yesterday. Chass, alas, used his airtime to rail against bloggers. Weisman gave a thoughtful, measured response, thus demonstrating that bloggers = more thoughtful, measured than Murray Chass. In his post, Weisman also notes that despite the knock that bloggers live in their parents’ basements, the only time when he’s actually moved back in with his parents was during his two-year stint as a beat reporter. (Hat tip to BrewCrewBall, where I read it first.)

And finally, Beyond the Box Score had a bunch of good tidbits yesterday (Bill James on Fenway’s left field, the first of many Joe Torre managing miscues, and what PETA would like to call the new Nationals ballpark (hint: it’s not Furmeat Field).