Watchdog

You know how Brooklyn old-timers are always claiming that in the Dodgers' glory days you could walk down the street and follow the games by listening to the radio on every stoop or in every open window?

Well, something like that happened to me in Boston Sept. 1.

In Cambridge, 10 people stood on the sidewalk watching the Red Sox-Orioles game in a store window. It seemed strange, even in the heart of Red Sox Nation, that people would be that into a regular-season game against an also-ran.

A little while later I entered the lobby of my Boston hotel (about a mile from Fenway) and heard a roar coming from the sports bar. I looked in the window and saw that it was 10-0 in the ninth. Hmm. Even in Boston the first out of the ninth inning of an early September blowout doesn't get that kind of reaction.

So I bolted to my room, turned on the TV and got to watch the final two outs of Clay Buchholz's no-hitter. NESN's Don Orsillo, who previously in his career did not stick to tradition and avoid saying "no-hitter,'' did avoid it this time.

It's not the preferred method for modern play-by-play men. But it worked.