perfidy

Last night in the top of the 8th inning, just after Pedro Martinez had coughed up two runs only to suddenly transform himself into 1999 Pedro throwing unhittable heat for two crucial outs, and just before the Red Sox' lead edged over from "oshitoshitoshitoshit" to "omigodomigodomigod," I had a horrible thought. Right at that moment, somewhere on the Cross Bronx Expressway, angry men were plotting horrible things in a van and fantasizing about postmortem virgins. I was SURE-- POSITIVE-- that some horrible incident-- terrorists-- plane crash-- asteroid-- rough beasts slouching toward Bethlehem moving their slow thighs in agony-- the effing Rapture* (and I'm soooo not a millennial Christian)-- was seconds away. It's the greedy narcissism of the true believing sports fan, yet even knowing that I could not shake the feeling that something was going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

But guess what? I was wrong! It's only a game!

Ha. Ha ha. Ha hahaha. Ha, ha ha ha haha, Ha ha ha!

Best line: Matt Lauer on live (national?) feed with the Boston NBC affiliate, yakking about the game. Matt accepts Yankee defeat, Boston anchors accept victory. Just before feed is cut, female anchor holds up a "Boston Red Sox 2004 American League Champions" tee and says, "Hey Matt, we're sending you a shirt!"

Haw!

[wik] *All Red Sox fans know the number of the beast, if you believe in that kind of thing, is actually 3.

The Boston Red Sox just pulled off the greatest comeback in baseball history, defeating the Yankees to win the American League pennant. Just ignore the first three games, and you have a four game sweep. Not so unusual, right? I hope my prediction is wrong. I hope that fate has, for once, something happy in store for the Sox. In the meantime, savor the moment, and treasure the images of sad, sad Yankees.

My last Red Sox post (until tomorrow). I promise.

Contains profanity: below the fold (I don't know why I bother).

If you want to know everything you need to know about this year's Red Sox, and why they are still alive to play Game 7, look at this picture of Curt Schilling from last night's game:

.

That red stuff on his right sock in front of the stirrup? That's not dye.

This is not the '26-taxis' teams of the Dan Duquette Era. Our pitching squad does not consist of Pedro and Player To Be Named Later. No, this is the team with the funny hair that makes Manny Ramirez grin, that makes a hero out of a washed-up first baseman, and that seem to be playing because it's a damn fun game.

No matter what happens tonight, it's been a helluva ride. Thanks, guys.

[wik] Special bonus footage for those who never been to Beantown.

Storrow Drive runs along the banks of the Charles River, a tortuously winding six lane nightmare with nearly invisible lane markers. On the westbound side of Storrow headed out of town, there is a particularly nasty reverse (or "S") curve with unmarked lanes that winds under a pedestrian overpass. Some brave soul, in defiance of the repeated efforts of the Mass. Highway Goons, has defaced the sign warning drivers of said curve, repeating his effort whenever the Goons replace the sign, such as was done around the time of the Democratic Invasion (God forbid delegates soak in a little local color!). Alert drivers passing under the overpass who can devote some brainshare which would otherwise be occupied with trying not to die in a mess of twisted metal on Storrow Motor Speedway to taking in scenery, are presented with this cri du coeur from Boston's long-suffering yet waggish soul:

[alsø wik] So check this out... the reason Curt Schilling's ankle was bleeding all last night was because-- no shit-- he had the skin of his ankle sewn to the bone to keep his injured tendon in place. And get this... he's offered to do it again if we make the Series.

The only possible explanation for the Red Sox victory today - making them the only team in Baseball history to come back from a three game deficit to force a game seven playoff - is that fate has decided to visit some truly horrific punishment on long suffering Sox fans. After a wild ride, with two calls falling their way, and protection offered by the NYPD, the curse seems to be threatened. But much as I hate and despise the Yankees I also believe that Boston has been singled out for special attention by cruel fortune. They are the anti-chosen people. They will win the next game with the Yankees and advance to the World Series

And then they will lose.

And the dead walk still.

Wherever your sympathies may lie, no one can deny that the Red Sox and the Yankees are incapable of playing a boring series. Even though post-season baseball is by nature exciting even when it's boring, like the fairly snoozerific 1997 Indians-Marlins world series. Though I was (and sort of am) an Indians fan at the time, being from Ohio and all (state motto: "Power of Attorney: Totally Gay"), and though I spent most of that series either on the edge of my seat or powerfully medicated with Old English Malt Liquor and 591.471ml intravenous injections of Budweiser, even I can't deny that most of that seven-game-plus-extras series was, incontrovertably, sucky.

(Evidently today I'm doing my best impression of David Eggers doing his best impression of George Will doing his best impression of Hunter Thompson. Wait until I link up the symmetry of the diamond with the demographic composition of the patrons of my local laundromat at lunchtime and filter both through a highball of Wild Turkey. Someone get me an editor! Stat!)

In the space of 27 hours, the Red Sox and Yankees played 26 innings or 10:51 hours of baseball. In the process, they set records for the longest game in ALCS history (five hours, two minutes) and in postseason history (five hours, 49 minutes), used every pitcher on both squads, and made a hero out of a chunky first-baseman who was let go by the Minnesota Twins. Moreover, both games were won by the Red Sox at opposite ends of the same Monday, all with the Yankees up 3 games to none on a series that after Saturday night's 19-8 bloodbath looked as finished as Fredo at the end of Godfather II when he steps into that rowboat.

I am reminded of Golden Age Marvel comics, with the Yankees (of course) in the part of the Ming-collared villain and the Red Sox (natch) as the muscular-yet-sensitive superhero type. According to formula, the good guy gets himself in a bad situation (such as strapped to a torture machine or down 3 games to none in a League Championship), with the bad guy intent on administering the coup de grace. Yadda yadda, evil cackle, and then the inevitable panel of our hero, face contorted in a rictus of pain and Mr. Bad screaming, "Why won't you DIE!?!?" at which time our hero breaks free and whups much ass.

Of course being the postmodernistic sort that I am and a connoiseur of latter-day graphic novel type kiddie entertainments, I am also reminded of that formula, in which our hero's face contorts in a rictus of pain! He breaks free of the machine! He leaps to his feat! The battle is joined!... and he takes a bullet in the chest and dies drowning in his own blood.

I know which scenario is more likely to happen, but I have been soaking in the New England Calvinism long enough to know that, regardless of our knowledge of our own inevitable damnation, hope must spring still that Red Sox Nation is finally among the chosen.

Just because it's part of the liturgy up here were God takes a back seat to David Ortiz, I'm going to say it. Knowing perfectly well that by saying it, I have just jinxed the whole damn enterprise and queered the deal for another season, and knowing perfectly well that tomorrow I'll be back here again contritely apologizing for being so foolish as to get my hopes up that the greatest rivalry in baseball might turn into the greatest story baseball ever told, I'm saying it. This is the year.

[wik] Michael Berube (imagine the accent marks yourself) has an outsider's opinion on the matter.

Woefully benighted Californian Nathaniel thinks that my Red Sox fandom is weak sauce, and takes a dig at my heritage besides.

Johno, your Heimatsmannschaft is at home in Ohio, bombarded by campaign advertising as they stare at their navels. Your love for the Red Sox is just psychic transference: if you are going to embrace six decades of impotence, why not nine?

Well, Nat, I'll tell you what. I prefer to think of my Ohio roots as a terroir more than a Heimat. Terroir implies who I am is infused with and informed by Ohio and yet I also carry an identity that is my own besides. Your German-stylee homeland word is a little more freaky-sinister. To me at least, "Heimat" implies that I am the sum total of my Ohio roots, umbilically connected to the place. If that is true, how in the world do I still have all my teeth? I like the dandified French food connotations better, myself.

And as for your main assertion, that my Red Sox fandom is transference, I ask you: so fakin' what?!? Of course it's transference. The Red Sox legend is the (Cleveland Indians + Cleveland Browns / (Pittsburgh + Baltimore)) * New York^2, which equals, like, ten thousand or something. In fact, I would argue that sports pain accrues. If that's so, I'm really basking in at least 175 years of accumulated fan frustration, which means the last time my Platonically ideal team won anything, John Quincy Adams was President.

Mine may be an inane argument, but it knocks the hell out of your puny few decades.

So Nathanael thinks his puny Angels can take down the Red Sox in the ALCS.

Dream on, buddy. Your chosen squadron are deficient in multitudinous ways, whereas the squadron of my fealty are paragons of indominitable physical virtue. Prepare, sirrah, for a trouncing!

[wik] Nat also sez: "Who fears un planeta californiano?" Oh, please. California : imminent planetary dominance :: Polish people : good with lightbulbs.

Gregg Easterbrook is a terrible journopundit but a world class sportsblogger, and last year I lamented the unceremonious booting of his weekly football column from espn.com after he said something that someone somewhere may have taken out of context as being less than couth.

Luckily, the NFL has done the sensible thing and given Easterbrook's weekly football column, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, space on its own servers for this football season. TMQ is back! All shall rejoice! All shall rue the blitz!

This will expecially please Minister Buckethead, late of Ohio:

Besides bringing the Yankees one game closer to losing the division to my beloved Red Sox, my slightly less beloved Indians handed the Yanks their worst loss in the history of the team. Moreover, the 22-0 score matched the record for worst shutout beating since 1900 (the Pirates beat the Cubs by the same score in 1976). That's right: these beatings happen once a century. The last time a team got beaten worse than 22-0, William McKinley was President. [I'm still trying to find a hard cite of this last-worst beating].

More unseemly gloating from Phil Dennison.

Some thoughts from the Olympics:

• I loved the opening ceremony. These affairs can't help but be a little cheesy, but the sheer majesty and taste with which the long theatrical sequence covered the 3,000 year history of Greece made up for any faint ridiculousness. Bonus points for alphabetizing the nations by the Greek alphabet. Points off for NBC for Bob Costas and Katie Couric. Note to Bob and Katie: nobody-- nobody cares what you think about what Fiji is wearing.
• What is going on with NBC? With a stable of associated cable networks to exploit (USA, Bravo!, MSNBC, Telemundo), you'd think they could put together a nifty package that puts the marquee sports—gymnastics, swimming, maybe volleyball/beach volleyball—front and center in prime time for the first week of the Games. But nooooo! Last night Bravo! edited their coverage of Olympic badminton (!) to end precisely at 8 and switched to regular programming, just in time for NBC to go on the air with - synchronized diving?
• Synchronized diving? What the fuck?
• The lady gymnasts need to eat some cake.
• The men gymnasts are scary in a Shaolin kind of way.
• What is going on with NBC? Last night the best gymnastics coverage I could find on any station was on RAI. Never heard of RAI? It's from Quebec. Broadcasting in French. NBC was showing doubles marshmallow eating.
• Olympic badminton is scary. That wussy little shuttlecock and flimsy little racquet in the hands of experts become weapons of fearsome power. Last night in a doubles match I watched a short little American guy with a 35-inch (!) vertical leap whip off a kill that must have been going 85 MPH when the shuttlecock hit the court. Unbelievable. More unbelievable is that they got taken apart by a Norwegian team who played like implacable machines.
• Olympic ping-pong is scary. The players watch the ball with all the concentration of a severely autistic child focusing on the one thing that makes him react, and volleys skitter and glide millimeters above the net only to whip off sideways when the ball hits the table. I swear some of these men have more than the usual number of arms.
• What is going on with NBC? Right now in Greece, competitors are vying in boxing, fencing, equestrian, table tennis, water polo, swimming, badminton, soccer, baseball and softball. Between now and noon, NBC's many networks will show us live: table tennis, soccer, and water polo. Weak.
• One word: Thorpedo.”
• The only way to watch soccer is on Telemundo. One word: GOOOOOOOOOAL!”
• We USAians got our ass handed to us in basketball by Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico. Let that sink in. Puerto Rico. There can only be one response: "Mr. President, I have reason to believe that Puerto Rico is harboring Weapons of Mass Destruction."

I really need to watch more baseball, is what I need to do.

I found this cool link over at Rocket Jones. This guy must somehow have even more free time than me, because he's collected sports logos. Most of them. 

Some people seem to have it in for Chief Wahoo. But I ask you, what's wrong with this?

The Indians replaced wahoo with this Stultifyingly dull script "I." Sure, I bought the new model hat, but I hate seeing traditions trampled into the ground in the pursuit of political correctness.

Anyone who follows baseball knows that pitcher Jose Lima has always been maddeningly inconsistent-- for instance following up a stellar 21-10 season in 1999 with a, erm, less stellar 2000 performance, going 7-16 with an ERA of 6.65.

So far this season, he's been good, fine, great for the Dodgers, but as King Kaufman points out writing for Salon.com, even his good seasons aren't without their low points. Lima was pitching last night against Cincinnatti whe Reds outfielder Adam Dunn hit a home run off Lima so hard that it

left the stadium, bounced in the street and rolled all the way into the Ohio River, where it came to rest on a stationary piece of driftwood. Based on where a security guard said he saw the ball bounce, the homer was estimated at 535 feet.

Dunn didn't want to talk about his clout after the game because his team lost. But it looks like it wasn't just an ordinary tape-measure shot. As reader Jeff Mathews of Lexington, Ky., points out and the U.S. Geological Survey confirms, the Ohio-Kentucky border at downtown Cincinnati is the north bank of the river. If you stick your toe into the Ohio, you're in Kentucky.

As of this column's posting time, the Hall of Fame had not been able to confirm that Dunn's shot was the first home run in major league history to have crossed a state line, but I think it's a pretty good bet that it was.

You know you've really given up a home run when there are only 48 states it hasn't traveled through.

Ouch. Every season has its share of funny-sad stories, whether it's some marginal hitter in a slouch fighting to stay above the Mendoza Line (which I personally count as a batting average of .188, because it's just so pathetic), a pitcher chasing 20 losses, or a team chasing 120 losses (see previous link; the Tigers can't get no respect). It's part of what makes baseball so beautiful.

John Kerry needs help.

To get his Ohio rallies up and rolling, Kerry used a set of jokes to open his events. In Bowling Green, his shtick went something like this:

"If you elect me and my running mate, John Edwards, we are going to give you the courageous leadership you need. We'll take the tough positions, the courageous positions, the tough stands. But there's one tough position I will not take: I am not going to choose between the Falcons and the Rockets" -- this is a local reference to the well-known rivalry between Bowling Green University and the University of Toledo.

"I will say this," he added. "There is nothing better than Buckeye football, period!"

Kerry used this set piece several times in Ohio, to great effect, never mind the waffling with the generality of "Buckeye" football. Was he talking Ohio State University specifically? Or just football in the state in general? Only Kerry knows.

But then Kerry dug a huge hole for himself. On Sunday and into Monday, Kerry hit Michigan, where he attempted to use the same Ohio jokes. Clearly, the sports humor has to be taken out of his hands before he really embarrasses himself.

"I just came here from Bowling Green," Kerry told the crowd to subdued applause. "I was smart enough not to pick a choice between the Falcons and the, well, you know, all those other teams out there. I just go for Buckeye football, that's where I'm coming from."

At that point, before all the boos began raining down upon him, Kerry seemed to realize his error. In an attempt to silent the angry crowd of University of Michigan supporters, Kerry said, "But that was while I was in Ohio. I know I'm in the state of Michigan and you got a great big M and a powerhouse of a team." Then his face, presumably, the Botox permitting, turned Big Blue.

Wow. Just wow. Homework, John. Do your homework. And please, please, please make sure you don't give the "hook 'em horns!" when you roll through College Station, Texas. Or, if you wish, by all means do! And follow it up with a good old cry of "Roll, Tide" at a campaign stop in Auburn! And, don'tcha know, potential voters in Philadelphia just love the New York Jets, ya dumbass.

CNN brings us a breath of fresh legal air. In 1998, Jane Costa sued the Boston Red Sox for half a mil because she got hit in the face by a foul ball. The suit has been dismissed by a state court panel. Costa, who was "more than angry. I was in critical condition,"gets nothing, though she is reportedly upset that the Sox are "bickering over millions and millions of dollars to hit a ball, and when one of their fans get hurt, they don't care."

Why did this take six years to resolve? Didn't she read the back of her Red Sox ticket? I did!

By use of this ticket, the ticket holder agrees that... [t]he holder assumes all risk and danger incidental to the game of baseball, or preparation therefor, including specifically (but not exclusively) the danger of being injured by thrown or flying bats and thrown or batted balls and agrees that the participating clubs, their agents and players are not liable for injuries resulting from such causes.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Ms. Costa is one of those "casual (read:"non") fans" who litter ballparks, the proportion of which to actual fans rises the closer one sits to the infield. Not a casual fan like my wife, who when she accompanies me to a game takes a good book for the slow parts but remains alert to the possibility of high-speed projectiles (as vanishingly unlikely as they are in the right-field grandstands underneath the balcony), but a casual fan who jabbers on their cell phone the entire game, is upanddownupanddown in the middle of tense at-bats and sighs/bitches loudly in the fourth inning that the game is taking so loooooong.

If I have mischaracterized Ms. Costa's fandom, I'm sorry. But odds are this next statement is for her: if you are lucky enough to have dugout seats, watch the goddamn game. Hell, if you were bored, perhaps you should have perused the words written in red capitals on the back of your ticket. I'm sorry you took one in the face. I bet that hurt. But still.

Larry Bird today: "[Basketball] is a black man's game, and it will be forever"

Later in the same interview: "The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me."

Bill Parcells yesterday: "Mike wants the defense to do well, and Sean, he's going to have a few ... no disrespect for the Orientals, but what we call Jap plays. OK. Surprise things."

Bill Parcells has apologized, abjectly and repeatedly. Larry Bird has not yet apologized (though the interview does't air until tomorrow). Should he feel compelled to?

Discuss.

NDR helpfully pointed me to Sabernomics, a weblog which combines a love of baseball with the rigorous statistical modeling of a dedicated economist. Actually, more an econometrician. But still. Cool as hell!

Check out author JC's analysis of why and whether perfect games have been more common in recent decades.

If you've read Michael Lewis' modern baseball classic, "Moneyball," you will remember a kid named Kevin Youkilis, a beefy, slowfooted John Kruk-type "ballplayer not athelete" third baseman with an unnatural ability to draw walks. If you haven't read Michael Lewis' modern baseball classic, "Moneyball," well, you should, and do please reread the previous sentence because it contains information you need to know.

Youkilis appears in Lewis' book because he doesn't fit the mold of the sterotypical great ballplayer, the Alex Rodriguez five-tool wonder. Instead, he is a slow, slap-hitting tub of lard. The clincher is that despite his average abilities and physique, he's a preternaturally patient hitter, a Sabremetrician's dream. His on-base percentage in the minor leagues has been astronomical, mainly due to his ability to work pitchers deep in the count to draw walks-- indeed, in "Moneyball" he is dubbed "Euclis, the Greek God of Walks." In the newfangled thinkery of the Boston Red Sox' management, the tubby God of Walks is more valuable than a hacker who swings for power and strikes out frequently. After all, a player on base can score a run, and a player who strikes out has wasted one of only twenty-seven chances per game the team has to score that same run.

With Boston Red Sox third baseman Bill Mueller injured, Youkilis has finally made his major league debut. In twelve games with the Sox, he has posted an OBP of .442 and walked 9 times. Although he has also struck out twelve times in that same span, a period of adjustment to major league pitching is to be expected. Even given Youk's need to adjust to the majors, his .442 OBP compares favorably to such marquee on-base generators as Todd Helton (career .427, first year .337), Barry Bonds (career .436, first year .330), and model leadoff man Rickey Henderson (career .401, first year .338). Put another way, Kevin Youkilis in his first year is getting on base more often than Barry Bonds, one of the all-time elite offensive players, has done in 11 out of his 17 seasons. Not bad.

Can we expect Bonds-like numbers all around from the God of Walks? No. Like I said, he's a beefy, slowfooted heir to John Kruk's mantle. But the God of Walks is an eternal journeyman of a type I always have a lot of fun watching. Now that Krukker's out of the game, Rickey Henderson is playing minor-league ball in Newark, and Joe Randa is in exile in Kansas City, we need Youk. Welcome to the show, kid.

Glossary for non-baseball types:

Walk: A hitter earns a free walk to first base if a pitcher throws four "balls," or pitches outside the strike zone (defined by the left and right edges of home plate, the player's knees, and the midpoint between the belt and the top of the shoulders) that the hitter does not swing at.
Batting Average: Actually a ratio, of the number of successful at-bats producing a hit to the total number of at-bats the player sees. A BA of .300 is considered good, meaning that a good baseball player will fail more than two-thirds of the time. Baseball is a hard game.
At-bat: From Wikipedia: An at-bat (AB) is used to calculate other data such as batting average. A player has an at bat every time he comes to bat except under the following circumstances:

An egghead larva at CWRU has potentially made many sports fans very, very happy indeed.

Adam Hunnell, a first-year student in Case's Physics Entrepreneurship Program has conceived the Keg Wrap, a portable method for keeping beer kegs cold indefinitely.

He has received a $20,000 grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to build a prototype.

Hunnell's idea is to design a wrap, made of nylon or a similar material, using thermoelectrics. The wrap will be cold enough to keep a keg at between 32 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit. It can be powered by a conventional electrical outlet or an automobile's cigarette lighter.

Now that's money well spent.