An ESPN poll I saw today offered four candidates for AL MVP - Garrett Anderson, Carlos Delgado, A-Rod, and Manny. Of late, there's been talk of an emerging fifth candidate - Red Sox 1B/DH David Ortiz. Looking at the numbers, Ortiz tends to lag behind the four - he's last among the five in batting average and OPS, middle of the road with OBP and slugging percentage. With things like hits, RBI, and home runs, he also lags, but has played in significantly fewer games (124 to a range of 147-157 for the others).

So I decided to do a little mathematical snooping (with apologies to Rob Neyer, SABRmertricians everywhere, and pretty much the entire math-using world). I took the hits, home run, and RBI categories, and worked them out for all five players both per game and per at bat.

Turns out that Ortiz has the lowest average number of hits per game (and per at bat) of the five. What's really interesting, though, is that he is fourth in home runs per game (third in HR per at bat), and yet is second in RBI per game and at bat (lagging behind Carlos Delgado in both cases).

I'm not sure what this says, but it does suggest to me that Ortiz gets more out of his at bats than most folks. I do wonder what his numbers would be like if he didn't start the year platooning with Jeremy Giambi (remember him?), but it may have helped him ease into the situation not being the every day guy (thinking back to Tony Clark).

Ortiz also has the benefit of finishing strong, as he's hit a HR in each of the last two games, and had the sense to hit the game winner last night (and, oddly, trumping the drama of the 3 run job that Todd Walker hit to tie the game, making Ortiz the Fisk to Walker's Bernie Carbo).

So consider this a first, somewhat lame attempt to draft Ortiz for the AL MVP award. Feel free to add to the argument or offer counter arguments, as this whole baseball stat manipulation thing is new to me.

Given what I've read on other blogs, I must hang my head in shame. For on Friday, when I had the freedom from work and the decreased maturity brought on by too much beer, I added nary an "avast," "scurvy dog," or "yaaaarrrr" to Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I did make up for it the next day, as I continued my string of "yaaaarrrr"s at seeing pirate flags and signs for the Penobscot Marine Museum's pirate exhibit. I've been doing this every time we've gone up to Sarah's folks' place since the start of the exhibit (which is only three times), so I suppose I was getting my observation of the day in early.

And while I won't take this opportunity to rehash my day on the Ernestina (it not having been a pirate vessel), I will note that on that trip we did sing several rounds of "What would you do with a drunken sailor," and among our ideas were putting him into bed with the captain's daughter, lashing him to the main mast, and making him drink until he's sick (my idea, no doubt shaped by years as a college administrator).

Without going too deeply into fantasy football talk, the state of my team is such that yesterday's 2.96 point performance by Kyle Boller is almost a full point better than the two week numbers I've gotten from Donovan McNabb. I am living Dwight's fraught watch on the Eagles' passing game, and it's no fun.

I've also missed two roster moves that would have given me either a bigger lead or made the final closer. Santana Moss had 140 yards plus last week - the one week I didn't play him. This week it was Michael Pittman, who is apparently working on a highlight reel for his possible entry into the Florida Correctional Football League. Nothing short of divine intervention would have helped me in week one.

Unlike Jon, I will not post my golfing score from Friday's outing here. Considering I now average one round a year (and that only after a 12 year hiatus broken in 2001), such an informational display would seem futile. Not to mention, NASA hasn't finished computing my round.

Still, for every three-putt and multi-whiff iron shot, I did manage a few of what could be called, with all sincerity, golf shots. I seem to best off the tee, though I do have a tendency to put my drive into the opposing hole's fairway in cases where they run parallel. I also seem attracted to wood (witness my hitting a house in Myrtle Beach last year), though this time around it was mostly trick shooting, including banking a shot off of a willow and into the fairway and running my second shot on one hole through a pair of arbor vitae (much like what I do when trying to pick up a 7-10 split).

I do think that, if I get to a point where I can afford to play more often and have acqaintances who would put up with my muni-hack style of play, I'd like to go out more often.

One notable (but macabre) moment from the day was realizing that I didn't have a putter in the set I've inherited from my dad. It took me a minute to realize we buried it with him.

While on the subject of my dad's clubs, it should be noted that, if you're a real stickler, it's not exactly a regulation set. There are something like five woods, a fairway driving iron, two seven irons (one a leftie in case it's the only way to play the shot), and some sort of putter-looking chipping club whose purpose I have yet to fathom (it turns out I was using it at times I shouldn't have, while Jon pointed out another time when I should have used it and did not).

The rest of the day was the typical debauchery for a bachelor party group (outside of strippers, which aren't my thing and would have gotten the other married men in collective dutch with the wives). The steamers did look mighty tasty, if deadly.

The rest of the weekend was spent in Maine. We delivered Sarah's aunt and uncle to her parents' house, and I spent the vast majority of the weekend in the house watching some form of competition (baseball, football, and the World Pastry Cup that was re-running on the Food Network). It was nice to see the Sox win one today (especially with the Mariners' loss) and for the Pats to win one that maybe they shouldn't have (call it the first annual Bill MacNeal Adequatulance Bowl). I am stymied by the wins put up by Cleveland and Arizona, two events that further suggest why it's best that I stay away from organized football betting.

We've had a lot of construction on campus this year, and as part of returning the campus to its usual verdant splendor, we've recently seen a lot of hyrdroseeding. Including some today.

Normally that would be fine, but you have to think that the day before you get part of a hurricane you'd not want to put down stuff that will easily wash away. I suppose the alligators in the sewers will have some nice faux swamp to root around in soon, given the nutrient-rich matter the grass seed will have to grow on. Not much sun, but perhaps it'll be albino grass to go with albino gators.

So I was feeling pretty smug last night when Bob Lobel, local TV sports hack, referred to Rosevelt Colvin as Shawn Colvin.

That was until just a few minutes ago, when in writing a quizbowl question I mistakenly used a friend from high school's name rather than the appropriate actor's name as the answer. There are some similarities to their names, but not that much.

I suppose I can still gloat, as I don't work off of a teleprompter. How's that for a justification?

With Hurricane Isabel on the way (or should I say the fringe of Hurricane Isabel, given that current plots have it heading well inland), I got to thinking a little bit about the hurricanes that I've been through here. Most didn't amount to too much, other than a lot of hype and increased sales of plywood and duct tape.

The first hurricane I really remember is Belle, which it in August 1976. It set the tone, as with all the warnings the actual effects for my family and town were pretty mild. I remember power going out briefly - I was half-asleep and noticed the fan shut down - but that was about it.

The next one of any memory was Gloria in September 1985. I spent much of the day hunkered down in my friend Sean Townsend's house, as we mocked an incredibly-hyped storm of little consequence. It seems to have done worse in other parts of New England, as we got some wind and very little rain.

Then there was Bob in 1991, which came at the same time I was to start RA training in August. I am fairly sure I caught the last train in to Boston. My mom tried to talk me out of going in, but I was ready to go back after spending the summer at home. In retrospect I should have stayed and enjoyed the time with family, but in the moment... it was time to go.

As it turned out RA training was in fact delayed. I spent the time with the few RAs who had showed up and a hockey camp that couldn't leave. Funny to think that some of those kids may actually be playing for BU now. Anyway, Bob did the best job of living up to the hype, but again did more damage in other parts of the region.

The '90s sent its share of hurricanes - Bertha, Danny, and Floyd come to mind - but for the most part we were most bothered by storms not classified in the hurricane/tropical storm way. The three that stand out the most all happened around holidays - Halloween 1991, Christmas 1994, and April Fools' in 1997.

Our last storm, what was left of Tropical Storm Gordon, was pretty intense but again, not too bad.

Hurricanes up here are pretty rare, and by the time they get here they've usually been downgraded enough that we get through OK (though Cape Cod is usually a different story, and Maine seems to get whacked pretty well). It seems like 1938 was the last with any serious damage; one story I read noted that in today's dollars the 1938 storm caused upwards of $3.5 billion in damage. I would be very happy to not see that reoccur.

On the downside, it looks like Isabel may scotch the golf day we're having on Friday, as we're due for a fair bit of rain. Not sure what the backup plan is, perhaps it'll involve sandbags and localized flooding.

It will surprise exactly none of you that there is a certain amount of parochialism in local sports coverage here in New England. Take our obsession with the Red Sox or a sports talk radio landscape that seems incapable of discussing a team that doesn't play within shouting distance of Route 95. But one of the odder facets of this is what we get stuck with on Saturday afternoons during football season.

The Big East game of the week, from ESPN Plus.

OK, given that the only two divison 1 teams in New England do or will play in that conference, you'd expect the game to show up somewhere. But consider what transpired yesterday: ABC could offer Ohio State-NC State or Texas-Arkansas, and our local decided to go with West Virginia-Cincinnati. Not only is it the clear loser of that triad, it's not even a true Big East game (nor is next week's Central Florida-Syracuse tilt).

The West Virginia-Cincinnati game, by the way is the one where the winning team scored one more point (15) as the number of fumbles committed by the combined teams (14). There were a couple of picks in the game, too.

I have to assume that WCVB (the local ABC station) has some sort of contractual obligation to show the Big East games. I hope it's not some sort of misplaced sense of nostalgia for eastern collegiate football.

At some point the Big East game of the week will feature two teams playing a conference game. Sadly, it's usually Miami-Rutgers or Virginia Tech-Temple.

The more worthy putative Big East game of the week - BC-UConn - was shown by the local WB station using a Connecticut station's feed. UConn looked pretty good in a losing cause (24-14). If their QB can find the range with any regularity (he overthrew a number of balls yesterday), they have a strong possibility of being bowl eligible, though as an independent stand little chance of going unless they can knock off Virginia Tech or Wake Forest.

FWIW, going back to the Big East game of the week, it ended just in time to go to OSU-NCSU's overtimes. I'm still puzzled by the two QB sneaks called by the Wolfpack in the third OT. That game led to us not joining ND-Michigan until the second quarter, and quite honestly WCVB could have fired up the provincialism and shown Holy Cross-Georgetown instead. Very unpretty.

In the interest of equal time, I passed on the prime time games (seeing just bits of the Nebraska-Penn State tilt) so we could watch the finale of Race to the Altar, a very generic NBC reality offering that pitted 8 couples against each other, with the winner getting a dream wedding.

The show itself was like a combination of Fear Factor and Double Dare, mixing physical challenges with scavenger hunt-type events.

We caught last week's episode and decided to tune back in for the finale, which was, well, perhaps not worth the wait but about as good as anything else on TV at the time. Most interesting moment from last night was during the final event, when both couples couldn't figure out that a clue referring to the City of Light should have sent them to the Paris hotel and casino (the show being set in Vegas). One couple took the part of the clue about going up something to mean the Stratosphere, while the other asked their cabbie and went back to where they started at the Fremont Street Experience. Not surprisingly, both couples asked the elevator attendants at the Paris about a place that might have a genie and a lamp (thankfully, otherwise they'd have wound up in Reno or something).

Seriously, if either couple went to the Paris directly, they'd have won by a mile. Idiots. Then again, on last week's episode none of the couples could pronounce Liberace's name, leading to delays on all sides. So sad.

It will surprise exactly none of you that there is a certain amount of parochialism in local sports coverage here in New England. Take our obsession with the Red Sox or a sports talk radio landscape that seems incapable of discussing a team that doesn't play within shouting distance of Route 95. But one of the odder facets of this is what we get stuck with on Saturday afternoons during football season.

The Big East game of the week, from ESPN Plus.

OK, given that the only two divison 1 teams in New England do or will play in that conference, you'd expect the game to show up somewhere. But consider what transpired yesterday: ABC could offer Ohio State-NC State or Texas-Arkansas, and our local decided to go with West Virginia-Cincinnati. Not only is it the clear loser of that triad, it's not even a true Big East game (nor is next week's Central Florida-Syracuse tilt).

The West Virginia-Cincinnati game, by the way is the one where the winning team scored one more point (15) as the number of fumbles committed by the combined teams (14). There were a couple of picks in the game, too.

I have to assume that WCVB (the local ABC station) has some sort of contractual obligation to show the Big East games. I hope it's not some sort of misplaced sense of nostalgia for eastern collegiate football.

At some point the Big East game of the week will feature two teams playing a conference game. Sadly, it's usually Miami-Rutgers or Virginia Tech-Temple.

The more worth putative Big East game of the week - BC-UConn - was shown by the local WB station using a Connecticut station's feed. UConn looked pretty good in a losing cause (24-14). If their QB can find the range with any regularity (he overthrew a number of balls yesterday). They have a strong possibility of being bowl eligible, though as an independent stand little chance of going unless they can knock off Virginia Tech or Wake Forest.

FWIW, going back to the Big East game of the week, it ended just in time to go to OSU-NCSU's overtimes. I'm still puzzled by the two QB sneaks called by the Wolfpack in the third OT. That game led to us not joining ND-Michigan until the second quarter, and quite honestly they could have fired up the provincialism and shown Holy Cross-Georgetown instead. Very unpretty.

In the interest of equal time, I passed on the prime time games (seeing just bits of the Nebraska-Penn State tilt) so we could watch the finale of Race to the Altar, a very generic NBC reality offering that pitted 8 couples against each other, with the winner getting a dream wedding.

The show itself was like a combination of Fear Factor and Double Dare, mixing physical challenges with scavenger hunt-type events.

We caught last week's episode and decided to tune back in for the finale, which was, well, perhaps not worth the wait but about as good as anything else on TV at the time. Most interesting moment from last night was during the final event, when both couples couldn't figure out that a clue referring to the City of Light should have sent them to the Paris hotel and casino (the show being set in Vegas). One couple took the part of the clue about going up something to mean the Stratosphere, while the other asked their cabbie and went back to where they started at the Fremont Street Experience. Not surprisingly, both couples asked the elevator attendants at the Paris about a place that might have a genie and a lamp (thankfully, otherwise they'd have wound up in Reno or something).

Seriously, if either couple went to the Paris directly, they'd have won by a mile. Idiots. Then again, on last week's episode none of the couples could pronounce Liberace's name, leading to delays on all sides. So sad.

For the first time since August 21, I spent a night where I wasn't either working or on call. How did I celebrate? Let's call it the Nerd's Night Out.

First stop was the Natick Mall, where Sarah and I got to weigh candy in preparation for making wedding favors. We could save ourselves a lot of trouble by going the charitable donation route, but given some of the "outside influences" on the wedding we'd probably still wind up with baggies of Jordan almonds on the tables.

We stopped into a Hallmark store to get a couple of cards, and while I am still livid that they already have their Christmas stuff out, I did find my favorite new tree ornament - Kobe Bryant. Apparently he's part of their Keepsake ornament line. They still wanted the $14.95 retail price, which was too much for a possible TRASH prize (at least for regionals, where sometimes all of the prizes didn't cost that much).

Not surprisingly, the only other sports-themed ornament left besides Bryant was Jason Giambi.

We then went over to Owen O'Leary's, an eating and drinking establishment that also happens to have NTN. We joined the first couple of BU college bowl, Matt and Allyson Harper-Nixon, for some catching up and interactive trivia.

I actually did really well on two games, finishing 8th nationally during a Topix game where all the questions were about movies with swimming pools (go figure) and fifth nationally in a Retroactive TV game. Sometimes, it's good to be old.

And no, there were no questions on John Ritter. In a later game, when we were talking about Johnny Cash, a question came up involving "Ring of Fire." The music games tend to favor Mrs. Harper-Nixon, though between her and Sarah I think they know all the lyrics to any song released in the United States over the last 50 years.

After that we headed homeward, stopping at the event I mentioned yesterday - Late Night Bingo! Our campus center director was looking to do some late night programming, and her research over the summer found that late night bingo was becoming really popular on the college level- nearby Assumption College, for example, had over 500 people for their first bingo night this year.

We didn't do quite so well, but we did have over 200 show up, which is amazing for a late night program without alcohol.

We played 10 games over two hours, and go figure that Sarah would win the last game of the night. There was a catch, of course; one of my colleagues had won a DVD player earlier in the night to some grumbling, so having the fiancee of another staffer win would have been worse. So to defuse things it was announced that Sarah messed up, and a student wound up winning on the next ball (perhaps not that big a deal, considering we would have won a digital camera, one not as good as the one I have to boot).

We got home a little after 1 am, our latest night in some time. Who says dorks can't have fun?

With all the death this week, there is a bit of life-affirming news to report.

David Letterman is apparently going to be a dad.

Dave and long-time girlfriend Regina Lasko are expecting a child by the end of the year (the story I read said she's 6 months along). Dave's going to "announce" it tonight on his show (I use quotes because the show was taped last night). Dave is 56, which doesn't put him in Tony Randall/Anthony Quinn territory, but is still pretty studly (if I can use the word in this context).

I'm trying to figure out what an appropriate themed shower gift would be in this case. I'm thinking either a box of pencils or a onesie with a clip-on tie so the baby can do that shifting tie thing that Dave does when he pulls on his jacket lapels. If nothing else, this is going to give Dave years of Top 10 material.

Make sure you tune in tonight to see this (unless you're a Babson College person; you should tape it an come on down to the campus center for late night bingo!).

While reading the news and mulling the juxtaposition of Johnny Cash and John Ritter dying on more or less the same day, I was surprised to learn that Ritter is the son of singing cowboy Tex Ritter (how did I not know this?), who worked with Cash from time to time.

I suppose I could quote "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" or something here.

Taking a page from last September 11, herein is a list of my top 11 recurring characters on Sports Night. OK, they don't all recur. Anyway:

11. Louise Goodwin. She never appeared on screen, but her presence allowed for one of the more interesting episodes of season one (even if it was ripped off from the various MASH episodes where Hawkeye writes his dad). She also crops up in the second season when Jeremy learns she's communicating with Natalie, and it freaks him out a bit. I can understand that now, as I worry every time Sarah says she's talked with my sister without me being present.

10. Jenny, played by Paula Marshall. You might think a rebound girlfriend who is also a porn star would be just the ticket, but in this case it doesn't work out so well for Jeremy. I do find these episodes fairly entertaining, though I am often distracted by the heavy make-up on Jenny. I guess it's some sort of visual cue.

9. Chris, Will, Dave, Elliot, and Kim played by Timothy Davis-Reed, Ron Ostrow, Jeff Mooring, Greg Baker, and Kayla Blake. Yes, they all kind of run together (except for Kim, being the only woman), but you'd usually get one good comic relief moment out of the group. Any more would have been too much.

8. Gordon Gage, played by Ted McGinley. The man who could have taken the show down in season one but didn't, part of me thinks I should have rated him higher, especially for the scene where Casey tries to one-up Gordon and gets smacked down. I suppose I don't rate him as highly because, as much of a part of the plot as he was in season one, I never felt like he was there to do more than underscore the Dana and Casey thing. Had Gordon been more sympathetic I think it would have made the tension more interesting. As it was Gordon was so visibly wrong for Dana that you wound up focusing more on how it was going to end rather than whether it would end.

7. Abby Jacobs, played by Jayne Brooks. When Dan thinks he's picked her up at a bar, he's surprised to learn that his charm and candor have only landed him a therapist. The tension from that confusion plays out during their sessions, which Abby plays off for maximum value.

6. Rebecca Wells, played by Teri Polo. Probably the best thing to happen to Dan during the course of the show, but also probably the worst thing given that their split likely accelerated his breakdown in season two. One wonders what her return would have meant for season three.

I've never been a huge Teri Polo fan, but I thought she played Rebecca well, smart enough to keep up with Dan but still not so smart that she could sort her own life out.

5. Jay Rydell, played by Peter Riegert. He's on one episode, and even then for a very short time, but the feeling of dread and discomfort is palpable. Even hearing Dan talk about his dad later in the episode, you get the sense that they weren't the type to go out in the yard and play catch.

Riegert is best known for playing Boon in Animal House and the detective on the trail of Jim Carrey in The Mask. I imagine this turn helped him prepare for his recurring role as Assemblyman Zellman in The Sopranos.

4. JJ, played by Robert Mailhouse. The Continental Corp suit that rides herd on the Sports Night crew, JJ is played as a sugar-coated menace, someone who says he wants what's best for the development of the show, but is clearly interested in using the show to best promote his career with the parent company. One has to wonder how closely drawn JJ is to network types that Sorkin et. al. had to deal with, especially during the second season, when JJ is more clearly threatening the survival of the show.

3. Bobbi Bernstein, played by Lisa Edelstein. More of Dan's past comes to light when he has to work with Bobbi, who claims they slept together in Spain and he never called her afterwards. Dan is convinced she's nuts, and at first Bobbi's is played in such a way that it seems like Dan's right.

Edelstein went on to play the call girl law student who gets mixed up with Sam Seaborn on The West Wing, keeping things in the Sorkin family.

2. Sally Sasser, played by Brenda Strong. Sally was perhaps the most threatening character to Sports Night; she clearly wanted Dana's job, and seemed to think that having Dana's men was an acceptable substitute. Dan classified her with vampires, Stepford producers and other things that go bump in the night.

But what made her threat seem so unusual were the times when she showed vulnerability and self-loathing. Consider how she lost it during Isaac's stroke when Dan just said hi to her. Also consider the soul-sucking emptiness of her brief time with Casey, when neither seemed particularly interested in being there other than to just be with someone.

1. Sam Donovan, played by William H. Macy. Sam Donovan was a ratings expert, brought in by CSC to shake things up and make changes that would increase viewership. And while this didn't happen for the real show, the brief tenure of Sam Donovan as a Sports Night character did shake things up and bring new energy to a show that was suffering from both a tenuous spot on air and from a lengthy plot line that was beginning to show some wear (Casey and Dana).

Donovan was a big-mouth and highly egocentric, beautifully played by Macy (who, for those who don't know, is the real-life husband of Felicity Huffman, who played Dana). I've mentioned my Macy fandom before, and it has no better vehicle than this role.

So I'm in the office this afternoon working on something, when the RD I share the office with asks me if the college is doing anything special to mark tomorrow.

My response? Tomorrow?

Yes, I have become what I've bemoaned here before, the idiot American who has put September 11 into their mental attic.

In my own defense, I've been having a lot of trouble keeping day and date straight the last couple of weeks. My post-RA training mental fog has run right through the first week of classes, abetted by a very busy time of things. I've had facility issues up the wazoo, while my officemate has had some hellacious roommate conflicts to sort out.

In any case, I looked back to last year to see how I marked things, and it turns out I ran my top 11 Sports Night moments, with coverage recap on the 12th. I may do something similar, depending on how much coverage I actually watch. My goal is to avoid most of it.

(Oh, and to answer the question that started this off, the college is lighting a candle in the chapel and putting out a book for rememberances, etc. They'll also be playing Mozart's Requiem from noon to 1 pm, not sure if they mean live or CD.)

So I was happy to see that the RIAA is targeting the real criminals in this file-trading thing. In the batch of lawsuits recently filed against "major traders" was a 12 year old Manhattan girl who downloaded such royalty-thieving songs as "If You're Happy and You Know It." I suppose she's not clapping her hands anymore.

One little-noticed move in this whole fight was the reduction in CD prices by Universal Music Group. Consider that for years we've been paying up to $20 for a CD, more than we paid for vinyl or cassettes, which kind of goes against the idea that CDs are supposed to be cheaper and easier to make than those other media. Interestingly, other labels haven't done the same, perhaps banking on the idea that the RIAA's bully tactics will drive people back to CDs.

Personally, I think they'll drive people to smarter file-sharing habits. Or to SBC Communications, who seems to be the only ISP willing to fight the RIAA on this.

In football news, my fantasy team is 0-1 and looking like crap. I kind of knew this was coming given my lack of focus at the draft, but I was also not helped by Philly getting shut out at home. I now have to hope the Eagles have the sort of day against the Pats that the Bills did. Ah, the sweet taste of fantasy-reality conflict.

Earlier in the week, Jerry Remy predicted that the Patriots would win 11 games this season. He'd made similar predictions the previous two seasons, and was dead on for both.

If yesterday was any indication, three will not be the charm for the Rem-Dog.

For those lucky bastards who missed it, the Pats went down in flames to the Buffalo Bills 31-0. There was no facet of the Patriots' game that worked as it should have yesterday. Heck, the team bus probably got lost going back to the airport. It was that sort of game.

Buffalo should worry people, especially in the AFC East, which is looking pretty lackluster. I wonder why the Pats can't get players like Drew Bledsoe and Lawyer Milloy?

The Sox game was only a minor irritant in comparison, as I'd already written it off based on Jeff Suppan being the starter. I'd have been much happier if they got blown out, to be honest. It was awful nice of the A's and Mariners to lose as well, though.

A quick correction - I mistakenly noted that Washington State lost to Idaho last week. They didn't. Thank Yahoo's college football section for the mistake. Not that it helped the Cougars today, as they dropped an OT decision to Notre Dame. Though it raises the question if they'd have rather lost to Idaho and then beaten ND in South Bend.

You'll excuse the confusion, especially after today's run of upsets. Most notable for me:

* Bowling Green beats Purdue. Nice news for the MAC, even if they didn't get Marshall beating Tennessee at home.

* Wake Forest beats NC State. Break up the Demon Deacons! Moment of synergy: their next opponent it Purdue.

* Villanova beats Temple. OK, Temple, let's just drop down to 1-AA and join your A-10 colleagues before someone gets hurt.

Locally, Northeastern bushwhacked Albany 51-0. In two games, the Huskies have scored 129 points, though 78 of those came against Stonehill College, a local D2 school. Stonehill at least managed to score 6 points, though I think it was against Brookline High School's defense.

In non-football news, spent a fair bit of the day doing wedding prep stuff. Got to visit the florist, which was very exciting (does sarcasm survive the typing phase?).

I also went to confession (now called reconciliation) for the first time since I was confirmed - 18 to 20 years ago. It should tell you something that I don't even quite remember how old I was when I was confirmed (I believe it was during 10th grade, so more likely 18 or 19 than 20 years). Regardless, it's been a while.

The problem that raises is that you don't have a very easy starting point for the process. I did start with more recent events, but at some point I realized that I was trying to recap roughly two decades and went into vapor lock. The priest was very helpful, and I think went easy on me as far as penance was concerned.

Outside of the new name, the other major change with confession is that it is increasingly done face to face. Now, when I was a kid, that was the last thing you wanted. You didn't want to have to look at the priest and either (a) be recognized, or (b) feel like you were being judged. Today I went the anonymous route, and I have to say that I think it was harder than if I got to look at their priest. Not sure why that is. Could be greater maturity (well, not much greater), could be an increased knowledge of the breadth of human failings making me less worried about my own. Could be I just want to see the other guy's face and look for signs of reassurance.

I'm not sure I could go every week - not without having a chance to build some sort of relationship with the priest, at any rate.

The only other thing of note at this point is that today was my first "day off" in 19 days. I celebrated by being on call (which is why day off is in quotes) and getting up at 5:30 this morning. I'm still trying to figure out which day I'll take off from work in the coming week.

So the last 15 minutes of TV watching has been odd. Let me count the ways.

1. One of the moderators of the Democratic presidential candidate debate is asking questions in Spanish. No one is answering in that language. I have to imagine there are some very confused Hispanics right now trying to figure out what John Kerry thinks about sending more troops to Iraq.

1a. I think I have a fair command of English, and I'm still trying to figure out what John Kerry thinks about sending more troops to Iraq. He spent most of his answer time criticizing W and talking about his Vietnam experience. My guess is that'll be a fairly common approach for Kerry regardless of the question.

(FWIW, I think Kerry did note at the end that sending more troops was wrong and that we should look for international help)

2. I'm unclear on the concept of Dick Clark's Rockin' NFL Kickoff Eve. I'm also similarly unclear on Britney Spears' hair as JQ is. Then again, when you have a new album in the works, anything goes.

2a. And when did we start auctioning off parts of our national heritage for things like a pre-game concert? Sarah caught this one, as the Mall's been tarted up to help with this venture in product placement that apparently has national security implications.

I suppose I should start looking forward to watching Hillary Duff, Ashanti, Sean Paul, and 3 Doors Down rock in the 2004 NFL season on board Old Ironsides.

3. During a break in MTV's Phat Football Jam Session I caught an ad for a drug called Levitra. In it a man was having trouble throwing a football through a tire swing, trouble that apparently ended when he started on the drug. This not-so-subtle message, as you may have guessed, is for the newest drug for erectile dysfunction.

3a. The ad was done up in purple text boxes and fonts that reminded me of ads for Nexium and omeprizole. It even uses a lit match as a symbol. I'm a little worried where the guy's burning sensation is located. He may need a different drug.

4. The debate, as you might imagine, is a bore. The only thing that snaps me back to reality are the recurring references to Ambassador Moseley Braun. Thankfully she was ambassador to New Zealand, where outside of knocking Steinlager it's hard to screw things up.

The other thing that surprises me is how poor all of these folks are on the stump. Oddly enough, Dennis Kucinich has probably been the most articulate. I suppose he's gotten a lot of one-on-one speaking practice at campaign stops.

A few TV notes to share.

Tonight's episode of The West Wing was the one where the vice president resigns. I hadn't seen it before, and having missed a few of the late episodes it cleared up a great deal of confusion. I will say that I will miss Tim Matheson's occasional performances, as Hoynes was a nice change of pace from the usual pattern of dialogue.

The episode also featured Matthew Perry as Joe Quincy, the new deputy counsel that made the connections that led to the VP's resignation. It was refreshing to see Perry play something non-comedic.

Of course, we'll get to see more of Quincy when Leo becomes VP, Josh moves up to chief of staff, and Quincy moves in to Josh's position. Then we'll get the tension of Josh having to work with the guy who brought down his mentor. And who knows, maybe Donna finds Quincy attractive.

Sticking with this show, the folks at TeeVee recently gave it their worst hour-long show Vidiot award. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I do agree with their rationale. The show does try to showcase actors too much, enjoys verbal games more than developing a sensible story, and season ending episodes are just getting worse each year (next year: Abby Bartlett is stuck on the International Space Station!).

I wonder if Aaron Sorkin has David E. Kelley's problem where there is only a finite number of episodes he can write before the wheels come off the cart. The TeeVee folks point to the election and how it became almost a non-story. For a show often credited for its verisimilitude, you'd think a sitting President who lied about his health and seems to draw crisis like a lightning rod would have had a tougher time, even with the buffoon that was running against him. Instead the election plot line was hijacked as a way to get rid of Rob Lowe.

In any case, I do have hope for the new season. Just one question: when did Dan Connor become Speaker of the House?

On Monday, I have the relative misfortune to catch Trivia Unwrapped, the new Food Network game show based on the Marc Summers-hosted Unwrapped. It's not very good. If you've watched the parent show at all, you'll be a leg up on the competition. In fact, many of the past episodes are worked into the game play, which seems downright idiotic. Then again, it cuts down on the amount of new material you need to write.

It makes one long for the days of Pressure Cooker and its replacement, Taste Test, hosted by David Rosengarten. I used to really dislike Rosengarten - too much like a cross between Felix Unger and Gene the Anal Retentive Chef - but I think I'd prefer him to Summers or Top 5 host Bobby Rivers. In fact, Food Network could do with more actual cooking in prime time that's not done by Emeril.

I had something else in my head, but it's gone now. Perhaps I'll bore you with it later.

Kudos to the Champion of the West for coming up with a "cowboy up" sighting outside of Kevin Millar. Apparently, Vincent D'Onofrio's character used the phrase in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent from last season. Millar should send him a signed baseball.

On his blog, the Champ then asked if Manny Ramirez was giving new meaning to the term, and I think he is. Clearly, the only way Manny is cowboying up right now is by heading to the barn dance for some refreshments.

(For those of you who have not heard, Manny was apparently too sick to play this weekend, but was healthy enough to engage in some level of social interaction with some friends on the Yankees - a team he apparently would like to play for after he's done with the Sox.)

I'm not sure about the latter part, but I do wonder if Manny will get the first part of things sooner than he thinks. It doesn't take an English lit grad student to read between the lines of the comments coming from Manny's teammates, all of which suggest they'd prefer a teammate who was willing to put it on the line as crunch time starts.

Manny had the same thing as Pedro, but not as bad. Pedro tried to pitch this weekend and was clearly not fully recovered, as the Yankees hit him pretty good. Pedro went to Chicago early to get some rest before his planned start against the White Sox. Manny, meanwhile, has been with the team but apparently needs to gargle more or something before his throat problem allows him to play again. For what it's worth, he may be back in the lineup today.

Expect Theo Epstein to work out some sort of SABR-infused trade over the winter meetings.

I've made some updates to Mark Across America (linked at left), mostly to include state capital information and some other stuff. Under New Hampshire you'll also find a link to a short report on a recent trip to Hampton Beach. The story is notable for its use of digital images I took my very own self using the new camera. So far so good.

And now that things are quieting down, one more ESPN.com fantasy group for Gridiron Challenge:

Group: Tungsten For Lisa
password: sideline

I was reading earlier that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had to apologize for putting a small (described as "postage stamp-sized") photo of the oddly infamous Madonna-Britney kiss on their front page. Apparently you can show formerly whole bodies on the front page (there was a comparison to the paper's printing of war photos on the front page), but not 8 microns of tongue.

Apparently there are still some Atlantans who aren't too busy to hate. We should find them a hobby. I'm thinking they could write Queer Eye for the Straight Guy recaps for TV Without Pity.

I can't place my finger on it, but I'm mildly disgruntled with the ovation given to Roger Clemens today at Fenway in what may be his last appearance at the park. I'm not one of the many irrational Clemens haters, though part of me is convinced he purposely tanked the end of his Sox career to get out of Boston (though he may very well have been reacting to the writing on the wall).

Maybe it's just the result of another loss down the stretch to the Yanks. Whatever.

In a completely unrelated note, it's looking like tough times in Pullman. Washington State lost to Idaho yesterday. I could go on at length here about BU's loss to Idaho in the 1993 NCAA 1AA playoffs, but I won't. It's enough that on the same day I wrote at length about BU football my brother gave all four of my nephews Boston College hats. Bastard.

A couple of points relative to the previous post.

First, BU could clearly have done all the things they did to support womens' athletics and improve facilities while maintaining a football team of some sort. As I noted previously, you can take all the reasons I gave, probably come up with some of your own, and find a trustee or administrator who would offer it if asked to explain things.

Second, I think the thing that still gets me irked about this whole thing is the circular logic relative to the lack of fan support. You can probably guess how hard the administration worked to improve the team's viability, and how many of them showed up to games. Throw in some of the marketing geniuses who couldn't promote grass skirts to hula dancers, and you begin to see how it works. It's easy to can a team when you've helped create the situation you've used to justify the canning.

I would be remiss to not note the one group that's apparently out there fighting for the return of football to BU. BTUFF, Boston Terriers United for Football, formed not long after the announcement to fight for the team. If you spend some time poking around their website, you can get an idea of how much sucess they've had (consider that the PDF newsletter was originally written in 1999 - was PDF even around then?).

BTUFF's main accomplishment, to me at least, was the hiring of a plane to fly over commencement every year with a banner related to bringing football back. Having not been to commencement recently, I don't know if they still do that.

You see an old and tattered BTUFF sweatshirt at hockey games now and again, but that's about it. It's safe to say that the group hasn't captured the hearts and minds of BU Nation. Whether it's a genuine lack of interest in the team or the socialist newspaper approach of the newsletter is hard to say. Publishing the high salaries of the oppressors isn't going to get the proles to wave the red flags and man the barricades, especially for football.

I hope they'll renew their initiative with the new president, but in a less strident way. It's a good time to talk about the positive benefits of a football team, not screech about the pay levels of the past. Especially if/when Goldin cleans house.

While I've not gotten to watch too much college football today (I've got Colorado-Colorado St. going, with some check-ins on USC-Auburn and Ohio St.-Washington), among the scores that stood out (not sure which I like better - Cal 34, Southern Miss. 2 or what is currently Kansas State 34, Troy St. 5) was this one:

UConn 34, Indiana 10

The shock is not that Indiana lost. They are rarely good. It's more that UConn throttled them, took their nouveau D1 act to the Hoosiers. Not a bad way to open your new home, either.

What was really striking, though, was that while 2003 marks a new beginning for the UConn program, it simply marks the sixth football season to start without a BU program. For those of you who missed it (and, sad to say, many of you who read this regularly didn't), Boston University, my alma mater, dropped its football program at the end of the 1997 season. At the time, BU and UConn played in the same conference.

So why did BU drop their program? There are many reasons. The team lost millions every year. Low attendance. The threat of a Title IX lawsuit. Poor on-field performance. The traditional reverence for the hockey team. It all played a part.

John Silber was interested in canning the team when he got to BU in '73, and to be honest I'm surprised it took over 30 years for him to get the job done. It apparently takes a long time to pack a board of trustees.

Will a new president make a difference? Goldin is forging change among the upper administration, but if it's the same group of trustees what are the odds they'll relent? He's also got a reputation as a cost-cutter, which makes putting a money loser back in the budget seem very unlikely.

Which all means that I get to sit at home writing about this while fans in Storrs toast their victory. It's not even that I want BU to compete at that level. I'd be very happy with any team, be it in the Atlantic 10, the MAAC, Northeast, or independent. Non-scholarship would be fine, too. Anything so I can go to Nickerson Field 4 to 6 times a year, see friends, celebrate victory and lament losses.

Is that too much to ask?

Apparently, since a video clip of Kevin Millar lip-synching "Born in the USA" debuted last week at Fenway, the Sox have won six of their last seven games. Perhaps the only person who needed to cowboy up was Millar himself?

Speaking of which, the Sox were on the Sunday night ESPN game not long after Millar's "cowboy up" comment, and neither Jon Miller nor Joe Morgan knew what he was talking about. Millar claims it's a Texas expression. My experience with Texas is limited to my dad's formative years, and he never used the term. Perhaps it's the Lone Star State version of steamed hams.

My only comment on the VMA kissing thing is that I can't understand the hoopla. Didn't we figure out some time ago that Madonna will kiss, rub, grind, hump, mount, grope, lubricate, lick, insert, rotate, suck, and/or tie up anyone to get attention? The Britney thing is an angle, but given the story that Boggie linked to a while back regarding Britney's fascination with lesbian porn I can't say I'm surprised with Britney's involvement, either. Remember, she told us herself that she's not that innocent.

Another sign that training is taking its toll: we actually started a week from today, not yesterday as I said in that entry. I'm surprised I was only off by one day, to be honest.

And even though I was able to correct that mistake, I am still having trouble keeping straight what day it is. I've alternately thought that today was Wednesday or Friday (as well as actually knowing what day it is). You'd think I could tell the day by what training session I'm doing, but not so. I know the order of the sessions, but it's like I'm having them on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 rather than days with actual names.

I will say that during this week I've gained tremendous respect for those people in my field who are older and have families. I'm not that old (in the grand scheme of things) and am just starting on the family road, and I feel like I'm behind where I used to be when I was young and single. I did have a couple of years where training was over while there was still some sunlight, so it could just be trouble re-adjusting to the longer schedule.

As some of you know, we're currently in the middle of RA training at Babson, which accounts for why I've been keeping things short or missing a day. With a new boss, this year's training is significantly different as the new boss is doing what she's used to doing. We're going later than usual, which is taxing, but the evening stuff is generally not that bad. Lots of game-related stuff, which keeps it light. However, if you ever try to adapt Jeopardy! for training purposes with, say, about 38 business undergrad students, be sure that the rules are really, really clear.

It makes me worry for my Family Feud-inspired alcohol education game that's coming Friday (though I wound up writing rules right after the Jeopardy! incident, where every other rule is related to the game being an educational experience and not something that should engender yelling).

Otherwise, it's RA training. We're about a week in (actually, if my computer's clock is accurate, we're a week, 2 hours and 6 minutes in), so it's just getting to the point where everyone is tired and ready for the big move-in day. That's Sunday here at Babson. Let's keep our fingers crossed for weather like last year - moderate temps, overcast, light but steady rain. It makes people keep their mind on their business and cuts down on the lollygagging.

The other thing with RA training is that it kind of cuts you off from the world, so even though there are all sorts of interesting things going on out there, I don't have much to say. I am happy that the Sox swept the Mariners. I am not so happy that they gave up 12 runs to the Jays last night, though I didn't see the carnage, just the end.

Oh, and I got a digital camera! I wound up getting the Canon PowerShot A70, which was a decent comprimise between the one I wanted (the Canon PowerShot S45) and how much debt I wanted to accrue. My first picture: a shot of the beach at Hampton Beach, where we took the RAs for a day away yesterday. I've taken about 20 pictures, and the batteries already need replacing. I suppose I shouldn't have expected much from the set included in the box.

A quick hit regarding one of the Blogalicious family of affiliated bloggers. Scott Monty and his wife Mindi have welcomed a new member to their family unit.

William Scott Monty III (here on out known as Will) came into the world this morning after putting his mom through quite the labor experience. I'll save the rest for the proud papa to recount. Not sure when he'll get back to it; you may just want to pop over and send a hearty congrats.

Oh, and while I'm picking on Yahoo News, let's throw in this headline that just popped up: U.S. students struggle with tuition hikes. Because, really, in the past students laughed at tuition hikes while they lit their cigars with $100 bills.

As you may have read, indie/outsider music sensation Wesley Willis passed away recently. If you get your news from Yahoo, you found out about his death on August 21 today. Not sure why it took them four days to let us know about this.

In any case, one hopes that Willis is in a better place, wuppin' Batman's ass.

While the story I read today about US troops using confiscated AK-47s as personal weapons in Iraq had more to do with the way some troops are outfitted and fighting outside of their normal parameters (such as tankers having to fight guerilla actions outside of their heavily armored rides using a couple of rifles and pistols), it did remind me of earlier problem with the M16.

While I'm hardly knowledgeable enough to weigh in on the AK v. M16 debate, I do have to say that the utilitarian (and sturdy) nature of the AK is impressive.

Final LLWS Update: Saugus lost the third place game to the team from the Netherlands Antilles. Hensley Meulens would be proud.

Both JQ and Dwight talk about some important pre-season injuries in the NFL (and I join Dwight's fraught watch on the Eagles, which is especially concerning given that my fantasy team's success will fairly well mirror that team's actual success).

JQ marvels at the gall of charging full-price to mostly watch guys you last saw at the Kelly Tire Blue-Grey Game, but seems more at peace with doing so that I would be.

I tend to think the exhibition season is too long. The CFL gives each team 2 games, which should be fine for the NFL as well. Given the off-season conditioning and the in-camp scrimmages against other teams, how many practice games to teams really need to get into playing shape? I know, it's about the money, but do you think that the injuries to Vick and Pennington are really going to help the bottom line?

I know that fewer games would also cut into the NFL's drive to become the One Great American Sport. Then again, without those young stars, Tag and the boys won't be able to make their takeover complete (then again again, if they're still available as players on the latest version of Madden, many football fans [or "fans"] won't care if they're playing in real life).

(CFL aside: the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, four years removed from winning the Grey Cup, are 0-10. Please send your condolences to Mike Burger at...)

Well, the Saugus kids didn't fare so well in the rematch with Boynton Beach, Florida, losing something like 9-2. They couldn't get much started by way of offense, and a couple of late home runs by the Floridians put it out of reach. Still, a nice run for the locals. The Florida team will face the team from Japan for all the marbles this evening.

On a different level of baseball, I got an interesting email from the North Shore Spirit, a Northeast League team that plays in Lynn. They've made the post-season by winning the first half of the season, and as part of touting this they included this verbal bon-bon:

"The entire North Shore Spirit organization is getting ready for the first-ever
Spirit playoffs at the New Fraser Field.  Remember to mark your calendars for
September 3rd and 4th at 7p.m.  At least you can count on one team in
Massachusetts to be in the playoffs this season!"

Considering they probably couldn't beat the Sarasota Red Sox, never mind actual major league competition, they may want to tone the rhetoric down a notch.

Between RA training and a network problem here, I didn't know if I'd get on this weekend at all. Now that I have, time to address serious business.

ESPN Pigskin Pick 'Em

Group Name: Dan Klecko Fan Club
Password: kraft

While I didn't have the sort of Dan Klecko experience that led me to draft him for fantasy football purposes, it was nice to see him have some good pre-season work. He also fills the bill for our pre-season Patriots crush, that time when a player, probably someone who won't start much, catches our attention and spurs our imagination.

Rohan Davie got a taste of that when he joined the club, and Michael Bishop made his mark as well, but the best case of it was in 1990 when Michael Proctor (the Murray State QB, not the Alabama kicker) had a whale of a camp but didn't quite catch on, getting cut. Which left us with the likes of Tommy Hodson (who was "considered to have a bright future," ha ha) and Marc Wilson. Things got worse with the Year of the Five Quarterbacks before Drew Bledsoe showed up and helped straighten things out.

Proctor wound up in the WLAF's Montreal Machine, spent some time in Cleveland's camp, made the Steelers practice squad in 1992, signed with the Saskatchewan Rough Riders in '93, Arena's Charlotte Rage from '94 to '96, and then just kind of disappears (not unlike the Rage themselves).

More than you wanted to know about Proctor, I'm sure, but I'm in a football frame of mind.

I only caught the last inning or so of tonight's LLWS game between Saugus and Richmond, Texas, but it was pretty much a full game's worth of baseball.

Saugus took a 10-4 lead into the sixth, but gave up six runs for the tie. Richmond took a 13-10 lead, powered by a 2 run homer. Most of those 9 runs came with two outs.

But, as this game proved, no lead was safe. Saugus did the unlikely, putting together a series of hits and walks that, when crowned with a slow roller down the third base line that the Richmond third baseman couldn't get to first in time, resulted in a 14-13 Saugus win.

Saugus will now get a rematch with Boynton Beach, Florida on Saturday. Should be interesting, as I think both teams will get to use their top pitchers. Game time is 7:30 pm EDT on your ABC affilliate.

Moving on to a fall sport, I've set up a group for the 2003 College Pick 'Em at ESPN.com

Group Name: Witty Group Name
password: bcs

Kevin Millar became the latest in the string of new arrivals to Boston who plead for support when the team enters one of its late-season swoons.

To quote the Globe story:

"I want to see somebody cowboy up and stand behind this team one time and quit worrying about all the negative stuff and talking about last year's team and 10 years ago and 1986," he said. "I don't know any better, man. I'm here to win and have fun. [The past] makes zero sense to me."

A couple of things come to mind:

1. Cowboy up? What the hell does that mean?

2. I appreciate his can-do attitude, but perhaps he should consider that the past makes more than zero sense to people who've lived through the collapses he's discounted. Millar's statement that it's a "new team" forgets the six or seven previous decades of interesting ends of seasons.

(I will note here that I know we've got it pretty good with the Sox. I look at this as more of an internal matter than trying to get, say, Tigers fans to have pity. I think we all know it could be much, much worse.)

Part of the problem (probably most of the problem) is that Millar based his comments on remarks made by local media and the people who call in to sports radio. Perhaps not the most stable or unbiased group of people to identify as the representatives of Red Sox Nation.

Millar, for his part, did go 2 for 6 last night, leaving 4 stranded out of the 17 left on base overall.

I will say that the performance of in-year acquisitions (most notably Jeff Suppan's return to his previous Sox form) will surely bring the Theo doubters out.

For positive baseball talk, let's all think happy thoughts about the Saugus Little Leaguers, who will take on Richmond, Texas tonight for the right to face Boynton Beach, Florida for the US berth in the finals. Saugus beat the Floridians in pool play, but they did not have to face Michael Broad, their ace who one-hit the Arizona team that muscled its way through the other US pool. My guess is that he'll be ready to go on Saturday.

Bridezilla aspects aside, I just have to say there is nothing more classy than a bride all tatted up for her wedding day.

(I should note that this post is dripping in sarcasm, just in case certain people think that visible tattoos would enchace my wedding day. They would NOT.)

LLWS Update After posting 3 runs in the top of the first inning, Saugus held on to best Boynton Beach, Florida 4-3 in the final game of their pool play. Saugus thus wins the pool and will play the second place team from the other US pool next (the winner of today's game between Richmond, Texas and Wilmington, Delaware).

I can happily report that the team from Guam pushed three runs across the plate in their game against Mexico. Unfortunately for the Guamanians, the Mexican team scored 10.

Fantasy Football Update Both the Bruce and Jon Couture have given relatively detailed breakdowns of their respective teams in the league that I run. I will spare you the same, other than to say that I think this is the third or fourth year in a row that Corey Dillon is a featured back on my team. Let the fraught watch commence, though I should be more concerned that I also managed to draft a back who may be on the way out (Antowain Smith, though Kevin Faulk is no prize, either) and one who may be on the way to prison (Michael Pittman, who is involved in a case of aggravated assault).

I have bought heavily into the Philadelphia Eagles passing game, owning Donovan McNabb, James Thrash, and Todd Pinkston.

Not much to say about the others, really.

In fauna news there's a fox hanging around campus, looks like a juvenile who's been separated from its parents. It's fairly small and kind of emaciated, probably from not being fully up to speed on hunting down food. This led to some discussion about what exactly foxes eat. There being no WhatBadgersEat.com for foxes, I had to do some digging, but discovered that they do favor small mammals, eggs, fruit, and birds. We've got plenty of squirrels for the fox, though I fear for the bunny friend who Sarah and I see occasionally by where we park.

That's about it for now. I really should get back to the parts of RA training that I'm responsible for, but I've got a major league case of apathy I'm working through. We'll see how it goes.

On the little league front, the boys from Saugus punched their ticket for the next round by defeating Richland, Washington 2-1. It was a pretty exciting game, given that, had the breaks gone their way, Saugus could have scored 6 or 7 runs. However, the most important breaks went their way in the perilous bottom of the sixth, the inning where they gave up their run and had opposing baserunners on second and third.

The Saugusians will round out pool play against Boynton Beach, Florida today. This will determine who wins the group, as both teams are undefeated.

A related shout-out to the team from Guam, who will round out pool play against the team from Mexico today. Guam has been shut out twice, so here's hoping they can break the streak.

I was also a little confused about the meaning of "Transatlantic" for the region that Dhahran, Saudi Arabia qualified from, until I saw some of the other locations and saw that they all have some sort of military connection (I suppose Saudi can have oil connections as well).

In unrelated sports news, our fantasy football draft last night was held captive by technology for most of the evening, as the unreliability of Yahoo Chat and a wonky DSL connection led to some delays, though the large percentage of live drafters helped keep things moving. I got to draft 11th out of 12, which when added to the computer problems and working proxies for two other owners, resulted in what feels like a very sub-par draft. Oh well.

Yesterday was one of the big fun pre-wedding days, as Sarah had her bridal shower. I am happy to report that she was taken completely by surprise, her bedrock faith in that it woulnd't happen until her aunt got here from Britain blocking out the various and sundry inconsistencies that would have gotten her to figure it out.

Interestingly, most of the presents were kitchen-themed. Considering that I do the bulk of the cooking, it's like she got the party and I got the presents. I also got some late birthday gifts, so it was doubly fun for me, especially as I was able to stay in the apartment and watch baseball while the thing was going on.

For those of you who are readers and were in the know, thanks for not spilling the beans! I know Sarah was working over some of her co-workers pretty hard.

I was just looking at a story about a poll for the California recall, and while the tight race between Cruz Bustamente and Ahnud isn't that surprising, what did stand out was the 5 percent of respondents who said they didn't back any candidate.

There are, what, 135 names on the ballot? And five percent of Californians can't find one of them to support? What do they do when there are only a single-digit number of candidate? Stay home, I suppose.

So while the Sox appear to be having their typical August swoon, there is one good baseball story coming out of the Boston area at present.

A team from Saugus, a town known far and wide for such roadside attractions as the 30 foot cactus outside of the Hilltop Steak House and the orange dinosaur gracing its miniature golf course, is currently 1-0 in pool play at the Little League World Series. They bested a team from Tallmadge, Ohio 2-1 yesterday, and will take on Richland, Washington on Sunday. Go team!

I've developed a love-hate relationship with getting my hair cut. I love the time where I don't have to worry about it, and hate having to go.

I'm not sure why this is. Could it be that I'm angry with the inverse relationship between the price and the amount of hair I have left to cut? Is it that the barber chairs seem to be getting incrementally smaller? Or perhaps it's the growing insistance by the person doing the cutting to introduce some sort of "product" into my hair that, in an earlier time, was used to dope the canvas that covered airplaine fuselages?

There are moments when I think it's due to the increasingly impersonal relationship I have with barbers. During my formative years, my mother (who went to hairdressing school, though by the time I knew her she'd left the trade) would cut my hair. Round about junior high I was transitioned to the local barber shop, where I would have my hair cut for well nigh the next decade by a chummy group of locals. I eventually moved on to a barber shop on the BU campus, where the barbers change more frequently.

The counter-argument here is that I really don't care for chatter. I've never cottoned to the "some weather we're having" school of customer interaction. Even at home, where topics were more familiar and there was an actual relationship between me and the barber, I tended towards a parsimony of words.

It could be my general disdain for grooming. OK, that doesn't sound right. What I mean to say is that I'm not the sort of person who luxuriates in a hot bath or packs mud onto my face. I take a quick shower, shave every other day, use the appropriate anti-stink products, and that's about it.

I also seem skittish about the whole payment thing, as I feel a little awkward handing the barber a wad of bills. I'd be much happier if it was handled like a restaurant, with a little portfolio for the bill. Heck, I don't even think my current place takes credit cards.

Changing barber shops was something I tried some time ago, but found that I was subjected to even more chatter and even more pushing of "product" than at my relatively old-school establishment.

Something tells me I won't be happy until I can shave myself bald or lose that last shed of self-respect and scour eBay for a Flowbee.

The sports movie thing has already generated more email that most of the things that I ask you folks to write in about, which is kind of neat. Two people (the Bruce and Greg) made their case for Searching for Bobby Fisher, which were generally well done but don't change my mind any about chess as a sport.

Greg was also smart enough to point out that if I was rejecting The Deadliest Season for being made for TV, I need to reject Brian's Song as well. This pained me, given that I'd forgotten it was a TV movie to begin with. I am tempted to give it special dispensation.

Greg also inquired about the status of The Hustler, which is about pool, which is a pretty marginal sport if it even is one.

Can you tell Greg is the movie person among the people I know?

Given the discussion of what may or may not be a sport, I'm prompted to do something.

ANNOUNCING THE TOP 50 COMPETITION MOVIES LIST

The goal: to compile a list of the top 50 movies all-time where some form of competition is integral to the plot of the movie, if not the entire purpose of the movie.

It's a fine line, to be sure, and like pornography you'll likely know what movies fit here by seeing them. For example, just because Ralph Macchio gets into a guitar duel in Crossroads doesn't make it a competition movie.

Anyway, send your nominees to me via my mail link. I'll compile a list and put something together for your edification, though probably not soon, what with RA training and the start of school coming.

Sticking with Sports Illustrated, I got the issue with the story on Ted Williams' remains in the mail today. Thankfully, the worst the pictures get is the "neuro-can" that is apparently the current home of the Splinter's head. Given the descriptions, I was fearing something more graphic.

This issue also interests me given its cover story of Bill Parcells and what it'll take for him to turn the Dallas Cowboys around. It's not the story as much as the quote on the cover from Jerry Jones:

"I had no idea I was hiring someone so intimately involved in every single thing..."

He knew he was hiring Bill Parcells, right? You don't think he got the Tuna confused with Pete Carroll, did he?

I was working on a longish deconstruction of Sports Illustrated's 50 greatest sports movie list, noting the unusual lack of comment from some of my fellow bloggers, when it hit me why there was little comment.

What I was writing wasn't very interesting.

The main problem was that in most cases, the argument would be about order rather than place on the list, especially in the top 15-20 movies. I don't agree that Bull Durham is the greatest sports movie of all time, but I don't think I'd leave it off entirely, either.

In any case, I am taking five movies off the list and replacing them with five that I think should have been on it.

GONE: Searching for Bobby Fisher
WHY?: Chess is not a sport.
IN: Fear Strikes Out
WHY?: It sticks with the father and son theme, but in a much darker way. Jimmy Piersall, whose story is the basis of the movie, was driven by his father to become a major leaguer, with the stress and pressure eventually leading to a breakdown during one season. Tony Perkins plays the adult Piersall, while Karl Malden plays his abusive father.

GONE: Fists of Fury
WHY?: If simply having martial arts in a film makes it a sports movie, wouldn't The Matrix be eligible?
IN: Enter the Dragon
WHY?: It at least uses a competition as a backdrop to the plot. It's Lee's last film but his first Hollywood-backed movie, and the bigger budget allows for better production and a better class of martial artists to compliment Lee. It also has early appearances by Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, a nice little bonus.

GONE: Any Given Sunday
WHY?: It sucks. Oliver Stone's fever dream about pro football is obvious and loud, and most of the characters fill some sort of archetype (grizzled veteran, cocky newcomer, stern coach).
IN: Black Sunday
WHY?: If you want life-and-death drama mixed with pro football, you can't do any better than mixing terrorism, the Super Bowl, and a blimp.

GONE: The Deadliest Season
WHY?: It's made for TV.
IN: Idol of the Crowds
WHY?: OK, after Slap Shot it's hard to find really good hockey movies (and no, the Mighty Ducks movies do not count). This one has, to me, one of the more entertaining story lines: a guy signs up to play pro hockey to make money to enlarge his chicken farm. Seriously. Gangsters try to get him to throw a game, he refuses, etc. The hockey player is portrayed by a young John Wayne. I have to imagine that it's better than it sounds.

GONE: Best in Show
WHY?: Dog shows aren't sport. Dog shows, like debutante balls and country club membership, are competitions in grooming and genetics. Not sport.
IN: Major League
WHY?: Best in Show was at 50, a spot where I'd probably put a movie whose rougher edges are smoothed out by cult following and quotability. Major League fits the bill quite well. And hey, it gave Cleveland a winner back when it looked like they'd never have one.

Finally got around to seeing most of an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy last night, and I will say that I was generally entertained. I would never submit myself to the treatment that last night's subject went through. It will be a cold day in hell before I let someone, using the show's term, "manscape" whatever hair exists on my torso.

Most of the other stuff done to the guy would be fine (I'd have to pass on learning how to eat a lobster), and I'd love to have somone come in and get the apartment into shape.

I'd be interested to see how NBC gets the show down to a half hour, but given that Tuesday at 10 doesn't offer much else that I'd normally watch, I don't suppose I'll have to find out.

In a related Bravo note, I was pleased to see them add The West Wing to their lineup, though revisiting the first season means having to work around Moira Kelly and her character. I don't look forward to the reprise of Ainsley Haines, either, but Emily Proctor doesn't rub the raw nerve that Kelly does. I was clearly subjected to The Cutting Edge one too many times.

While checking out the news that Iraq is pumping oil to Turkey again, I was able to read this fascinating story in the Denver Post about how Montana Power basically willed itself out of existance in five years.

I have feelings towards deregulation that are akin to those I described regarding pharmaceutical companies, a vague uneasy feeling that I have trouble quantifying. In this case thought I feel that I have a little more direction, as utilities have always struck me as the sort of thing the government should be keeping an eye on (if not both eyes).

Not that it always helps. I have a feeling my hometown's approach to water has screwed folks for decades, given that a town of under 6000 has more than one sewage treatment plant. While it may verify what I've felt- that many of the folks in my hometown are indeed full of crap - it also suggests someone was keeping an eye on things while their brain was on holiday.

I really don't have much to say today, other than I'm enjoying looking to see what sites have referred people here. Most of them are expected, while one - CEO Express - is surprising. If you got here from there, drop me a line and let me know how it is you come to be here from there.

I was going to complain about our string of humid, rainy days, but then I keep reading about the European heat wave and figure I've got less standing to gripe than they do. Any time you live in a place when it records its highest temperature in the history of keeping such figures, as London did on Sunday when they broached 100 degrees for the first time, you get bumped to the front of the line.

There isn't much more I can say about the passing of Herb Brooks that you won't find elsewhere, other than to note that if you've not seen this documentary on the Miracle on Ice you should do so post-haste (do not confuse it with the made for TV Miracle on Ice, where Brooks is played by Karl Malden).

(Something I didn't know before looking at the IMDB info for those films: Mike Eruzione was the host on the first pilot of the video game game show Starcade.)

(Another something I didn't know: Brooks got an electrician's credit for the movie Dummy, a pre-Oscar vehicle for Adrien Brody. At least the IMDB gives him the credit. I have to think it was another Herb Brooks, but part of me is holding out for it to actually be him.)

Something I'd meant to comment on when it happened was the end of the line for the original VW Beetle. The last one rolled off of the assembly line in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, ending sixty-some odd years of production for the original model.

I have a particular fondness for the original Beetle given my mom's prediliction for them. She drove one for years. Well, not just one, as she went through a number of them, but for years it was her car of choice.

Many of my earliest memories of going places with my mother are in a Beetle. I can remember fighting with my sister Cathy on a fairly regular basis about who got to ride in the well, the depression behind the back seat meant more for storage than people. This was back in the day when you didn't need to put all auto passengers under the age of 18 in five-point restraint (not to mention back when I was small enough to actually fit in such a space, which takes some imagining nowadays).

I can also remember times when we had a convertible bug, and the ease of both putting the top down and the times when we'd have to hurry to get it back up if we got caught in rain. We didn't have many of these, but when we did it was a lot of fun, though probably not for my mom when she'd be driving it to work on all those winter nights.

My sister Maureen still has an original bug, a light blue one with white convertible top that she's been dragging around with her for years, unwilling to part with it but also not quite in a position to have it restored.

Given the happy family history with the bug, you can imagine that I'm a little dubious about the new Beetles. I imagine there's a British person about my age having similar misgivings about the new Minis. In both cases, you've got cars intended for the masses reborn for the hip and trendy with disposable income.

I've never been in a new Beetle, so I suppose I shouldn't dismiss them out of hand, but I find it hard to cotton to a car that comes with a bud vase. The real Beetle wouldn't have had such frippery.

After Friday's darkish post, I figured I'd follow up with the fun of the birthday weekend, as I know it'll calm those of you worried about my mental state (which, judging from all the frantic calls and emails, would be none of you).

Friday saw us go up to Portland for the tilt between the AA Sea Dogs and and Binghamton Mets. And let me say right now, Mets fans, that the team of the future is going to look an awful lot like the team of the present. The Sea Dogs posted a 7-0 win at lovely Hadlock Field.

It was pretty much like any other minor league game otherwise, though one promotion was classic Maine. Two guys with lacrosse sticks lobbed plastic lobsters at two women carrying a lobster trap, who had to catch 10 of them to win a prize. If there was ever a time I needed a digital camera, it was then.

We spent the night at the Eastland Park Hotel, which had a shabby gentility to it. The lobby was very nice, and they still have an elevator wth an operator on it, a nice touch. But there were places where repairs were made and not completed (such as the wooden panel screwed into the wall near the ice machine), and some of the furniture is problematic (the beds were too soft, and our TV stand was a collapsable half-table that looked like it came from an employee's garage).

In any case, we then went up to Sarah's parents house for the rest of the weekend. Not much to note there, other than for your TRASHy types who, if attending the regional at BU, may take home some of the goodies picked up at the annual American Legion Post 157 yard sale. There's one prize which, I swear to God, must have been banned by international convention. Or should be if it hasn't been.

I also came up with two new laws I'll be passing once I'm in charge:

1. If you are not in the stadium when the first pitch is thrown, you're not getting in until the 6th inning.

2. All RV drivers will be required to have a map of the US states on its back demarcating the states its owners have driven to. It gives the rest of us something to look at when passing.

As some of you may know, today is my birthday. I wasn't sure how to best address this here, so I went back to the archives to see what I did last year. Turns out my 2002 birthday post mostly described the Fox offering 30 Seconds to Fame, but also included a little bit about people born on my birthday and events that happened on my birthday.

But today I turn 34, moving from my lower 30s squarely into the mid-30s. My right foot hurts and I have an irritated throat (thought I was getting a cold, now I wonder if it's related to the fumes we've had at work the last couple of days as they've resurfaced the stage in the theater that's connected to our campus center). And it's another in a string of dark, humid, rainy days.

I was going to be overly-dramatic and list all the famous people I could find who died on August 8, but it's not much of a list, depending on how much of a fan you are (or were) of Louise Brooks and Richard Deacon. Checking out the IMDB, it also appears that Alan Napier, who played Alfred on the TV version of Batman, died on August 8. I always liked Alfred, he helped even out the camp. Kind of like how lemon juice helps to even out sauces.

Oh, add Shirley Jackson to the roll call, too.

On a brighter note, August 8 was the wedding day for Julie Tenuta and Emo Phillips. They've since divorced, but can you imagine that wedding? Other notables married on August 8 include Ty Cobb (his first), Roman Pulanski (his third), and W. C. Fields for his first and only, which is heartening. You'd think all the drinking and cards would have irritiated his wife to no end.

Relative to Cooch's thought that California should be your starter state for deciding to live somewhere, it should be noted that a recent Census report says that Americans, as a people, are no longer manifesting their destiny.

Seems that the in- and out-migration patterns of the 1990s have most moving Americans heading south, more particularly the southeast. California actually wound up giving people to surrounding states.

The news in this end of the country was also towards the negative, though it seems that New York was mostly bleeding people to New Jersey and Connecticut. Even so, net losses for New England and the mid-Atlantic states over the decade.

Oddly, I suppose, I've never thought about moving to California or the southeast. I'd applied to some law schools in North Carolina, and one in California (Santa Clara, not requiring an application fee, an application I turned around in 20 minutes that led to an acceptance, which suggests an lack of selectivity). In any case, I was more likely to end up in Seattle or Chicago if I was to leave here. Of course, I didn't leave here, which probably says something about me. Not sure what, though I have some guesses.

"In Sacramento today, Governor Coleman refused to commute the life sentence of The Gooch, whose last felony bullying offense led to his incarceration at San Quentin under the state's three-strikes law."

This recall thing just gets better and better. Word is that Gallagher is collecting signatures, too. Seriously.

Some meta-blogging for you, assuming you've read others listed at left...

I think Scott is on to something with the "in" status of the grape tomato. I will say that I think they're on the way to earning a permanent place on the culinary landscape, given that they're easy to manipulate in salads and generally have a more notable flavor than larger varieties.

Then again, they may be on the same flight path as baby corn, going from ethnic niche to near ubiquity to background noise.

If you click through on Scott's blog to read Amanda Conaway's blog (which I should link to, really), you'll learn about the recent sadness in the bourbon world. If you don't read her blog, I would also suggest going back through the archives for her poignant discourse on the issue of women and office toilet use.

Kudos for Greg with his fairly passionate discourse related to the recent naming of a gay Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire. One of my greatest struggles with being Catholic is trying to rectify my generally left-leaning social views with the continuing (or burgeoning) conservatism of the leadership. And I don't know if it's going to get any better under a new Pope, given how many cardinals got their red hat during JP2's run. I do take solace in the fact that there is room for dissent when you've got a billion people involved, but hope that at some point that dissent bubbles up and actually leads to positive change.

(Beyond that, congrats to Greg's mom and her partner - at least they aren't eloping :P)

And, in a non-meta-blogging note, I am looking forward to a possible gubenitorial debate between Larry Flynt, Arianna Huffington, and Ahnud. I won't be able to tell what any of them are saying, which may be for the best.

Three items of note from since my post on wanting to play at the WSOP.

1. As James Dinan was quick to point out, one can play at sattelite tournaments to get into the big event, where the combined entry fees of the tournament represent the winner's stake (James McManus plays a one-table sattelite to get into the 2000 WSOP's big event in Positively Fifth Street). James was even kind enough to mention one happening at Foxwoods in the near future, but I need a lot more experience before doing anything like that.

2. Pursuant to that, I had the opportunity to play for "real" at a program one of my RAs ran tonight. I got to bust a guy after going all in with a straight which he didn't think I had, but generally played like a moron otherwise. Hey, it didn't cost me anything and I wasn't eligible for the prizes. Hopefully, the RA will make this a regular game, but I doubt it.

3. Since my initial entry, I've gotten 3 or 4 emails letting me know about various on-line opportunities to play. Pass. If I'm going to spend money on computer poker, it'll be to get a Wilson Turbo Poker program. Sadly, no Mac version available.

Can someone tell me why I'm supposed to care who the song "You're So Vain" is about? Or, better yet, why the various media outlets are all over it?

Is this some sort of self-absorbed baby boomer thing that I'm just not going to get ever?

If nothing else, it gives me one more reason to dislike Dick Ebersol. I'm sure he's using money earned while screwing up Olympic coverage to find out the answer to this burning secret.

Time to open the mail bag for the readers challenge I posted a while back asking folks to give their ideas for French words to take out of English (prompted by the French language police's decision to replace e-mail with courriel).

The missus chimed in by suggesting we replace "resume" with "C.V." This is apparently the more standard term world-wide, and given that it's in use in American academia, it's at least got a foothold.

Dave Vacca wrote to give the old standby of replacing "garage" with "car hole." He also liked the idea of calling the art movement Fauvism by a more literal translation: Beastiality. Imagine, as Dave did, this intro to an art text: "The artists most closely
associated with Beastiality include Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck."

I had three suggestions for re-naming the eclair, France's pastry contribution to atherosclerosis. Matt Bruce suggested "fancy Twinkie," which I like quite a bit, though perhaps the eclair is more like a fancy Chocodile. Scott Monty had both the generic "puff pastry" and the salute to French military prowess, "dessert Wellington."

Scott actually had several more ideas:

* Montpelier, Vermont would be called North Bumf*ck. If you've been through, you'd probably agree.
* Suisse Chalet would be called Howard Johnson's. Having stayed in both, that may be a slander to Mr. Johnson. And wouldn't the Suisse Chalet be Swiss?
* Crayon would now be a pee-wee pencil.
* And my favorite, apparently inspired by the Deck of Weasels, a beret would now be called a "sissy hat."

Scott also included a Wall Street Journal editoria which made an interesting point. The French seemed more concerned with the use of the word "mail" than the word "electronic," which in French is "electronique." According to the OED, the word "mail" dervies from a Middle French term for a courier's bag. "Electronic," meanwhile, came to use from the Greek via Latin. French is a Romance language, but you'd think they'd not want to put the kibosh on a putatively native word.

We're back. Or, more accurately, I'm back. Sarah had to work at the Gap.

It's been a long day, but a productive one for the most part. Most of the sessions were helpful, as they sparked some good conversation on what Sarah and I are looking for in each other as we go about our married life, and in how we want to approach the spiritual dimension of married life.

I do think it would have been a tough day if you weren't that religious, in that you wouldn't have that much to talk about during those sessions. I doubt that many folks in that position go through with a formal Catholic ceremony (though they may to appease the family), so they wouldn't be at the class to begin with.

There was a finance session that wasn't too helpful. It was pretty basic, more for folks who may be just starting to be financially independent.

The sex and family session was better than expected. For most folks, the idea of the marriage prep thing is that priests and nuns give you the business about sex, why you'll go to hell if you fool around before marriage, etc. That's not the case. The priest did talk more than usual, but mostly in relating the areas of sex and marriage to various Bible passages. This is where the couples who presented really helped, in that they gave some concrete and personal examples of troubles they had and how they grew into this portion of their marriage.

There was talk of Natural Family Planning, the replacement for the rhythm method. Women got a very professional-looking brochure discussing NFP, while men got a cartoony booklet that I think was written for high school sophomores. It included pictures of reproductive systems and some simply worded Q&A on making babies, NFP, etc. I'd be offended if I really cared.

I do think NFP has to be a tough sell, between the negative connotations left over from the rhythm method and all the work that goes into doing NFP right (taking basal temperatures, checking mucus, etc.).

The day ended with a mass, which was kind of interesting given that it was during a period of fairly steady thunder and lightning. Not sure if that was a comment on us or not.

Outside of the one couple I mentioned earlier, we didn't get much of a chance to interact with others, which was too bad. The couple sitting to our right was an interesting one, in that the woman is pregnant with twins. There were a few other couples there already working on the family, which was actually kind of nice to see to show that they aren't shunned or anything.

(I did feel badly that after lunch we inadvertantly blew off the other couple by leaving for a walk thinking they were behind us when they weren't.)

The only other thing that stood out for me was that I don't think we met anyone who is getting married later than we are. One other couple at lunch is getting married the same day, while everyone else was a September wedding. I think there may have even been a late August or two that we ran into. We were originally going to go to a class in Wellesley in March (it was cancelled), so good on us for being ahead of the curve!

Anyway, it's done, and it wasn't as painful as we thought. For those of you thinking about Catholic nuptuals, take heart.

Just a quick note as we prepare to go back for the second day of our marriage prep class. The first day wasn't so bad - mostly discussions on personal and interpersonal issues. We got to meet a few other couples, nothing really in-depth, but we did meet a pair getting married a few weeks before us up in the North Shore area. They mentioned that they were having hotel problems, but thankfully aren't using the same one we are.

Today is a full day session, and we'll venture into topics including finances and the dreaded sex and family session. There are two married couples who are doing most of the presenting, so the Catholic paradox of getting sex advice from the supposedly celibate shouldn't be in play. Actually, the priest in charge has mentioned sex a couple of times, but usually in reference to something else. He seems pretty realistic (and considering this place has handled something like 8000 couples, he'd have to be).

OK, one more, just to see if I've changed the right thing to silver.

You may be stuck with this color scheme for now, I'm sick of having to repost to see changes!

Just as Scott Monty pointed out that the silver and green paid homage to the Eagles, perhaps my blue and green pay homage to the Seahawks. But I'd need to keep silver in there somewhere...

I'm still fussing with color changes, and given that the template preview button doesn't work when you Blogger with Mac (it saves changes rather than show a preview for some reason), you may see a few more posts like this until I either give up or move over to Sarah's machine.

You know it's the last day of trading in baseball when, after a day away from your fantasy team, you don't know who all of your players play for any more.

Such as it was for me, when I discovered last night that Jose Guillen and Aaron Boone were no longer Reds. I'm now in a tough position relative to them, as they are both now on teams where I would really prefer that they not contribute to the franchise's overall success (A's and Yanks, respectively).

In my suck league, I have the opposite problem. I drafted Jeff Suppan due to his track record of sucking with the Royals, but then he was doing OK with the Pirates, who have since shipped him back to his original team, the Red Sox.

(Then again, I did have Roy Halladay on my suck league pitching staff going back to that rocky time in April where he had four straight no decisions.)

As you can imagine, I'd have no problem with real life working out at the expense of my fantasy teams, with apologies to my one known A's fan in the readership.