While I'm not exactly a stathead, I have found something on baseball-reference.com that is truly astounding: the Oracle of Baseball.

Simply put, you type in the names of any two major leaguers and the site spits out a chain of players that connect your inputs. So if you ever wondered how many players it would take to connect, say, Henry Luff of the New Haven City Elms (a team that played in the National Association in 1875) and Brad Voyles (a Kansas City Royal whose been getting his cup of coffee with the big team since 2001), here's your tool.

(The answer, by the way, is seven. Even more frightening, there are apparently several different combinations of seven players that would get you from Luff to Voyles. My goal is to find a pairing with no connection, but it's looking tough.)

The wrong redhead got sent packing on American Idol tonight, as the moderately entertaining and reasonably talented Amy Adams got the hook while last night's clear lanterne rouge, the lightly entertaining and regularly out of tune John Stevens didn't even make the bottom three. In fact, you can make the argument that no one in the bottom three actually gave one of the three worst performances from last night. The cause of democracy takes another shot to the gut.

For what it's worth, Stevens looked devastated at the turn of events. He clearly expected to be sent packing, and I think is feeling a little survivor guilt for not even making the bottom three.

The theme this week was Motown, which when added to the "soul" theme a couple weeks ago reminds me of the time on The Simpsons when Marge is going through a photo album and finding five or six different ways to describe pictures of Bart napping as an infant. Whatever writer comes up with the most ways to describe R&B will probably get a raise.

I still can't work up much interest in any of the finalists, though you may want to keep the name George Huff in mind as we get to the end of the series. He's the only male finalist with any real level of talent, and will likely pick up votes when other talented types get stiffed early because soccer moms can't get enough of the spasmodic dancing of Jon Peter Lewis, or JPL as he's being called. Every time I hear that I start wondering what the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has to do with the show. I assume they fabricated some components for Diana DeGarmo, the singing teenage robot.

So my LAUNCHcast radio station has begun to pick up some of my edited preferences, giving me a lot of different groups than I usually get. This is mostly a good thing, but after a run of modern rock, the LAUNCHcast gods decide to play a funny on me and spit out "Come Clean" by Hillary Duff. I was stunned into inactivity for a couple of seconds, and then took care of Ms. Duff. That won't be happening again. I then got an Enya song, which was OK in a palate-cleansing way for a couple of minutes. OK, now we've got "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon. That's better.

In barely related musical news, I was reading earlier that Usher's new album sold over a million copies this past week, supposedly heralding in a new era of CD sales now that the RIAA has crushed file swapping.

Or has it? The jury's still out on the effect of piracy on CD sales, with the RIAA touting a variety of studies showing it has a major impact, and with other sources (including a recent study by eggheads at Harvard Business School and UNC) saying it's not that big a deal.

The Yahoo! article on the Usher thing makes the bald assumption that piracy is to blame, and gives this album and Norah Jones' new one as proof that piracy was driving lower CD sales. I will say that in the latter case, I think it helps that her first album sold so widely, thanks in large part to the folks at Blue Note setting a lower than average price for the debut disc.

There's also that price thing to consider. It strikes me that CDs are less expensive now than a few years back (assisted, no doubt by that price-fixing lawsuit that resulted in so many people getting checks for $13.82 or whatever the total per person was), which has to help the sales figures. And there was that period where people were finding it hard to find jobs and not have their pensions wiped out by CEOs buying a third house in the Bahamas, where the choice between a new CD and not having the utilities shut off wasn't always a theoretical exercise.

I was reading just now that Fox is planning to revive Family Guy based on the sales of its DVDs and the ratings reruns get on the Cartoon Network. Boston.com then asked the question (and was seeking answers) for the question of what other shows should be brought back from the beyond.

My choices were pretty obvious ones: Futurama and Sports Night. The latter I termed more of a pipe dream given the time since cancellation, but the former seems much more possible. Personally, I like Futurama a lot more than Family Guy. And, not surprisingly, both of the shows I mentioned turn up quite a bit in the comments.

Other popular choices aren't surprising but would be even harded to pull off. My So Called Life would require one of the more dramatic re-toolings to get back on the air, but there are apparently a number of people who would like to see it tried. Keen Eddie got a lot of comment, spurred I have to think by Bravo's picking up the already produced episodes. I don't think there's a shot in hell that it'd come back as a series, but having seen it and finding it reasonably entertaining, there's a chance I'd tune in. Oh, and there's one guy who wants to bring back The Greatest American Hero, but I'll be damned if they do it without bringing back the original cast.

Lots of calls for Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, so the Joss Whedon fan club is clearly still intact. The Job got a lot of nods, too, and I have to say that I did like that one quite a bit.

But some of the shows people want to see brought back... ugh. A sampling:

* Lyon's Den (which was called "innovative," if by which you mean "we've re-edited unused Mister Sterling scripts"). Oh, yeah, there was at least one call for Mister Sterling as well.
* Hidden Hills, which would unleash Paula Marshall on us again... until she gets the show re-cancelled.
* Malibu Shores. WTF?
* Dark Angle, where Jessica Alba apparently turns into an ass-kicking geometry teacher.
* Jack & Jill because people whose names don't match their gender are cool.
* Three Sisters, which made me weep for Vicki Lewis.

And as there are almost 30 pages of comments, I'm going to stop there. It's beginning to make my head hurt, and not just because I left my glasses at home.

A quick reminder with the Yankees and Devil Rays starting the baseball season tomorrow in Japan - you can still sign up for my Baseball Challenge league! Point your browswer to the Baseball Challenge home page and join the following:

Group: Funny Moneyball
Password: opsrules

We're at a sprightly three teams at current, I'd love to see some more!

I had the good fortune (or, more accurately, my brother had the good fortune) to come across free Celtics tickets tonight, so I got to take in what passes for NBA basketball. It was not one for the highlight reels. The Celts won 89-65 over the Sixers, who set franchise records for lowest team score for a half and three quarters. The Sixers shot 15-70 over the first three quarters, and were probably saved from even greater futility by scoring 10 to 12 points in the final four minutes of the third quarter. There was no AI or Big Dog for Philly, which clearly didn't help.

The Celts were hardly impressive, though they at least worked the floor pretty well. They ate it on the offensive glass, though. Eighth place seems about right.

I was less annoyed with the constant promotions and fan exhortations than when I attended my last Celtics game, so I'm either getting used to it or they're doing a better job at it (probably both). Still too many people mugging for the scoreboard display, but that's going to happen anywhere.

In non-Celtic sports, I was chagrined to see BC made the Frozen Four. When we left for the game they were losing to Michigan. I suppose I have to root for Maine now (at least for that semifinal), though I think my official rooting interest will be for the University of Denver, if for no other reason than they are the only red and white team left. I'm OK with Minnesota-Duluth, too, as they may serve as an example to the UMass regents that you can have two state schools with high-achieving hockey programs.

Regarding that other final four, I'm officially rooting for Oklahoma State. I have some connection to the state through family and friends, and my wife has them in a blind-draw pool. So I think I have some solid reasons. I'm still steamed that Xavier couldn't hold on against Duke, but I'm sure they're not so thrilled about that, either.

There's apparently a move afoot in Canada to have the Turks & Caicos Islands join up as the country's 11th province. It's currently a British Crown Colony, so it's not exactly a done deal, but from the news article I read there's support on both sides of the aisle. If there's a topic that an Albertan conservative and a Quebecois liberal can agree on, you have to think there's something to it.

There is something mildly humorous about Canada having a province that isn't ice-bound 10 months out of the year, but there are plenty of retirees and snowbirds who are probably phoning their MP to get the deal done.

Check out this handy website for more info.

When I was in college, I tended to fill the walk to and from class with my Walkman (or cheaper knock-off tape player). It passed the time and only occasionally led me into trouble (mostly from idiot cyclists riding on student-clogged sidewalks). I'm not at the point where I'll be using it to that extent, but I am finding myself more and more happy to plug into my iPod.

You've probably read all the raves, so I won't repeat them here. While I have no experience with other MP3 player-type machines, I can't imagine one that does its work better.

It is my luck, though, that I got mine up and running just after the big Pepsi iTunes promotion. But if you have any winning caps and aren't looking to redeem them, let me know.

I had something else to add here, but I've forgotten it with all the warm fuzzies. Oh well.

In a bit of a surprise, Matt Rogers got the boot tonight from American Idol. Camille was spared what would have been a more deserving removal, while Diana rounded out the bottom three. That was a surprise as well, as her opening number was at least technically well done.

I will say that Matt went out with some panache, as he changed the lyrics to his song from last night, "Amazed," to express his love for Simon. For his part Simon looked pretty unimpressed, but given how rarely anything appearing spontaneous happens on the show, it could just be that he didn't know how to react.

As we get closer to Opening Day, once again I invite all takers to participate in my Baseball Challenge group on ESPN.com.

Group Name: Funny Moneyball
Password: opsrules

Our migration is apparently on hold, so here's your regular Wednesday banality about reality TV.

I missed the chance to discuss last week's American Idol, which was notable for having my enemy for the season, Leah Labelle, voted off. Now who am I going to complain about? The remaining contestants have their foibles, but none of them really irritate me in the same way.

But I find myself much less interested in the group based on last night's show. Its country theme inspired a lot of meh performances. The last two performers, Latoya and Amy, did some up-tempo stuff, but after a good hour and 45 minutes of ballads and boredom it was too little too late.

Not sure who will go this week. My guess is that at least one of the two contestants in last week's bottom three will return (either Amy or Jennifer), and Camille may make an appearance after a warbly rendition of "Desperado." My guess is that Jennifer Hudson goes, less for her performance than for the popularity contest reasons.

Last night was also the season finale of America's Next Top Model, Yoanna took this year's competition, even after having a bit of a meltdown at the last photo shoot (she wound up hacking off a bunch of her own hair to get a helmet to fit right). To my mind any of the final three could have taken it all, but that could by why I'm here and not running my own fashion house in Milan.

I'm going to be gone for a few days as we (OK, Boggie) transfers greenfieldgerbil.com over to another host. I know, you'll miss me.

As mentioned yesterday, I will be running a free pool on the men's division 1 NCAA ice hockey tournament.

The bracket is available at US College Hockey Online or at ESPN.com. All you need to do is send your winners to me at the above email address.

Scoring will follow a 1-2-4-8 format. To liven things up, I will also allow for upset points throughout the tournament, but only based on regional seeding. In other words, if Holy Cross upends Maine in the final, and you called it, you would get 11 points (8 for the win and 3 for the difference in their regional seeds). Though, really, if you picked Holy Cross to win the whole thing and they do, you should move to Vegas or something.

One entry per person, no need to go crazy for a fun competition.

Today is the first day of spring and we're getting sleet. "Out like a lamb" my fanny.

It's supposed to warm up as the week progresses, but I'm not buying it until I see it.

So how was your week?

I was in Orlando from Sunday to very early this morning, and will be writing up some sort of travelogue for all to enjoy, as it were. The short version is that it didn't snow and I'll be very happy not to see another theme park until 2007.

In non-vacation related items of note:

* Both the BU men's ice hockey and basketball seasons ended while I was away, and interestingly enough it was the hockey team that was the more interesting of the pair. They upended BC in the quarterfinals of the Hockey East tournament, but bowed to Maine in a 1-0 semifinal contest. The basketball team got to play at URI in the first round of the NIT and got smoked.

* I was slightly saddened to see that Sean Fields didn't get a Hobey Baker nod, given that his play was about the only thing that kept the Icedogs from a 5-28-2 season. But it's hardly a snub of any proportion.

* I'd meant to leave a quick note about the vacation before departing, but wound up spending all my free time installing OS X on my Mac. This required a memory upgrade, which went fine, and some software upgrades, which did not. In the end, though, I was able to get it in and going in time to load up my iPod for the trip, which was key.

* With the travel I was not able to run my usual March Madness pool, which I'm only partially upset about. There may be something lurking for the Sweet Sixteen. I'll also probably run my usual gentleperson's wager pool for the NCAA division 1 men's ice hockey tournament, more on that when the bracket is out.

* As part of my vacation plans I've finally started The DaVinci Code, and I think reading all of Dan Brown's other books first (OK, there are only three) was a mistake. He's got a definite pattern to his books, which I'm hoping he's gotten out of for this one.

The big conflict on The Apprentice the last couple weeks or so pitted lazy megalomaniac Omarosa versus potty-mouthed Heidi. After yesterday's episode, though, it's time to find a new conflict, as both women are now out.

Omarosa bit the bullet last week, as her continued shirking of duties after getting hit in the head with some plaster (which led to a "concussion") and continued irritation of everyone involved with the program added up to put her in a cab and out of Trump Tower. If you're still jonesing for some psychotic goodness, feel free to wander over to her official web site (which I won't link to, but it's obvious what the URL is if you think about it). It doesn't appear to have been updated since her ouster, but I'm sure she's working on some sort of nefarious scheme to relaunch.

Oh, I forgot to mention Omarosa's breakdown during the boardroom, where she went back in to plead her case before Trump summoned the group back in. She judged poorly (but, sadly, didn't turn into dust and skeleton before our very eyes).

Heidi, on the other hand, got the boot this week after her team lost and she, for the umpteenth week in a row, didn't seem to do all that much. Generally liked by the other contestants and a good team member, the assembled brain trust didn't seem to think she'd shown much initative or leadership, so adios.

This week's episode was strange, as the teams had to manage a pedicab business. Pedicabs, for those not in the know, are bicycle-powered rickshaws. It was probably the least interesting competition to date, though it did help to set up the new conflict pair of Bill and Katrina, who've been sniping at each other going back to the apartment challenge (where Katrina, the real estate person, had Bill handle the rental negotiations for some reason).

I continue to enjoy the show more than I thought I would, but the lame challenges make me fear for the sequel. It's going to wind up being televised virtual stock challenges or something.

So who'd have thought that my trip to the dentist to get a cleaning would be the bright spot for Tuesday?

I was dreading the appointment, given that I've not had a cleaning since... well, I'm not sure, but I can pretty safely say it was before we started letting anyone in the Bush family be President. I know that tidbit will shock, amaze, and possibly nauseate you, but there it is.

Things didn't get any better when the hygenist started to explain the procedure for cleaning if there was too much stuff, a process that apparently involves a specialist, multiple appointments, jackhammers, and the medical application of Semtex. But as fate would have it, the governor called. Not only was I spared the invasive cleaning, it appears that my dental hygeine is good enough that the hygenist thought I flossed regularly, which I do, if by regularly you mean semi-annually.

Props to my parents and the staff of Manchester Memorial Elementary School for their making me a twice a day brusher.

I can't say I was thrilled with the scraping and the variety of metal instruments used in said scraping, and the end product of all the rinsing was not particularly what I wanted to see at 9 am, but I'll take it. The polishing was kind of gross, too, given the consistency of the paste and the way the gritty material lingered over the course of the day.

But there was still one more step to my visit - my first meeting with Dr. Ochoa, my dentist. Oddly enough, I worked with a guy with the last name of Ochoa at the Daily Free Press, and for a second I expected him to come around the corner (while he wasn't a dental student when I knew him - far from it, in fact - his career path seemed flexible enough that an entry into dental medicine wouldn't have surprised me).

In any event, Dr. Ochoa shows up (not the person I knew) and starts to go over my x-rays. He's pretty methodical about it, and I'm thinking that the boom is about to be lowered. With every added moment of scrutiny, I'm expecting an even greater list of exotic treatments whose financial implications will prevent my children from ever attending college - even if I'm still working at one.

He finally stops looking, and pronounced things OK. He did ask if I was interested in orthodontia, but the way I look at it is if I start moving my teeth around now I'd just be asking for trouble. So I pass.

Dr. Ochoa then takes an actual examination of my mouth, and that's when the actual trouble starts. I apparently have a number of pockets of "decay," though none of them are all that big. Most of them are on inside back surfaces, which I think relates back to my lack of flossing.

In any event, I'm going to have those taken care of at some point, though I'm going to have to build up some serious nerve to enter the arena with the whining and the drilling and everything. Of course, if I dally too long, Sarah will just make the appointments for me, so I figure I'll bite the bullet (so to speak) and take care of it as needed.

I know you're dying to know who the four wild cards are for American Idol, so here they are.

Randy chose Jennifer Hudson, good choice. Paula failed to resist the dark side and chose Leah (and hopefully had buyer's remorse when Leah put forth an even limper, vocally distressed version of "Let's Stay Together" - there should be a clause that the judges can change their mind at any time before the person finishes singing), and Simon came around to take George, thus ending the worst chain-yanking in show history (unless George is the first person voted off).

The American public provided further proof that democracy just doesn't work by selecting Jon Peter Lewis, the Elvis of the Shire. Susie did indeed get passed over.

The show was an hour, which was about as pointless as the usual results show lasting a half hour, though they did a better job filling the hour until the results, which brought a lot of commercial breaks. I know that's a huge surprise.

Yesterday was wild card night on American Idol, and it was, well, not so wild.

They started off with 12 contestants, but cut four in an extended bit where they showed clips from a week-long workshop, then brought everyone out one by one to tell them if they were cut. The most surprising cut was Lisa Leuschner, even though Randy said she may have the best voice out of the remaining contestants. But's she's a little bigger than they'd probably like, and her wardrobe is still a little scary, so she's out. I have to say we were a little ticked off at this, given some of the stiffs that got to remain in the competition.

I'm also not sure why they even bothered to do this. The show was 90 minutes, why not let everyone sing? And if you're not going to let everyone sing, why not just pick 8 and have a normal show? Or make the cuts prior to broadcast? It was not a very satisfying process.

Out of the 8 that remained, three - George, Susie, and Jennifer - performed pretty well. Leah also got props from the judges, but I'm still not sold on her. Given the way she sucked the soul out of "Let's Stay Together" and made it into a cheery up-tempo pop song, I think she's now my official enemy for the rest of the season. Even so, she's a pretty blah choice for the role, certainly not of the Kimberly Caldwell level. And really, if I made every 17 year old girl who thinks she's owed a shot at singing stardom my enemy, I'd be outnumbered pretty heavily.

The other performers - Jon, Matt, Elizabeth, and Katie - didn't do so well. Jon went over the top (for this show) in performing "A Little Less Conversation," and perhaps will get some votes for his attempts at dancing. Katie is expected to get a lot of votes from guys given her pulchritude. Matt and Elizabeth could get similar support.

So no one's really safe, and should one of these four get voted in by America, the judges will have to pass over one of the other four. And while I'd like to think it'll be Leah, I'm thinking more it'd be Susie.

America's Next Top Model was a clip show recapping the previous episodes while showing as yet unaired footage, so the extra half hour of Idol didn't cause us too much concern. On top of that our local UPN station bumped it for a Red Sox spring training game. Not sure when it'll air, but we're not exactly scouring the listings to find it.

In quasi-reality programming, E! is trying to rip off VH1 by doing an I Love the '80s style show on the '90s. We watched about 20 seconds of it before being driven off the channel by Kathy Griffin. Egads, she's horrible.

I'm in a bit of a melancholy mood as I've gotten bad news over the past few days about people who, while not close friends, are people I'd rather still have around than not.

The first is a former high school classmate who passed away over the weekend from stomach cancer. He was actually one of the few classmates I was able to find an email for during a spirited round of Google searching a while back, and we traded an email or two. I'd heard about his illness a few weeks ago from another classmate who was looking to do something to help defray costs of treatment that weren't covered by insurance. In the process of helping her I did come into contact with some of the other members of the MHS class of '87, which I suppose is a good thing to come out of something so sad. Though I have a feeling we'll all retreat back into our lives until our 20th reunion, which will hopefully be better attended than our 5th or 10th.

The other case is a woman I met only for a weekend during a quasi-professional training session. She was on that water taxi that capsized in Baltimore harbor, and while she was rescued her injuries were too severe to overcome. I'm amazed sometimes at how events and people intersect; I know a few people who live in the Baltimore area (one of whom is also someone I graduated from high school with), but the person I know involved in this tragedy isn't from the area at all.

Without knowing what more to say, I'd ask that you include these folks in your thoughts or prayers or what have you.