Where to start, where to start...

First off, we set personal Egging records this week, cooking on it every day and running it for about 36 consecutive hours from Thursday afternoon to late Friday night. I made 16 pounds of Boston butt bbq to take with us to the race.

Saturday morning started early, as our ETD for the Atlanta Busch race was 7:30am. Although most everyone going had been to a race of some sort before, none had been to a busch race and others hadn't been since the late 90's.

The attendees were myself, my brother in law Todd, his two boys, our friend Tim, Todd's brother Adam and Adam's stepson Randall.

After our experience at the spring truck race, I figured there wasn't much of a chance of having a better day. Boy, was I wrong.

For Halloween, the weather was perfect ,if not a bit hot. Shorts and t-shirts were the order of the day, as were some pretty serious sunburns for some of us. (Mine is a nice two inch ring all the way around my neck. Great look.

We made it door to door going there in under 55 minutes and the trip home only took slightly longer. There were no waits for parking, food, souvenirs or anything.

The racing was awesome, even though the driver we wanted to win, didn't. I was disappointed that NASCAR ordered Matt Kenseth not to do any burnouts but to hurry to victory lane, as they were behind schedule. Thanks alot, assholes.

Point leader Martin Truex Jr. finished ninth, sentimental favorite Kyle Busch finished second, and personal favorite Robby Gordon finished fourth. Like I said, it was a good da all around.

The surprising part was the IROC race, which ran immediately after the Busch race. We watched about 30 of the 65 laps and it was some of the best racing I had ever seen. Ever. We never sat while they were running. I look forward to seeing the whole event next time.

We headed out due to some conflicting scheduled events, but it was one of the best days I'd ever spent at the track.

And by the way, I'm not saying anyone was drunk, but someone was shouring at Larry Munson on the radio. SHOUTING!! Apparently, he was disappointed that Larry was so negative all the time.

One more thing, we did pick up some souvenirs. My favorite is a Goodyear Racing Eagle tire used by Michael Waltrip sometime during the weekend. Todd got one of Junior's, and Adam got one too. I forget what driver, but I'm sure that all of our wives had about the same reaction.

On the way home, we got to hear UGA beat Florida for only the second time in 14 years, completing the Ron Zook era in style. Come on back, coach Spurrier. I think there are couple of SEC teams that might have some presents for you since you've been away.

Auburn was to play in Oxford at night, which is no small feat. Despite starting slow, Auburn picked it up in the second half and won going away 35-14. We're now 9-0 and have an off-week to prepare for November 13th when UGA comes to play the Tigers. Here boy...

With it's win Saturday, Auburn qualified for the SEC title game for only their second time.

Oh yeah, a big shout out to our friend Penny whose North Carolina Tarheels beat number three ranked Miami yesterday, moving Auburn up to number three in the polls. There still a lot of work to do, but I am still cautiously optimistic. Go heels!!

More to follow as the day progresses...

I took off today and Monday for no particular reason. I get three weeks of vacation now and I usually have trouble using two, so this is extra tough. I'm simply making long weekends here and there to eat up the time.

I am looking forward to going to the races tomorrow with Todd, Adam, Tim, Nick, Jack, Randall and Reece. We'll get to see two Cup practices, the Busch race and the IROC race after that. It is Adam, Tim, Jack and Randall's first trip to the races, so we'll have to see what fun we can make for the newbies.

Not much else happening today yet. I am tending to two 8-pound boston butts on the Egg as we speak. They are at about 148 degrees internal, and I estimate they'll be done around 4:30 or so. Then it's in the cooler for pulling later tonight and then vacuum sealing so they'll be perfectly fresh for eating at the track tomorrow.

More later. It's off for a little laundry duty.

Here are some statistics from Jayson Stark at ESPN...

Of the 18 teams in World Series history to get swept, the Cardinals were the seventh to have that happen after compiling the best record of any team in baseball that year. Besides all the teams we've already mentioned, the 1922 Yankees (94-60) got swept by the Giants.

In case you hadn't noticed, the Red Sox never seem to get to the World Series and find one of those 91-win teams waiting for them. Instead, they always get stuck playing the best team in baseball.

But not just the best team that particular year. The Cardinals' 105 wins were the most for a National League team since (ta-da) the 1986 Mets (108). And the '86 Mets were the NL's winningest team since (who else?) the 1975 Reds (108).

No NL teams have won more games than those three teams in the last half-century -- and the Red Sox played every one of them in the World Series.

Or, to put it another way, counting that 1967 Cardinals team the Red Sox faced: In their last four World Series appearances, they have played the NL teams with the best 162-game records of the '60s, '70s, '80s and '00s.

Here are a couple more interesting stats:

How tough was it for the Cardinals not to score in Game 3 (thanks to Jeff Suppan's baserunning gaffe), with second and third and nobody out in the second inning? The Elias Bureau went through the Cardinals' season and found they were in that spot 21 times during the regular season -- and scored in 19 of them.

Red Sox pitchers, meanwhile, found themselves in that situation 32 times during the regular season -- and got out of it unscathed exactly once. Pedro Martinez did the honors, June 2 against the Angels.

I guess it was just meant to be.

By the way, I may never stop talking about this subject. Ever.

And I'd like to give a "Hey!" shoutout to my new reader Penny. I think you're reader number five, so I will try to personalize things occasionally just for you. You know, like talking about how someone I know showed me her boobs after her own wedding. Wonder who THAT was??

Apparently, it was destination (thanks Manny) or maybe destiny that made this "THE year."

It seems that St. Louis has been Boston's bitch since the dawn of man.

- The Celtics won their first NBA title by beating the St. Louis Hawks in 1957.

- The New England Patriots won their first title by beating the St. Louis Rams in 2001.

- The Boston Bruins ended a 41-year title drought by beating the St. Louis Blues in 1970.

And now the Red Sox win their first title in 86 years at the expense of the St. Louis Cardinals, during a full lunar eclipse, no less.

p.s. I still like the "it's been 86 years since the Sox won the Series, and the last time they were in it was 1986."


As far as numerology goes, that's as good as any in my book...

To quote the late Cardinals announcer Jack Buck (ironically enough):

"I don't believe what I just saw!"

I watched it. I watched a lot of it. (I still think Bud Selig's an asshole, but even HE couldn't get in the way of this story. However, I'm surprised I didn't see him giving Joe Torre and Rudy Giuliani simultaneous hand shandies before game 6 and 7 of the ALCS, but I digress...)

I simply cannot fathom what it must be like to be in Boston right now or to be a life-long or even multi-generational Red Sox fan. For the greatest sports town on the planet to finally get out from under the curse talk and step into the spotlight as best team of 2004 is, well...amazing.

As I was watching the final innings and outs unfold last night, I started pondering everything from Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS forward. Even just that short time tells a lot of the story. After tearing out the hearts of the Red Sox Nation in game seven last year with Aaron Boone of all people, the Sox decided to make some changes.

The hated Yankees had a payroll approaching 200 million dollars with money slung all over the world for the likes of Sheffield and A-Rod and Olerud and Kevin Brown and Esteban Loiaza and John Lieber. All the while the Sox spent money the right way. They brought in Schilling, Foulke, Ortiz, Pokey Reese, Orlando Cabrerra and Doug Mentkavitz. (I simply refuse to look up how to spell that name). They didn't bring in A-Fraud, they kept Manny, they traded Nomar and they brought in Terry Francona. While the Yankees were choking on their on tongues, the Red Sox were building momentum on the backs of great pitching and timely hitting.

After 86 years of frustration and incredibly painful failures, the Red Sox have done it. They won a World Series title.

So now, the world is devoid of one less patsie. Devoid of sportscasters having that easy cliche in their pocket about anything Red Sox plus 1918. No more. Period. Now we can forgive Johnny Pesky and Grady Little and Calvin Schiraldi and John McNamara and, most of all, Bill Buckner. I hope every person who crank called his house and egged his house or cars or yelled at his kids writes an apology letter or begs for Buckner's forgiveness. He wasn't the reason the Sox lost in 1986. He was just the face of that collapse.

The Red Sox won the World Series.

Think about that sentence for a minute. The Red Sox won the World Series.

No more watching every playoff game thru your nearly closed fingers. No more leaving the room when the Yanks or Cards or anyone else bats. Now their just a baseball team like any other. Well, any other that has won a championship that is.

And to think, the Sox scored in the bottom of the ninth to tie game four of the ALCS, faced down one out, Miguel Cairo on second in the 11th and came back from the absolute nowhere thanks to a two-run homer in the bottom of the 12th by David Ortiz. Everything that usually went wrong for the Sox started going right. At every turn, and opportunity to fold fell by the wayside or, more accurately, into the Yankees dugout.

Game 5 featured another extra innings, game-winning hit by David Ortiz. All I hoped was that the Sox would go back to Yankee Stadium and not lose at home.

Game 6 gave us Curt Chilling's best Roy Hobbs in "The Natural" moment in decades. With a jerry-rigged ankle and blood oozing thru his sock, Curt Schilling pitched a career game and brought the Red Sox Nation to the brink again...a game 7 in Yankee Stadium. Only this time, the babe was going to be Boston's bitch.

Derek Lowe came into a game seemingly overmatched, and yet he and the Sox lineup made it almost a laugher...almost. Until it's a final, a playoff with the yankees is never over. That is until Ruben Sierra grounded out to second, and all 55,000 fans in the house that Ruth built got a taste, just a taste, of how the other half lived.

The World Series started the way the ALCS ended: with great pitching and clutch two-out hitting. Every time there was a meaningful opportunity to score runs with two outs, the Red Sox did it. And every time there was a meaningful scoring opportunity for the Cardinals, the Red Sox pitched their way out of it. Game 1 was the only game the Cardinals were really in at all. The telling stats are these:

The Cardinals 3-4-5 hitters went a combined 6-45 or a combined .133, scored but three runs, hit no homers and drove in one measly run.

The Cardinals vaunted closer, Jason Isrinhausen, only got to pitch in game four when his team was trailing 3-0.

I am still completely stunned. This is all just a keyboard version of diarrhea. I cannot fathom that the Red Sox are finally free and their fans are free as well.

What will next season bring? Who knows. There are many free agents on the current Sox roster including Pedro, Varitek (arguably the team's leader and captain) and Derek Lowe, and several others are coming up on option years. This year's payroll will be dwarfed by next year's if all players stay and get new contracts. Few people get less money AFTER winning a World Series.

But that's another worry for another day. Theo Epstein and his team of geniuses can figure out a way for this team to compete for a ring again next year. For now, it's all about 2004 and the here and now.

I do wonder what Dan Shaughnessy is going to write about, since he has spent his adult life writing about The Curse and how the Sox are doomed to never win and blah blah blah blah.

I want to wish congratulations to some of my favorite Red Sox fans:

My friend Falmouth Matt from college, Peter Gammons (easily the nicest professional sports personality I've ever met), and Bill Simmons. Congratulations in advance on the August 2005 birth of William Pedro Papi Derek Schilltek Rogerisatraitor Simmons. I'd also like to congratulate every Sox fan I don't know that said "Go Sox" to me when I was wearing my Sox hat. Congrats to all of senior citizens from Kroger Wednesday shopping that stopped my wife in her Sox sweatshirt and smiled wide as my precious daughter answered the following question:

"Lauren, what do we say when baseball's on tv?"

Her answer: "GO SOX!!"

I think we should all remember the great Red Sox players that never won and imagine how they feel now. Unlike the 1972 Dolphins players who break out champagne every time an undefeated team loses and is no longer a threat to their collective manhood, old Red Sox players will come out of the woodwork to celebrate this win.

Hooray for Fred Lynn and Dwight Henderson and Yaz and Wade Boggs and the spaceman Bill Lee and Pudge and Luis Aparicio and Lou Boudreau and Orlando Cepeda Joe Cronin and Bobby Doerr and Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Grove and Juan Marichal most of all, at least in my mind, Ted Williams. I wish he was still alive so he could give the Yankees the finger like we all know he would.

I could gush on and on about this, and probably will as we move forward and I continue to peel away the layers of how great this is, but I will stop for today.

Oh, and one more thing. Get used to this, Yankee fans. That chanting you hear?

"CLAP-CLAP-CLAPCLAPCLAP...YEAR-TWO-THOUSAND!!"

It's all for you. That's what you'll hear all ten or so games where the Yankees visit Fenway Park in 2005. In the same cadance and excitement in which Yankee fans yelled "Who's your daddy?" to Pedro and "1918" to the Sox as a whole for the last ten or twenty or eighty six years, the Red Sox Nation will return it in spades.

Now, I have one request. Can I please get a hug?

and it's name is Chris Myers of FOX. I swear to God, he's so fucking stupid and talentless that he makes me want to hurt myself.

He was a hack on ESPN whose career at the world center of sports ended about five seconds after he was arrested for pissing out of a bar window in the Cleveland area knows as "The Flats" after a World Series game in 1995. My wife and I met him during that same World Series, and he came off as a know-nothing dick, which of course he is.

So roll the career clock forward about five years, and there's good old Chris running the booth (later named the Hollywood Hotel) for FOX's NASCAR broadcasts starting in 2001. I shrugged off the fact that he was so damned dumb then based on the fact that he'd only had about six months to study and learn about a sport he didn't like or know anything about. I figured in that amount of time, he probably had just about mastered his identification of the numbers that he might see on the sides of the cars, but that's it.

So I figure "hey, he's probably not SO bad. Let's give him some time." And then came the race in LA where he was at the Playboy mansion scaring all of the bottle blonde silicone life support systems known as centerfolds. I bet boys who stumble into NAMBLA meetings are more comfortable than those girls were with him.

Then he went to Pocono and shot a segment where he and Jeff Hammond were in a champagne glass-shaped hot tub together. That was as close to gouging out my eyes as I have ever been, except for when I saw a 400 pound broad at the Cup race in Martinsville wearing overall shorts, a silver bra and no shoes. That was her entire outfit. I wanted to burn my eyes out with lye, kind of like when Myers is on TV.

Anywho, Fox has now finished their fourth year of motorsports coverage with Chris Myers at the Visa racebreak desk or the Visa dumbass seat or whatever they call it, and he still sucks. He has nearly total access to the garage, the drivers, the crews, and former crew chiefs and champions, yet he's learned less over those four years than any person possibly could.

So now, based on his Emmy award-winning race coverage and overall sports knowledge, he's been tasked with doing bleacher interviews with people like Jimmy Fallon and Tom Hanks (which was pretty cool, since Hanks is rooting for the Sox despite being a huge A's fan).

But last night was an all-time low. During the game, they cut to Myers who was in a Budweiser luxury suite and he was attempting to interview the guy that plays the arrogant football player in their commercials, only he's interviewing the guy IN CHARACTER!!

And since Myers has all of the improv ability of a ferret, the whole thing is uncomfortable and labored. And since it was going so poorly, FOX kept switching from him to a pitch then back to him again over and over again.

I ask you, who in the name of Christ is producing these shows? I mean, I know FOX isn't thrilled with the 3-0 series and the fact that there has been absolutely no drama yet, but is that an excuse to make everyone that is watching so angry that they go to E-Bay and place an order from the ACME Anvil Company just so they can throw it through their TV sets?

And another thing, if there has ever been anyone on television with less chemistry than Kevin Kennedy and Jeannie Zalasko, I'd like to know who that was. I think Bryant Gumble and Katie Couric had a better rapport. Hell, I think Kobe Bryant has a better rapport with that psycho in Eagle, Colorado NOW than Zalasko and Kennedy.

The good news is that with all the stress, I can't watch the Cardinals bat so I only see half the game. That leaves me half as mad at FOX as I would be if I was able to control my own nervous system.

I will be launching www.firechrismyers.com shortly...

So last night, I'm watching game 3 of the World Series and saying this to myself over and over again.

For the first two games, the Sox took advantage of timely hitting, overcame horrid defense, and came out winners going away, but Game 3 was supposed to be different.

Except it wasn't.

The Sox STILL got timely two out hitting, including a two-out homer by Manny in the first and two out doubles and singles for more runs later. Every time they really needed a clutch hit, it came with two outs and put a run or runs on the board.

Pedro Martinez was the Pedro of 1995 (nearly). He threw three-hit ball thru seven innings, struck out four and walked one. The Cards had one good chance to get to him early (in the third inning), when their pitcher had some sort of seizure on the base paths and was thrown out going BACK to third on a deep grounder to short that resulted in a 6-3 putout where the Sox were CONCEDING THE RUN!! It reminded me of Lonnie Smith in 1991 in Game 6 against the Twins.

No. That's not it. It was like the baserunning version of Bill Buckner.

Now, I'm not nearly dumb enough to think that this is over. I would have said it was over until last week when the Sox came back from being down 3-0 to the Yankees. My ultimate fear is that the Cards rally big and take it back to Boston and a possible Game 7, which would be the ultimate cock punch for Sox fans. I'm really not sure anyone could even bring themselves to go to the game at the risk of seeing...well, you know.

So I am just not thinking about it. Tonight will be the first of four possible games for the Sox to exorcise the demons associated with 86 years of taunting, curse talk and any other kharmic bullshit that you see, hear, or read about these days.

I still can't watch the Cardinals bat. I just can't. Last night, I watched the last two outs in the ninth. Tha's all the strength I could muster. I just want one more. That's it. One more win.

Who's with me?

And one additional note here. Just so you know that this Sox team is good AND likeable, listen to this. The team voted to give recently traded shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and full playoff share, worth about two hundred grand. Each team has X amount of shares to pass out, and they are quite limiting. For them to think enough of an ex-teammate tells you all you need to know about these boys.

GO SOX!!!

I'll tell you how I feel about the whole Hendrick Motorsports Tragedy.

I feel absolutely terrible. I am sad and I feel six. I feel terrible for Rick Hendrick, for his wife and daughter and entire family. I feel terrible for all of the victims and their families.

I feel bad for everyone that works at Hendrick Motorsports.

I feel bad for the company that is Hendrick Motorsports. 80% of the people in charge at HMS died in the same accident, and that's more than most any company can endure.

I feel terrible for Brian Vickers. Sunday was his birthday and his car owner, Ricky Hendrick, was flying up to surprise him on his birthday.

I feel bad for Tony Stewart, who lost his friend and pilot.

I actually cried a little for Ken Schrader last night while watching him talk on Inside Nextel Cup Racing. Kenny drove for Rick for nine years and watched Ricky and his two cousins grow up, and he is obviously still very close with the Hendrick family and organization. I remember seeing him interviewed after Dale died, and he was able to keep his emotions in check. He was not able to do the same this time.

I feel terrible for Ricky Hendrick's fiancee. I can't imagine how alone she feels right now.

I feel bad for Felix Sabates who is now NASCAR's Waylon Jennings. He not only was saved by Chip Ganassi (who advised him not to get on the flight) but he was also the person asked to notify Rick Hendrick of the accident and later of the deaths. I'm sure Rick already knew in his heart, but Felix still had to tell him officially. How terrible for both men.

I have never been a fan of Rick Hendrick. Ever. But I feel for him.

I feel bad for Rick because he just lost his father this summer, and now, in the same accident, has lost:

- the younger brother that ran his business while Rick was sick

- his only son who was by all acounts the man being groomed for the future so he could be handed the keys to the Hendrick Motorsports empire

- his two nieces

- his business partner Randy Dorton, who has been with Rick since 1984 and helped biuld HMS into what it is today

- two pilots who'd worked for him for some time

- a man from DuPont who was obviously a close friend and associate

- the VP and GM of HMS whom he obviously trusted and liked very much

- a man who was leaving his family to fly choppers in Iraq who was on his way to say goodbye to his dear friend and employer, Tony Stewart.

That is literally more burden than one man or family can quite possibly endure.

The sport and the city will rally around the surviving members of the Hendrick family and the Hendrick Motorsports family as well. How long it takes the family and the business to recover remains to be seen. I only hope that Rick, his wife, John's widow and surviving daughter and the families and friends of the victims can somehow find some peace.

So Ashlee Simpson, the younger and far less talented Simpson sister is in trouble for lip synching on Saturday Night Live. Her dad defends the use of "backing vocal tracks" due to her acid reflux.

Her dad ought to be explaining the seizure his daughter was having that she thought was dancing.

I bet half the people tuning in thought the commercial aired a typo and that in reality, Jessica Simpson and her breasts would be on the show hosted by Jude Law.

Jude Law? Whatever happened to Martin Short, Steve Martin, or someone actually funny OR talented? Hell, Mel Gibson would be funny. So would thousands of other people. Christ, I'd rather see Ian Ziering host that show than people I don't know enough about to have an opinion on.

The second point is, who gives a shit about Saturday Night Live? That show hasn't had five funny minutes in 15 years. Well, anytime Alec Baldwin was on and does "schwetty balls" or Canteen Guy with Adam Sandler, it was funny.

I take back what I said. Either hire Alec Baldwin as the permanent host, or just flush the show down the toilet. When Jeff Gordon's performance is a bullet point on your resume, you ought to be doing something else, like writing "who wants to marry my fat obnoxious boss while amazingly racing around the biggest loser with a cup of Joe Rogan's stool in each hand."

The thing about television now is that, with cable, there's literally a million bad shows on at one time, so no one notices how shitty SNL (and many other shows) have really gotten.

Hopefully, viewers will learn from this ridiculousness and stop watching SNL in favor of some Shannon Tweed movie on Cinemax, Taxicab Confessions, or even re-runs of MXC - Most Extreme Elimination Challenge on the Spike Network. THAT is the best show on tv at this point.

I am holding out on the cartoon characters as roomates show that starts tonight at 10:30 EDT.

I'll let you know...

Just a quick note of some random thoughts...

Auburn is 8-0 and number three in the country, facing a night game at Oxford on Saturday and staring down the barrell at UGA and Bama.

The Boston Red Sox lead the St. Louis Cardinals two games to none in the World Series.

Curt Schilling is on the cusp of becoming the biggest clutch performance sports hero in our lifetimes.

Florida just fired their dumbass football coach with a 4-3 record this year, 20-13 in his 3-ish seasons, and the team still has to play UGA this weekend, Vandy and South Carolina and then a trip to FSU for a beating of epic proportions.

I have a four day weekend this weekend and am going to the Busch race at Atlanta Saturday with family and friends for a GDE (Guys Day Extravaganza).

My daughter is potty training faster than I ever thought possible.

We just celebrated our one year anniversary in our new house.

My wife has not only started cooking on our Big Green Egg by herself, but she's finding reasons to use it when she doesn't really have to.

Someone please hand me a tissue. I think I have something in my eye...

Auburn beat Kentucky going away Saturday by a score of 42-10. Auburn was sloppy and let UK stay in the game for way too long in my opinion. The next three games are going to be much tougher than this one, and Tuberville will have his hands full keeping the team from overlooking Mississippi, this weekend's opponent. (The game will be on ESPN at 7:45 pm Saturday night)

In what was, in all likelihood, the death nell for Ron Zook's head coaching career at Florida, the Gators lost to mighty Mississippi State Saturday. Yes...that's right. The same Mississippi State that lost to Vanderbilt, UAB and division IAA Maine.

Zook has compounded his problems recently by getting involved in fracases on campus between his thugs, I mean football players and campus fraternities. Recently, after being terrorized by several players, a fraternity president called campus police. Instead of going to clear up the issue, they called the AD who called Zook, who took it upon himself to go to the scene. Once there, he did nothing to diffuse the situation but chose to engage the fraternity members with profanity and threats. Ahh, what a leader of men and shaper of our future cell block D residents.

The University of Florida deserves all they get from this one. I hope there next coach is someone even dumber, if that's possible.

Martin Truex Jr. extended his Busch Series points lead over Kyle Busch by winning Saturday. With four races to go, only three drivers are mathematically alive for the title, and Kyle is now down by 208 points. That means that if Truex Jr. finished ninth or better and led no laps, he'd still win the title. This seems closer than it is, and we'll have a good idea of what the real spread is this Saturday after the Busch race at Atlanta.

The Red Sox and Cardinals started the 2004 World Series Saturday night and it was more of the same for the Sox: poor defense plus decent pitching plus terrible defense equalled wins in the first two games. The sox won Saturday night 11-9 after a game-winning two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Sunday night in all likelihood marked the final start of the season for Kurt Schilling, who endured ankle suturing to secure a loose tendon TWICE to make starts in Game 6 against the Yankees and Game 2 against the Cardinals. Schilling was in pain but again masterful, giving up four hits and one un-earned run thru six innings to stake the Sox to a 2-0 lead in the Series. Team trainers inadvertently hit a nerve when doing the process Friday night, and they now concede that the surrounding tissue "may not be up to" enduring the procedure again. No matter. If the Sox can win on the back of Schilling's last two starts, it will have all been worth it. Curt could sell his cars and simply be carried wherever he wanted to go for the rest of his life by thankful Red Sox fans.

Now, the series returns to St. Louis for Tuesday night's game. Since the NLCS started, the home team has won every playoff game in which the Cards have participated.

I hope this streak ends Tuesday. I don't want a competetive series. I want the worst series imaginable for the networks. Blowouts early and a short four or five game series with the Sox prevailing. I have nothing against St. Louis or the Cards, but I love the Sox and I can't take another seven game, holy crap what just happened series.

Yesterday also marked a pretty big Egging day at our house and across the street. We cooked pork chops with Raging River and chicken breasts with Tsunami Spin and Dizzy Dust. I cannot tell you (again and again) how great the Dizzy Pig seasoning are. Just try them. That's all I am saying.

Dizzy Pig BBQ web site


One other note here. Whether you're a NASCAR fan or not, this is just tragic. Yesterday just before noon EDT, a plane owned by Rick Hendrick (owner of Hendrick Motorsports) crashed about 7 miles northwest of Martinsville Speedway. There were no survivors. On the plane were Rick's brother John, John's twin daughters Kimberly and Jennifer, Ricky Hendrick (Rick's son), Randy Dorton (Head Engine Builder for HMS), Jeff Turner (VP and GM of Hendrick Motorsports), pilots Dick Tracey and Liz Morrison, Scott Latham (Tony Stewart's helicopter pilot), and Joe Jackson (an executive with DuPont). My thoughts are with the families of the victims of this horrible tragedy.

I woke up to a wreck in the truck race, so I flipped to find a little football. What I found was definately NOT football.

ESPN was carrying the Iowa vs. Penn State game and with ten minutes to go in the third quarter, the score was 6-2. That's right. 6-2. Two division one Big Ten teams combining to score eight measly points.

So we decide to watch for a few minutes (young Reece and myself), and we see Iowa from deep in their own territory throw incomplete, nearly get a safety, then complete a pass and have the receiver, despite being WIDE ASS OPEN, fall down two yards short of the first down.

Then, Penn State blocks the punt and gets the ball on Iowa's eight yard line. Certain points...right?

No. Penn State ran a very slow QB draw for a loss of two, then an incomplete pass into the end zone, followed by another incomplete pass. On comes the field goal team. Nope. Wide right.

Two schools who've played 200 years of football between them and probably 2500 games and they look like two elementary school teams scrimmaging. And bad elementary school teams to boot.

Someone ought to give Jo Paterno a ride to the senior center and just not come back to pick him up. That team sucks ass.

And Iowa might as well be playing in a Helen Keller league for as bad as they look.

I apologize for the rant. Please return to your porn browsing...

p.s. After giving up a safety ON PURPOSE, Iowa ended up winning this game 6-4. Six to freaking four!!! The game featured seven actual turnovers and five by Penn State. That didn't include any fumbles that the two teams got back.

If anyone wants to tell me how great the Big Ten is, I'm all ears...

The Houston Astros had never won a post-season series before beating the Braves in the Division Series this year.

Now they can hang "they've never won an LCS" on Houston's head, because they gave up a 2-0 lead with Clemens on the mound and eventually lost 5-2 to St. Louis.

Now, all focus shifts to Boston for Game 1 of the World Series. This is the first year that the home field of the World Series was decided by which team won the All-Star Game. Is it a stupid rule? Of course it is. It's one of the many idiotic things Bud Selig did to this beloved game. But it worked out in the Red Sox' favor, since they will get home field advantage, and that means one extra game with the designated hitter.

Is the designated hitter wrong too? Most certainly. But if Selig came out today and said St. Louis had to pitch underhanded and wear swim fins in the series, I'd be okay with that too.

ESPN is touting some numerology about it having been 86 years since the Sox last title, and the last time they were in the Series was 1986. I don't know about all of that. I do know that both teams have tired arms and that both teams can hit the shit out of the ball.

Curt Schilling seems to be in favor of putting the sutures back in his leg to stabilize the loose tendon at least two more times before off-season surgery, so that alone should tell you how serious he is about this.

I can't believe that we are sitting here waiting for a World Series pitting my two favorite non-Atlanta teams against one another. There are no two cities more passionate and knowledgable about baseball and their teams than St. Louis and Boston.

So now, we sit and wait. I am fully prepared to be utterly crushed and disappointed, and I am fully ready for nine days of nausea.

This weekend is a big weekend again, but hopefully with less goings on OUTSIDE the house and more that involve me sitting on my ass watching TV or at least watching TV thru a window while playing in the yard with my daughter.

This afternoon and evening it's Martinsville qualifying on tape, Trackside (which I can't seem to get around to watching lately), fresh ribeyes with Dizzy Pig Raging River and Dizzy Pig Cow Lick, then it's cold beers and hanging out relaxing.

Tomorrow, we'll either attend Todd's tennis match or Jack's soccer game, then it's the truck race from Martinsville, then it's 7-0 Auburn hosting Kentucky at 2:30pm, followed by our heading to our friend Mary Beth's wedding that evening. Hopefully, we can get home not too long after game 1 of the World Series starts.

My parents will be picking up the urchin sometime in the morning since tomorrow is their neighborhood festival day and they think she'll have a good time at that.

Then Sunday, it's the Falcons visiting Kansas City at 1pm and the Cup race from Martinsville at the same time. There will be more football later in the day too, complete with some more Egging.

Which reminds me. Wednesday evening, Molly ventured where eagles dare, attempting her first solo cook on the Big Green Egg. She fired it herself with the MAPP torch, controlled the fire EXACTLY at 350, and proceeded to make ABT's and chicken breasts with Dizzy Pig Tsunami Spin on them. The whole thing was perfect and I was and am very proud of her.

Our neighbor Andy also came over and brought his daughter Emma and an Extra Large Cooley's Pizza original white, no tomatoes and add steak. We ate that kind of as dessert.

Good stuff.

Last night, she tried her second cook, but due to poor information on my part, we lost the potatoes with Raging River, thanks to no instructions on what Indirect Cooking means. Luckily, we only lost 75 cents worth of potatoes instead of a couple of badass steaks. But next time, we'll be ready. We also had hot dogs, bubba burgers, and portabellos stuffed with little smokies and cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. They were apparently quite good.

One thing that was exceptionally good was what she did with the leftover chicken from Wednesday. Molly made chicken salad out of the smoked Tsunami Spin chicken, and it was AMAZING. I am planning a chicken salad only chicken cook for Sunday afternoon, as I expect it's tough to get better food cheaper than bringing your own chicken salad to work for lunch.

That's all for now, boys and girls. Since Officer J.M. Craig of the Gwinnett Police has refused my polite requests for a return phone call regarding my auto accident on 10/13, I have decided that I have no choice but to call the Western Precinct every 30 minutes until he calls me back. It's my insurance rates and rating on the line here...not his. There is no way I am going to give in and pay half of this bullshit without a fight.

Fingers crossed, people.

This morning, on the way to work, I started thinking about how great last night's game was. I imagined how great witnessing it in person would have been. Of course, I couldn't have watched in person. I would have thrown up several times before that game finally ended. And as for games four, five and six? Forget it. I would have been hospitalized for sure.

Then I thought, regardless of whether I was there or not, what were the ten greatest sporting events of my lifetime that I have seen all or part of with my own eyes.

So as of today, in no particular order, are those top ten events. Keep in mind that before I am done with this list, I may very well put them in some sort of order, but I will tell so you aren't caught off guard.

December 2, 1989 - Auburn vs. Alabama
It was my fourth year (sort of) at Auburn. For the first time ever, the Iron Bowl was to be played at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Alabama came into Auburn that day 10-0 and number 2 in the country. What they left with was a 10-1 record, a 30-20 beating that wasn't that close, an earful of "War Eagle!!" and second place in the SEC. I can say that, without question, this was the loudest sporting event I have ever attended.

October 1991 - Braves vs. Twins, World Series Game 3
This was my first ever World Series game and only my second ever baseball post-season game. Going to that game with my dad and us both being from Minnesota but both being Braves fans forver was great. I remember how moved I was during the National Anthem, and then the Braves, trailing 2-0 in the series at that time, got a single and a stolen base by David Justice, who was then singled in by Mark Lemke, the Series MVP. Braves win 5-4 and make it a series.


October 1991 - Braves vs. Twins, World Series Game 5
After winning game 4 by a score of 3-2, the Braves were tied, but momentum had swung our way. Justice, Lonnie Smith and Brian Hunter all homered in the 14-5 shelacking of the Twins, and everyone in the stadium knew...just KNEW, that the Braves were going to win the Series. Little did we know what lay in front of us.


October 1992 - Braves vs. Pirates, NLCS Game 7
Nearly indescribable, despite having been on ESPN Classic every month since the channel's existence. We were sitting atop the Pirate dugout down the third base line, and I just remember absolutely hammering on Stan Belinda.

I also remember that this was the first sporting event where my negativity-driven nausea reared its ugly head. Down 2-0 in the ninth inning, I wanted to sit down, throw up and leave in that order. My wife, however, had faith and insisted that we stay.

The ninth started, and it was all a blur. One great break after another. Yet I remember it like it was yesterday. Pendleton's double to start it off, then Justice reached on an error by Jose Lind, then a walk to Sid Bream. Gant then faced Belinda and drove a ball to the track that was four feet short of a walk off Game 7 Grand Slam. Pendleton scored to make it 2-1 Braves with one out.

I will never forget McCarver (that annoying asshole) saying "the fans are cheering like something good happened, but something bad happened for Atlanta. By flying out to left, the runners could not advance as they could if the ball'd been hit to center or right. So while a run scored, the tying run is still two bases away."

Just a little note here: Fuck you, Tim McCarver.

Then Damon Berryhill walked to load the bases again and Brian Hunter popped out.

Then, the PA announcer said "Now batting for the Braves, Francisco Cabrerra."

What?? Who?? What did that guy just say? He's only got ten at bats all year, and with two out in the ninth, bases loaded, THAT'S ALL YOU CAN GIVE US?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Then, Cabrerra hit a laser of a foul ball that landed in the seat in front of us. I figured "hey, at least we were on TV," and then BAM!!! He smoked a fastball into left field.

I can't accurately describe the sensations from that point forward. There was an instant cheer because everyone knew that Justice was scoring to tie, but as Bonds came up with the ball and Bream rounded third, the cheering tempered a bit, as though everyone was taking a breath at the same time in anticipation of the play at the plate.

The throw...the catch...the runner...the tag....SAFE!!!

And with that a single sound erupted that to this day, INCLUDING game 5 of the year the Braves won it all, was still the loudest sound ever generated by a baseball game. I hugged strangers and high fived everyone. We just stood and cheered until the music stopped playing, the teams were gone, and most every just didn't know what to do or where to go. We were all one with that amazing moment.


October 1995 - Braves vs. Indians, World Series Game 6
I had grown a bit spoiled after attending most of the Braves' post-season home games, but this was a first. A home game to win the title. Glavine on the mound and David Justice on the front page of the paper imploring the Atlanta fans to cheer and care more.

Glavine pitched an unbelievable game. As a matter of fact, he pitched a one-hitter thru eight innings. David Justice strode to the plate to quite a few boos, only to jerk a pitch into the right field seats. Talk about backing up your mouth with your bat.

In the ninth, the Braves brought out Mark Wohlers for a perfect ninth, capped by a fly ball to left center that was fielded by Marquis Grissom. Braves win!! Braves win!!

There is nothing like seeing your first World Championship in person.


October 20, 2004 - Red Sox vs. Yankees, ALCS Game 7
This is the capper of the greatest series, in my opinion, in the history of major league baseball. The Yankees tore thru the first three games to lead 3-0 in the series, and had the winning run on second in game four, and somehow lost that game. They were then treated to two game-winning hits in a row by David Ortiz. Then came game seven, in the Bronx, and the Red Sox took the Yankees behind the woodshed and beat 80 years of frustration out of them or into them or whatever you want to call it.

The Yankees got to watch the Sox celebrate at Yankee Stadium. No more stepchild jokes. No more curse. The curse now lives in the house that George owns. Enjoy it, you arrogant jerks.

February 15, 1998 - The 1998 Daytona 500
On his 20th try, Dale Earnhardt won the Daytona 500. All of the history of failures and frustrations in NASCAR's SuperBowl were washed away in an instant. The sport's greatest driver won the sport's biggest race. Finally!! And then, as he drove down pit road, every member of every team waited to shake his hand or offer a high five in honor of that. His former crew chief Andy Petree ran to jump on Senior's hood and congratulate him the best he could from outside the car. Senior then drove on to the grass and made a number 3 whilst spinning his car around. Everybody in the sport was as happy as they could be.

November 20th, 1993 - Alabama vs. Auburn
Stan White had led the on-probation Tigers to a 10-0 record entering the game. Fans not following the team in person that season were forced to listen on the radio like in the 50's since the punishments handed down by the NCAA included no television appearances.

Bama led 14-5 at the half, and in the second half they knocked Stan White out of the game. His backup, baby-faced Patrick Nix came in to the game facing a fouth and fifteen from Bama's 35 yard line. He threw a strike to Frank Sanders for a touchdown. Auburn would com back to win 22-14 to finish 11-0 for only the third time in their history.

I watched, no listened on the radio to this game in my den. Like people did in the old days, I hovered mere inches from the old transistor, not believing what I was hearing. I still remember jumping around cheering then remembering "Shit...I'm home by myself."

March 16, 2003 - Darlington, SC for the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400
Ricky Creven and Kurt Busch beat and banged and roughed each other up over the greatest two laps of racing I have ever seen. The two cars were all but locked together at the flag with Craven winning by a scant .002 seconds, and then they both pretty much wrecked in turn one. A great for one of the sport's genuinely good guys.

I was in the car (we were looking at houses that day) and I couldn't believe how exciting a car race could be from in the car.

March 11, 2001 - The Cracker Barrell 500
The spring Atlanta race marked the third event since the death of Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500, and his replacement, Kevin Harvick, had finished 14th at Rockingham and 8th at Las Vegas as the team sort of wandered thru the first few events. Everyone in the sport was still saddened and in pain over Earnhardt's passing, and no one really knew what to do other than to keep moving forward together.

Then, with about 10 laps to go in the race, it became obvious that there were five guys with a chance to win: Jeff Gordon, Jerry Nadeau, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Dale Jarrett and Kevin Harvick.

With five laps to go, Harvick made a bold move to pass two cars between them exiting turn four and raced to the lead. On the last lap, Harvick held Gordon off with a ballsy move, pinning Gordon to the bottom of the track. Harvick won by .006 seconds.

I remember jumping up and down cheering the 29 car thru those last 10 laps in my loft, and I remember the image of Danny "Chocolate" Meyers crying and not knowing what to do after Kevin had won. I remember looking at Richard Childress' face hoping he would see better days. A race team that had lost so much and needed so badly for something good to happen to them got just that. A brief moment of happiness in a season of sadness in one of the closest races the sport had ever seen.

This ended up in no particular order and may change as the seasons move forward, but that's them for now as best as I can tell.

Now if you all will excuse me, it's time to eat some Chick-Fil-A waffle fries.

First, let me commend the Cardinals for getting up and tying the series, forcing a game 7 to be played tonight at Busch Stadium. I watched Edmunds come to the plate and told the wife "that's it. He's gonna park one."

Sure enough, first pitch fastball letter high that he jumped on and absolutely destroyed. Hit it into the Cardinal bullpen. Cardinals 6 - Astros 4.

Now, you get Clemens vs. Jeff Suppan in a game seven. If Clemens wins, he will bring yet another team into Fenway to attempt to beat the team that made him famous. Amazing. I can't wait.

But for now, let's forget that series and get to the good stuff...

As I turned on the TV to watch the pre-game crap from FOX, I sat and wondered what I would write about this series today, regardless of how game 7 turned out for the Sox.

Of course, on the inside, I was secretly working on the "regardless of the fact that they lost, they still did something no team in the history of baseball has ever done: force a game 7 after being down three games to none" thing.

Then I thought about the great performances by David Ortiz and Curt Schilling.

Then I thought "what if the Sox actually win? What will I write then?"

I drew a blank. There was no place inside me that I could convince that these Red Sox, despite getting off the deck to tie the series after trailing 3-0, could win a game 7 in the Bronx or Boston or Peoria or anywhere else. Period.

Sure. I WANTED them to win. But did I really think they could or would? History told me no.

Then it started. Damon got a hit. Then Damon stole second. Manny singled to center field and Damon was thrown out trying to score after being sent on a ball he should never tried to score on. I thought "Uh oh. That's it. That's the sign of how it's gonna go."

Then David Ortiz strode to the plate and got one pitch, and smoked it. 2-0 Sox. I offered a timid high five to the Mrs., muttering "it's gonna take alot more than two to beat these bastards."

Bottom of the first with Derek Lowe on the hill (gulp) and what happens? Three up - three down on 13 pitches. We only glanced at each other, but we both thought it..."What if?"

Top of the second comes and Kevin Brown is wild, and Kevin Millar singles, Bill Mueller walks, Orlando Cabrera walks, and Torre pulls the evil Kevin Brown. His line:

1 1/3 innings pitched. He got four outs and left the bases loaded. In comes Javier Vazquez and up comes Johnny Damon (he of the worst series of anyone with Boston on their jersey so far).

First pitch fastball up and in a little, and Damon hammered it into the right field seats. Red Sox 6 - Yankees nada.

Big high fives followed by "it's still really early."

Except it wasn't early. Derek Lowe pitched the game of his life and the Yankees couldn't really get anyone out.

The Yanks scored one in the third but the Sox plated two in the fourth, so now it was 8-1 Sox.

And then it happened. Fox mentioned that, during the sixth inning, only one pitcher was working in the Sox bullpen...

Pedro.

WHAT?? Did he just say PEDRO is up in the pen after pitching just two days ago? Why is this happening? Did the rest of the pitchers die in a hotel fire or something? The crowd is down, beaten even as their team is choking away a 3-0 series lead to their nearby bitches, the Red Sox, and you are going to bring in the ONLY pitcher on the staff that can make every player and fan stand up and fight again? REALLY?

And that's what happened.

Lowe threw an incredible 69 pitches thru six innings and was pulled for Pedro to start the seventh inning.

Oh God, I may vomit.

Pedro took the mound to the chorus of 55,000 plus chanting "CLAP, CLAP, CLAP-CLAP-CLAP...WHO'S YOUR DADDY?"

How could this get worse?

Matsui doubled to deep right, Bernie Williams doubled to center, Matsui scored, Posada moved Williams to third, Lofton singled to drive in Williams, and finally...PAINFULLY, Pedro ended the inning throwing 100% gas. Sox 8 - Yankees 3, but now, I'm visibly shaken. Francona has obviously suffered a series of strokes or is in the early stages of dementia or Alzheimer's.

Top of the eighth and I am scared. Then light-hitting Mark Bellhorn hits a homer to right and the Sox lead 9-3.

Bottom of the eighth, Timlin relieves Martinez and Pokey Reese is in at shortstop. Francona's apparently okay. All I'm thinking is "Six more outs. Six more outs. I'd like some more insurance, but six more outs." I even leave the room and watch via Gamecast on ESPN because I physically cannot watch a single Yankees batter take a pitch. I can't. The other shoe is nearby and I can feel it falling towards the floor.

Jeter grounds to third, A-Rod (of the sissified glove slapping fame of game six) strikes out and Gary (can't get me out) Sheffield grounds out weakly to short. Three more outs. Three more outs.

Top of the ninth and Trot Nixon singles, then Doug Mientkiewicz singles Nixon to third and it's two on, nobody out, and my insurance is on the way. Cabrera flies to center, Trot Nixon scores and it's now 10-3 and I feel better. A little better. In comes Mariano Rivera to get out of the jam, but it's 10-3 and the Sox only need three outs.

Bottom of the ninth, Matsui singles to deep right field, and the flop sweat starts again. I promptly head back into the office to watch on the internet. Thanks ESPN. By the time I get there, Williams has put it in play but Matsui's out on a fielder's choice at second and then on one pitch, Posada has popped to short.

I rush back in, knowing (or hoping) that there's no way the Yankees can score 7 runs to tie before getting one out tonight. It's not going to happen. Period. A grand slam here and it's STILL a three run game.

Williams saunters to second on a catcher's indifference, Kenny Lofton walks, and Francona wastes no time here. Hard throwing Alan Embree is in for Timlin to face 87 year old Ruben Sierra. Two pitches and a grounder to second.

Sox win!!! Sox win!!! Sox win!!!

And now, two things that I have wanted to see my whole life have just happened:

Yankee Stadium is mostly silent but for the cheers of the Sox fans in attendance.

The New York Yankees have lost a game 7 to the Red Sox...at home...on their field...in front of The Mick and The Babe and every other ghost in that nasty building in that shitty neighborhood.

I am still struggling to accept it. Regardless of what happens tonight, these Red Sox will play in and try to win their first World Series since 1918.

All I can say is pass the Rolaids please.

As I was watching the Red Sox - Yankees game start last night, I had a few random thoughts.

First, I thought that whether the Sox win the series or not, I just want them to win game 6 so the Yankees and their fans could stew and sweat and feel nauseous like Sox fans feel almost all of the time.

Then I thought of all the curse crap. Seeing those pinhead fans in pinstripes skipping around Yankee Stadium dressed sort of as ghosts with the name Ruth on the back and a three on the back as well was as typically classless as Yankee fans tend to be. Shit folks...this is why Red Sox fans are still Red Sox fans.

I thought of last year when Grady Little left Pedro in one inning too long and ultimately of Aaron Boone's game and series-winning home run. That one still hurts and will always hurt, regardless of what happens from here.

Then, I thought about Curt Schilling. Whether Fox painted his sock to look bloody so they could get their own made-up hero story, whether that was the medication or whether it was actual human blood...his blood, is irrelevant. As Schilling took the mound, I knew as did every Sox fan on the planet knew that this series, this game, this moment is why the Red Sox pursued Schilling and why Schilling ultimately signed with Boston.

And when he snapped the first pitch at 93 on the gun, you sort of heard that song from "The Natural" in your head...or maybe Fox was playing it in the background...I'm not sure.

Curt Schilling is a champion and a warrior. He has always been one of baseball's great players and one of its greatest citizens. For him to return from the brink of season ending surgery to attempt this...to keep the Sox in the Series to do what no other team has ever done before (force a game 7 after trailing 3-0) was almost too much to ponder.

And what did this champion do? Under the strain and pressure unmatched in his or possibly any player's career, on a damaged ankle that would have driven most players to bail on their start or even to have the surgery now to avoid missing time next year, he went out and pitched the game of his life.

After struggling with his control a bit in the first inning, I watched in absolute awe as Schilling repeatedly hit 92, 93, 94 and 95 mph on the radar gun. He worked batters, made pitches and even covered first base a couple of times on the fly which I am betting that few pitchers in his condition would have done.

Then, after each inning pitched, he would tie and untie his shoe, bury his head in a towel and talk himself into being ready for the next inning. You could see in his walk and in his face that the pain was terrible. But you also sensed that they'd have to come get him to get him out of the game.

The Sox scored one run in the top of the fourth to get it started and then were rewarded by an unlikely three-run bomb to left by Mark Bellhorn, giving them a 4-0 lead.

Then you knew it was Schilling vs. the Yankees for four more inning (if he could make it) and the bullpen to finish the job.

Curt gave up a homer in the bottom of the 7th and a single to lead off the 8th inning, and then they came and got him. The pen gave up one more run in the bottom of the 8th but held, and Foulke saved the game.

Red Sox 4- Yankees 2.

Now, the Sox take the field tonight, October 20th, 2004 at Yankee Stadium, already having done what no other team had done. The only thing left for this team to do in this series is what I asked for in a blog on October 12th:

"And I hope Schilling shoves it down Steinbrenner and Jeter and Sheffield and Mariano Rivera and Joe Torre's collective throats. And I want them to win the series in New York, because that would be the ultimate way to make 55,000 people from New York shut up."

All I can say now besides pass the Rolaids is this:

LET'S GO SOX!!!!

So I skipped the AL and NL games Sunday night, and both were apparently terribly exciting. So last night, after we got the urchin to bed, we watched the ALCS and flipped to the NLCS periodically.

It's amazing that both underdogs have gotten off the mat in their respective series. David Ortiz, a player Minnesota decided had no value, hit a walkoff homerun on Sunday night and had the game winning hit last night in the 14th inning of a six plus hour game that was tension filled from the minute they started playing. You could watch the shots of Fenway and actually feel the collective waves of nausea going thru the crowd as each bottom of the inning came and went with chances to win going by the wayside.

Now, the series shifts back to Yankee Stadium. Both teams' pitching staffs are exhausted and now, in game 6, Curt Schilling will return and attempt to take the series to a game 7. The Yankees have to be at least a little bit worried. Imagine if they let Boston become the first team to EVER come back from three games down to win a seven game series. I almost think that for Boston to break thru, it's going to have to be this hard. It's how they do things.

So the Sox won in 14, and I immediately flipped over to the bottom of 8th and beyond of the NLCS. To keep checking that game and see that Houston's young studs Brandon Backe and Brad Lidge held the mighty Cardinal lineup to one hit in nine innings while Woody Williams was doing the same to the white-hot Astros was amazing.

Then, Jason Isrinhausen gave up the single to the hottest player on the planet in Carlos Beltran. Then, Beltran stole second forcing the Cards to walk Lance Berkman, which led to the first pitch three-jack by Jeff Kent (Barry Bonds best friend).

Now, both series shift to cities that expected to be long since done with their opponents and preparing for the World Series. St. Louis will have to win on Wednesday to see a game seven, and the Sox will have to do the same tonight. If these series both go to seven games, I may have a stroke.

So Mr. Selig, you've got me. Despite the fact that you are a puppet for the owners and the fact that yours is the only professional sport in the WORLD where steroids are not illegal, you've got me.

Just don't mess it up and I might, MIGHT watch some games in the spring next year too.

Let me say that, while I enjoy weekends very much (who doesn't), I am usually not in favor of packing every minute of a weekend with activity. At some point, too much to do can result in some serious irritability on everyone's part, and that's never any fun.

This weekend was one of those weekends where literally every waking minute was filled with something from 6pm Friday night until 9pm last night.

Friday night, it was ribeyes and the Busch race from Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. This track is one I've attended personally and is one of the five best tracks in NASCAR for racing. The race came down to a ballsy move by Mike Bliss, who made a three-wide pass thru the tri-oval with 18 to go to win the race. Bliss, who has no ride next year, was doing the classic "drive it like you stole it" kind of racing. The kind that NASCAR was built on for the last fifty plus years.

With much planned for the weekend, we decided to get to bed at a decent hour, as it was to be a looooooong weekend.

Saturday morning we didn't have much planned originally. We were going to lay low until my mother in law showed up to babysit Lauren around 11am, so Molly and I could go to the Big Green Egg 2004 Eggtoberfest at 57th Fighter Group in Atlanta.

I decided fairly early that it might be fun to take Lauren and let her see all of the airplanes taking off and landing at the airport while her mother and I checked out the early going at the Fest.

While it was fun to be there when they were lighting the eggs and getting started, it was NOT fun to hear "ride airplane" or "why me not ride airplane" or "you ride airplane wiff me" or some other incarnation of the same thought about 3,500 times in 90 minutes. We had gotten there a little before 9am and left about 10:30 to go home and wait for the sitter, availing ourselves for a child-free afternoon of sampling both food and drink and meeting some fellow Eggers.

Let me just say how cool it was to see about 100 Big Green Eggs in various sizes lit, smoking, and smelling great with all the different foods that were being prepared. It was quite amazing.

We got back around 11:30 just as the first round of foods were coming off the Eggs. We also grabbed our first beverages about that time, which would more or less set the tone for the afternoon.

I cannot tell you in any kind of order what we ate, so I will recount here from memory some of the stuff. We had:

pulled pork bbq
meatloaf
moose kabobs
turkey necks
turkey
top sirloin
salmon (from cedar planks)
chicken breast
about 15 different kinds of bbq ribs
CAKE
rolled and stuffed flank steak
homemade Italian sausage
ABT's of every kind (including one that was a sweet pepper stuffed with shrimp and cream cheese and wrapped in bacon)
pork loin
pork tenderloin
smoked chicken
non-smoked chicken
standing rib roast
wings

You get the idea. The creativity of some people while cooking on something designed over 3,000 years ago is simply amazing.

We also met hundreds (literally) of nice people. Finally putting a voice or a face or an actual name with a screen name is an odd thing, but it was a great deal of fun.

We met Smokey, Mrs. Smokey and Smokey Jr., YB, Mr. Toad, Mollyshark and her son, and many many others that I know I am forgetting. (Must have been the beer). We spent most of the day with WessB and Sally, Mad Max Beyond Eggdome and his daughter, Bobby-Q and especially Nature Boy (Chris). BobbyQ, the wife and myself more or less met right at Chris' table where he was cooking on the XL Egg (and it is quite big) and selling his DizzyPigBBQ rubs. We tasted all of his rubs (well, I didn't taste the HOT ones, but I'm a wussy like that) and I can honestly say that there is no need to try to make your own. These are the best and freshest rubs you can get anywhere. They are ground and packed immediately and they are as fresh tasting as if you made them yourself.

At one point, Chris was busy with some other customers, so my wife got behind the table and started helping out. One guy wanted three, picked them out, and my wife said "well, why not get the two flavors that most everyone are buying in addition to those three, especially since there's a price break if you buy five of them?"

Sold, sold and sold again.

When it came time for the raffle, Molly won (as she usually does). While we didn't win the mini Egg, we did win the BGE Grill tool set. Since I already had the exact same one, I gave that one to my brother-in-law.

We had to leave at 4:30 to get home to get my nephew to work. We said our goodbyes, thanked Nature Boy for his patience regarding the Dizzy Pig BBQ groupies he had to deal with all day, and were on our way.

We got home in time to get Nick to work (Molly) and to watch the second half of the Auburn-Arkansas game (me). Auburn was already up 30-7 at the half and led 38-14 entering the fourth quarter. the Hogs scored a semi-meaningless TD with 3:39 to go in the game to make it 38-20, but the game was all but decided long before that.

Two keys to the game were Jason Campbell's ridiculous accuracy and Matt Jones' injury. Campbell went 17-19 for 297 yards and three TD's with no picks.

Jones, who has burned Auburn for about 900 yards rushing HIMSELF in his long career at Arkansas, injured a hamstring early in the first quarter that severely limited his mobility. The Tigers were able to capitalize on that injury and held the Arkansas offense in check until the game was out of reach for them.

Auburn is currently ranked number three in the nation behind USC and Oklahoma and they are 7-0 for the first time, I beleive, since the 1993 undefeated (but on probation) season. Auburn fans (especially me) are a pragmatic bunch, and we tend to be waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time. I am thoroughly enjoying this season though, as I know full well that years like this don't come along...well, every year. Now, back to the weekend.

Saturday night, we watched the Cup race on NBC and some of the Red Sox game on Fox, although not much of the latter since it was about 212-8 in the third inning. Is it a good sign when your game 4 starter is in game 3 in the 3rd inning? I don't think so.

After being encouraged by my wife to switch from beer to tea several times, we took our leave and went to bed at a respectable hour, though it may have been too late for me regardless of the actual time.

Sunday was also to be a big day. Thanks to my mother-in-law and Verizon, I got two tickets to the falcons game in row 29 on the 35 yard line and a parking pass for the deck that is attached to the Georgia Dome. I left for the day at 9am, leaving my wife to deal with the spawn and other folks for the rest of the day.

While I was away, Molly and Lauren went to see Shark Tales, took a bad nap, then went to our neighborhood's fall festival. My mom helped alot in keeping the urchin in check while she was running hog wild and getting copmletely over-tired and exhausted, which we would all pay for later.

The game was a thriller, with the Falcons scoring two TD's in the fourth quarter to win 21-20 over an inspired Chargers team. Kurt and I enjoyed comraderie and cold beers, which I did a lot of this weekend.

It took exactly two hours to get from my seat at the dome to my seat in my home, and I beat the family home by about 10 minutes. Lauren was exhausted and crying and whining thanks to an undisciplined few moments on her part that resulted in my wife having to physically remove Lauren from the moonwalk at the festival. My wife fell, with Lauren, and hurt her back, which didn't help things any. (The wife is fine but very very sore).

We finally got Lauren to bed about 8:15 and she fell asleep almost instantaneously. We got in bed at 9:00 and fell asleep almots immediately as well.

Next year for Eggfest, someone's taking the baby and we're either getting a hotel room or a cab.

The Red Sox chose not to lay down completely this weekend and won last night on a two run bomb by David Ortiz in the 12th, so there will at least be a game five. Houston nutted up and beat the Cardinals yesterday as well, tying that series at two games a piece. While I initially thought that St. Louis would kill the Astros, now I'm not so sure. It's a three game series, and the hottest team in baseball, The Astros, has more than a fighting chance.

Now, I must find somewhere in the office to hide so I can lie down and take a nap. I'm exhausted. Hell, I got tired just writing this.

Until next time...

I had to go pick up my accident report from the Western Precinct of the Gwinnett County PD over by Jimmy Carter and I-85. I left at noon, got there at 12:15, only to find a closed for lunch sign on the door. A police precint within a mile of one of the five busiest intersections in metro Atlanta CLOSES FOR FUCKING LUNCH!?!?!?! Are you kidding me?

Anyway, I left there and went to taco bell for lunch and headed back to the cop shop. I was second in line making a left on a five lane road and getting in the near lane, which I learned in driver's education. The car in front of me got in the right lane after turning and then MADE A FREAKING U-TURN ACROSS THE FRONT OF ME JUST LIKE MY WRECK WEDNESDAY!!!! I nearly blacked out from all of the screaming and honking, but did avoid contact.

I regained my composure and made it to the precint, waited the last 10 minutes for it to open and got a copy of the report. By the way, you don't just get a copy of the incident report. You pay 25 cents per page. For copied paper. 25 cents. I wonder if it would be free if I brought my own paper in with me next time?

Something to remember here. My wreck was after I turned left into a divided 2 lane road that, after the median ended, had a turn lane for either direction (dotted yellow lines inside solid yellow lines).

The cop told me at the scene that, if the lady that hit me was still moving (which she wasn't) then I couldn't pass because I was crossing a double yellow line.

I thought my primary goal was to not hit other cars and that superceded a double yellow infraction, but I digress.

On the report, officer Dumbass writes:

Driver 1 (me) states vehicle 2 (her) pulled to the curb and stopped. Driver started to go around v2 and as he did, driver 2 made a u-turn and they collided.

Driver2 says she realized she was on the wrong street and she went to make a legal U-Turn, but as she did, driver1 passed her on the left on a one lane street with a solid yellow line between her lane and oncoming traffic.

So, two points here:

1) it was not a one lane street. There was a turn lane, making it a THREE LANE ROAD, and
b) when is it legal to make a u-turn across traffic with no signal?

and the bonus question:
If I crossed the yellow passing her, wasn't she about to cross the double yellow TWICE by making a u-turn across it?

By the way, this all happened about 75 feet short of the entrances to TWO parking lots, and the one on the right holds about A THOUSAND FREAKING CARS, so I am sure she could have executed her dumbass u-turn there without hitting my car.

I am waiting for deputy fife to return my call, but I am not optimistic.

Stay tuned...

Last night when we got home from the football game, we caught the end of survivor and took our usual visit from my nephew to recap the game and his part in it. As you may have read by now, it was a particularly proud recap this week, as he played very well.

Anywho...after Survivor ended, I flipped to ESPN to see that #12 Louisville was beating #3 Miami 17-3 in the second quarter. I looked at the wife and uttered words to the effect of "you know, if Miami loses, we can move up next week," followed by "I mean, if we win Saturday, since we can't look past that." I said not looking past it as I was clearly looking past it, then I shuddered thinking of what the athletic dorm was like with all of those players switching their focus from Arkansas to wishing for Miami to lose.

Louisville led 31-14 with just over six minutes left in the third quarter. They lost their QB after a bell-ringing late in the second quarter, and brought in a freshman, and the young man played great. The bottom line was that Louisville's defense got tired and couldn't make a play at the end.

On its final, soon to be game-winning drive, Brock Berlin threw a pass that hit a Louisville DB in the chest and fell to the ground. Had he held on, Louisville would have beaten the number three team in the country, on the road, on national TV.

But, thanks to me and my stupid comment, Louisville fell just short, losing 41-38.

God knows we'll lose to Arkansas now, so it will all be moot, but a boy can dream...

The Cardinals put a stranglehold on the NLCS by beating the Astros 6-4 using only home runs to score. The Cards are a hell of a team, and may be the only guys that can go into the Bronx and kick the Yankees asses. God I hope so. Another off-season of listening to anyone talk about their 27 titles would irritate me to no end.

Got my estimate for my car repairs yesterday too. $1,845. That's right. Nearly two grand because I dared to share the road with the functionally retarded.

Well, I hope her house closing falls through, she can't find a job, and has to go back to Florida from whence she came. That way, she can spend the next 30 years mistaking the gas pedal for the brake and terrorizing local open air market customers in the process.

Watch out, Floridians. You've been officially warned.

Last night was the ninth grade football team's last home game of the 2004 season. It was the family's first viewing of what we call Heather's scoreboard, a matrix board / scoreboard that she led the way in raising funding for from local businesses. The scoreboard is amazing and kept my daughter captivated for most of the night. Or at least when she wasn't eating nachos, peanuts, popcorn, jolly rancher lollipops, hotdogs, or part of my nephew's pixie stick. All I can say about THAT meal is blech.

The game was close for a while, but the fact that Chattahoochee High had only 32 players had to come into play late in the first half and most of the second half.

After scoring late in the 2nd quarter, Chattahooche was set to kick off to the return team, on which my nephew plays the front and center position. The visitors dropped an onside kick that hit my nephew and rolled away a bit before he pounced on it, giving his team possession on the visitor's side of the field.

After the initial reaction of "oh my God...what happened?", we all realized that our boy had done well. Very well in fact. High fives were exchanged all around as the teams went to halftime with North leading 21-7.

When the second half started, we all mentioned that there was no way they'd try an onside kick again, and then they did. This time, young Nick made a great play, fielding the ball on one hop cleanly and dropping to the ground with it. First down Bulldogs again.

Eventually, the score got to 28-14 us, and the second string offense took the field. They proceeded to march down the field and score their second touchdown in two weeks, led by backup center (my nephew) and the left guard (his friend and our neighbor kid).

Then, the second string defense took the field featuring young Daubie, a kid small enough that I'd be scared to send in if I was the coach. But Daubie's a fighter and sure enough, he had 1.5 tackles and was his own teammate away from recovering a fumble late in the going.

North won 35-14 and it was a very proud day for all of us. My sister in law actually started misting up after the second fumble recovery by her boy, (long known as a bit of a screw-up) and then there were jokes of allergies and other reasons for misty eyes for the rest of the night.

So, here's the deal. Tonight, it's over to the high school to watch my nephew's ninth grade football team play, which I love. It will also be my first chance to see the new matrix board that my sister-in-law raised money to build.

Tomorrow, for only the second weekend since we've lived in our house, our across the street family (my wife's sister and husband) won't be home to play with. Friday afternoons are cold beers in the driveway or on the porch followed by kickass steaks on the Big Green Egg.

I love Fridays like that, but we'll survive. I look forward to their return before next weekend so my Fridays can return to normal.

Saturday morning, my mother-in-law will come over before noon to watch the spawn so the wife and I can attend Big Green Egg's EggToberFest at 57th Fighter Group on Clairmont Road. Over 500 folks will be there with over 100 cooking for us to try and learn stuff. There will be free beer and wine, as well as gift packs, drawings, and a band. I can't wait to learn more about cooking pork loins, ribs, steaks, and hopefully some pizza too.

We will then get home just after the start of the Auburn-Arkansas game, which starts at 3:30EDT. I'm sure there'll be more football, beers and dinner later. Also, the Cup race is Saturday night from Charlotte. It's like the world WANTS to help me get my mind off of the horrid injustice imparted upon me by the MAN. That will, of course, be followed by some erious sleep.

That's becuase Sunday, me and my buddy Kurt are going to the Falcons-Chargers game courtesy of Verizon and my mother in law. We have kickass seats, we're leaving at 9am for Waffle House, tailgating at the dome, and an afternoon of pro football.

Despite my accident on Wednesday, that makes for a pretty good week and weekend if you ask me.

War Eagle everybody.

Yesterday, the Red Sox played better, only losing 3-1 to the Yankees. I told you that Schilling wasn't right in Tuesday's game. During game 2 of the NLCS last night, a seemingly innocuous update crawl ran across the screen. Among other un-important things, it said that "Curt Schilling has an ankle tendon injury that will require surgery either immediately or in the off-season. His status for the rest of the playoffs is questionable..."

And for the third time in as many days, I felt nauseous. He's going to win the Cy Young award and he was going to bring a Championship to Boston. Now, it's "wait'll next year" all over again.

Good grief.

The Cardinals briefly trailed the Astros 4-2 last night until someone in the home dugout woke up and said "Hey...we're the Cardinals. Let's finish this," and they did. The rally was capped with a Jim Edmunds two-out bases loaded double that score three and made it 10-4 in the sixth, and from there, not much mattered. A Yankees-Cardinals series appeals to me okay. Of the non-Braves teams out there, my two favorites are the Red Sox and the Cardinals. I only hope the Cards can beat the shit out of the hated pinstripers.

It's now been about 18 hours since my encounter and ensuing contact with the world's dumbest driver. I was getting over it, but driving to work today I started getting mad about it again. There is no way on earth I should have to pay a penny for this shit, and yet, I am looking to be on the hook for a minimum of $1,100 (my $500 deductible plus three years without my good driver discount of $200 per year).

I keep thinking I'm fortunate no one was hurt, but then I think that maybe that would have swung things my way. How on earth any cop anywhere can not issue a ticket to a car making a fucking U-turn with no signal in the middle of traffic ACROSS DOUBLE YELLOW LINES is ludicrous. The guy said that, if she didn't stop moving BEFORE executing her U-turn, then I was at fault because I crossed the double yellow to go around her.

Really Deputy Fife? And if I had not attempted to miss her, wouldn't her making a U-turn across the same double yellow lines have been the same violation? You're telling me that we have to split costs because she hit me BEFORE breaking the law A SECOND TIME??

I was also told by the insurance company that no one in my car could be a witness to the accident because they would be swayed in my favor.

Ummm...so a person in the passenger seat who ended up just inches from the face of the woman who drove like she was in an empty parking lot practicing for her learner's permit can't be a witness, despite seeing the incident from closer than anyone else? Who writes these dumbass rules?

Jesus fucking Christ. I may have an aneurysm before this is all said and done. I will be contacting her insurance company and attempting to make things right, but I was already told that in negotiating with my insurance company, if the two parties decide that litigation is more expensive than the repairs, they'll just agree that me and Mrs. Crazy will split everything, meaning again, money out of my pocket.

How do things like this happen to me? I spend 20 years with not so much as a scratch on my car outside of my own garage, and then this? I would have been less upset if an ACME anvil had fallen out of the sky and landed on my car. At least THAT would have been a funny story.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled browsing while I consider buying a firearm...

I'm on my way back from lunch turning left across two southbound lanes on peachtree parkway behind another car also turning left into technology park at engineering drive.

The person in front of me pulls over to the curb and stops. I go around her and as I get to her door, she makes a fucking U-TURN INTO MY RIGHT FRONT!!!

We get out of the way, she gives me the "I'm not from around here" crud. I call the cops. They come, hear our story, except the lady tells the cop she was STOPPING--not stopped. big difference apparently.

Cop decides that he can't pick one over the other, so we have to notify our own insurance companies, and they'll deal with it.

Now, why in the name of all that is holy should I have to pay a penny when someone makes a U-turn INTO ME ACROSS TRAFFIC?? Is there a question here?

The part that is really annoying is that I had someone in the car who had a meeting, so she went back to work on foot. Calling with a "witness" now is gonna look bad. I'm gonna do it, but still....

Any chances I don't get hit paying my own deductible?

Oh yeah, it's a 6 month old trailblazer, so even the minor damage is gonna be 3 grand I'm sure.

(feel free to snicker amongst yourselves at my good fortune).

Curt Schilling ran his mouth with a bad (and possibly very bad) ankle under him, and he was a non-factor, yielding too many runs in too few innings and eventually left the game after three-ish innings.

The Sox made Mike Mussina look like Whitey Ford as Moose was perfect thru six innings. Then, down 8-0, the sox rallied for 5 in the seventh and tw more in the eighth, only to give up two in the bottom of the eighth and lose 10-7.

I am so glad I shut the game off. I slept like a baby knowing the Sox were going to lose.

I hate the Yankees. The Yankees suck.

I realized Friday that I had 10 days of vacation left and only about nine weeks left to use them. Since I can never find time to take more than a day or two at a time anymore, I took Monday off and made a long weekend of it.

Friday night was the usual ribeyes on the Big Green Egg and cold beers at my wife's sister's house. Saturday was homecoming for lots of the kids (not including my nephew) who had to work and waited to long to ask anyone. Instead, we stood in the street hooting and whistling at other kids as they were picked up by their dates' parents. Good times. I can't wait until they are old enough to be humiliated for real.

Saturday was a half-empty half-full day in football, as my Auburn Tigers kicked the shit out of Lousiana Tech but Georgia lost to Tennessee. I always root for UGA to be undefeated because it's either fun to beat them and ruin their year that late in the season or if we're both having great years it makes the game even bigger here and around the country. Having the two of us undefeated and in the top five when we meet in November would be unreal!!

Anyway, UGA lost and didn't look great doing it, which scares me and puts me in full "glass is broken all over the floor mode." Auburn hosts Arkansas this weekend and their ninth year QB Matt Jones. I wish the guy would retire already, as I am tired of him running for 250 yards or more every time we play them.

We took Lauren to the opening of a Farm / Park saturday that included a hay ride, sitting on some really old tractors, seeing some farm animals and eating a bushel of boiled peanutes. You'd have thought she won the lottery.

Anyway, Saturday night was a leisurely night of BBQ ribs on the egg and mussels courtesy of the neighbors. It was one of those first beer at 2pm days, so by 10pm, we were pretty beat and went home to chill.

Sunday brought the Falcons game and the Cup race at Kansas as well. Falcons lost, Joe Nemechek won, it was discovered that Tony Stewart beat up a teammate of his on Saturday, so all was right with the world.

I was looking forward to my vacation day Monday, which actually turned into a busier than shit day where all I really got done was one load of laundry. I kept my daughter alive too, so that's a win as well.

We took Lauren to the mall Monday to ride the merry go round and to buy her a new Auburn cheerleader outfit. I also bought a Red Sox hat for the playoffs, which brings me to the reason for my post today.

The Braves lost in game five to the Astros. Who cares? Not me. This team wasn't supposed to come close to winning the division, much less making the playoffs. As long as AOL Time Warner runs the team, they will be, for all intents and purposes, a small market team.

The Sox bounced Anaheim in three straight, but it wasn't that easy. They were up 2-0 in the series and 6-2 in the game in the sixth, when vlad "I'll be fat like Elvis by my 30th birthday" Guererro hit a grand slam to tie the game. The Sox never wavered, and eventually won on a two run walk off homer by David Ortiz. After the game, Johnny Damon said that it "helped to have idiots on the team" like himself. Who doesn't like these guys?

The Yankees, conversely, trailed 1-0 in the series, and were down a run in extra innings, but came came back to win game two. They won the next two as well and and ran the Twins out of their own building. It was sad because the series literally turned on Gardenhire's NOT making a pitching change. Sad.

Anyway, in the off-season, there were two big name, high dollar free agent pitchers: Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. Both had won titles with Arizona. Both had stellar careers. But one of them wanted more.

Schilling, when approached by Boston, went to Boston. He checked it out. He called in to talk radio stations and logged into messageboards. He found out what Red Sox baseball was about, and he decided that he could help.

Conversely, Johnson refused trade offers, then when the deadline came late in the year, he was faced with a dilemma: stay in Arizona playing for a shitty team, pitching in meaningless games or take a trade to a contender, take a team on his back and be the man.

Johnson chose to stay in Phoenix and strikeout guys in games no one watched to pad stats no one cares about anyway.

Yesterday, Curt Schilling was asked about pitching game one in Yankee Stadium in the ALCS. He replied:

"I'm not sure I can think of any scenario more enjoyable than making 55,000 people from New York shut up."

Yeah, I think Schilling gets it. He gets to pitch in games one, four and seven with Pedro in games two and five. Considering the Yankees answer to those two is Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown, I like the Sox chances.

And I hope Schilling shoves it down Steinbrenner and Jeter and Sheffield and Mariano Rivera and Joe Torre's collective throats. And I want them to win the series in New York, because that would be the ultimate way to make 55,000 people from New York shut up.

All you folks who watched McGwire and Sosa battle it out and decided "that Sammy sure is a super guy" can take off your blinders now and realize he is not that "bazeball been berry berry good to me" crap. He's not a good guy. Nevermind whether or not I think he's juiced (which I do). He's a bad guy.

Anyway, this week we saw Sammy complain that the Cubs and Dusty Baker should stop blaming him for the Cubs' not making the playoffs.

Umm...earth to Sammy. Hello? Anyone in there? You were named the captain of the team, you are (well, were) the cleanup hitter, and you are SUPPOSED to be a team leader.

What you did was bat about .195 the last month of the season, you couldn't drive in a run if your life depended on it, and you played suspect defense. If this was 1919, YOUR name would be circled on the scorecard every day.

And how did you respond? You showed up late for the last game of the season and didn't dress, claiming a phantom injury. Then, after it was discovered that you were gone after the game, you said you "left in the seventh inning to receive treatment."

Unfortunately, you forgot the security cameras in the clubhouse, which showed you leaving 15 MINUTES AFTER THE FIRST PITCH!!

The Cubs fined you one games pay, which is a little over $87,000.

(sidebar: I don't have a problem with guys getting paid whatever they can get paid, but I like to see them work for the money).

The fact that you get paid 87 grand per game and are mad because they didn't want to pay you for the day you didn't dress and snuck out before your team had batted first is laughable. File your grievance. You may get back your 1/162nd of your contract, but the lovefest between you and the city of Chicago is over.

Enjoy the boos, big guy. I hope the 17 MILLION you'll get paid next year can take some of the pain away, you big baby.

It's Friday morning, and already the day's off to a great start. I left a little late so as not to waste too much of my morning waiting for the dry cleaners to open at 7:00, and the lady showed up late anyway. The upside is that I got to read for 45 minutes, which I haven't done in about three months. I've gone from a book every three days to a book about every three weeks lately.

Anyway, I get to work, the fax machine next to me is in error status for about the 45th day in a row, which means it sounds like a house alarm going off next to me. Then my boss comes in, says good morning in response to a co-worker, then ignores my good morning greeting. Is that a sign?

Last night we went to my nephew's 9th grade football game and made our first visit to Duluth's stadium. Nice place, good food, but a bad football team. They only had about nine extra players, which struck me a bit odd. This was also the first time I'd seen the mercy rule employed. If a team leads by more than 28 in the second half, the clock runs non-stop until the game ends.

The game featured its usual great run for a score by young Kirtley Dovel and a quick slant for a score to Jaison Yoshimura. These two kids not only don't avoid contact, but go out of their way to find a guy to drop a shoulder into, which is quite impressive. North won 34-0.

My nephew is the second string center and plays kick returns, so his meaningful playing time came on offense in the second half. It was nice to see him make good snaps, make and hold blocks to spring the backs for extra yardage, and overall it was good to see the second team moving the ball on the ground. No tricks. Just hit your man in the mouth and move forward.

Lauren had a great time eating pizza, talking to cheerleaders, and drawing. She also enjoyed being fed sunflower seeds by me, which is the type of thing reserved for a princess, which of course she is. I am thrilled to live somewhere that the teenagers aren't too cool to be nice to my baby and to the adults as well. I guess sometimes it really does take a village...

We got home to watch the last 30 minute of Survivor and get the urchin to bed. It's nice to sit and relax with a nice cold expired Miller Genuine Draft (thanks dad) and ponder the day's events.

Later, we got to spend a little time with our recently departed neighbors (who I will call "the B's). They came in for a weekend of homecoming, UGA v. UT and "porch sitting" as Mister B refers to it. I am still saddened by their absence daily. If my lotto numbers hit, I told them to pack the truck up and come back home, and we'd act like this whole thing never happened.

So what do you say, Lottery Gods? I bought the tickets. How about giving a brother and his friends and family a break? You can bet that you wouldn't find me passed out in a strip club missing half a million in cash that I had in my car, that's fo shizzle.

Oh, I forgot my daily Screw Baseball update. I did not watch a pitch last night, but the Braves won in extra innings thanks to a walk-off home run by Rafael "so what if I've had a couple of drinks" Furcal to tie the series at one game a piece. The Cardinals drilled the Dodgers again and showed themselves to be the class of this post-season, and in my opinion, Boston's real threat in the World Series.

Dammit. There I go again. Getting caught up in the post-season AND being seated firmly on the Red Sox bandwagon. Would someone please hit me over the head and remind me of the reasons I still hate professional baseball?

You know...All Star Game ties, collusion, the antitrust exemption, owners, the only professional sport in the world where steroids aren't explicitly banned, etc.

Thanks for the reminder, Bud-boy. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

The wife had to work last night, so last night was daddy-daughter night as soon as I got home from work. I had mentioned to the wife earlier in the day that, if things went well (and even if they didn't) I might make a trip to the TCBY for, well, TCBY (the country's best yogurt).

A sidebar here. Does anyone remember that this acronym used to stand for This Can't Be Yogurt?? It seems that we were right. It can't be yogurt. 99.9% of it is ice cream. Anyway...

I walked in from work and Lauren ran up to me and yelled "EYE KEE!!! EYE KEE!!!" The wife then said "I may have mentioned a trip for some ice cream." The trouble with telling Lauren beforehand is that she takes one bite of dinner and pronounces that "I all done."

The wife went to work, we ate dinner (and this time, a lot of it), and played football with my nephews and brother in law until it was time to go. We rode together with the windows down and Lauren sqealed all the way there. That's what she does when she gets her way and we ride with the windows down.

Long story short, she got cotton candy ice cream and I got my usual: The small oreo milkshake. Only this time, Lauren didn't want her junior-mini-small whatever nasty cotton candy ice cream. She wanted my shake...and most of it.

I am not a good sharer most of the time. Ask my wife. Hell, ask anyone that knows me. But this night, I shared my ice cream and my daughter said "Thanks daddy. I love you," which made sharing my milkshake totally worthwhile.

Sorry for the sidebar. After I put Lauren to bed, I was checking ESPN.com for news when I saw the Twins losing to the Yankees in the seventh 5-3. I blew it off and started a Bristol race on C4TC 2005 (EA Sports Chase for the Cup 2005 for those who don't know). I looked up during my pitstop and noticed that it was now 5-5 in the bottom of the eighth. What to do...what to do?

I finished my race quickly and went in, looked blankly at the remote for a moment, then turned on the tv and flipped to ESPN.

I didn't mention it, but I am from Minnesota. So when it's not the Braves or the Red Sox, I do root for the Twins.).

The wife came home and saw me watching baseball, but said nothing. She knows of my boycott and my hatred for Bud Selig and what he's done to what was my favorite game. While I was getting ready for bed, she even flipped on "Field of Dreams" and looked at me, waiting for some sort of reaction. (Usually, it's to make fun of me for letting that damned movie make me cry every time I see it. Not all the way thru it, but just at certain parts. See, that's what happens when you open up to someone).

I switched back to the game, and in the top of the tenth, Torii Hunter yanks a 400 plus foot homer into left field and I think to myself "How about that? The Yanks are about to lose two straight at home and be out before the playoffs really even start."

That is until Gardenhire decided to leave Joe Nathan in to pitch his third inning of the night.

Nathan got the first guy out, then threw nine straight balls, and I was shaking my head and muttering "no no no no" after the fifth one.

A-rod then hit a ground rule double to center, and I shut it off, cursing. The last thing I saw as I shut off the tv was the Twins intentionally walking the bases loaded. They were done, and I knew it.

At the same time this was going on, the Red Sox - Angels game had started at 10pm, so I was quick flipping pitch by pitch between the two. This game saw Pedro starting against Bartolo Colon who, in my opinion, has doubled in size since his days with the Indians. He looked 300 pounds and his hat looked like a size five on a size eight head with that Cindy Brady curly do he has going on, similar to Manny Ramirez and Pedro. At the least the Sox all-hair guys got hats that fit.

Anywhoo, the Sox had two on in the first with no one out and Manny came to the plate. This was gonna be the blowout. I knew it. Then, Manny struck out on a great pitch, David Ortiz walked to load them for Trot Nixon, who flew out to left, and Kevin Millar grounded out to end the inning. No damage, but Colon had already thrown 24 pitches in one inning. Good for the Sox.

Boston's first in the field saw groundout, groundout, walk, K.

Second inning, Sox struck out looking, flew out to center, then they loaded the bases again. This time, for Manny. Manny laid off the exact pitch he K'd on in the first to walk and drive in the first run of the game, and first of many I was sure.

Then Ortiz came up with the bases loaded and promptly hit a towering shot down the right side that slid foul by a foot or so, just missing a grand slam. On the next pitch, Mark Bellhorn was caught sleeping at second base and picked off to end the ending. And that's when it hit me that this could be their 2003 Grady leaving Pedro in moment where all of the momentum they built went away, and I nearly threw up in my mouth. This was when I switched back and saw the Twins loading the bases and I shut off the tv.

Goddamned baseball.

(a note here: The Twins DID lose, the Sox won going away anyway, in a game that was up in the air until the 9th. Trailing 4-3, the Angels gave up four runs in the top of the ninth and lost 8-3, and I feel confident the series will be finished in game three. The Braves were trounced by a white hot Astros team as well, but considering I thought they'd finish third in their division this year, that doesn't bother me too much. This season's all about the Sox).