It's not every day that one gets a chance to witness sublime, transcendent courage on a playing field. Tonight, for those lucky few who subscribe to the New England Sports Network, we had that chance. Josh Beckett pitched what can fairly be described as the best game since Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Hell, he only allowed five runs to the mighty Orioles. And in the process, he managed to confine himself to one hissy fit.

I sincerely hope Major League Baseball is going to launch an investigation of tonight's proceedings. I simply am not prepared to live in a world where Brian Roberts dares to swing at the first pitch of the game and drive said pitch into the seats. If only responsible agencies had sent out memos to remind the rest of the league that Josh Beckett is not to be defeated, tragedies like this could be averted.

Beckett should be entitled to special treatment. He's obviously lacking in intelligence. If he weren't he wouldn't be sporting that ridiculous growth on his face and trying to pass it off as a beard. I suspect, however, that his silly facial hair comes in handy. I imagine a good number of hitters have been so amused by his ridiculous appearance that they find themselves distracted when it comes time to bat against Beckett.

But I am getting to far away from the main point of tonight's post. I need to thank Theo Epstein for his marvellous performance at this year's trade deadline. What this team desperately needed was bullpen help. Forget the fact that JD Drew is making an awful lot of money to be hitting less than .250 and Julio Lugo makes a fair bit to hit less than .230. Why would an American League team need consistent offensive production?

Eric Gagne is the pickup of the century, even if they couldn't get Jermaine Dye. Of course, if a team should score more runs than the mighty Red Sox, having the best bullpen in recorded human history might just end up being a cold comfort to the citizens of Red Sox Nation if the end up listening to Crowded House sing Don't Dream It's Over while a team like the Tigers or the Angels plays in the Fall Classic. I doubt they'll be much joy in Mudville should the team need a pinch hitter and find themselves forced to rely on Wily Mo or Hinske or Alex Cora.

I think they brought in Gagne as a scare tactic for Papelbon. That's what's in store for Papelbon if he doesn't take care of his fragile arm now. He's two years away from being a journeyman trying to claw his way back from injuries. Of course, Papelbon needn't worry too much, as he can always fall back on his stellar Mississippi State education and his native intelligence. But it wouldn't hurt to have an investment guru try to turn that $450,000 a year salary into a tidy little nest egg.

At the end of the day, perhaps Theo wanted to do Danny Ainge a favor. Maybe he didn't want to take any of the luster away from the closest thing to a good move that has come to light in Ainge's Celtics tenure. If that is the case, then it's awfully decent of Theo. I hope Ainge buys a bunch of Theo's CDs and a slate of tickets to that Hot Stove Cool Music hootenanny in August.

I realize now that my intial reservations about this trade were ill-advised. Bill Simmons has shown me the error of my ways. This trade is awesome. All that remains is for the Celtics to make some nice moves picking up a role player or two and Banner 17 becomes more a fait accompli than a faint hope. After all, when a roster is supposed to have 12 players, it makes sense to commit more than the salary cap to three guys, right? Between Pierce, Allen and Garnett that has to add up to somewhere very close to $60 million. The cap is $57 million, if I remember correctly. I might not have my MBA, but I'm thinking that's not good business.

Of course, it's tragic that the team had to give up on Al Jefferson, right? According to Simmons, he's the best young post player in the game. I don't see it, myself. I think Jefferson is slow. He's also a terrible defender and his range isn't great. So it's good to unload him for any kind of value and watch the next ten years of his career turn into a long march toward mediocrity. I'd be willing to bet money (if there were a place that you could make these type of bets) that he'll never be appreciably better than he was this season.

I think when this trade is all said and done, it will end up being Ryan Gomes that the Celtics miss the most. I am not crazy about Gomes as a player, but I think he'll have a more successful NBA career than Al Jefferson. I have a habit of being wrong, so feel free to dismiss that statement. But just remember, I am due. One of these days, based on the law of averages, I'm bound to be right about something.

Before I wrap up this post, I want to pass on two final thoughts. Never in NBA history up until now has a team given up so much to bring in one player. Celtic fans better hope there wasn't a good reason for that trend. Considering the previous record return for a single player came in the deal that brought Scottie Pippen from Portland to Houston, I wouldn't be too optimistic. And finally, could this Garnett deal be a mere diversion so that Danny Ainge can sign his son Austin without taking too much heat?

It was good that the Red Sox didn't have to play a game today. That way they had plenty of down time to wrestle with the fact that Scott Kazmir seems to be able to humiliate them at will. And they don't have to think too hard about the back-to-back home runs the invincible closer allowed to the lowly Devil Rays on Saturday.

It also enables me to talk about Danny Ainge and the no good, terrible, horrible, very bad trade rumors circulating about the Celtics. Perhaps some kind soul in contact with the brains that run Banner 17 can tell them they could save money by not even having a general manager. If Paul Pierce is running this team, why pay Ainge?

Admittedly, I don't think he should be paid a salary at all, based on his performance to date. But the Cs could cut some fat from the payroll at his expense, nevertheless. And it looks like they just might need that cash to pay Garnett, Pierce and Allen to play for the brand new contender in the Eastern Conference.

If this deal goes through, it will bother me on a number of levels. First, it will generate enough interest and ticket sales to preserve the current reign of terror for at least one more season. All the Whos here in Whoville will like Kevin Garnett a lot, at first. By the time the fans grasp the significance of this deal in the long term, he'll probably have moved on or retired. But the team will make some dough for a month, a year or two.

Another reason it will bother me is that the current management team will have changed horses in midstream once again. When they took over, the team was aging too fast, they said. Its window was closing, so they slammed it shut. So the team got younger and then younger and still younger. The losses mounted, but the region was told that this process takes time. But of course, the affront against the sport that was last season alerted the powers that be that the wheels had come of the youth movement.

So the natural move is to send all of your young players to teams in the Western Conference and import players of a certain age and experience. Because we all know that basketball players get better with age. Running up and down a wooden floor at top speed for 30-40 minutes a night strengthens joints, right? It doesn't wear on cartilage, ligaments and tendons, does it?

Sticking with Bird, McHale and Parrish for as long as the Cs did put the team in jail in the mid 90s. I know why they did it, and I stuck with the team because those three guys gave the team everything they had. Yeah, they won titles, but the Bird and McHale killed the last few productive seasons they may have had by playing hurt. Granted, Len Bias and Reggie Lewis dying tragically didn't help and the team should have drafted better players than Lohaus, Michael Smith and the rest but life is often cruel.

This time, the team went out and imported guys who may have a few good seasons left in them, but could also fall apart in an awful hurry. But this is smart basketball, right? It's not like Red Auerbach kept his teams going through blending young players in with his aging stars, right?

But this trade will really bother me because the Celtics have now reverted back to being essentially what they were when Ainge blew up the team in the first place. They have more star power, but they're older and probably (I don't have the time or desire to do the math myself, so if I'm wrong on this I'll apologize) even further over the cap than they were. Four years of this nonsense and we're back to square one.

With Allen, Garnett and Pierce, this team should contend in the East. It's not very likely that they could beat one of the better Western Conference teams in a seven game series, however. When Ainge made his moves to get rid of Walker, Delk and the rest, his rationale was that contending in the conference wasn't enough. The Celtics needed to contend for the NBA championship.

As you may have noticed, the Celtics have come no closer to contending for an NBA championship in the Ainge era than I have to travelling through time. But now that the team may have collected three stars who might be reaching the point of no return in their careers but have not managed to show any signs of pushing a team to the next level, every little thing will be just fine.

On the plus side, since this is the NBA, it's likely that this trade will help neither team in the long run. The Celitcs now have a 3 man rotation in a five man sport. Rondo doesn't look like he's the answer, unless the question is: "The Celtics gave up a pick that could have been Randy Foye or Brandon Roy to draft whom?" Kendrick Perkins could be this generation's Stanley Roberts only without the potential. But there's always Leon Powe. And I think Oliwikandi is still on the roster...

But the Timberwolves could get Al Jefferson at the absolute apex of his value. Too bad he's destined to be the best player on a bad team for the rest of his career. I suppose that there's a chance that he could progress into a 20 point a night guy since there's no one else to score in Minnesota now. But I just don't see him making that team anything but a blip on the radar in the West.

With any luck, Gerald Green will be gone as well. He can play above the rim, provided that he's in a dunk contest. Too bad that he's looking like the second coming of Kenny "Sky" Walker. If only he had more skills that translated into effective play on the court, maybe Cs fans would miss him. As for Sebastian Telfair, at least Fabulus can sleep nights knowing that Bassy's 1200 miles away now.

But Cs fans, take comfort in the fact that Tony Allen will be coming back. At least until the next time he gets fouled 25 feet from the basket.

For a little while, I found myself wondering whether I had been a bit unfair in my diatribe against the state of Connecticut. However, it is with a clear conscience and a wish that I could add even more unpleasant things to what I said earlier that I sit down to write this post tonight. You see, today I found myself driving through Connecticut and stuck in a traffic jam because for some reason, the right hand lane of I-95 North had to be closed so that the grass on the shoulder could be manicured with a weed whacker.

Now of all the days to do this, a Friday in the summer seems like an extremely poor choice. Perhaps no one alerted the powers-that-be in the CT Highway Department, but people like to flee NYC for summer destinations on Friday at noon. So closing off a lane of traffic so that a guy could trim the grass is not tremendously cool. Especially since that artificial traffic jam south of New Haven at noon puts people heading for Boston, the Cape or points north in pole position to hit traffic coming through Providence and then again as they get closer to their ultimate goal.

Of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that the Massachusetts transportation bureaucrats managed to turn the terrible tragedy of the manhole cover on 128 North into a traffic catastrophe of epic proportions today. But to be fair to MA, that was an unforeseen event that called for an immediate reaction and not a poor decision by a bureaucrat.

But there are other things to talk about tonight. We have one more feud where it seems impossible to take a side. Barry Bonds didn't like the Bob Costas show about him, so he called Costas a midget. Costas shot back that he may be all of 5-6 and 150, but he came by that physique naturally. Personally, I think some kind soul out to play the scene from Full Metal Jacket where the Drill Sergeant has unkind words for the Texan who tried to exaggerate his height for Mr. Costas, but that's just me.

I don't like feuds like this because they put me in a position of choosing between two people that I can't abide. In this instance, I think I have to be with Bonds because I hate Costas even more than I hate Bonds. Costas is a whiny midget and a jock-sniff who desperately tries to bring gravitas to the stories he covers. Unfortunately for him, pipsqueaks can't bring gravitas to much of anything. Thanks, though, for carrying your Mickey Mantle card in your wallet for so many years. That gives you street cred...

In other news, we can leave off worrying about the surging New York Yankees. Curt Schilling was phenomenal in his second rehab start. The season is once again over. One good thing about the return of Big Schill is that we now have a ballpark date for when the World of Warcraft craze will end. 38 Studios comes out with their own game along that line (but allegedly much better) sometime in 2010. So America's fascination with these games will end sometime about a week before the 38 Studios title hits the shelves.

I thought it was mighty decent of the Globe to throw the picture of Schilling's image as Everquest character on the front page of the business section. Since he's been on the DL, I've had very few opportunities to criticize Humpty Dumpty. But seeing his animated likeness in a suit of red armor, that's like a gift from Heaven. You didn't hear it from me, but rumor has it he chose Everquest over World of Warcraft because his online persona lives in mortal fear of our old friend Leeroy Jenkins and his penchant for leading unsuspecting gamers into ambushes.

Finally, tonight marks an auspicious night for the performing arts in the Greater Boston Area. Not in the 377 years since the Puritans settled Boston has one night seen such cultural significance as tonight, and maybe tomorrow. Two acts of tremendous eminence will grace stages in our city and we can tell our grandchildren we lived to see it.

In case you can't tell, I am unimpressed with the two showstoppers playing the Tweeter Center and the House that John Henry uses to shake down New England. I am so unimpressed that I am having a hard time determining which show impresses me the least. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have to say Kenny Chesney, as he basically ripped off his entire musical persona from Jimmy Buffet (whom I do not particularly like, as I don't smoke dope and prefer beer to tropical drinks) without the redeeming quality of having received a beating from the real life inspiration for the sheriff from Walking Tall (as Buffet did).

But the Police are impressing me less than Kenny Chesney at the moment. First, they were never that good, not even in the 1980s. Their hits are vastly overrated. Roxanne isn't good, it's annoying. Every Breath You Take was actually improved by Puff Daddy when he covered it. Take a minute to let that sink in. That's how bad the song was. A notorious cheese ball like Puff Daddy made the song better.

But since the Police had the good manners to have a controversial break up and flirt with this reunion tour for the last 20 years, people forget just how pathetic they were. Let's not forget, either, that Sting was in Dune. It's like the John Cougar Mellencamp comeback all over again. These frauds stay away for so long that people forget how bad they were, then people realize they like the political stances the artists have taken and next thing you know, the inherent artistic deficiencies are dismissed and we have this comeback.

Without a doubt, what bothered me the most about this Police appearance at Fenway is the fact that all of a sudden tickets for the previously sold out shows all of a sudden went on sale again 10 days ago. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I can't shake the feeling that something underhanded is going on here. I don't buy the cover story that due to a change in the positioning of the stage more seats suddenly became available. I think the shows weren't selling out, so they pulled back some tickets and trumped up this little gimmick to add a sense of surprise and urgency to unload tickets at the last minute.

That bothers me to no end. I can't really fault the Red Sox or the promoter who came up with that little scheme. It's a nice one, after all. If Red Sox fans weren't sheep, the team ownership would have a lot of trouble shearing them. But Red Sox fans are sheep, so management can manipulate them and shake them down as they see fit.

I really don't have much to say about tonight's performance. I am not as impressed with Matsuzaka's epic pitching performance as I anticipate Red Sox Nation is at the moment. As I said last night, I am not sold on these Cleveland Indians. To put it bluntly, if I had to pitch to Grady Sizemore or Travis Hafner with the bases loaded and nobody out in the last inning of a game I absolutely had to win, let's just say I wouldn't be quaking in my cleats. Sure they put up good stats, but they don't strike fear into opponent's hearts.

Two years ago, the Indians entered the last week of the season with a shot at catching the Chicago White Sox or maybe the wildcard. And they choked. They fell apart as though it were their sole purpose in life. Signs point to that same outcome for them this season. This looks like the beginning of the end for them.

I finally caught an episode of The Bronx is Burning. I thought it was pretty good. I'm not sure I buy Oliver Platt as Steinbrenner, but other than that I thought it was well cast and well written. And like most of the things I see in the course of a day, it got me thinking about other things.

For instance, if they made a series like that about a Red Sox team from that general era, would it be subtitled: Please put Jim Rice in the Hall of Fame, he had two really good years? Or How I triumphed over an IQ well below my uniform number and became a regional icon because I was mildly developmentally disabled by Bill Lee? Or You guys do realize I played for 20 years after that home run in the 1975 World Series, right by Carlton Fisk? Of course they wouldn't make a series like that about those Red Sox teams because no one would watch it, but a nation can dream, can't it?

Another thing that occurred to me is that Reggie Jackson was a lot like Manny Ramirez back in the day. If only Reggie didn't talk to the press, he might have been Reggie being Reggie long before Manny started being Manny. I also noticed that one of the executive producers of the show is named Joe Davola. Could that be the same guy that inspired the Crazy Joe Davola character from Seinfeld?

This is something that needs further investigation by some enterprising soul more willing to do the research than I am tonight. Because if this Joe Davola is the Crazy Joe Davola from Seinfeld, then there must have been a deal in real life that was kiboshed as the fictitious deal was which triggered Davola's hostility to Jerry and Kramer. I can't help but wonder what that deal could have been. Of course, I also need to get out more, but what can you do?

Finally, I thought it was awfully sporting of Bob Ryan to warn us about the danger of an NBA official fixing games three days after the story broke. I can understand that he wasn't due to write a column between the day it broke and the one that appeared in today's paper. I also think it would have been better not to call said piece a warning. As far as I know, you warn somebody before an event occurs, not after. Then again, what do I know? I'm not in the Max Mercy Hall of Fame.

Oh, and I think I see a way clear for me to be nominated for President of Red Sox Nation. I took a quick look at the celebrity nominations page, and I think I might qualify. Excerpts from my blog have appeared in Worcester Magazine and several times in BostonNOW. That might not be a hell of a lot on which to hang my hat and I'm not bragging about it, but at least I've heard of me. And that's more than I can say for Rob Crawford, Dennis Drinkwater and Rick Swanson.

Even though every moron and his brother has seen fit to weigh in on the NBA officiating scandal, I still want to put in my two cents. There are aspects of this story that surprised the hell out of just about every American fan. It sort of reminded me of the famous scene from Casablanca where Claude Rains as Captain Renault (the prefect of police) shuts down Rick's under orders from the Germans. The pretext he used is that there was illicit gambling going on in the bar. And as he is claiming to be shocked at that fact, the croupier walks up to him and hands him his winnings.

As a nation of sports fans, we have exhibited the same basic reaction as Captain Renault. We have the nerve to be shocked by this story when we ought to come out and admit that we're really surprised that it has taken this long for an official in one of our major sports to be implicated in a mess like this, or we would be if we weren't so monumentally naive. Officials don't make a lot of money and they have a pretty thankless job. I'm surprised only one of them has allegedly been fixing games.

Another thing that surprised me was Mark Cuban's response to this situation. I would have bet money that he'd have come out in his blog whining about the number of Mavs games Ted Donaghy reffed which featured questionable or controversial calls. Perhaps I was blinded by my hatred. To his credit, the Benefactor came out with a shockingly moderate response and provided a vote of confidence for the league office. I don't agree with him, but I found it to be a not entirely unpleasant surprise.

I don't want us to lose sight of the real victim here. Poor Bill Simmons is now dangerously close to experiencing an identity crisis of epic proportions. For 6 years now, he has managed to walk the fine line between being a wholly owned subsidiary of David Stern and daring to come out of the Commissioner's pocket once in a great while to criticize the league. Now he might have to pick a side, and it might hurt him a little bit.

When I discuss basketball in this space, I think I have made it explicit that I am not impressed with David Stern. He got to where he is today by stabbing his boss in the back. The NBA is falling down around his ears, and the most proactive solution he could come up with is a player dress code. But people claim he's the best commissioner in professional sports today?

The NFL gets better and stronger with each passing year. Their players get involved in ugly off-field incidents and the league comes down with a new player conduct policy. I'm still not a fan of it, but it's a genuine response. Pro basketball players fire into the air outside the strippie, enter the stands to accost and/or assault paying customers and the ratings decline year in and year out, but they have a fancy dress code.

Am I missing something here? Do I need to start smoking dope? How does any sane person look at that and think David Stern is the best commissioner in sports today? So what if the NBA runs a tighter ship than hockey or baseball? Is the constant struggle to attain mediocrity now what a person ought to aspire to?

Here's a thought: maybe David Stern should have been wondering whether one of his officials might have had a gambling problem. Maybe the Commish should have considered the possibility that an official with an alleged gambling problem might possibly come under the thumb of organized crime figures. And maybe one of his officials with an alleged gambling problem and alleged ties to alleged organized crime figures might allegedly take a hand in altering the outcome of games in which he was officiating.

Unless one can solve that problem with a new dress code, Stern could be in a little bit of trouble on this one. I think he might want to put the World's #1 Sports Commissioner mug on the back shelf for a little while. Before I leave this topic, I want to ask a rhetorical question. Every year the NBA playoffs seem to get worse from a fan standpoint. Is it a coincidence that the NBA championship trophy is the Larry O'Brien trophy and said O'Brien is the boss who was stabbed in the back by David Stern?

In other news, Jon Lester was impressive in his debut. And I don't really care. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that his cancer is in remission. It's just that I wish him good health but professional failure. Also, it doesn't help that I hate the Indians. I had a hard time summoning up the energy to root for them tonight.

Finally, while my people seem to have hit a roadblock in advancing my candidacy for President of Red Sox Nation, it won't stop me from ripping Bill Simmons again tonight. I forgot to mention last week when I linked to his podcast addressing his flap with the Remdawg, Bill Simmons managed to make himself the dean of the Max Mercy Hall of Fame.

Simmons said that he wasn't going to feud with Jerry Remy because he didn't feud with second basemen with a lifetime OPS of less than .660. Which is a pretty damning insult coming from Bill Simmons. Out of curiosity, I went to Baseball Reference to set up one of their statistical comparisons to see what the Sports Guy's lifetime OPS was. And the damnedest thing happened. The comparison engine didn't work. It took me a while to figure out why. Then I realized Simmons never played the game.

If you have read any of my previous posts, you probably know that I live in a very small world. It's basically a cocoon of bitterness and misanthropy. And it takes very little to get that bitterness and misanthropy turned in a given direction. Tonight we have several things that are currently bothering me, and since every day could be Festivus in Sedition in Red Sox Nation Land, it's time for some grievances to be aired.

First, the Scion Sheeple ad campaign is really bothering me.
There are so many problems with them I don't know where to begin. I don't know if the creators of the ads were informed of a salient fact about the Scion line of automobiles. These cars are built in a factory on an assembly line just like any other automobile. Purchasing one does not make you unique, it just makes you a d-bag.

While it is true that Scions are designed to be customized to each driver's order, it is also true that you customize your vehicle with components that are also mass produced. As unique as you may think your Scion is, there are probably thousands just like it all over this great land of ours. And the person who buys and customizes the Scion to suit his/her taste is perhaps a bigger sheep than a person like me who is inclined to purchase a car off a lot because the Scion is being marketed more aggressively to nitwits my age (27) and younger than typical cars.

And if you customize your Scion with parts and accessories that aren't factory approved, you void your warranty just as you would with any other car. So Toyota has you coming and going, selling you a car you can customize only within their parameters on the grounds that they are catering to your taste. It seems to me that car companies already do that with the options packages that can be purchased on various production models. Too bad they didn't think to jazz up their ad campaigns with animated "badasses".

I was stuck on the road coming into Cleveland Circle from Route 9 last night behind a Scion who let an MBTA bus enter the stream of traffic. Can you imagine that? Letting the damn bus go? A vehicle that is slow and makes frequent stops? But I'm a sheep for not purchasing the vehicle for Generation Y. What a world.

Another thing that is bothering me is the commercial for the restless leg syndrome medication. Those ads are usually good for a laugh when the voice over actor reads the list of side effects. This was no exception. Some of the side effects include drowsiness while driving and increased sex urges, which seemed fairly incompatible, but then I've never taken any prescription medicines to speak of so I don't know. But the one that really got me laughing was an increased propensity for gambling. I'd never seen anything like that.

But then I got to thinking, is the FDA asleep at the switch? How is it a good idea to let people who can't fall asleep because they have the jimmy-legs (a nice Seinfeld reference, even if it is the episode where Sarah Silverman guest-starred) take pills that will put them to sleep while they're driving to Vegas or Atlantic City or the nearest Native American gaming facility to blow all their money on the slots and hookers so they can't afford to buy the damn restless leg medication for a second go round? Doesn't that seem like a horrible combination of public safety menace and modern tragedy? If some victim of restless leg syndrome with a lady of the evening riding shotgun runs me down in the Mohegan Sun parking lot next time I'm down there, rest assured that I will be pissed (provided, of course, that I survive).

Another thing that is bothering me is a gossip column calling Zach Braff a cad. First, it's not the Roaring 20s. That word left the vernacular not long after Woodrow Wilson left the White House. What else did the thesaurus offer for that one? Bounder? Wolf? And I have to tell you that with a gun to my head and the demand that I provide a three letter adjective to describe Zach Braff, cad wouldn't be the first word that flashed through my mind.

I don't really care that the gossip industry is calling him names. I do care about people trying to revive words that were best left in the era of silent films. If people like me don't stand up for contemporary words, then next thing you know they'll be trying to revive mountebank and poltroon. It will be as though we were trapped in an endless loop of those cartoons where Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck threw down with each other, only without the sparkling wit.

Finally, the Jerry Remy vs. Bill Simmons feud is grinding my gears, to borrow a phrase from Peter Griffin (I linked the deadspin version because the comments are pretty damn funny). While any kind of civil unrest in Red Sox Nation should theoretically make me smile, it bothers me because I didn't start it. It kind of makes me feel like Butters as Professor Chaos from South Park. It also annoys me because I find myself agreeing with the Remdawg, and that is never a good thing.

It was somewhat amusing that Remy shredded Simmons' application for president of Red Sox Nation (not that I considered the Sports Guy a threat to my candidacy, since his wife keeps him confined to LA). It was also entertaining to hear some one crush Simmons for being a hipster dufus, and a sycophantic hipster dufus to boot. Even if it had to be the Remdawg.

And it must have hurt Bill somewhere deep down in his heart to have Remy rip him, since I can't remember Simmons do anything but fawn over the current broadcast tandem. It also must have hurt the Remdawg, who loves to be fawned over more than anything else in the world, except maybe that garish green shag carpet-covered tool they call Wally.

You can listen to Simmons' heart to heart with Mike Wilbon if you can stomach his response to the Remdawg. The only consolation in this sordid mess is that I'm pretty sure Gus Johnson can't broker the peace between Remy and Simmons the way he channeled Art Garfunkel and served as a bridge over the troubled waters between Simmons and Isiah Thomas.

Which brings me to another point I hadn't really intended to make tonight. But am I the only person in the free world not under the influence of Gus Johnson. He sucks as an announcer. So what if he has a high energy level? A giddy dbag is still a dbag.

If you've been reading this space regularly, I think you probably know that I hate Barry Bonds by now. And if you haven't, then I guess I ruined the surprise. But every once in a great while, a writer of such talent, perspicacity and eloquence comes along and makes me think for a fleeting moment that I ought to reconsider my opinion of the man who will hold the MLB record for most home runs hit over the course of a career any day now.

Tonight, that writer is Jay Mariotti. I know I spend a great deal of time in a blog that is supposed to be about my hatred for the Boston Red Sox ripping a "man" who writes for a newspaper 1,000 miles from Boston. Sometimes I almost feel badly about it, but then I read his columns and I grieve for Chicago. Mariotti's recent piece that comes dangerously close to being about something but degenerates into an incoherent rant about Bonds is more a cry for help than anything else.

I know I'm no stranger to an incoherent rant in this blog. But I'm generally drunk when I post jibberish, and I usually apologize for it. Also, this site is free. I don't get paid for it. I don't have any ads to click. So I think I have the right to criticize people who are paid handsomely to do a job and who are covered by an editing staff yet somehow manage to submit disgusting mishmashes of sentence fragments and run-ons for profit.

I wonder why an organization like NOW hasn't noticed that Mariotti is as capable of sexism as any figure they've protested recently. If I started a post with a line like: "Swollen ankles? What is he, pregnant?," I imagine I would get some nasty comments back, but Mariotti's piece was published in a big city daily. Where was the righteous indignation?

What worries me is that Cubs fans are signing petitions and hoping that Mark Cuban wins the bidding process for ownership of the team. You know how I know that Mark Cuban isn't the answer to the Cubs' problems? Jay Mariotti thinks it would be great if Mark Cuban bought the Cubs.

Considering the fact that the Mavericks have not only won every NBA title since Mark Cuban purchased the team but have managed to scrape together 3 Super Bowls, 4 Stanley Cups (they might have had the 5th if not for the lockout) and a runner-up finish in the English Premier League, Cuban will bring 5 or 6 World Series championships to Chicago from jump street. Or maybe I'm the one that thinks an epic collapse in an NBA Finals and a quick exit at the hand of the eight seed the following year isn't much of a resume. Cuban is a shameless self-promoter, not a winner.

Yes, Mariotti loves Cuban now. Just wait until that day when the Benefactor brings his act to Chicago. Mariotti will be the first guy to rip him for acting like a spoiled 3 year old when the Cubs end up on the business end of a close call. Or wait until Cuban can't get into a nightclub and acts like one of the princesses from My Super Sweet 16 when she finds out that Cindy down the block is having a more expensive party.

That's probably why Mariotti wants Cuban to buy the Cubs. That means at least 15 columns a year without any thought on the part of the writer. That's like catnip to a writer of Mariotti's eminence. I don't think a writer owes it to a city to root for its teams, but I do think I writer owes it to himself to be honest about his motives.

I really wish I didn't have to keep saying the same things over and over again, but Cuban can't be allowed to purchase the Cubs. Plus I'm sure John Henry is in favor of Cuban buying a franchise. That way there will be at least one owner who is a bigger tool than Henry with his quaint little Howard Hughes mania for cleanliness. I couldn't begin to think of an executive who would be a bigger waste of oxygen than Larry Lucchino, so I don't know who Cuban's right-hand man will be.

This story arc is taking the jam out of my doughnut, and that's not cool. The Red Sox lost again to the Royals, dropping two out of three to KC. And the Yanks beat Toronto, picking up yet one more game. I should be much happier than I am.

On the plus side, Dave Chapelle said his recent trip to the ER was due to exhaustion. Perhaps it's not as easy to bear the burden of being one-fifteenth as funny as you think you are as I thought. I'm not going to lie, I did like the first two seasons of his show on Comedy Central. And I didn't care one way or the other when he left the way he did. It was his business.

But when I saw him on Inside the Actor's Studio, that was it for me. For a guy whose credits are very meager, Dave Chapelle is an arrogant, obxious dude. My first problem is that there was no mention of the very prominent role Dave Chapelle played in Robin Hood Men in Tights. And the complaints that the studio turned Half Baked into a weed movie for kids didn't sway me. Even if it were the Citizen Kane of weed movies before the studio bastardized it for mass consumption, that doesn't mean the movie deserved to exist in its own right. If you don't want your movie to be altered, don't sell it.

If I seem a little more unpleasant than usual tonight, you'll have to bear with me. Believe it or not, I'm not too bothered by the tremendous performance by Kaison Gabbard tonight. So what if he allowed 3 hits and threw the team's second complete game of the season. It was the Royals, who aren't exactly the 1927 Yankees.

It's just that I had a rough day. I woke up with a massive hangover, a sunburn and a head cold. All of which serve me right for drinking in the sun when I had a cold, but I don't have to be happy about it. It's always good to be the only guy with a cold when it's 90 degrees and sunny. People look at me as though I had tuberculosis or something, as though I were Doc Holiday. Bad times.

I do have a tool of note segment for you. I don't know if you've heard about this chump, but an English tool (seems a bit redundant, no?) swam a kilometer at the North Pole in a speedo. Of course he made a spectacle of himself for completely altruistic reasons. He wanted to alert world leaders to the harsh realities of climate change. The fact that a bald 37 year old English explorer could only get on worldwide TV for some idiotic stunt like this or having several freezers full of human remains probably had nothing to do with it.

This guy seems like he's bucking for archtool status. In no particular order, here are some of his major malfunctions: he has a mind coach, his nickname is the Polar Bear, he's an explorer and he's a grandstanding jackass. If there were any justice in this world a real polar bear would have shown up and mauled him for calling himself (or allowing himself to be called, which is just as bad) the Polar Bear. Unless you're a gargantuan physical specimen like Paul Bunyan you have no business with a nickname like that. So what if he swims in polar climes. Call him the Penguin or the Seal if Batman fans object.

I still can't get over the fact that he has the minerals to call himself an explorer in the 21st century. What is he exploring? It's all been explored. I thumbed through the atlas I have at the house. I didn't see a lot of blank spaces on any of the maps. No terra incognita or hic sunt dracones areas. I have to say, if you're the 23,457th person to find the headwaters of the Nile, you're not an explorer, you're a tourist.

Global climate change is a serious problem, I don't want to give the impression that I don't believe in global warming. But for all the good that one loser in a speedo swimming a kilometer at the geographic North Pole is going to do, he might as well have started a tire fire. After all, I might have missed the story, but I don't think President Bush and the 2/3 majority of the US Senate came storming in to work this morning to get the Kyoto Protocol back on the table and ratify the hell out of it. Somehow, I don't think Dick Cheney's staff had to wrestle the VP to the ground to stop him from divesting his shares in Haliburton and other energy conglomerates.

Maybe it's just me, and I'm cynical and mean and wrong on this thing, but what was the eco-footprint of this tool's mission to swim in the North Pole? Did he and his posse travel up there in a tall ship, sailing as though it were the 1840s? Or did they sail up there in a big, smelly, messy diesel powered behemoth belching carbons into the atmosphere to prove a point about global warming? If that is the case, this guy is definitely an archtool. Other, lesser tools should have to kiss this guy's ring when they meet him.

In other unrelated matters, the guy I go to for my Red Sox info tells me that I can't even begin to mount a candidacy for President of Red Sox Nation unless I see at least one game at Fenway this season. I am always willing to go some place where I can sit outside and drink beer and eat unhealthy food. Even if that means sitting amongst 36,000 people who would be very unhappy with me if they knew that I am the author of Sedition in Red Sox Nation. Can you imagine how many pieces of pizza would be hurled in my direction each time I turned my back?

But my source offered me a ticket for a game in the not too distant future and I can't use it. I can't use it because another friend called me late Thursday night while I was in Connecticut and drinking Bud Lights to invite me to a backyard party well north of the Charles River. And me being the nice guy that I am, I turned the ticket down. I wish I weren't such a good person.

And in even more unrelated matters, I was shocked recently to see that Lindsey Lohan is going around recommending The Prince by Machiavelli. It's even more surprising now that the news is coming out that she is having all kind and manner of trouble over some nude pictures that were apparently stolen from some ex-boyfriend's computer. Not being a big fan of the Italian Renaissance, I don't keep a copy of The Prince on my bedside table, but I imagine that Machiavelli would not be blackmailed by some tools running a celebrity gossip website. I think old Niccolo would be down there kicking some ass and clunking heads together as though he were Moe from the Three Stooges. Or at the very least hatching underhanded schemes to ruin people's lives.

Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight as I watched portions of the Red Sox game against the Blue Jays, I couldn't help but hear Jerry Remy talking about his status as lame-duck president of Red Sox Nation. Apparently, there is an election which will be held to fill that void. And what would an election be without a dissenting voice?

I say some concerned citizen of Red Sox Nation should nominate me. I can't nominate myself because that's just pathetic. But I could elevate the discourse in this election. I could be like Lyndon LaRouche, but sane. Or Ross Perot, but taller, bigger and with proportionately sized ears. I could bring a lot to the table, trust me. Hell, I've only horrifically insulted one of the New England states, Cambridge and Brookline in the last week.

The only drawback I see is that I'm not currently a citizen of Red Sox Nation, but I have some clever people working with me who can figure out a way for me to be a citizen of RSN without divulging my secret identity. I do think that with a concerted effort from a grass-roots movement, I could get on the ballot without being a citizen. After all, Red Sox Nation is more a brutal tyranny than a democracy.

Between blowing through screen doors as though I were the Kool-Aid man and waging one-man wars against Cambridge, Brookline and Connecticut, I have found myself too busy over the last two weeks to criticize some of the old familiar enemies of this space. For too long, Bill Simmons, Dan Shaughnessy and Mark Cuban have been able to vomit up ignorance into the punch bowl we all share whilst the general populace is all too willing to call it alphabet soup and move on. Believe it or not, despite what that last sentence and my track record would have you believe, I'm not drunk. It's just a complicated paraphrase of a great line from an episode of NewsRadio.

Tonight, it's time to criticize the Benefactor one more time. I never got around to saying this at the time he elected to tell the world about his colonoscopy (as I was disappointed in the complete lack of discretion on his part), but I found it surprising. Not just the over-sharing, but for what the doctors apparently didn't find. I would have bet good money (Hell, I would have bet internal organs and wound up in a bathtub full of ice down a kidney) that the doctors would have found Mark Cuban's head right there in his colon. Alas, the search continues.

The reason I feel compelled to criticize the Benefactor tonight is simple. Mark Cuban has submitted an application to Major League Baseball for the right to bid on the Chicago Cubs. No matter what anyone tells you about Persian restaurants and excessive heat, that rumor is what made all those people sick at the Taste of Chicago festival the other day.

The city of Chicago is the second-best city in the world, right behind Boston. I like the Bears. Antoine Walker is from Chicago. Hell, I even like the Cubs. To me, the Cubs represent everything that the Red Sox never were. The Cubs and their fans dealt with losing longer than Red Sox Nation, and they deal with it still. But they bear it with class and dignity. The Boston Red Sox and their fans have yet to bear anything with class or dignity.

One never hears Cubs fans raise a cheer of "Cardinals Suck" the way Red Sox fans chant "Yankees Suck" at the drop of a hat. Cubs fans don't resent the fact that the Cardinals have been more successful than their team. Instead, they pity Cardinals fans for being from Missouri. Chicagoans know that St. Louis has a brewery and an arch and little else on which to hang its hat. I admire Cubs fans for that.

The last thing the fans in Chicago need is for Mark Cuban to purchase the Cubs. Can you imagine how he would comport himself on a stage as big as that? He very likely would morph into Commodus from Gladiator and show up at Wrigley in that white suit of armor that Commodus wore to the arena in the film's final scene. 81 times a year, Wrigley would become a zoo, a place to see and be seen rather than a place to watch a game. Basically, it would become Fenway West.

Furthermore, I don't view the Mavericks as an NBA success story. It is undeniable that Dallas was a doormat before Cuban purchased the team. Now the road to the NBA title goes through, or more precisely over, the Mavericks. However, in professional sports, second place is king of the losers. And the Mavs haven't won it all. Nor do they show any sign that they will any time soon. The Benefactor has yet to address his team's fatal flaws, and it looks like another great regular season and abrupt exit from the playoffs is in the cards.

Even after every dollar spent and improvement made, the Mavericks really aren't a marquee franchise. Admittedly, they should take consolation from the fact that the four time champion Spurs aren't one either. The NBA lives and dies in New York, Boston, Chicago and LA. The Mavericks and Spurs could win the next 74 NBA titles between them and never produce a moment like Hondo's steal (or Bird's) or Reed gimping out to play against Wilt. It just won't happen.

But somehow through all of that Mark Cuban has earned the right to purchase a Major League baseball icon? Dallas is a third-rate city. It has Nieman Marcus and the Cowboys and some oil companies growing fat off gouging the rest of us. Chicago is a whole different animal. If he buys the Cubs he has to win or face a media storm not seen since Jay Mariotti was a child.

Let's say the Benefactor buys the Cubs and turns them into a perennial playoff team, but never wins it all. Obviously it won't taint his legacy, since Mark Cuban, for all his wealth and prominence, doesn't have a legacy. It will, however, be a big disaster for a fan base that has suffered enough.

The one comforting factor in all of this is that there is no way the Cubs will sell for less than $700 million. That means the Benefactor would either have to put nearly half of his net worth on the line or build a consortium to purchase the team. I can't see a consortium putting up with his grandstanding nonsense, so this may all have been a false alarm. Let's hope.

Well, the Red Sox are back in business, and it looks like they're going to beat the Blue Jays tonight. But I have bigger problems on my mind at the moment. For reasons involving personal business, I had to drive to Scarsdale, NY. Unfortunately, in order to get to New York from Boston, one must drive through Connecticut. Connecticut is like Disneyland (the happiest place on Earth) in the same way that JD Drew's stats are comparable with A Rod's.

Among the many problems with the great state of Connecticut is the fact that it's spelled differently than it sounds. I understand that it come from a Native American word which I am sure means 9,000 square mile waste of space. But why do we pronounce it Conneticut? Why doesn't every one say Connecticut? Maybe there is an inherent logic to the process that only residents of Connecticut understand. But Massachusetts is pronounced in the same manner in which it is spelled, and if it's good enough for Massachusetts, you better believe that it's too good for CT.

Then there is the fact that every single highway in Connecticut looks like Patton's Third Army rolled over it during the winter campaign to relieve Bastonge. I think I saw a minivan swallowed up by a pothole on I-95 outside of New Haven. It kind of makes you wonder why there is always road construction in Connecticut yet they never have a decent road. Yeah, the Big Dig turned out to be a big mess but if they tried that type of project in a city in Connecticut, can you honestly tell me that they would have anything left of said city save for a big sinkhole? Come to think of it, maybe that's what happened to Hartford.

Also, come to think of it, can any one explain to me how Connecticut got to be the Constitution State? My American history might be a little rusty, but as far as I know Delaware was the first state to ratify the US Constitution. The USS Constitution was built in Boston. Yeah, there was a compromise at the Constitutional Convention associated with the Connecticut delegation. But do you really want to steal Delaware's thunder for your state license plate caption? Even the Spirit of
American is better and more germane and it's a beat slogan.

But the worst thing about Connecticut is that 90% of the people should either be locked up or deported for the good of the Republic. For the love of God, just because I have Massachusetts plates and I happen to pass you on the highway, that doesn't make it a personal challenge. Of course I think I'm better than you. I am better than you. I'm from Massachusetts and you're from Connecticut. Hell, homeless people in the slums of Minsk are better than most Connecticut people. I say this with apologies to the handful of friends I have in the great state of Connecticut. You, of course, are the exception that proves the rule.

Well, the Major League Baseball All Star game was held this evening in San Francisco, and I watched maybe 1/2 hour of it. And I barely paid attention to the brief portion of the game that I watched. I don't know who won, and quite frankly, I don't care. It matters little to me what league wins.

Of course it matters to Red Sox fans because they know that the Sox are all but in the Fall Classic as we speak, so they need to plan for the possibility of four home Series games. They needn't even worry that their two big boppers have combined for fewer home runs than Alex Rodriguez, whose numbers are comparable to JD Drew's. They needn't even worry that Mike Lowell could have an anxiety attack if he's expected to get a clutch hit on the road. This season is over.

Today was all about learning things that I already knew over again in painful fashion. As a general rule, I never go to Cambridge. The city is overrated. The bars and restaurants are no better than what you find on the good side of the Charles River. The people are more arrogant with less justification than Bostonians, and if they knew 1/3 about anything of what they profess to know about everything, then truly each and every one of them would be a Socrates. And to borrow a line from James Madison, Cambridge would still be a madhouse.

I have a corollary to that rule which states that if you must go to Cambridge, never have a specific time at which you must arrive at your destination. Tonight, as I attempted to get from point A to Cambridge, I found myself stuck behind several morons. As you who read this space should know by now, I have a series of tests to tell who is and who is not a moron.

One way to tell who is a moron is to see if they have a radio station sticker on their car. Any person who does is likely to be a moron. If they have a WBCN sticker the odds go up. If they have two WBCN stickers, the odds go through the roof. And if one of the two BCN stickers commemorates the fact that said station broadcasts the New England Patriots, one would need multiple advanced degrees, a Nobel or a Pulitzer or corresponding award for academic or creative eminence to escape the status of moron.

Another way to tell who is a moron is to be stuck behind a column of people who are yielding to Canada Geese on the damn Riverway. I do not endorse cruelty to animals, but if I have a choice between scattering a gaggle of geese and getting rear-ended by some nitwit in a work truck who's been drinking since 3 PM, let's just say I'm going through the geese. Letting them cross the street only encourages them to keep doing it. Canada Geese aren't cute. They're filthy, belligerent and a public health menace. The people ahead of me should have ran them down and dealt with the moral, legal and automotive consequences, leaving me free to go about my business.

And another variety of moron is the Red Sox fan. I was stuck behind a BMW with a Red Sox license plate bracket as I tried to make my way down Broadway in Cambridge. THis person was hell bent on missing every single light possible. The ultimate driving machine was not being driven very well in that instance. And then the last type of moron is yours truly for breaking sensible rules.

And as if Cambridge weren't bad enough, then there is Brookline. After my business among the Cantabrigians was concluded, I went looking for a place to eat in Brookline. Alas, for me, it happened to be 10:00, and one cannot allow restaurants to serve food to customers after 10:00 whilst preserving the curious blend of urban and suburban, academic and blue-collar atmospheres that make up the rich pastiche that is Brookline.

Give me a break. Of course it's my fault for going to Brookline and for being too lazy to get back into my whip and drive to a saner community for a better, cheaper meal. That said, don't go to the Beacon Street Tavern. I spent a week there tonight. First, the kitchen closes at 10, so one must eat off of the late night menu or else go hungry. I wish I had gone hungry.

The sliders weren't bad, but they weren't $14 good either. The service wasn't bad, but the place was beat. First, 3/4 of the menu was inedible, at least from my point of view. They had a lot of appetizers with things I just won't eat. Like beets and goat cheese. I ate more beets as a child than I really needed to, and I only ate the ones my parents forced me to eat. With God as my witness, I will never eat beets again. And if goat cheese were really so great, why would people go to cows for their milk and cheese needs?

But the real problem was the clientele. There was the dude in a Bud Light shirt and a throwback Red Sox hat, drinking white wine and chatting up a blond at the bar while he scratched his back. I'm guessing he didn't get the signal to swing away tonight. Then there was the guy talking about how he did yoga and meditated before he came out for a beer. I want to party with him.

But this is supposed to be a sports related blog, so I thought I would pass on this link sent to me by my man up on the frozen tundra in Maine. It's a freelance piece comparing the most recent edition of the Boston Celtics with the 2002 conference finalist. It basically makes different points to argue that Ainge bites as a GM and ought to be removed from office. It's nice to see someone else feels that way too.

And then, I have to pass this on. Antoine Walker was robbed at gunpoint, again. This time it was in his house, as opposed to on a street in Chicago's South Side at 4 in the morning. No word yet as to whether Danny Ainge and Banner 17 were involved. After all, it does seem like the only way they'll get their hands on a championship ring. Of course I'm kidding about that last part, I just don't see why people can't leave my man alone.

And when the going gets tough in NASCAR, guess whose drivers can't share the limelight as teammates? Would you believe it was Roush Fenway Racing? Apparently, Kyle Bush was edged out of his win by his own teammate, Jamie McMurray. Just one of my many problems with NASCAR is that a sport must either be an individual sport or a team sport. It can't be both. So I don't care what the drivers do to their teammates except for when it gives me a chance to run down one of John Henry's business ventures.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this was a very good weekend. With a family wedding, bachelor party and a golf match I haven't spent much time sober over the last several day, hence the lack of posts. God knows, the times I have posted while intoxicated haven't worked out for me. I'm rambling, incoherent and hostile and it kills my traffic.

But I predicted that the Red Sox would have a lot of trouble handling the Detroit Tigers should they meet in the postseason. I believe that the Tigers have better pitching and a deeper offense. And there's always Gary Sheffield who seems to take a personal interest in seeing the Red Sox suffer. It was nice to see them sweep the
BoSox this weekend, or at least to know that they swept the Sox since I missed the games Saturday and Sunday.

I think this picture of our dear friend Jonathan Papelbon proving himself a better match for an inanimate object like the water cooler than he was for the Tigers lineup sums up the weekend.

It will probably sum up the season for the Red Sox when it all ends in tears (to paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). The Red Sox are great bullies, they can front run with the best of them, but they have problems when a team isn't intimidated by Tito's tools.

But the wedding was far more interesting than any mere baseball game. I got smashed beyond all possible recognition. The wedding reception was held at the bride's house, which was surprisingly less disastrous for the most part. Right up until the shots of Irish Mist, Bailey's and Bushmills got together and took me down, I was doing fine. Of course when they did get together, I ended up chasing the bride's young cousin who took my suit coat and shook me down for $10 to get it back.

I didn't want to pay him, so I tried to chase after him to get it back. Unfortunately, I managed to blow through the screen door on the bride's deck. I broke through it as though I were the Kool Aid Man crashing through the wall. Unfortunately, I did not have the presence of mind to shout "Oh Yeah" as I blew through the door. I was also informed that I managed to insult two or three of the bride's cousins.

Even better, the two people who ended up stuck driving me home were reluctant to do so because they were afraid that I was going to vomit in their car. I answered them as I staggered and swayed as though I were out with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg when the three weather systems collided to form the perfect storm that I had eaten a full pizza and a plate of chicken which the bride's sister cut up for me as though I were a small child. My rationale was that I had at least 35-45 minutes before I'd throw up and it was only a ten minute ride. For the record, I never threw up. I held my liquor, I might not have handled it well but I held it.

Of course I didn't know this until this morning when a few of the other wedding guests told me what I had done and said as they laughed at me. I had the feeling I did something colossally dumb because I had to drive over to the bride's house to pick up somethings I'd left behind. As I turned down the street to get to the house, I had that creepy, horror movie type feeling that I was walking into the scene of a crime.

Then when I got there, the maid of honor (who turned out to be the one who cut the chicken for me) informed me that I owed them a new screen. Thankfully, the bride's cousin, the diary farmer from Ireland managed to repair the screen. And when I ran into the bride's cousins whom I insulted, they accepted my apology and said it wasn't a big deal. It could have been much worse. I expected when I woke up and realized that there were large chunks of the late hours which I couldn't account for, I fully expected someone to throw a beating on me because I am, as my mother says, an obnoxious drunk. So this was a good weekend in Cincinnati Kid Land.

In a recent comment about my last post, a reader took issue with my criticism of the Red Sox for failing to come back to win more than one game in their final at bat this season. His rationale was that the stat itself was not particularly useful. As he said most teams lose in that situation. Now, I tend to pay surprisingly little attention to what I say from one post to the next, but I'm pretty sure that I said that I expected the Sox to lose much more than they win when they trail after 8, but I could be wrong. Stranger things have happened, like America's prosecutor Fred Thompson turning out to have been a mole undermining his committee's case during the Watergate investigation.

I do, however, believe that it is a relevant stat. The playoffs are an entirely different dynamic than the regular season. Should the Red Sox encounter the Detroit Tigers in an opening round series, for instance, they will face a team with better starting pitching and a deeper offensive lineup. To beat a team that is as good as your squad, you need to be battle-tested. Beating the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, even with Wakefield on the mound doesn't make count.

When you consider the fact that the Red Sox have come back in their last at bat to win a game only once this season and that it was against the Baltimore Orioles and that the game in question was the catalyst for the epic losing streak that cost the manager his job, this Red Sox team ceases to impress. Let's not forget that the travesty in 2004 was built on late inning rallies, prevailing against the odds and Kevin Millar being the single dumbest human being to escape a Darwin award.This current edition of the Boston Red Sox has yet to prove that it has heart, guts, balls or any other anatomical feature that can stand in for constancy, courage or any of the other cardinal virtues in a half-assed metaphor. They just might want to do that before all of the chips are down.

Of course, I suspect that my reader is lashing out at me to exercise his angst that the Celtics have compensated for their lack of success by whoring out the image and likeness of Red Auerbach so that Adidas can throw his face on some special basketball shoes. I think that just clinched the Rookie of the Year and multiple MVP awards for Jeff Green. As though Red weren't suffering enough in his twilight years between Banner 17 gutting the team and adding cheerleaders, now they have to make his stay in the afterlife unpleasant?


But back to Red Sox fans. On Sunday, the guy who comes to me with his Red Sox info (my own personal answer to questions I've never asked) came into my home. Where I sleep. Where I come to play with my toys. And he was sickeningly full of that which makes the grass grow green. The Red Sox game was on, JD Drew was coming to the plate and he hit me with the buzz kill.

He got into the classic Red Sox fan argument position, thrust his chin forward as though he were capable of bringing the pain should the situation require it and said in his big boy voice that if I were to look at the numbers over the course of his career, JD Drew's stats were comparable with A Rod's. On some level, I imagine that they are comparable. In the same way that a kick in the groin is comparable to a steak dinner.

As we live and breathe, Alex Rodriguez is batting .314 with 28 HR and 80 RBI. JD Drew is breathing down his neck with a robust .261 batting average, an awe-inspiring 6 home runs and 33 RBI. I'm not a mathematical genius, but I don't think those statistics are comparable at all, except of course by our old friend the inequality.

Now, I imagine I would be irresponsible if I were to allow the fact that I just used a very small sample size to contrast the performance of two ten year veterans. So here you go, sticklers for statistical accuracy, go to Baseball Reference and tell me their career numbers are comparably in the good way. JD Drew has only just managed to hit more home runs in his entire career than A Rod hit as a member of the Texas Rangers. A Rod has batted in nearly three times as many runs as JD Drew managed to this point. The fact that A Rod has played 800 more games than Drew isn't enough to offset the fact that A Rod has 330 more career home runs than Drew and is only two years older.

Of course, this is a guy who maintains that Jim Rice was the most feared right handed hitter of his era. And he defends his position when one mentions Mike Schmidt by pointing out that Rice had a much higher batting average. Which is true, although it leaves out the fact that Schmidt played in a much bigger ball park against the National League (which was the stronger league at the time) and with a dead spot in the lineup where the pitcher batted. And it also leaves out the fact that Schmidt his 160 more home runs than Rice did in 400 more games. All while playing a much more demanding defensive position and winning Gold Gloves. Jim Rice might belong in a Hall of Fame, but it just isn't the one in Cooperstown.

What bothers me most about my friend tormenting me with his Red Sox absurdities is that he lacks a sense of honesty and even worse irony where the local nine are concerned. JD Drew's numbers might compare favorably with A Rod's when you throw in all kind and manner of qualifiers and modifiers to adjust for the fact that JD Drew has only a slightly smaller chance of becoming the next pope than he does of finishing a season. But qualifying and modifying stats undercuts the argument in the first place. It's like saying that if grasshoppers were armed with automatic weapons, they wouldn't be on the bird's dinner menu.

As for the sense of irony, I seem to remember A Rod as the villain in the il-conceived farce that is Red Sox Nation. I am constantly being told that A Rod is the embodiment of all that is wrong in baseball today and when so inclined, he eats unattended children for a light snack. But it's OK to pay a right fielder $14 million to hit .260 with 6 home runs and 33 RBI because his numbers can be compared to A Rod's? Maybe I'm missing the facility for intellectual dishonesty and mental gymnastics that enables a man to be a Red Sox fan, but I just can't buy it.

Before I sign off, I have to weigh in on the Boston Pops performance this evening. I have a bachelor party, a golf game and a wedding in the next three days, so I don't know when I'll get another chance to post. And if I do get the chance to post in that time, I'm sure that I will be past the point where I can blog coherently. So it's now or never.

I must say, I was colossally disappointed with the concert. From the get-go, I didn't see the point of the whole set up. Why John Cougar Mellencamp? I am not one of the Bill Simmons disciples who found the Sports Guy's cute little epigrams mocking Our Country particularly piquant. I hate the song, but no more or less than any other song appearing in an overexposed commercial campaign. But why is he coming back?

I try to keep my political views distinct from my aesthetic judgements. I don't care that John Cougar Mellencamp has become a darling of the anti-war movement. That doesn't change the inherent merits (or utter lack-thereof) of his music. Mellencamp was a very inferior Midwestern version of Bruce Springsteen, in much the same way as Jon Bon Jovi is a very, very inferior New Jersey knock-off of the Boss. His music was (and is) blue collar, but generic, cliched and without the thinking-man rebel's edge one can find Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, the River and the rest of Springsteen's music. In short, John Cougar is basically Bill Simmons to Bruce Springsteen's F. Scott Fitzgerald.

But enough on John Cougar. During the fireworks display, there were various recordings played over the loudspeaker system. Rest assured, I am scandalized with that decision on two levels. First, nobody went to the Esplanade or turned their TVs on to see some tool's i-Pod. The damn Boston Pops could have learned/rehearsed 3-4 more songs (or is an orchestra of that eminence confined to using selection to refer to the material they play?), after all it's not like this was an impromptu gig. The Fourth of July happens every year. Right in the same spot on the calendar too, not like Labor Day which skulks its way through that first week of September.

In addition to being scandalized by the fact that the Pops let recorded music be played at their signature concert, I was also deeply disappointed by some of their choices. Kenny Chesney was on the play list, and while he might be elevated in the esteem of New Englanders because he rocks a Red Sox hat from time to time, it doesn't change the fact that his music is shallow and childish even for a country singer. I could have done without the Sesame Street theme as well, but such is life.

Far worse, in the collection of "patriotic" music played throughout the program, the Battle Hymn of the Republic didn't make the cut. Of course very few songs manage to offend the real core of America the way that song does. For Southerners and racists, it calls to mind places like Antietam, Gettysburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg and Appomattox, and God forbid we hurt their feelings. And then the overt religious sentiments of the song offend Massachusetts residents who wear their atheism as a badge of honor. But we did have 3, maybe 4 different George M. Cohan selections. Kind of warms the cockles, doesn't it?

And finally, I found myself wondering what a British soldier might have felt seeing the Middlesex Volunteers march onto the stage at the beginning of the festivities. I'm betting that a member of the Queen's Own Closet Case Grenadiers must wonder why his great-great-great-grandfather lit out running so fast from a rabble like that in Concord. And in case you're wondering, I am, in fact, aware that John Cougar Mellencamp has dropped the Cougar from his stage name, but I'm not going to let him get away with that.

All that, and I didn't even take the CHB to task for acting like he's broken a story on Julio Lugo's offensive struggles.

Every once in a great while, the devastatingly perceptive announcing tandem of Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo manages to unearth a nugget that almost makes it worth my while to suffer through a game that they're covering. This afternoon was one of those times. Thanks to their stats gurus and fact checkers, I do not have to expend any effort to tell you that the Red Sox are currently 1-28 when trailing after 8 innings.

That news made my weekend considerably brighter. Perhaps, if you are a member or fan of this incarnation of the Boston Red Sox, you can find a reason to dismiss that stat. At that point, you might even be willing to believe that JD Drew, Julio Lugo and Coco Crisp are merely lulling the opposition into a false sense of security with their inferior performance at the plate. And that it's not a bad sign that Texas beat up on Josh Beckett yesterday. Of course, since I am not a Red Sox fan, I am free to look at events as they unfold untainted by a compulsion to whitewash the team's blemishes and imperfections.

Many things will end up haunting the Red Sox when they bow out of the playoffs almost before the postseason has begun. I think the fact that Alex Cora and that kid from Pawtucket whose name I might just learn should he get another start for the Sox were playing in the rubber game of a series whilst a 10 million dollar duo (Crisp and Lugo) warmed the bench should stun and dismay the citizens of Red Sox Nation. But that's just me.

I think what will bother Red Sox fans most about this season is that their team whom they have embraced wholehearedly cannot come from behind. Against the Dodgers or the Giants or another NL West team, it won't matter. The National League West doesn't look like it will turn out a serious contender this season. But against a team like the Tigers or the Twins, I think it will send the Red Sox packing early.

I am, or at least I try to be, a rational man. I don't expect that the Red Sox should come from behind to win every game in the late innings. I would probably be as surprised today if I found that the Sox were 28-1 or even 19-10 in late inning comebacks. That's just the way the world works. The Red Sox should be below .500 in that category, considering that every opponent has a pitcher prepared to enter tight games to preserve a victory. Even a few bad teams can have a closer who should end up with 30 saves. So teams with leads should close the deal in the 8th and 9th innings considerably more often than they fall apart.

But to have only come back once all season when the payroll comes out to be in the $140-$150 million range is disgusting. It tells me that this team has next to no character, nor heart. Good teams come back in the 8th/9th innings to help win games. More importantly, champions have to be able to do it. The Red Sox can front run with the best of them. That much is clear, but if they can't win when they're down in the last half of the 9th in Friendly Fenway more often, I'll be providing Red Sox Nation with the lyrics to the Crowded House opus "Don't Dream It's Over" far sooner than the citizens might hope.