What to think of this World Series? I find myself wondering whether it would be as painful to watch the Red Sox in the World Series if the FOX Network weren't carrying the games. I've mentioned a time or two that I can't abide Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, nor do I know a single person (and I know some contrarian SOBs) who thinks they add any value to the viewing experience.

Maybe it's me, and if I were a Red Sox fan I'd think differently. Maybe the Red Sox relief pitchers forming some sort of one-third assed percussion ensemble routine as their team rallies is really clever and cute and wonderful. I don't know, but it drives me crazy, and I could do without seeing it. But as bad as that was, the good people at FOX had to go and mic the bullpen, so now one can hear it. It was worse than I imagined it to have been when I could only see it.

Now I'm not particularly musical, and the audio doesn't come in well enough for a person of my tonal sensibilities to tell, but I find myself wondering whether Eric Gagne is off beat when the bullpen does its thing. I think we need some intrepid soul to investigate this phenomenon.

In somewhat related matters, I have, in the few times I've mentioned him in this space, been less than kind to Ken Rosenthal, baseball guru of FOX Sports. Of course if he wrote more pieces like this one, calling to our attention the fact that the leader of the independent commission investigating the abuse of performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball is a board member with the Boston Red Sox, I might be inclined to praise him.

First, I don't want to question the legitimacy of the Mitchell Commission. As far as I'm concerned, it's a total fraud, more in the line of an Easter Egg hunt than a witch hunt. Just think for a second how many superstars we firmly believe were using some sort of illicit substance to gain competitive advantage. And has any of the players suspended by the league been a household name? Hell, I bet some of them have close relatives who don't even know they were in the league.

Where an observer like Rosenthal errs is in assuming that because George Mitchell was, many years ago, Majority Leader of the US Senate that he is somehow above the fray and of such eminence that he can clean up the steroid culture instantly. Americans are always of two minds concerning elected officials. When they're in office and responsible for taxes and spending, they can't be trusted, but once they retire for a decade or so, they virtues which no one suspected they have suddenly become apparent.

Of course, we now have the added virtue that Mitchell was a Democrat and thanks to this administration, the Democrats now own integrity and honesty and general, overall moral excellence. Or at least they believe they do, and slightly less than half the nation agrees. That's why Mitchell can be trusted, but no one is mourning the retirement of Bill Frist and there are no ceremonial figurehead posts waiting for Trent Lott. But just wait until the Democrats get the White House and get a chance to create their own controversies, then people will miss Frist and Lott.

Most of the controversy surrounding Mitchell's position came out of the leaked story that Paul Byrd has taken HGH, particularly because of the timing, right before he was to start Game 7 of the ALCS. There are also some coincidences that are difficult to shrug off when one looks at them in this Mitchell mess. Mike Lowell comes to mind.

If you look at his career arc, Mike Lowell's stats dipped significantly from 2004-2005 when the heat was really on baseball. Congress was holding hearings, the media was investigating BALCO and it was the topic of the day. Now that these things have been shunted aside by the NFL and NBA grappling with player conduct issues, the NBA staggering from the Donaghy scandal and the NHL trying to come back from labor nightmares, who remembers that Mike Lowell is back from the statistical dead?

People have made much of the impact Dave Madagan has had on the batting technique of Mike Lowell and how that has turned him around at the plate. I might be overly suspicious by nature, but I'm not sure I buy it. I'm old enough to remember Dave Madagan baseball player, before he became Dave Madagan hitting guru to the mediocre. Madagan wasn't much of a hitter, in fact he was very, very, very, average. Perhaps it's a case of those who can't teach, but I'm not much on old sayings right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, as depressed as I am that the New York Yankees are no longer playing while the Boston Red Sox still linger on in these playoffs, I have a more pressing concern on my mind. In my understanding of the pass interference rules, a defender cannot cover a pass receiver by standing in his face and raising his arms. That seems to me to be the very definition of face guarding.

And yet that is exactly how Jabari Greer covered Terrell Owens in the end zone on the attempted two point conversion which would have tied the game. Of somewhat less importance, that two point conversion would have clinched the victory in my fantasy game this week. It also would have given Buffalo a chance to win their first home Monday Night Football game in 13 years.

Of course if Tony Romo had taken care of the football just once and spared me an interception or the fumble, I would have won and that two point conversion wouldn't have mattered for fantasy purposes. I would still be bent about it, as anything that adversely impacts Terrell Owens is anathema in Cincinnati Kid land. And no matter what happens, next Sunday when the Patriots go down to Dallas, Randy Moss will still be the second best #81 on the field. But I'll explain why I feel Dallas will win this game as the week progresses.

Before I leave aside the NFL for the week, I have two things to say. First, I jinxed Romo and Owens by taunting a close friend whose fantasy game had already been decided by 0.1 points in his opponent's favor. And finally, hopefully this kid Foulk nailing the 53 yard field goal even after that late timeout trick invented by Shanahan earlier this season wiped what we thought was the game winner off the bear will end the trend and the debate.

Other people will be more interested in whether, or perhaps when, Joe Torre posts his resume on Monster.com in the next few days. I felt it was time for a change last season after they got crushed by the Tigers. I just got the feeling as I watched him in the last couple of seasons that he looked tired. That he was managing this team as though it were 1998, and the last six or seven seasons hadn't happened.

The Yankees have an interesting blend of old players and prospects like Hughes, Cabrera and Chamberlain coming on strong. It just might be time for a change, not because Torre is a bad guy, not by a long shot, nor a bad manager. But he's been in one place so long, how could things not stagnate after so long.

Torre has had great success. Even though the Sox are still alive, and he's on his way out the door, it will be a very, very, very long time before any two Red Sox managers match that level of success for that long. It might even require a miracle with this ownership group in place. Hell, one could win 5 straight World Series in Boston and still get fired for wearing his shoes in the cabin of John Henry's yacht or failing to genuflect when the RemDawg walks in the door.

But what am I to do going forward? I don't really want to see these Indians win the title, but for the next few days, I'll root harder for the Indians than I feel comfortable doing. Because anything is better than a Red Sox win. As my friend the Cubs fan said while this nightmare unfolded in the Bronx: "It looks like we're Rockies fans now."

I don't want to see the Dbacks win. Maybe it's a lingering aftertaste from the 2001 World Series. Maybe it's their terrible uniforms. Maybe it's because the last thing a real fan wants to see is the half-assed media circus that would surround the meeting of JD and Stephen Drew should the Sox and Diamondbacks play a World Series. I imagine Joe Buck and Tim McCarver could beat that to death before the first pitch would be thrown.

I'm intrigued at the prospect of who replaces Joe Torre, and I'll be posting on it in some detail in the not too distant future, even if it is after Steinbrenner makes his decision. I'm just too tired tonight. I will sign off with this thought: God help us all should the Pats, Celtics and Red Sox win it all this year. With so many miserable bastards involved in pulling the strings of these ghastly marionettes, this level of success cannot be healthy for the Republic.

It seems strange that Tim Wakefield, who has had ever so much trouble against every opponent he's faced to this point, should go eight depressingly strong innings against the Colorado Rockies but Curt Schilling could barely make it through five against essentially the same lineup. Did the Rockies not get the memo that these things simply do not happen in Fenway? Did they not read the million and one blog posts glorifying the near-no-hitter in Oakland last Thursday? Do they not consult 38Pitches? Inquiring minds need to know the answers to these questions.

Even better, while all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again in Fenway, the New York Yankees were otherwise occupied defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks. The lead is now down to 8 and 1/2 games with just under 100 to play. I haven't heard any snappy banter about what the Sox magic number looks like now. It's funny how the near sweep at the hands of the Athletics took a little of the wind out of the Red Sox sails.

I wonder if I'm the only one who wonders where this team goes from here. If the pitching starts to let this team down, what else is there? Ramirez has picked his game up, as I feared he would. But the rumors that JD Drew had found his stroke again (based on the pair of three run homers he hit in the desert this weekend) appear to have been greatly exaggerated. As I may have mentioned last night, the two broken toys who should have been leading off are locked in mortal combat to see who can dip below the Mendoza line first at the bottom of the order.

Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I can see trouble on the horizon for this team, and I'm not the only one. What if they do run into a couple of weeks worth of bad luck? Will the fact that Tavarez said that Josh Beckett would be on the DL if Beckett had a blister like the one with which Tavarez is currently pitching every start come back to haunt this team? Will the cute little debate about whether Youkilis is faster than Pedroia grow into something more serious should one, the other or both run into a slump? I think these things could happen, but one can't expect the author of Sedition in Red Sox Nation to be particularly objective where the Red Sox are concerned.

I ran across something of interest in the pages of BostonNow today. There was a review of the CHB's latest "opus" Senior Year. I enjoyed the reviewer subtitling the review with this little epigram: "Memoir not very memorable." What surprised me was that the reviewer seemed somewhat surprised that the CHB should submit a lackluster, egocentric and out of touch book and expect his public to pay 25 bucks for the right to read it. That seems like it encapsulates every aspect of his career as author and columnist and all-around D Bag.

Unfortunately, I find myself again compelled to blog briefly about NASCAR. Hendrick Motor Sports has apparently signed the biggest free agent in the history of sports. That's got to be considered triply amazing, given the facts that NASCAR is not a sport, that it outgrew its market share (which is why ratings are declining) and that 90% of sports fans in blue states watch NASCAR for novelty purposes.

Even if Dale Earnhardt Jr should manage to win more than three races in a season (to say nothing of a championship, as one must walk before one can run), he's got a hell of a long way to go to be more than just the son of a famous father. Maybe I'm being unduly harsh, but is there anyone out there who could tell me that he'd be on this circuit if his name were Dale Smith? He's not the biggest free agent in the history of sports.

Little E may bring a large chunk of sponsorship revenue to the Hendrick stable, but it's not as though the team owner has to decide between chassis modifications and putting food on the table. But at the end of the day, he's just another semi-literate redneck driving around an oval filled with semi-literate rednecks. Worse, it seems like he's finishing a lap behind the more talented semi-literate rednecks.

In case tomorrow's game turns into a blowout, either in the good way like tonight (a three-for as they say, since the Sox lost, Big Schill was humiliated and I got to watch Assault on Precinct 13 on FX all at the same time) or in the bad way (where the Sox win), I have something to suggest. As long as you're a COMCAST customer and have access to their free movies OnDemand option, you might want to check out Career Opportunities. It's only available through tomorrow, and it's pretty damn funny. Just a suggestion.

Tonight was a big confidence booster for the Red Sox. So what if the Rockies aren't any good, and so what that they lucked out in not facing Brandon Webb when they played the Diamondbacks. That doesn't mean that even though the Yankees won again tonight the Red Sox shouldn't feel super confident that they're on the right track again. One of Terry Francona's questionable moves worked, apparently proving that there is some truth to the old saying that even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.

Francona dropped Julio Lugo to ninth in the order and batted Dustin Pedroia in the leadoff spot. It was inspired strategery on the part of Tito. After all, it energized the hell out of the Red Sox lineup. When you face the Colorado Rockies in your park and you hold them to one run while scoring two runs of your own, you are onto something.

What might be lost in a mad dash to pat the skipper on the back for this piece of brilliant maneuvering is the fact that the Red Sox have invested more than $12 million of the $143,123,714 the team will pay its players this season on two guys who were each supposed to replace Johnny Damon at the top of the order. And what do they have to show for it but two broken toys?

Coco Crisp is currently batting eighth, and hasn't been asked to hit in the top spot since last season. He is batting .225 and is on pace to get 130 hits and score 84 runs this season. There was a time when the expression all glove, no bat was all the rage in professional baseball. It's just not supposed to be a part of the sport's vernacular in the 21st century, not in the AL, anyway.

Julio Lugo just hit a double, stole a base and scored a run tonight. Apparently being dropped in the order woke him up to his obligations to the team. Prior to the game, Lugo was hitting .215 and on pace to get 139 hits and score 80 runs. Of course since the Sox acquired Lugo prior to the NFL introducing its new personal conduct policy, the Sox could turn a blind eye to any disturbing allegations of character issues from Lugo's past.

Damon's numbers might not be so impressive right now, hitting .260 and on pace to score only 92 runs. But unlike Crisp or Lugo, Damon is trending up right now. Over his last seven games, he's hitting .320. It is true that he makes more than the two combined, but even with nagging injuries, Damon is still batting leadoff and has helped spark the Yankees offensive surge over the last 10 days. Crisp and Lugo are still in a downward spiral, and (coincidentally?) so are the Red Sox.

It's just too bad that the Sox are playing the Rockies and the Giants in Fenway. There is so much that should be giving me hope, but with two comparatively weak opponents, the Red Sox have far more time to iron out the wrinkles in their lineup before they give back enough games to make my ill-advised prediction of the not-too-distant past come true.

Every now and then, I like to do some investigating into weighty matters. And every now and then in the course of these investigations, I find myself confronting a situation that baffles me. For instance, one can purchase citizenship in Red Sox Nation for an annual investment of $9.95. However, if one would like the become a citizen of RemDawg Nation, that dubious honor will cost you $19.95. It's a full ten dollars more expensive per annum to belong to the legion of minions associated with the team's announcer than it is to join the team's official legion of fans? That just doesn't make sense.

Apropos of nothing else I have discussed to this point, here is a link you absolutely have to read. I laughed hysterically for about 15 minutes as I read it. It is a collection of results of bizarre attempts to mail outlandish objects via the US Postal Service.