It's pretty late on Saturday night. Most people are in bed right now, which is probably a much better idea than a blog post while slightly intoxicated. Perhaps that might be an optimistic estimation of my condition, but there will be no channeling Kellen Winslow II problem tonight. I still wonder sometimes where that came from. I probably should have simply deleted the post, especially since the Sedition in Red Sox Nation Nation numbers about 3 on a good day. No one would have known how serious my drinking problem can be, but that would have been totally dishonest, and honesty is one of my vices.

I haven't had much to say lately. The Red Sox collapse this season has, in a strange way, taken the jam out of my doughnut. Red Sox fans, at least the ones I know, have started taking my calls again. They don't get mad when I ask them if they find any consolation in the haunting lyrics of the magnum opus of 1980s band Crowded House, Don't Dream It's Over. I did get a rise out of one of the Red Sox fans I know who toes the party line (He told me that he would gladly take a 12-7 split in the season series with the Yankees. I thought at the time, but didn't say, that I'd gladly take the Nobel Prize in Literature for this little blog of mine, the one being as likely as the other) about the US Ryder Cup team wilting the way they did.

I know, because a couple of tools told me that the Red Sox have had somewhere on the order of 17 different deals in place which might have brought Roger Clemens to town this year for minimal cost. Alas, none of them were consummated. And the Red Sox faded, finishing in what looks like third place. It's the first time the Sox haven't come in second to the Yanks since 2001, if memory serves. Of course there was the chance that the Sox could have won the AL East last season, but they finished tied with the Yanks who owned the tiebreaker. At the time, a little bit was made of then fact that there was no playoff. There were 19 games for the Sox to make their mark, as long as both teams mad e the playoffs, there was no point to risk an injury to a key player on either side.

While Red Sox fans are watching the DVD of the 2004 crime against humanity, the Yankees have had a chance to rest some people and set their rotation for the upcoming playoffs. I, for my part, don't think they'll win it all this year. I had a dream a couple of days ago where Roger Clemens was putting a pinstriped jersey with the number 27 into a locker. Since I believe in my dreams, I think he'll pitch for the Yankees next season and they'll win the World Series. Just some food for thought. But if Clemens pitches for the Yanks and they win it all in 2007, both of you who read this blog heard it here first.

After another week of college football, some things became clear to me. First, the CHB and Bob Ryan in their capacity as mouthpiece for Tom O'Brien will eventually out Ohio State as a fraudulent number one, since the Buckeyes continually duck America's team in Chestnut Hill. BC beat Maine today. A win so impressive I feel no need to provide for those who missed the game. It's not every day an ACC team outs a 22-0 beatdown on a 1-AA team, but it sees to happen frequently these days.

According to John Powers in the Globe, these games are mutually beneficial. For the small matter of taking a savage beating at a bigger school's hands, a 1-AA team can receive a bribe of a half million dollars or so. This is an important issue to me, as a committed and admitted Notre Dame fan. There has been a lot of talk about how their schedule is comparatively soft. I, for one, resent that allegation. Yes, Notre Dame plays Navy every year and plays at least one other service academy on an annual basis. But the school owes the US Navy a debt of gratitude because the Navy used Notre Dame as an officer training school in WWII, which kept the school from going broke when most of its students enlisted (ND was a small, all male university at the time).

As the talk about Notre Dame's weak schedule mounts, somebody must comment. As I have a very nearly photographic memory and a serious ND fan complex, it might as well be me. Yes, the schools that will face the Fighting Irish over the remainder of the season might not have the best records. But I have combed my memory of ND games since the Gerry Faust era, and I cannot find a single game in which Notre Dame played a Division 1-AA adversary. And yet Notre Dame's impressive comeback against Michigan State looks a lot less impressive since the Spartans did not hold the pass against a much weaker Fighting Illini team today.

Boston College and Notre Dame are both 4-1. But BC has a much more impressive 4-1 record. After all, Notre Dame has beaten 1 ACC team and 3 Big Ten teams, while BC has beaten a few NFL teams and the core of the 2nd Marine Division (the 1st, 3rd and nominally reserve 4th Marine divisions are all hiding from BC by fighting in the current wars). Oh wait, I made a very inappropriate joke to conceal the fact that BC aspires to be the nation's premier Catholic university in the face of a weak curriculum and a fraudulent athletic program that feeds on the weak and aspires to be Notre Dame's rival/equal.