Weekends just keep on getting better for me, don't they? Next week I am forced at long last to root for the Indianapolis Colts to win a football game. I still hate the Colts, but far less so than I hate this incarnation of the New England Patriots. With each game, I like this Patriots team less and less.

The two images which will linger on longest in my mind from this "game" against the Washington Redskins will be Randy Moss committing offensive pass interference while the officials looked on without discharging their duties and Bill Belichick standing confused at midfield when the game ended and there was no opposing coach waiting to shake hands with him.

Imagine the audacity of Joe Gibbs, resenting the Patriots for scoring 44 points more than were needed to win. He should have been there waiting to congratulate Belichick for being God's gift to professional football. Even if he had to trample over widows and orphans to do it, Gibbs should have been there to render unto Belichick what is Belichick's.

I realize I'm in the habit of quoting or referring to Jimmy Johnson's response to Gerry Faust after the latter complained that Johnson had run up the score on his Fighting Irish team. Johnson's response was terse but to the point, as he said if you don't want to get blown out, then recruit better players. I am of the opinion that the Redskins should have taken steps necessary to ensure that they didn't find themselves on the wrong end of a 52-7 beating. But I don't blame Gibbs for not shaking Belichick's hand.

I am sure that I will be in the minority on this issue, since I am sure the sages of the Boston media like Shaughnessy, Ryan and the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing troglodytes at their rival newspaper will rise to Belichick's defense. After all, the Boston media is exceedingly reluctant to question or criticize the pride of the NFL since they know they are less formidable adversaries for the team owner than certain eccentric heads of state.

Back to the point at hand, I don't blame Gibbs for refusing to shake hands with Belichick after this game. It is true that he could have, and probably should have, done something more to prevent this from happening. That said, I don't remember the portion of the Johnson quote that enjoined the defeated to enjoy their defeat. After all, would Belichick have been the model of graciousness had the situation been reversed? I hardly think so.

It seems strange, after the episode with Eric Mangini at the end of the rgular season last year, to see Belichick the victim of an episode like this. But can one fairly say that Joe Gibbs refusing to meet Belichick at midfield was any more classless than Bleichick leaving Brady in as long as he did, or when he replaced Brady continuing to pass the ball with Castle and Gutierrez? I don't think so, and not just as a Patriot hater but as a general football fan.

I appreciate that it is generally advisable to have a backup quarterback with game experience on hand in the event that the unthinkable should happen to Tom Brady. However, a half dozen completions against a Redskins team that had given up the ghost two and a half quarters before said backup quarterback left the bench aren't going to serve Castle or Gutierrez particularly well should one or the other be pressed into service next week. And it doesn't earn any karma points with the powers that govern the football universe.

But kudos to Joe Gibbs for not worshipping at the altar of Belichick and actually rendering unto him what is due. Going forward, I don't really know what to think yet, about the Colts game next week. I'm not going to make any predictions for a long time, now. I just know I'm rooting for Indy, even if it hurts my soul to root for Manning. And I'm looking forward to the Freeny matchup with Matt Light.

To any Patriots fans who take issue with my claim that the Moss play was offensive pass interference, consider this. What if Terrell Owens had made the same move in a theoretical game in Foxboro? Would you not call for the Norfolk County Sheriff's deputies to haul him off for arraignment for felony assault in Wrentham District Court? Or if Assante Samuel found himself the victim of such a play (even if it is stretching the imagination to the breaking point to picture someone puling a stunt like that without getting a beating to rival that which Bruce Lee threw on the Ohara character in Enter the Dragon from Assante for his trouble), would the fans not demand justice? Or at the very least a flag?

Of late, I've been thinking of the end of Moby Dick. The movie, since I never had the courage to face the book. Captain Ahab stabbed at the white whale from Hell's heart, and fat lot of good it did him. The whale just kept right on swimming. And the World Series is now over. And I have this to say to Red Sox fans: GET FUCKED. But remember, I mean that in the nicest way possible.

I would offer my thanks to the commenter who pointed out that Mike Lowell as a cancer survivor would probably be unlikely to take performance enhancing substances if I were convinced. After all, even the great Lance Armstrong wasn't above suspicion. And look at the roster of baseball players who have been suspended under the terms of the new policy. None of them are super-ripped, to use the technical term.

The point I was trying to make, in case I wasn't clear, is that Lowell's numbers in 2005 declined from what they were in 2004. And it wasn't a small dip. It was almost as though his offensive performance emulated a cartoon character who went over a cliff without realizing it. Perhaps his stats windmilled their metaphorical arms comically before they fell off the way they did. But the fact is that his stats dipped just as the MLB steroids scandal was at its peak and then picked up considerably when the story lost its momentum.

It just struck me as a strange coincidence that this process coincided with his trade to a team with the leader of the steroid witch hunt on its board of directors. 33 isn't tremendously old in this day and age, that's true. But I don't believe that professional athletes can turn back the clock, no matter how talented they are. Particularly if they have grey beards and play for inveterately corrupt franchises.

Thank goodness it rained tonight in Blacksburg, VA. Boston College fans will not have to overtax their meager intellectual capacities to explain why the #2 ranked Eagles were the second best team on the field this evening for 59:10. Unfortunately football games last 60 minutes and Virgina Tech couldn't hold its collective water this evening. If it is any consolation, if the offense plays like this against Ohio State (assuming that the next scare isn't the big one), Boston College won't lose by more than 50.

Fortunately, the second overall ranking in the BCS was not the most fraudulent aspect of BC athletics in the last few weeks. There is this video in parody of the Bud Light Real Men of Genius series contrasting the current miraculous success of Boston College's football program against the failure of ND this season.

In a sense, like Boston College itself, this video is a sickening affront against intellectual honesty.

While it mocks Notre Dame's football tradition, it reveals an inherent jealousy on the part of the BC fan who created it. Yes, Notre Dame hasn't won a bowl game since 1994. But is it better to lose the Orange Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl (twice), the Sugar Bowl and the Gator Bowl than it is to win the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Bowl. It must warm the cockles of a fan's heart to see Fabio present that spray bottle of butter substitute to the winning coach, but I'm an old fashioned sort of guy, I'd rather lose big than win small.At least Notre Dame has made it to a BCS bowl on three occasions. However, with this nice run, BC just might play a game that nets its athletic department a little more than car fare to the game and a canned ham for a change.

For some reason, the creator of this video decided to claim that BC has better Christians than Notre Dame. Perhaps going to an Ignatian evening to say a decade and talk about how a retreat changed your life before visiting a debauch that would make Caligula cringe in the Mods makes you a good Christian, but I must have missed that page in the Baltimore catechism. There are 19 locations on the University of Notre Dame campus which host Eucharistic adoration. By an astonishing coincidence, there are 19 people on the Boston College campus who know what Eucharistic adoration is and 19 roving bands of atheists who would assault any man, woman or child who have adored the Blessed Sacrament.

Notre Dame is the preeminent Catholic university in the world. Every other Catholic college or university is fighting for third place (the eminence of Notre Dame is so great that it occupies two positions). Whatever the reputation of the Jesuits as educators, it was earned long before the Four Horsemen took the field for Knute Rockne. But, to paraphrase Rick Pitino, Ignatius Loyola isn't walking through that door. Francis Xavier isn't walking through that door. Robert Bellarmine isn't walking through that door. As a quick note to BC fans reading this, all three were Jesuit priests and are Catholic saints.

I do not know what would happen should they walk through the door of which Pitino spoke, but I doubt it would end well for the New England Province of the Society of Jesus. I doubt very highly whether they would be mollified by the settlement of their own piece of the sex abuse scandal. It's hard to say what is the crown jewel in the New England Provinces galaxy of stars Boston College, with its litany of athletic scandals running the gamut from fixed games in the 50s to general gambling in the 90s to the rambunctiousness and misdemeanoring of the basketball team under Al Skinner or the high school soccer coach who used to wrestle his players in their jocks after practice at the flagship high school in the province.

And for those of you who might get angry at my lack of respect for Jesuit education, whatever you'd like to throw at me for my writing and whatever syntactical and grammatical miscues I made, it still hits home and proves my point. I went to a Jesuit high school myself, but I've never bought the party line on BC. I think it was better as a commuter school than it is as what they have made it. BC students are crass, boorish and bullying as a rule when they leave campus, I see no reason to suspect that they are any better in a classroom.

And while the Red Sox took a 2-0 lead on this fine autumn evening, I wonder how Sox fans felt when they saw the team's principal owner with his fingers in his ears as Papelbon struck out the final batter of the game. Truly it's a labor of love and not a profit seeking venture for John Henry.

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.

And so we've seen the first six out save in the soon to be illustrious career of Jonathan Papelbon. And the fact that petty crime dropped in Boston this evening as every cutthroat, lowlife, drug pusher and total douche sat down for these last five hours to watch the game is cold comfort. So now we root for the Rockies and hope the eight day layoff wasn't enough to kill their mojo.

I am too bitter, and too depressed at the moment to comment in greater detail. So get bent, citizens of Red Sox Nation. Get bent forthwith.

Could Cris Collinsworth blink any more? Is this something that has been encouraged by his advisers/handlers so that he looks slightly less like a phallus with legs and a thousand dollar suit?

What with the way the Cleveland Indians seem desperate to save Major League Baseball from the indignity of a World Series that somehow lacks a major market team despite the fact that both Denver and Cleveland are much bigger cities than Boston, I spent a lot of time searching for something to watch. The Illinois vs. Michigan game would have been a great candidate but for three serious questions.

First, why do the Marching Illini wear capes? Are they super heroes? Even the silly helmets on the USC band (the real USC not that disco with books that stands out for its subpar academic repute in the desert of ignorance that is the SEC) look far less ridiculous than the capes.

Second, could Brent Musberger be more biased in favor of the Michigan Wolverines? Ryan Mallet fumbled two snaps, and Musberger still raved about him as though he threw for 300 yards and 5 TDs. In the drive to respond to the Illin field goal which tied it at 17, Musberger raved about Mallett as though he led a drive reminiscent of Joe Montana's game winner in Super Bowl XXII. The only differences between the two drives, Michigan gained the bulk of its yards on the ground, not through the air, and the drive ended in an interception not a TD.

Third, why is it that no one talks about Rashard Mendenhall from Illinois as a potential Heisman candidate? I know Matt Ryan has the inside track because BC plays the very best Division 1-AA has to offer and a very bad Notre Dame team. Just because Illinois will have to wait until it plays Ball State to hope for some crumbs of attention in a Jason Whitlock piece doesn't mean Mendenhall hasn't earned some consideration.

I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the Red Sox game to some degree. There is some consolation for a person with my viewpoint in Curt Schilling's performance. It means that he basically can dictate his contract terms to Theo Epstein. Of course Theo lost any slight degree of leverage he had when Schilling put his house up for sale in September and started saying that he'd like to play in a place like Tampa. There is no way that Tampa is an empty threat. Schilling would definitely go to a team that will likely lost 90 games next season to pass the twilight of his career.

Of course no one can fairly blame Theo for being manipulated and outmaneuvered by a fraud who plays Everquest for hours on end. After all, getting into a bidding war with the Yankees for the services of Roger Clemens couldn't possibly hurt the club as it makes its decision to pursue or not pursue Schilling. There's no way offering a prorated $18 million to Clemens will embolden Curt Schilling.

In part, it made sense to offer Clemens that type of deal. Why not? There was a chance they could sign him. And making the Yankees go all the way up to $28 million (prorated, to be sure) was a big dent in the vast, vast, vast resources of the Bronx Bombers. After all, Boston had a lot of appeal to Clemens, with the patient, tolerant and very nearly but not quite human media and all. And Clemens really needed to break the tie with Cy Young for most wins in club history to cement his legacy right.

The question now becomes, given the humble bearing and equanimity with which Schilling approaches every situation, whether Schilling will be avaricious enough to demand certain concessions from the team. After all, it wouldn't surprise me with the way the team bent over backwards to throw money at guys who had nowhere near the track record Schilling brought with him when he signed in '04, if Schilling felt himself entitled to demand that his General Manager clean his pool or serve as human foot stool. Could it really be any more humiliating than paying JD Drew the remainder of his $70 million over the next four years, because the grand slam tonight didn't really wipe the slate clean?

Even if the Red Sox come all the way back to go to the World Series, is it going to change the fact that Julio Lugo was paid $8.3 to be 1/2 of a baseball player? Will their be no repercussions for that little anomaly? Will Jacoby Ellsbury pushing Coco Crisp out of the lineup be sloughed off as a curious but not unpleasant quirk of the game? I understand that Red Sox fans are hypocrites, but Red Sox Nation might want to think twice about ripping the Yankee spending machine, even if it might be more intellectual activity than would kill a Red Sox fan or two million.

And speaking of hypocrites, it's been too long since I ripped Jay Mariotti. There is something very sickening about this recent column Mariotti wrote ripping the Bears for the Adrian Peterson performance last week. It seemed to me as though Mariotti was implying that the Bears somehow passed on Peterson despite Mariotti's urging and giggling while he did it. Perhaps I'm not as intelligent as Mariotti is, but I just don't see how the Bears could have drafted Adrian Peterson.

In a sense, it's possible to say that the Bears passed on Peterson by not taking a trade with the Washington Redskins which would have given the Bears the sixth overall pick in return for Lance Briggs. Mariotti did call for the Bears to trade for that pick, but he called for the Bears to acquire that pick with the express purpose of drafting Ohio State wide receiver/kick returner Ted Ginn Jr.

Ted Ginn is not playing particularly well right now, to be charitable. Moreover, he would provide the Bears with an adequate player whose skills might overlap with Devin Hester and Bernard Berrian without providing an upgrade on either player. Perhaps Adrian Peterson would do a better job running behind this offensive line than Cedric Benson, but there is no way to prove that. However, given the fact that Mariotti is a douche and universally loathed, perhaps it would serve his ends better to praise Cedric Benson than to bury him. Then, perhaps Benson would be benched.

In the past, I have found a few occasions to be delighted by strange, but pleasant events where the programming schedule of Turner Classic Movies presented neat parallels with a big defeat for the Boston Red Sox or the Cletics getting a bad draw in the NBA Draft Lottery. I guess sooner or later, I was bound to see an event like that shaping up and have it blow up in my face. I just wish it weren't tonight.

Turner Classic Movies showed the vastly underrated Cliff Robertson Michael Caine film Too Late the Hero. It looked like that would fit very nicely with Josh Beckett taking the hill and the Red Sox facing very long odds in this ALCS. However, Turner Classic Movies has been letting me down lately, with a month of biopics that haven't been all that good and a retrospective on star of the month Henry Fonda featuring Jane Fonda Peter Fonda used as a space filler between movies. I understand that they couldn't really do something like that and leave his kid's out of it, but I really hate Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda.

I also should have known something funny would happen, since In Harm's Way was on deck with Too Late the Hero on the air. In Harm's Way is a very vexing movie for me, since it has John Wayne and Kirk Douglas but also kind of sucks. It's a soap opera masquerading as a war movie. The scenes that dealt with the Solomon Islands campaign have the names of the islands replaced with fugazis as though it were one of those bad made for TV movie of the month "true crime" bits.

Come to think of it, that may have been the case since Admiral Ghormley may have been still alive and the incompetent admiral in In Harm's Way has a lot of his moves, and maybe a little of Admiral Fletcher who lost a lot more cruisers to Japanese forces than I would have thought possible without a court martial or at least a court of inquiry proceeding. But the two main problems with the film are these. First, Patricia Neal, John Wayne's love interest, was not a good looking woman. And most important of all, the movie is literally one hour too long.

I think Turner Classic Movies might have broken that curious, pleasant little power they had by showing the Jazz Singer. It's very rare that it's ever shown, and I always thought it was because of the black face scene. Now I am Caucasian and not as sensitive to that issue as some others might be. But I found one scene where there was a teenager dancing on a stage as though his feet were trapped in drying cement while he was being electrocuted and a piano player who looked as he had been unwittingly part of some half-assed undertaker's half-assed efforts at embalming played a piano with the most macabre attempt at a smile ever far more disturbing. Yikes.

And of course, Joe Torre rejected a one year $5 million contract offer from the New York Yankees today. To be sure, there were incentives in the deal which would, among other things, have triggered another year of employment had Torre accepted the deal and managed the team to a World Series appearance. So our long national nightmare is finally over, as is the 12 year run which saw 12 straight playoff appearances. Or perhaps, as a media frenzy the likes of which one rarely sees outside of election night in a Presidential year and a papal conclave will begin while the search for the next Yankee manager begins.

I am not sure how I feel about this situation. Not the end of the Torre era, per se, for once I was very clear about something when I wanted him fired. But I'm not sure this was the right way to do it. Plenty of people, I am sure are convinced that this was not the right way to do it. Buster Olney is one among many Torre apologists with a premise so nice he wrote it thrice, and while I know I ought to believe what he believes without reservation, I don't. Not even when Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports concurs.

Kevin Kennedy dazzled me by saying something perceptive about this situation. His take was that this deal let Joe Torre go out his way, with some measure of dignity. And in Kennedy's mind it was better than retaining Torre only to fire him unceremoniously should the Yankees stumble out of the gate next season. There is a strange method to his madness, or perhaps a even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.

The problem is that there really was no way for the Yankees to resolve this situation whilst managing to be all things to all people. Based on his track record, as described by Buster Olney in a stunningly good piece for a change, of managing a very difficult assignment with quiet dignity, Joe Torre had so many friends and admirers in the media, particularly the national media, that the Yanks were going to catch hell for severing ties with Torre. Whether they fired him outright, or twisted his arm behind closed doors until Torre reached the point where he came out and quit, no one would believe that Steinbrenner didn't pull the trigger.

And as to whether the offer was disrespectful, how else could it have been done? This was as close to a win-win deal as could have been worked. If the deal had been good enough to accept and Torre took it, then the team would have been stuck with a nightmare situation of having to fire a very well-liked guy and changing horses in midstream next year. And they couldn't just call him in the office and boot him out the door, not after 12 years. But if he did take the deal, maybe it might have lit a fire under him and the team, which could have worked well in the end.

Torre had to go. Not to get any more biblical than I absolutely have to, but he was the guy from the Gospel parable of the talents (the ancient unit for measuring weight, particularly precious metals and not some ephemeral or ethereal skill for Red Sox fans). In the Gospel, a wealthy man gives three of his servants three different sums of money (talents of gold).

As the story goes, one guy invests and doubles his money. He gets to keep it when the master returns because he's so happy his servant did the right thing. The second guy doesn't generate quite as much in return for his initial sum, but he is also rewarded. The third guy digs a hole and buries his sum, so he presents it intact when the master returns. But he's also a jerk about it, so he complains about the master trying to reap where he didn't sow. The master gives him nothing.

To make a long story short, Joe Torre was given $1.2 billion dollars in talent (our sense, not the ancient sense) over the last seven seasons, and he might as well have buried it. A great many things happened, and some were beyond his control, to be fair. But at the end of the day, when George Steinbrenner opens his wallet, he wants a return on his investment. 12 straight playoff appearances isn't enough when the ultimate prizes eludes you for so long. To put it in perspective, Bill Clinton was the last President to host the Yankees at the White House. That's ancient history, if you're George Steinbrenner and it's your money.

Finally, I will conclude tonight with another installment of my impromptu series on the lower order organism that is the Cleveland Indians fan. Tonight, as I watched the game, I spotted a fat dude sporting a rally cap that stood out from the crowd for his vacuous appearance, which is in itself a feat I wouldn't have believed had I not seen it, what with the dismal view I have of the Clevelander's intelligence.

This tool wore a rally cap precariously perched on his massive noggin, which almost, but not quite drew attention away from his double chin. He also wore a terrible pair of glasses, which I initially mistook for Drew Carey glasses, probably because FOX insists on playing that shitty Cleveland Rocks song, which was a Drew Carey Show theme for a while. My friend the Cubs fan, however, shocked the world by noticing something I didn't for the first time in the last 5 years, and correctly identified the hideous glasses on his foolish fat face as Wild Thing glasses from Major League.

Oh yeah, the Red Sox managed to stave off elimination. I didn't want to say it, but I have to I guess.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there has been no change in the status of Joe Torre as Yankee manager today, but before I finally say what I have to say about that, I have some belated good news to relay. In case you missed it, Jimmy Kimmel has been banned from the Monday Night Football booth because of his conduct this week. I say belated, because we all would have been better off had ESPN banned him from the booth before he came on the air and acted like a jackass, and not after the fact.

I hate to be the one to break this to America, but Jimmy Kimmel isn't funny. He had a few moments on the Man Show, but the strength of that show was that little fat kid who was such a d bag. Unfortunately for Kimmel, kids can get away with that sort of behavior and old people can get away with it, but not average, every day people, they just end up looking like douches.

I don't know who told him it was a good idea to go on MNF and crack jokes about Joe Theisman, but he probably shouldn't have listened. First off, Theisman had the good grace to retire quietly and not cause a scene to remind every fan that, as bad as Theisman was, he was 1,000,000 times better than Tony Kornheiser. Second, it gave ESPN a convenient pretext for banning him when the real reason the World Wide Leader is upset at Kimmel has nothing to do with Theisman. The network is in a dither because Kimmel kept making mocking references to the size of the crowd and the theoretical size of the viewing audience for a game that wasn't tremedously compelling.

I suppose I shouldn't complain about the underlying hypocrisy, as it did punish Kimmel for a 15 minute appearance that felt like five years. He was dreadful. His timing was off, he had nothing worth saying and he acted like a little kid talking trash to someone who can't respond. Perhaps he is lashing out and feeling inadequate because Sarah Silverman is dazzling the world with the success of her dreadful show on Comedy Central, but his behavior was still uncalled for and will not be missed. I'm sure Comedy Central is lining up more bottom rung celebrities for roasts, so he won't have to waste his A material on small cable audiences for disappointing football games.

But back to Joe Torre. This extended seminar on his future in Tampa worries me. I want him fired. I must admit that I am not a Yankee fan, so I have no sentimental attachment to Torre from the championship years. I just want the Yankees to win as many games as possible because every good thing for the Bron Bombers is a bad thing for Red Sox Nation.

Torre has been in his current capacity for 12 years. That's a long time for any one to stay anywhere, especially in professional sports where constant change is the only constant. He has done some great things, never missing the playoffs and winning 6 pennants and 4 championships, but the Yankees haven't escaped from the first round of the playoffs since John Kerry liked what he saw in his polling numbers. That's ancient history in professional sports. By the way, I say escape the first round, because teams like the Yankees don't aspire to advance, they leave that to lesser mortals with 8 digit payrolls.

Since the Yankees last won the World Series, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Florida Marlins, Whatever We Feel Like Calling Ourselves Today Angels and some other disgraceful blight on the landscape team have all walked away with the trophy and beaten the Yanks while doing it. That's not exactly a who's who of baseball tradition there. Things have gotten stale in the Bronx.

It's gone from the Bronx Zoo to the damn Museum of Natural History before our eyes. Jeter, Rivera, Posada and even guys like Matsui have a lot more mileage on them than one would think based simply on their ages because of the number of playoff games they've played. It's more than an additional regular season because of the stress involved. Every at bat, every pitch, every ground ball is magnified because it could mean victory or elimination. It has to take a toll.

So the question then becomes: who replaces Torre? It's not an easy question because of all the factors involved. First, there's the fact that he's been there so long. Then there's the fact that it's the single most visible coaching job in pro sports. Then there's the fact that New York is full of savage and ignorant people. And on top of everything, there are 2 former managers with half decent resumes currently employed as coaches (Tony Pena and Larry Bowa). It's anybody's guess who takes the reins now should Torre get the gate.

I'm just guessing, but Bowa and Pena are probably out of the running. Bowa didn't do enough in Philly to make any one forget that his team turned on him as though he were Cpatain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty. Pena brought Kansas City as much success as it's had since George Brett and Saberhagen were there, but that's not good enough to appease New Yorkers or the media.

Don Mattingly is an intriguing candidate, but he has no credentials which would indicate that he can manage a professional baseball team. If I need a guy to play his heart out on an underachieving team, hit .340 with 20 HR and 100 RBI and it's 1987, Don Mattingly is definitely at the top of my list, but I'm not sure Donny Baseball is ready for this job.

Ron Guidry hasn't shown me enough as Yankee pitching coach to tell me he warrants a shot at managing in New York. Perhaps he may have been hamstrung by Torre's desire to see how many consecutive homers a rookie pitcher can allow in a national TV game before his confidence is irrevocably shattered, but I'm not sure Louisiana Lightning doesn't need to manage a second-tier team before he's ready for prime time.

There are a lot of candidates outside the organization who might be considered. There's always Lou Pinella, who might have to flee Chicago before Jay Mariotti runs him out of town as though he were Marshall Dillon from Gunsmoke. Or more likely before Mariotti challenges him to a fistfight, then threatens to sue when Pinella shows that even at age 68 he's more than up to kicking Mariotti's ass. Then again, if Mark Cuban buys the Cubs, perhaps Sweet Lou will want out of dodge before the Cubs become more of a national joke.

There are ex-managers hanging around all manner of broadcast booths who might be considered. Thankfully, the Reds snatched up Dusty Baker. I'm sure Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain must be thanking all sorts of divine beings that Baker and his determination to pitch every prospect he can get his hands on as though they could handle a workload to tire Cy Young and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown to death won't be on the Yankees radar this offseason.

There's always Bob Brenley, and Brenley does have a ring. But is it just me, or does it seem like his Diamondbacks won the series a million years ago? Perhaps it's because the team was blown up and rebuilt to the point where none of his players was on this team that just lost the NLCS. And if the Yankees bring him in how will Cubs fans know what the wind is doing at each and every stadium during each and every inning?

I think that if Torre goes, and they can get him away from the booth, the logical choice as successor is Joe Girardi. He nearly won the NL wildcard in Florida last season before he was released from his contract due to a conflict with team owner Jeffery Laurie. He has a Yankee pedigree as a backup on the team that won it all in 1996 and bench coach for the team that lost it all in 2003. And God knows, he isn't a very good broadcaster. It could be win-win, if he does well managing and I don't have to see him calling games next summer.

And before I go, I just want to ask who at FOX sat down and said "I know what let's do. Let's get Jeanne Zelasko, Kevin Kennedy, Eric Karros and Joe Girardi and have them host a pregame show." It looks more and more like a very fortunate turn of events that the FOX NFL Sunday crew work well, know the game and entertain an audience. Karros has no business on TV, he's dreadful. And the four of them sit there and look like they don't want to spend a nanosecond longer than necessary together and have no desire to talk to one another. Now, if the job didn't seem to call for friendly banter, then they might have something there. Too bad for us a little chemistry goes a long way in a gig like that. Thanks FOX.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have an intriguing question to pose to you all. At what point in this evening's game did Kevin Youkilis look most ridiculous? Was it the foul ball down the first base line that he turned into a Keystone Kops moment? Or was it when he struggled through the introduction of the lineup, making Rocky's struggles in the commercial taping in Rocky II look like Olivier doing Hamlet on stage in London?

According to Joe Buck, Youkilis manages to look intimidating even when he introduces a lineup. Of course, I think that if you are Joe Buck, even my five year old niece looks intimidating, but that's neither here nor there. I think Youkilis is far from intimidating. Rather, he looks like the type of guy that desperately wanted to be a biker all his life, who gets the bike and the clothes and the look, but still can't make himself look mean. Perhaps Youkilis would have looked meaner in my eyes had he not waited until the team trailed by 7 in the 6th inning to notch his first HR and RBI of the ALCS.

The Youkilis bobble reminded me of a quote from George Orwell which I first applied to Mark Cuban. Orwell described one of England's peers as "looking rather more like a monkey on a stick than I would have thought possible for some one who wasn't actually trying." That sums up how pathetic Youkilis looked in misplaying that ball.

Over the course of the offseason, which now looks like it just might start a lot sooner than Red Sox Nation might desire, a great deal of ink will be spilled on the fact that Francona elected not to start Josh Beckett on three days rest. For my part, I have attacked Francona continually over the 18 months this blog has existed. But I don't think he made the wrong call. And it's not because I wanted the Sox to lose, for a change.

People love to point out that Beckett was lethal on three days rest in the 2003 playoffs. That was then, however, and this is now. Josh Beckett is the cornerstone of this team going forward. Is it, then, better to risk his arm for the sake of tying an ALCS or is it better to take your chances with Wakefield and keep Beckett as healthy as possible to extend the window for this team?

I took a great deal of grim staisfaction in seeing Wakefield, who was so good so long ago in the regular season, fall apart in the fifth inning of this evening's game. But up until this evening, he had never lost an LCS game. And it mattered little that he was pitching on 18 days rest. After all, were you really worried that his arm would be too live in tonight's game if you happen to be a Red Sox fan?

And while we're talking history, if we can remember what Josh Beckett did in 2003 on three days rest, why can't we remember what he did in the last LCS start with his team trailing 3-1 in an elimination game? That was Game 5 of the NLCS in 2003, and I hate to do this to my friend the Cubs fan, but Beckett shut down the Cubs as though it were a moral imperative that the Cubs should score no runs.

He threw a 2 hitter in that game. Not much attention is paid to it, partly because stifling the Dusty Baker-era Cubs wasn't exactly a miracle. And of course being on the wrong end of a 2 hitter in a game where you could have elimated the opponent isn't anywhere near as picturesque as some loser in glasses interfering with a fly ball down the left field line with 5 outs to go and a three run lead.

If Red Sox fans were honest (and let's face it, they aren't), they'd admit that starting Wake over Beckett wasn't exactly reminiscent of Joe McCarthy going with Denny Galehouse in the one game playoff against the Indians in 1948. Of course that presumes Red Sox fans know half as much as they pretend to about their team's history. Perhaps if the CHB gets off his posterior and has his interns burn the midnight oil, then the Nation might remember it as though it were yesterday the day after the column appears. But that's another story.

Before today's game, I got to thinking about that play where Ortiz managed to get in the way of Ramirez grounding out to shortstop. Seeing him run into that out in such surprising fashion reminded me of something at the time. I'm sure all of you good Red Sox fans who worry so much about what might happen to John Henry's ill-gotten gains in his pending divorce own the 2004 postseason DVD, so you can check it out for yourselves.

In case you don't remember, Cardinals pitcher and all-around loser Jeff Suppan managed to get himself trapped in a rundown at third base thanks to indecision on the base paths. I remember being livid with him at the time, not only because it was a momentum killing play that benefited the Red Sox, but because a National League pitcher has to run the bases from time to time and ought to have had better sense than that. To make a long story short, I think Papi might have killed the Sox momentum in this series with that play.

So the Red Sox are now poised on the brink of elimination. I cannot summon up a proper level of excitement about that, though. First, there is, as I keep saying, the lingering memory of 2004's comeback against the Yankees. And as I've said, I still don't like this Indians team. I do find myself wondering whether the layoff while the Rockies await the winner of this series might be the only thing that will kill the roll Colorado is on at the moment.

The home half of the fifth inning of tonight's game did reinforce an impression I've had of the Indians in this postseason. With the way they keep grinding out runs in all kinds of different ways with two outs, they remind me of a football team that simply can't get an opponent off the field on third down, like Notre Dame, or the teams that have fallen victim to Belichick's corrupt legion of minions.

And while I'm on the topic of things that have suddenly become clear to me over the last few days, I have one more this evening thanks to Bill Simmons. For a long time now, basically since the travesty of 2004, or maybe since he went to work for Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Simmons has been evoking an impression of something I couldn't quite explain. Calling him an aggressive sycophant summed up his persona, but it didn't resolve the question of that nagging impression.

Then Bill Simmons wrote this brilliant piece comparing being a Boston fan right now to waking up every day being George Clooney. And it hit me like a thousand of brick, to quote Rooster Cogburn. Bill Simmons reminds me of George Clooney. Not the looks, or the talent, but that vague, smarmy smugness that is all over the Gospel According to Clooney.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, the writers of South Park did an excellent job of satirizing this particular aspect of Clooney's character in the smug epsiode. They got after Clooney for his inexplicable Oscar acceptance speech after he won Best Supporting Actor for Syriana.

In that speech, Clooney gave credit to Hollywood for bringing issues like civil rights and AIDS to public attention when the rest of America was silent. Now, I might be alone in not remembering all those movie and TV stars sprayed by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs in the South in the 50s and 60s, but I am that sort of guy. And it was a blow against racism when Hattie McDaniel won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Gone With the Wind, right up there with the I Have a Dream speech, right?

But that's a long digression to come back to Bill Simmons. He's a fraud, like Clooney. He sets himself up as the voice of the young sports fan from Gen X and beyond, and I wish it weren't true. After all, if he's the voice of that slice of sportsfandom, then sportsfandom must be even dumber than I want to admit.

In other matters, the Yankees brain trust convened in Tampa today to discuss the future of Joe Torre. No announcement was made, so I have tomorrow afternoon to try to squeeze in the analysis of the Yankee management situation before the decision is made.

I know that you who read this aren't tremendously interested in what books I read and when I read them. But tonight, I feel compelled to tell you, as it seems to dovetail very nicely with this travesty of a sports weekend. The book is The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is appropriate because that's what I'm going through as both sports fan and blogger.

As a kid, I never thought I'd live to see the day where BC would be ranked #3 overall, and Notre Dame would be a sinking ship grasping at minor trivialities to see signs of hope going forward. And yet that is where we stand right now. Before they start popping champagne corks, or perhaps buying all the Natty Light in Cleveland Circle, BC fans might want to remember that ND was a lot closer to pulling an upset than they should have been.

If the left guard weren't flagged for holding (and God knows, BC has gotten away with a million holds building a mysterious reputation as Lineman U these past 15 years or so), it's a seven point game. Half of BC's points came on drives that started in fantastic field position thanks to a botched snap on a punt and a kickoff from the Notre Dame 15 yard line following the excessive celebration penalty. I hope the Heisman voters weren't watching those sequences.

That said, Charlie Weis has some difficult questions to answer. In no particular order, here are some that have been vexing me. Why wasn't Evan Sharpley the starting quarterback from jump street in this nightmare season? Why, when Demetrius Jones showed no capacity to move the team or hold the football wasn't Evan Sharpley the second option? Why after Jimmy Clausen couldn't move the ball against any team at any time this season was Evan Sharpley not the starting quarterback? I guess you can probably notice a trend here, unless of course you happen to be a BC fan, and anything short of a meat hammer upside your head is far too subtle.

Evan Sharpley has consistently moved the football when he has been called upon to spell Jimmy Clausen. Jimmy Clausen has not moved the football consistently. He hasn't moved the football at all, really. I understand that he's only a freshman, and yanking him now could ruin his confidence. Unfortunately, I am not even remotely sensitive. So yank him. Send him to Northern Illinois to room with Demetrius Jones, or to the North Pole. Just don't let him start another game for a very long time. And send Ron Powlus with him.

Gerry Faust, by all accounts, was a very nice man. He was a great man for considering his players' feelings and trying not to hurt them. He was also a spectacular failure as coach at Notre Dame. The one incident from his tenure I remember most vividly is Jimmy Johnson's response to Faust complaining that the convicts had run up the score on the Catholics. Johnson said: "If you don't want to get blown out, recruit better players."

I said all that to say this: Charlie Weis isn't paid to be sensitive. He is paid to win football games. And paid very well at that. At the end of the day, protecting Jimmy Clausen's ego is right up there with buying the director's cut of the Astronaut Farmer, getting a pedicure and giving up red meat on the list of things to do posted on my wall.

And for those people who would say that coaching is, at least in part, about teaching life lessons, I have this to say. What if you produced as well Jimmy Clausen has in your professional capacities? Would your boss string you along as projects stalled around you, or would you be out on your ass? That's a real life lesson. So what if he's only 20. As John Fogerty said: "You better learn it fast and you better learn it young."

I demand the firing of Ron Powlus. I never liked him as a player. I thought he was in no way, shape or form qualified for the job. He underachieved and failed to handle the pressure of playing QB at ND, and what has Jimmy Clausen done under his tutelage? And I remember that when Lou Holtz retired as coach at ND, Ron Powlus threw a party and came back for one more season at Notre Dame. That was a bad day, and the University should left him where they found him.

But back to Charlie Weis. I don't think the school should fire him. There are signs of hope on this team. The freshman OLBs are great. They get better each week. James Aldridge gets better each week at tailback, and Robert Hughes the freshman shows promise as a big back.

There are some other unpleasant questions one must ask about this team. The most important, other than the quarterback issue, is why weren't the wide receivers that have played well of late playing sooner? I think, and I'm not thrilled to say it, that Weis is finally learning to coach college players. He inherited a veteran team from Ty Willingham, one that could be coached in much the same fashion as the pros he worked with in New England. Now he finally has to learn how to coach a college team, even though he should have after the two bowl blowouts. I'm not ready to see him fired until he shows that he can't learn to coach college kids.

In other Notre Dame related matters, two players probably passed each other in the upcoming draft ratings. Trevor Laws has shown over the last two years that he will in all likelihood be a very good defensive tackle in the NFL for some time to come. He's blocked three kicks this season, he leads college linemen in tackles and he's playing end in a 3-4, when he's naturally suited to play tackle in a 4-3. I'm rooting for the Bears to draft him in the second round.

And the player who passed him is on the way down. I know who's responsible and I assume Charlie Weis will take appropriate steps to ensure that he's punished. The player responsible is Kery Neal, the rising star at rush end for Notre Dame. And the player who is plummeting down draft lists as we speak is Gosder Cherilus, the heir to the mantle of overrated fraud from the offensive line tradition dating back to Pete Kendall.

Charlie Weis should have made sure that Kerry Neal read the scouting reports and paeans in the Boston media prior to the game, then Neal would have thought twice before he destroyed Cherilus' livelihood. He probably cost Cherilus $20 million or so by beating him the way he did. Kerry Neal should have been told that BC is now Lineman U. Look at the way guys like Chris Snee and Jeremy Trueblood rule the NFL landscape, who is better than a BC lineman? At least NFL scouts now have warning when guys like Freeney and DeMarcus Ware feast on him.

And then there is the other thing that happened this weekend. I won't admit that I was wrong in my prediction. To say that wouldn't come close to doing it justice. I was spectacularly wrong. I'm still not sure that the Patriots are as awesome as people seem determined to tell me. But they had one hell of a plan when Dallas hit them, taking the first second half lead against the Pats this season.

Maybe the Cowboys were like one of those basketball teams that comes back from a huge deficit, but just runs out of gas. But I still say that Terrell Owens is better than Randy Moss. I'd still take him over any day of the week. I am deeply disappointed that Wade Philips kicked a field goal on 4th and 5, down the way they were in the game. Like it mattered down two TDs. Go for it, and make the Pats go 95 yards. They won by 21 any way.

But the most surprising thing about the game from my point of view is the Bum Philips is still alive. I may sound callous, mean, cruel and insensitive, but you were thinking the same thing, if you even knew who he was (and I'm sure a lot of young fans would believe me if I said Bum Philips was the crazy homeless guy who rode that strange three wheeled bike and screamed like a siren down Comm Ave). So in the privacy of your cubicle, office or home, feel free to raise your hand if you thought Bum Philips was dead until they showed him in the crowd in Dallas.

What disappointed me most about the Cowboys was the performance of DeMarcus Ware. He had one great series in the second quarter and a few flashes in other spots. But he has the talent to take over a game, not quite the way the real LT used to, but as close as any one playing today can, but he didn't show up the way I had hoped.

I don't have a lot to say about the Red Sox going down 2-1 in the ALCS. As I've said, I don't have much enthusiasm for the Indians. Plus I won't believe that the Red Sox are down and out until it's over for good. The ALCS nightmare of 2004 taught me to be cautious. But it was pretty damn funny to see David Prtiz run himself into a big out in the 4th. Especially since Little Leaguers usually know enough not to get hit by a ball running from second to third. I wouldn't have expected a player of his caliber and his talent to waste his own leadoff double in such a silly way. But there is a lot of time left in this series.

I know I promised my take on the Joe Torre situation with the Yankees, but a few things have come up to interfere with my blogging. Not the least of which is that I recently checked Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut out of the local library. I realize I just 86ed my street cred, since no one who is any one between the ages of 18 and 65 checks books out of the library. And if they do, it's certainly not to read them for edification. That said, if you get a chance and you are in the habit of reading, I highly recommend this book. It's short, it's funny and it offers some chilling insights into the way people act.

But Joe Torre will have to wait, because this afternoon, a more pressing concern is on my mind. This Sunday, two undefeated teams square off on the field beneath the half-assed open roof at Texas Stadium. They are the loathsome New England Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys. And, as you might expect, only one of these teams can emerge with a victory.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the Patriots will win the game. Rodney Harrison is back from his little slap on the wrist for taking illicit performance enhancing substances. Tom Brady is something like 29-2 on artificial playing surfaces in his illustrious career. The Patriots have steamrolled over every opponent they have encountered this season, and the pasting the Chargers put on the Broncos suddenly makes it look as though the Pats have faced a half-decent team. And on top of that, the Patriots have the second best player to wear number 81 on the field at Texas Stadium in recent memory on their side. No one can stand in the way of this juggernaut, and only a fool would believe that any team has a chance against them.

Call me a fool, but I think Dallas will win this game. Any reasonably competent high school algebra student can tell you that in accordance with the transitive property, since New England destroyed the Bills and Dallas barely escaped Buffalo with an improbable win, New England will beat Dallas handily. Alas, the transitive property works much better in a math book than it does in the real, honest to goodness, no fooling three dimensional world of pro football.

I am fond of quoting the Michael Douglas character from the Ghost and the Darkness who said that in prize fighting, everybody has a plan until they get hit. Dallas has been hit, and hit hard. They have shown that they can overcome adversity, silly mistakes and a hostile crowd in a strange environment and survive. New England has shown that they can get a lead and front-run with the best of them. No one has hit the Pats yet. And that is in large part due to the fact that the Pats have been great so far, but what will this version of the Pats do should the breaks start beating the boys?

Recently, a good friend sent me a cold analysis of the Notre Dame game vs. UCLA which pointed out that when the UCLA starting QB went down, they were forced to play a walk on with no game experience. Although the author's intent was to caution fans like me from getting to happy about ND's first win, it had the unintended effect of reminding me that New England knocked JP Losman out of their game against Buffalo and got to face the untested rookie Trent Edwards. Edwards had a few games to adjust before he faced the Cowboys. And yet Buffalo managed to score precisely zero offensive TDs against the Cowboys.

What worries me about the Cowboys is how their pass protection will hold up against the Patriots, or any team for that matter. I am not overly concerned with their ability to run the ball. The Patriots have a big defensive line and they have been able to push around lighter offensive lines to this point. However, Vince Wilfork will encounter a creature nearly as rare as the Loch Ness Monster in the form of Dallas guard Leonard Davis - a man actually bigger than Vince Wilfork and not on one of those TLC shows about an enormously fat shut-in who is moved from point to point by a piece of construction machinery. Dallas is much bigger on the offensive line than any team NE will face this season, and I'm not sure the Pats can handle it.

I think barring holding penalties or some sort of deal with the devil, Matt Light will be made to look ridiculous (at least in a professional capacity, he does his own work making himself look ridiculous off the field) by DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer. No matter what Shawne Merriman and the pharmaceutical industry tell you, Ware is the best OLB in the game right now. And the Pats o-line just isn't ready for him.

And make no mistake about it, take any combination of three Patriots you want, and you'll still be a man and a half short of covering Terrell Owens. And for all the highlight reel TDs Randy Moss has caught this season, show me one play where he threw one block 1/3 as good as any TO threw to spring Creighton for the long TD in St. Louis. That's why TO is that much better than Moss, he's not as fast, but he's tougher, smarter and braver about going over the middle. He may drop a pass here and there on account of a lack of concentration, but I'd much rather have him than Moss any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

Dallas is a better team than New England. And unless Belichick has some sort of trick up his sleeve involving compromising photos of Tony Romo or illicitly obtained video of the Dallas coaching staff's signals, I'm confident that for once, right will prevail.

In other news, the Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians face one another for the right to represent the AL in the World Series. I really tried the last day or so to generate any interest, any hope of rooting for the Indians, and I can't. My hatred for the Red Sox is in no way diminished, and I still want them to lose every game by 100 runs, but I never wanted Cleveland to be the team facing them. As Victor Frankenstein said, it wasn't supposed to be this way. It wasn't supposed to be this way at all. It was supposed to be a thing of beauty.

And I run a risk doing this, as I try to avoid political matters in this space, but I have to rip some one for this. Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize? How is that possible? Maybe he has done some nice work on global warming whoring himself out to the Day after Tomorrow's promotional campaign and appearing in an Inconvenient Truth. But has that made the world a more peaceful place in any way, shape or form?

For instance, when Teddy Roosevelt won it, he got it for brokering the treaty that stopped the Russo-Japanese War. That is making the world more peaceful for his efforts. Al Gore and his UN group have gotten emerging economic powers like China and India to reduce what percentage of their greenhouse emissions? They've increased liberal guilt in the G8, but that's not Nobel worthy. Even if it were, how is it worth a peace prize? It might be worth an eighth grade environmental science bee prize, but not the Nobel Peace Prize.

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.

Start spreading the news. The Yankees aren't quite dead, at least not for the moment. Maybe it was George Steinbrenner and his statement that Joe Torre would be looking for something to do with his time other than managing the New York Yankees if the team did not prevail in this series. Or maybe the announcers were right when they compared the Yankee offense to a 2 liter bottle of soda that had been shaken and shaken and was due to explode at any moment. Whatever it was, it happened. The Yankees won and they play again tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the Angels lacked the will of a warrior and fell victim to Humpty Dumpty and the Boston Red Sox. So now the Red Sox have a chance to rest and reset their rotation as they wait to see whether the Yankees can come back or the Indians will win their divisional series matchup. If this were another team with another group of players, perhaps one might worry that this lag time might dull their wits and adversely impact their readiness to play.

However, with this version of the Boston Red Sox, one needn't worry about any situation having an adverse impact on the wits of these players. In fact, with titans of the intellect like Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Jonathan Papelbon in prominent roles, one could fairly say that the wits are this team's least vulnerable spot.

It is a good thing that the Yankees came back tonight, if for no other reason than it redeemed Roger Clemens, at least until his next turn to pitch. Unlike a certain element of Red Sox fans, led by Bill Simmons, I harbor no resentment for the way Clemens left town. I don't believe athletes owe the fans a damn thing. Especially after winning a few Cy Youngs, having a couple of 20 win seasons and setting the MLB record for Ks in a game.

I'm not sure I'm ready to see Clemens retire. He's been such a big part of my memories of watching baseball for so long, I just don't remember a time when he wasn't pitching. I think Bill Simmons is just a total d bag. After all, he whines about the Yankees bringing Ronan Tynan in to sing God Bless America in the seventh inning stretch. Even if it is a long version, it's still the best rendition out there now.

Perhaps the Yankees should trot out 14 year olds who couldn't carry a tune if their lives depended on it, as the Red Sox have been known to do. Or maybe they could resurrect hard rock has beens who haven't had a decent song since Carter was President like Steven Tyler. Speaking of Aerosmith, I wish someone could explain their comeback. Outside of Dream On, their songbook is weak, to say the least. If Run DMC hadn't covered Walk this Way, would anyone have remembered them to stick a banal song on the Armageddon soundtrack?

To make a long story short, I still have hope that a team can step in and stop the Red Sox. And the Indians, even with Carmona and Sabathia don't seem to be the team to do it. I realize that Colorado and Arizona had success against Boston earlier this season, but that was a long time ago now. Plus I don't see the Red Sox folding like the Cubs. Nor do I see the Colorado lefties laughing at Ortiz and the other Sox lefties the way Howard and Utley did.

No matter what Red Sox fans tell you, you know that they fear the Yankees a little bit. 2004 is ancient history. Beckett might have been lights out in Game 1 against the Angels, but there's no guarantee that he can do it again. And if Matsuzaka pitches the way he did in Game 2, something tells me the Yankees might do a tad more damage than the Angels did. And Schill might want to sit this one out, unless he can whip up another ready-made "blood"-stained garment for the occasion.

As for this weekend's football games, Notre Dame finally won. Say what you want about the UCLA quarterback situation and their offensive ineptitude, but the Irish won a game no one thought they could. This could be the start of something interesting. I'm not holding my breath, but it's possible.

The Patriots continue to roll, but then who really thought the Browns would be the team to end the streak. The Chiefs and their subpar offensive line continue to drag my fantasy team down because they can't block for LJ. Far more vexing is the fact that I shall soon lose Travis Henry to his pending suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy for the third time.

I'm not going to be the guy to pile on him when he's down. I just have to laugh a bit at his grand sense of timing. Henry was due to rotate out of the substance abuse program on October 1st, and he had to get high in September. I realize that a guy might need a little pick me up to take the edge of the whole 9 illegitimate kids situation. But it might have been nice if he thought of me and my fantasy team in all of this.

I think the real story of the NFL weekend came from the Seattle Pittsbugh game. It was a very good thing that the Seahawks were motivated by the outcome of Super Bowl XL. Otherwise the 21-0 beating the Steelers hung on them this afternoon would be quite humiliating. Perhaps this was some novel strategy of Mike Holmgren's. After all, letting Denver score a TD to get the ball back in Super Boxl XXXII worked so well, maybe letting Pittsburgh score three unanswered touchdowns today is just setting them up for some vague game to be played in the not too distant future.

I hate to see guys like Matt Hasselbeck and Shaun Alexander unhappy. They have done so much to elevate the profile of the NFL the way they whined about the officiating in that Super Bowl, they deserved better than what they got today. I think the only way to evaluate that officiating, which did leave a lot to be desired, is to ask whether Seattle would have objected had calls like that gone in their favor. If they would have been quiet if the calls went against Pittsburgh, then they should let it go at this point.

In tonight's Bears vs. Packers game, I was interested to hear John Madden mention that the Green Bay Packers expect AJ Hawk to start having a bigger impact on their defensive performance. Perhaps they need to find the man who wielded the ugly stick to such great effect on Hawk's wife, the sister of Brady Quinn and the fleabag who sported the trashy makeup and jersey tailor made to show her divided loyalty when the Irish met the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Fiesta Bowl two years ago. Surely he could motivate Hawk to perform up to expectations.

I have been defending Cedric Benson for so long now, it has become a habit. He did get plenty of carries tonight, for a change. And he didn't gain enough yards to justify his salary, or the Thomas Jones trade today, even though Jones didn't exactly reverse the rotation of the Earth in the Giants Jets game. He had some very promising runs, but he wasn't consistent.

I thought the offensive line was better tonight than they were against Detroit, and better than they have been in any game this season, for that matter. That said, this group still hasn't been good enough at any point in 2007. For what the Bears do in running the ball, relying on play action passes and using deep drops in the passing offense, the offensive line needs to stay on their assignments longer and generate more push up front. So I'm not ready to turn on Benson yet. I think I'll wait until Mariotti praises him.

Even though Griese finished with 2 TDs and came out on the winning end, I'm not thrilled about him as the Bears try to dig their way out the hole that they still haven't escaped. It was good to see both TEs involved in the game plan. The Bears still have albatrosses around their neck and will have them as long as the O-line underperforms, and they need much more production from the wide receivers. Tonight the best wide receiver on the team was Mark Bradley, and that just can't happen every game if the Bears are to get back to where they were last season.

For all the Bears did, and with Benson's decent numbers, I still need a very good game for Tony Romo and Terrell Owens tomorrow night. So I have a lot on the line, with the Yankees playing for their lives, with the Cowboys playing for my hopes of a Patriots humiliation and my fantasy life (I am one game back in a playoff race, with a log jam at 2-2). So I'll either be very happy, or very unhappy tomorrow. Even if the Cowboys are outstanding, but the Yankees fail, I will be disappointed, in case you care.

I should, while I think of it, address the recent comments on my posts. To answer Alle, yes Guerrero might have left on account of the pitch that hit him. But unless he needed some sort of critical operation, there is no reason a guy should leave a game his team desperately needed to win. If he can hold a bat, he has to stay in that game.

And to the author of the anonymous comment pointing out that I was mistaken when I attributed the song "Uncle Albert" to the Beatles instead of Paul McCartney, I would apologize, provided that I gave a damn. I guess the only reason the song impressed me as having any merit is that only one of the Beatles was involved in the project so the collective power of the suck factor couldn't taint the entire song. So my bad.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how the game between the Indians and the Yankees went to extra innings tonight. I watched the entire telecast, I know what's what. The Indians have somewhere on the order of 30 future Hall of Famers on the roster at any given moment. Or at least if all you knew about baseball were culled from Chip Carey's broadcasting, you'd be forced to think along those lines.

In the last two innings, the overt bias toward the Indians was as bad as I have ever seen for a broadcaster. Kenny Lofton led off the bottom of the 9th and hit a fly ball to center. According to Carey, Lofton spanked the ball. From what I saw, Melky Cabrera drifted maybe five feet to his left to catch it. Now I might need a ruling from a trained and licensed physicist on this, but I think it's safe to say that an outfielder should have to take at least 13 or 14 steps or break into a run before a ball can be considered to have been spanked by a batter.

Among the many things Chip Carey said this evening which bothered me, was Casey Blake's nickname "Mr. Shocker." I don't know if that's Blake's nickname in general, or one that Carey just gave him tonight. Either way, it's a stupid name. I didn't realize that he was so closely associated with his alma mater (Wichita State) to be called Mr. Shocker.

Of course Carey fell all over himself to tell us that Blake had two walkoff homers this season. Too bad they came against the Royals and the Tigers. That meant that he really should have ended the game with one swing of the bat in tonight's game. After all, if you can win a game against the Royals or the Tigers then Mariano Rivera is no match for you. As it was, Blake and his stupid Mountain Man beard hit what Chip Carey called a towering fly ball, which fell short of the warning track by a good twenty five feet.

Interestingly enough, when Posada flew out to the wall in right field in the next half inning, it was neither spanked nor towering. Perhaps he should have played for the Indians, then maybe he'd be worthy of Chip Carey's notice. Like Perez, the Indians reliever who did pitch very well. After his 1-2-3 top of the tenth, Carey said he dazzled. Of course Carey would probably describe Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series as a workman like effort.

In the bottom of the tenth, when the Indians loaded the bases, Mariano Rivera threw a ball on the 0-1 count and Carey giddily remarked that there was no place to put the batter at the plate. With Mariano Rivera on the mound and a 1-1 count, who thinks of the walk? It's kind of like calling for the punt team to get ready when it's second and five in a football game.

Carey was the only part of this game more troublesome than the swarms of flies which showed up at the game as though they were a Biblical plague. I know Ohio is a blight on the rest of the country. I know most of the Indians, notable among them Hafner, Blake and Garko, practice such poor hygiene that insects flock to them as though they were pounds of rotting meat.

Why were the flies hovering around the players when there were so many thousands of losers and Ohioans watching the game? If ever there were fans who were a close second to Red Sox fans in deserving swarms of biting flies descending on them, it has to be Indians fans. These slack-jawed yokels react to every favorable development that befalls their team with so much surprise that it makes you wonder why they took out a second mortgage on the family combine harvester and bought playoff tickets.

If you don't believe me that Cleveland is full of dbags, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, look at this thread on a Cleveland sports site speculating that Eric Wedge and Casey Blake might have a little something something going on between them. Let's not forget, either, that the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire several times. Any city that has a river catch on fire has to be very, very, very pathetic.

There is, as the old saying goes, no such thing as a moral victory. However, the Yankees pitched much better in this game than they did in game one. Unfortunately, there is no room for gradual improvement in the playoffs. The Yankees aren't out of it, yet. And of the three teams down 0-2 so far (the Phillies and the Cubs being the others), the Yankees have far and away the best chance to come back from the dead.

The Phillies pitching is dreadful. The Cubs don't have enough speed to play small ball consistently, and outside of Wrigley their power is a lot less powerful. Plus the Cubs have a massive karmic roadblock in the form of that awful Aquafina commercial featuring Lou Pinella. But I'm not ready to write the Yanks off just yet. Perhaps because they're the only team that looks like they can beat the Sox, even though they aren't the same team that came back from 0-2 against the As in 2001. But on to the Red Sox vs. Angels game.

I have a hard time accepting some facts from the early portion of tonight's game. First, JD Drew came to the plate with the bases loaded in a two out situation and he didn't fail. Far from it. He drove in two runs. Now if the game were out of reach, one way or the other, I would have had less difficulty wrapping my brain around the fact. Who knows, maybe this is the start of something big for him in a Red Sox uniform? Or maybe this is just a calm before the storm and he will be an even bigger disappointment in a bigger moment yet to come.

The other thing that caught me by surprise is that the Angels fell behind 2-0 in this game, but bounced back with a vengeance to take a 3-2 lead. Admittedly they had some help when Manny Ramirez misplayed that ball in left, which was somehow not an error. As an aside, that is a terrible rule, that he misplays a ball but doesn't get an error because he didn't touch it. I think it should be a bigger error because he butchered a ball that was fairly routine and couldn't even get a hand on it.

Maybe I was wrong to sell the Angels short the way I did. Of course it's still too early in this series to be optimistic about their chances. It just might be that Daisuke Matsuzaka is tired out from this different style of baseball. Or maybe he got depressed when Buccholz came up and he was no longer the new sensation in the rotation. Either way, he slumped down the stretch, and maybe that's why the Angels got to him tonight.

Of course if the Angels get the kind of help like Coco Crisp gave them with his Little League level base running blunder in the sixth, they may prove more formidable than I led you to believe in my last few posts. How does a guy with his experience get himself doubled up on a fly ball to center field because he had rounded second but forgot to touch the base on his way back to first?

I had some rather unpleasant things to say about Mike Scioscia the other day. Now I think I have to take them all back and say far worse. How do you go into the last inning and a half of a tie game and manage yourself into such a terrible corner that you have to take your best offensive weapon out of the game? He pulled Guerrero to keep Reggie Willits in the game?

Even better, Garrett Anderson was still in the game at that point with his swollen eye. I will concede that I know a lot less about baseball than Mike Scioscia. But it seems logical, doesn't it, to leave the guy with two good eyes in the lineup, especially when he's your best power threat? Or maybe that's just too logical. That's exactly what they'd be expecting Scioscia to do. Of course, there are some who'd say that managing as though you were running some sort of bad caper in Get Smart might not be a good idea in a playoff game.

Of course it was all academic when Scioscia rode the percentages and conventional wisdom all the way to Manny's walk-off shot. All in all, this was not a good night for me. Sooner or later this team is due for an epic collapse. Perhaps this will be it. I doubt it, but there is a chance. Anaheim did win more home games than any other team in the league this season.

If it weren't for the tool who whipped the piece of pizza off the back of the bigger tool who ragged on the first tool for eating a pizza at a baseball game in Fenway Park this April, the douche who asked for an autograph from the fan who prevented the Angels catcher (Matthis) from catching Manny's foul popup in the 5th would have been the biggest tool in the history of Fenway Park. If Lowell's sac fly which tied the game had been a bit deeper, that skinny little wuss would have become a huge celebrity. As it is, he'll milk that novelty act 15 minutes of fame for all it's worth.

Speaking of tools, we have a small tool of note feature today, for the first time in a while. A long time friend of the blog forwarded this feature on the triumphs and trials of Donny Osmond from the Daily Mail in England. My heart bleeds for poor Donny Osmond, who had to bear the cross of being a teen idol. If his life was a bed of pain because people wouldn't accept him as a grown up and not the scrawny Mormon dork who ripped off Paul Anka's Puppy Love, then maybe there is justice in the world after all.

I particularly enjoyed this bit: "Say what you like, Donny is big on self-pity, which is why in the run-up to his latest tour he wants to talk about how hard it was being the Most Adorable Singing Child On Earth." Something tells me Donny Osmond for all his pain and anguish probably doesn't wake up each and every morning with a bad back, bad knees and callouses on his hands as though he worked for a living. People turned on a lot of 70s icons, so what? Just because he had more staying power than a-Ha doesn't mean he achieved anything tangible.

I also love the fact that Jesus is one of his heroes. I bet that really put a smile on Jesus' face and got Him packing His bags for the Second Coming. Or more likely, Jesus was probably trying hard to hide from Donny Osmond. If there is one consolation here, given his age, Donny will meet his hero face to face long before I do.

Curiously, the article brought up his 1988 hit, Soldier of Love, which I don't remember. I was young in 1988, but I remember a lot of things from that time frame. Am I the only one who doesn't remember the song, or was it a song that hit 99 on a countdown and they're trying to be as nice as possible to Donny? I guess if they didn't do all they could to massage his ego, Donny Osmond would have to retreat to his compound in Utah. What a shame that would be.

Perhaps it wouldn't have made much of a difference tonight, and maybe I'm more than a little tainted by bitterness, but kudos to Joe Torre for playing Doug Mientkiewicz and leaving Jason Giambi on the bench. Hindsight, as they say is 20-20, but going with a guy for his defense and leaving an infinitely better hitter on the bench is so National League. In fact, it smacks of Dusty Baker in his prime, and what a prime it was.

And then when it came time to pinch hit for Mientkiewicz, Torre threw Shelly Duncan out there instead of Giambi. I realize that Duncan is a right handed batter, and maybe Giambi didn't have terrific numbers against Sabathia. But wouldn't you feel better with a guy who has won an MVP award, even one tainted by allegations of steroids, over a guy whose greatest claim to fame is being the son of the Cardinals pitching coach.

The trouble with conventional wisdom is that it's conventional. So what if every body knows something? 95% of people are total nitwits. Derek Jeter came into the game batting .500 lifetime off Sabathia and sporting a very good postseason average in general, but he didn't exactly rip it up in this game. Hell, CC Sabathia walked six guys tonight (one was intentional) and none of them scored.

And if ever there were an omen that a given night would not be a given player's night, it had to come tonight. Mientkiewicz almost ended up a scratch from the lineup before the game even started when he tripped over a cameraman from a New York TV station getting off the team bus. Who in their right mind thought that things would break his way after that? What more did he have to do, walk under a ladder, cross paths with a black cat? For a profession that is notoriously rife with superstitious dudes, there is no way he should have seen the field after that.

Torre played the percentages right into a 0-1 hole in this series. Now things are looking good for Red Sox fans, which is always bad for America. This postseason is starting to remind me of the Beatles song Uncle Albert. I don't hear it very often, since I don't like the Beatles and I don't listen to the radio very much. But when I hear it, it confuses and vexes me.

Every time I hear the start of that song, I start thinking to myself that maybe I'm wrong about the Beatles, that they might not be as bad as I had thought previously. Then the second part of the song with the aggravating uptempo music and the random nonsense about Admiral Halsey kicks in, and I find myself hating the song and the band more than ever.

I've come a long way around to say this, but if the Yankees lose, the only other team I'd like to see win this World Series is the Chicago Cubs. So I find myself stuck rooting for teams that I can't stand simply because they stand in the way of the team I really hate. If neither the Yankees nor the Cubs advance, I am in a lose-LOSE situation. Either the Indians win, and I'm bummed, or the Red Sox win and their fans are happy, which is a nightmare scenario I'd rather not envision right now.

By the way, thanks to the Major League Baseball playoff promos, I have had to reevaluate my opinion of Dane Cook. At first, I never cared about him even though Bill Simmons whined about him, which is generally a sign a guy isn't a total douche. But now, I've seen way too many of those stupid "There's Only One October" ads and I hope he gets some wasting disease.

And kudos to the genius at TBS who went into a meeting and said: "I know what let's do. Let's put Tony Gwynn in a booth with Bob Brenley and Chip Carey and we'll have them broadcast the New York Yankees series." This guy should get a Peabody Award, or at the very least the Nobel Peace Prize. Those three worked together like vodka and anti-freeze.

Tony Gwynn is a nice guy, and he brings a lot to the table. Bob Brenley just might be brain-dead. I'm just glad he left his comments on the stadium wind situation behind on Cubs telecasts. But Chip Carey has to stand second only to Joe Buck in shaming a famous grandfather who is also a broadcasting legend. The shameful indecency with which he celebrated every single development in favor of the Indians this evening was sickening.

I found myself forced to switch over to the end of Twelve Angry Men on Turner Classic Movies before I was pressed into service in the Ryan Garko Hall of Fame movement. Yeah, he hit two home runs tonight, but I've missed a great deal if Ryan Garko is considered a big bat in a lineup. Speaking of Twelve Angry Men, if there aren't twelve angry men in the Yankee clubhouse (and with morons like Damon and Mientkiewicz, there might not be) then there ought to be.

And while I'm on the subject of TBS: how is FrankTV going to change the face of late night TV? Is it going to be the worst show ever? I know he has a good impression for John Madden and for the President. His Nicholson is passable, but his Pacino is terrible. And those are the four featured in the commercials that have run somewhere in the neighborhood of a quadrillion times now. He better be holding a hell of a lot of A material in the vault, or the American people have to be an order of magnitude dumber than I think they are for this show to succeed.

It would be a lot easier on the viewing public if the American League playoffs were rescheduled with an eye to sparing us from terrible teams. I must confess, I do not know very much about the Cleveland Indians. Nor do I particularly care to learn. But this season, like 1999, 2003 and 2004 seems destined to end in a Red Sox vs. Yankees grudge match.

The Angels are just not built to win a game at Fenway, at least the way it looked tonight. I told my friend as we watched the game that if the Angels didn't score in the first inning, this game was as good as over. After Figgins very nearly ran into a bizarre double play with Guerrero grounding to third while he was trying to steal, I got to thinking that if they didn't score, the Angels were finished for good.

Maybe if the Angels were playing in the National League, their style could work. But right now they look like a running team built around one and a half big bats. They can't run, however, if they don't get on base. I suppose most of the credit has to go to Josh Beckett for that, as much as I loathe admitting it. That said, it seemed like the Angels gave him a hell of a lot of help.

I can appreciate the notion that you have to take pitches and work the count to try to tire out an opposing starter. However, as the Michael Douglas character in the Ghost and the Darkness said about prize fighting, every one has a plan until they get hit. Tonight, Beckett was throwing first pitch strikes at an alarming rate. And worse, he was throwing second pitch strikes. It seemed like he was throwing nothing but strikes. The Angels just seemed content to follow the game plan all the way to quick and, for me at any rate, painful defeat.

It makes we wonder about Mike Scoccia. I know he has a World Series ring, and his team has beaten the Yankees in a couple of big postseason series. These Angels have no luck, no plan, no mojo when they face the Red Sox. They just seem to roll over. For a guy who is supposed to be a phenomenal manager, it's a situation that I can't reconcile. I think he's suffering from the after effects of radiation poison from the time he spent working for C. Montgomery Burns in the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant 15 years ago.

Does any one know if John Lackey secretly grew up a Red Sox fan? The guy has to have a 1.50 ERA against the rest of the league to overcome his abysmal numbers against the Sox. Was there any pitcher slated to start in this first round that had his team's fans less confident in his chances? I think even Cubs fans with the erratic, volatile and always prepared to come up small in big moments Carlos Zambrano due to take the mound in Arizona have to be thrilled compared to Angels fans.

It is entirely possible that I have overlooked the Indians in all of this. I am reminded of last season when the Tigers destroyed the Yankees. But that Tigers team had better pitching. It's hard to argue against Sabathia and Carmona, they are pitching very well right now.

They might need to throw complete games like the 2005 White Sox, though, with their bullpen. They certainly don't have a fireballer like Zumaya prior to his Guitar Hero incapacitation. That's what killed the Yankees last season. They just couldn't catch up to his pitches. And the Tigers were hot offensively. I'm not too worried about this Cleveland lineup, even with Trot Nixon.

Somewhere, in some physical model of the universe, Tom Brady is crying for a roughing the passer penalty even now, when the game is already over. I do have it on good authority that Congress is currently debating a way to make any hit on Tom Brady a federal offense. It is early in the season, though, and sooner or later all good things must come to an end. But other matters must intrude before I discuss the Patriots.

One thing that is bothering me at this point in the season is the rumbling that Cedric Benson should lose his job. I don't think the Bears made a mistake in going with Benson and trading away Thomas Jones. After all, Thomas Jones didn't exactly torch the Bills this week, managing to gain just 19 yards. The fumbling has been unpleasant, to say the least, but in the grand scheme of what is wrong with the Chicago Bears, it's merely a blip next to the ghastly quarterback play.

In yesterday's game, Cedric Benson gained 50 yards rushing on 15 carries. That's not too bad. Granted Thomas Jones would have found ways to get more yardage and more carries by simply seizing the ball from his quarterback and turning passing plays into rushes, but short of that I don't see how Benson could have done more to help the Bears win when the offensive masterminds abandoned the run far too early.

After the Lions scored their first TD of the fourth quarter to cut the deficit from 13-3 to 13-10, a lesser man than Ron Turner might have placed more emphasis on the run to work the clock. Instead, he left the game in the capable hands of Brian Griese who managed to find a wide open defensive back for a big TD. A moderately competent high school quarterback should have been able to avoid that pick.

Detroit followed the big Hester return with a long TD drive, but one that didn't take much time off the clock. So the Bears took the field with all the time in the remaining on the clock. I joked with my friends as we watched the game that the run was no longer an option in the Ron Turner offense with that much time on the clock and trailing by only four points. Unfortunately, I was entirely too correct for my taste and for the Bears chances to win.

The Bears are advertised to be a team predicated on running the football and playing good defense. Against the Lions, the Bears threw the football 51 times in a game they never trailed by more than ten points. With a quarterback who hadn't played a game of this magnitude in more than a year.

I appreciate that the Philadelphia Eagles had torched Detroit through the air last week. But the Bears simply aren't built that way. Their wide receivers aren't that great. Mushin Muhhamad has been a disappointment. Berrian is fast, but inconsistent at best. Rasheed Davis looks like a serviceable number 4 option, unfortunately he's forced to be a number 3 in this offense that has no better candidate for the role. Greg Olsen hasn't been on the field long enough to be fairly evaluated. Desmond Clark is dependable, but they forget he exists at times.

The Bears need to find plays and blocking schemes that recognize the difference in style between Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson. Their offensive line simply isn't playing very well or very consistently. Obviously, it would be great to have the line playing well, but it would be possible to muster an effective running attack if they were only consistent. That way, Benson would have an idea of where they might generate push and where he might have success. If that were the case, he'd have more confidence.

I suppose I might be underselling Ron Turner's prowess. There may be a method to the madness that I just don't see. Maybe it works out to the good of the team to have the tailback unable to trust his offensive linemen. Maybe having a tailback who has to wonder from play to play if he might get a chance to see daylight will bear dividends later in the season. Or perhaps Ron Turner is just such a nice brother he's trying to mirror Norv's lack of success in San Diego.

Before I move on from the Bears, I think it's time to rip Jay Mariotti. It was with very little shame and humility that Mariotti discussed to awful play of Brian Griese this past week. It was almost as though he hadn't called for Griese to play at the top of his lungs. But I suppose one must ask the question has any one with more to be humble about than Mariotti ever been less humble?

It was, however, particularly perceptive of Mariotti to upbraid Cedric Benson for not doing more. Ron Turner was right to go away from the run when he did. Benson gained 47 of his 50 yards in the 3rd quarter. It wasn't as though he was building momentum as the game went on, right? Poor blocking and poor play calling could derail any running back's performance.

Seeing a sentence like this in Mariotti's column: "He failed again, looking more interested in running out of bounds then putting the cause on his back" makes me wonder if any editorial restraint exists on the Sun Times. Instead of then it should be than, that's a high school mistake. I don't think I'm nitpicking here, or being hypocritical. Yeah, I make my share and several other people's shares of mistakes in my posts, but I'm not paid to write for a major metropolitan newspaper.

And then there is this thing (I hate to dignify it by calling it a column) on Rex Grossman from ten days ago. I leave it to you to decide whether Mariotti's lack of discretion or the indecent enthusiasm with which he seemed to enjoy his lack of discretion is more offensive. It's just one more reason to despise Mariotti. There is nothing like a lazy, slovenly, arrogant douche to make you want to name your firstborn Jay.

I could not be more tired of the speculation that the Patriots might emerge from this season undefeated. First, the season is only 1/4 of the way through its course. To this point, the Patriots have played 2 sinking ships and 2 teams that may want to simply give up the ghost on the season. As impressive as the first three 38 point performances were, the Patriots still have some dangerous teams on the schedule.

At this point, I have the same level of confidence that the Pats will go undefeated as I have that Daunte Culpepper will duplicate his efforts against Miami going forward, that Terry Francona and Theo Epstein will survive in their present capacities for another season if the team loses to Anaheim and that I will ever have even a passing interest in the future of John Edward Thomas Moynihan. In short, I have no confidence that this team will beat all of the following teams: Pittsburgh, Dallas, Indianapolis and Miami twice.

I will have more on Francona, Epstein and the rest of the Red Sox brain trust as they get closer to losing a playoff series, but something must be done. Last year, the can't miss rookie closer burned his arm out and had to be shut down early. This year, Clay Buchholz came on like a house afire, threw a no-hitter in his second start and had all of Red Sox Nation aflutter with laughter as they scoffed at the Yankees and their conservative Joba Rules. It's not quite so funny now that Buchholz is done for the year as the team plays on, due to fatigue in his shoulder.

There was a time when the Red Sox used to trade all their prospects for veterans to gear up for the stretch drive. Under this regime, apparently the MO seems to be to call up those prospects and throw them to the wolves. I guess they think it's better to have those guys burn out before their minor league deals expire only to be replaced with much more lucrative contracts. But then I'm cynical. The question Red Sox fans have to ask themselves is would they rather believe this administration is corrupt or incompetent.

PS - I was joking when I mentioned the Miami Dolphins, but it does seem like they have a habit of playing spoiler and upsetting the Patriots these last couple of seasons. And don't get too excited about a career day for Sammie Morris. Perhaps if the Bengals had more than two linebackers available to play the bulk of this game, things might not have been so bad. I think Justin Smith said it best when he said it felt like 9 on 7 drills out there. The Pats might as well have been on a power play as though it were hockey with the Bengals injury woes, but that's life.

PPS - Trevor Hoffman looked very old tonight, blowing this save. He also looked a lot like the Snowman (Jerry Reed) from Smokey and the Bandit.