Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not here tonight to say too much about my disappointment that Humpty Dumpty needed very little help from all the king's horses and all the king's men to prevail over the As today. I am still happy enough that the Sox lost four straight. I must ask, with apologies to Bob Lobel, why can't the Red Sox get players like Lenny DiNardo? And thanks to Gordon Edes for breaking the story that Daisuke Matsuzaka probably won't be an all star this season. What tipped you off to this Gordo? The ERA over 4.5? Losing a game to a guy the Sox cut to bring in JD Drew? What next? Will he break the story that water is wet or that what goes up must come down?

Tonight's post is about a heartless Fortune 500 corporation ruthlessly victimizing its patrons. The corporation is Best Buy and the victim in this sordid little mess is yours truly. It was a simple little matter, the attempt to purchase a DVD from a Big Box electronics retailer. All I had to do was pick it up from the shelf and walk to the counter. And it turned into an ordeal. The first problem was that I went to the store over by Fenway Park in the Landmark Center. Go figure, I get a scam perpetrated on me in the heart of enemy territory.

The DVD in question was 16 Blocks. I should have picked it up a year and a half ago when it first came out, but I never got around to it. But the other day, I happened to see it on HBO so I went over to Best Buy. And that's where THEY got me. You can't buy an individual copy of 16 Blocks at that Best Buy in the Landmark Center. I know. I asked a blue shirt. So I sat there in Best Buy, weighing the cost/benefit analysis of purchasing the movie I wanted packaged with a movie that no one could ever want. In the end, I bought it.

Now I have buyer's remorse. I loved 16 Blocks when I saw it in the theater. I loved it the other day on HBO. I'm looking forward to watching it this weekend when the Cavs aren't being robbed by the Spurs. But Best Buy sold me a queer giraffe to quote Proximo from Gladiator. It was a plan devilishly clever in its simplicity. And ordinarily I would not have allowed the store to victimize me. But I wanted 16 Blocks and I wanted it now.

In case you care, the queer giraffe here was Exit Wounds. The classic Steven Segal/DMX effort. No one would go in there to buy that on their own hook. I don't even think DMX's family would purchase the movie (I don't think Segal has a family, I think he was grown from the left over parts of lesser talentless tools in a lab somewhere). But I am now the proud owner of a copy of Exit Wounds on DVD.

I don't think the government should allow these things to take place. It's not my fault that Best Buy purchased more units of Exit Wounds than it can sell. Why should they be able to unload their bad decisions onto the movie that I really want? So we have to take back our opportunity not to purchase terrible films wrapped in cellophane with cinematic tours de force. You should call your legislators, mayors, governors, presidents, bishops, ministers and call the police. I would, but I don't want to end up some registry of public nuisances.

I think the ultimate indignity of this whole episode was that they stuck a sticker on the package screaming for all to see that Best Buy was offering two hot movies for one low price. As my friend suggested, the only way that both of these movies are hot is if they fell off the back of a truck. Even better, I stayed in the store agonizing over this decision for so long that I ended up staying in the parking lot for over an hour (I ate dinner as well, so I didn't waste more than an hour in the place). So it cost me an extra dollar to redeem my car from the Landmark Center lot.

On the plus side, I did all my Fathers Day shopping. I'm going to give the Old Man Exit Wounds. Hell, he has a problem with watching Steven Segal movies when he flips by them as he changes channels. It's awful. For the love of God, Marked for Death and Hard Target have not improved in 15 years. They sucked in 1990, they still suck. So that's his payback for making me watch the Glimmer Man. He gets a terrible movie for Fathers Day. Either that or I might try to take it back to the store. They'll probably boot me right out on the street if I try to bring that back to them, though.

Before we get to tonight's post, I want to address something that came up in the comments on my last post. An anonymous reader called me a blowhard. While I'm quaking with shame, I'm also wondering, how many cool people have made a habit of using the word blowhard. Without having done the necessary legwork, I can't go ahead and say zero, but I'm going out on a limb and saying that it's in the low single digits. By the bye, I am leaving the kobrakommander out of that particular generalization, as he quickly came to my defense and used the word blowhard in turning the anonymous comment on its ear. And now, on with the show...

GREAT MOMENTS IN RED SOX HISTORY #6 - 5/1/2006

I know I just did a GREAT MOMENT IN RED SOX HISTORY installment two days ago, but I've been planning on this one for a long time now. I've been waiting for the eve of the first Sox-Yanks series to remind Red Sox fans that they are hypocrites. On May 1st last season, Red Sox fans (with a few exceptions) showed themselves to be classless idiots when Johnny Damon returned to town for the first time in a Yankee uniform.

Some fans did cheer him when he returned, remembering his accomplishments as the catalyst for the championship team in 2004. The majority of the fans were not quite so nostalgic, however, and Damon was booed each time he came to the plate. Boston.com provided a slideshow to document fan reaction. It was not a particularly stellar moment for New Englanders.

Red Sox fans called Damon a sellout, a traitor and other names in that vein. I found it fascinating then, and I still do today. In the end, after all, it's not as though Damon was a Red Sox draft pick. He didn't come up through Lowell, Trenton and Pawtucket. The Red Sox signed him as a free agent because they could offer him more money than Oakland could. Oakland in turn got him via trade with the Kansas City Royals, who were forced to trade him because they couldn't afford to keep him.

Apparently, baseball is only allowed to be a heartless, bottom-line driven industry only so long as it benefits the Red Sox. Yes, the Red Sox stepped in and signed a player that other teams wanted but could not afford. But that's where the cycle was to stop. The Red Sox were supposed to be the other team to end all other teams, which would make them the mother of all other teams (the line comes from an episode of Becker).

Unfortunately, that's not the way it worked out. Even though the fans with the gruff, cynical, Puritan-inspired exterior hiding a collective heart of gold embraced their idiosyncratic caveman center fielder, Damon departed for the greener pastures of the hated Evil Empire. Suddenly, Red Sox fans were able to ignore the past and assume their favored position - victim of Yankee aggression. And at the end of the day, nothing riles up Sox fans like the chance to gang up on a convenient target.

This particular image from the slideshow captures the spirit of the crowd that night.

It is convenient to assume that Damon is a traitor and a liar and harbor for any of a whole host of dishonorable traits. It helps people look past the business practices of their own team management.

That's what bothers me most about Red Sox fans. They can ignore the fact that Damon left two other teams before he left Boston because he is a mercenary player in a mercenary business. Red Sox Nation can somehow delude themselves into thinking that theirs is the only organization worthy of loyalty. New Englanders can look at a chart displaying the payroll figures for every team and see only the gap between the Yankees and the Olde Towne Team. They never seem to notice the two dozen odd teams in their own rearview mirror.

Red Sox Nation has an incredible gift for swallowing the propaganda that comes out of the team owners' mouths. How many asked the team if it did all it could to keep Damon? How many asked themselves exactly how loyal they would be to a baseball team if there were a question of $3 million per year in the balance? How many have wondered whether team management has a long term strategy other than simply trying to out-Herod Herod?

At this point, after more than two decades of living in the Boston area, Red Sox fans have begun to remind me of the citizens of Oceania from Orwell's classic 1984. The team sits in the center of the web, like the Ministry of Truth, revising its own campaign of misinformation each time a situation comes up (like Damon leaving for the Yankees) so that no matter what has happened the team tries to get the fans to believe that it is victim or victor. And the self-proclaimed most intelligent fans in the nation swallow it hook, line and sinker.

I don't think it's too early to wonder how the process will play out should the team decide that life no longer begins at forty for baseball players in the post-performance enhancing drugs era and Big Schill should take 38pitches to another city. How will Henry and his crew spin that tragedy?

Well, the As won't be celebrating a World Series title this fall, just like they haven't celebrated in each of the seasons during Billy Beane's reign of terror. Sooner or later, the commercial media will stop massaging his ego and start expecting a little more than simply making the playoffs. Until that day, I guess fans will have to swallow his snake oil for at least one more year. Perhaps Billy Beane and Peyton Manning can have a grudge match in the offseason to see which overhyped fraud can rightly lay claim to the title "King of the Frauds."

Unlike most people, I guess, I think that at some point a player or a coach has to lead his team to a championship game or series, and an executive must build a team that can at least reach the championship game or series. Until that happens, any praise a player, coach or an executive receives isn't worth a damn thing. Sports, unlike any other aspect of life, are shockingly simple. Someone wins and someone loses. And until you've won, you're nothing but a loser. Any other sentiment but that is nonsense you feed little kids after they lost a Little League game. That's why Peyton Manning is a fraud, and Billy Beane is nothing more than the nerdy kid who knew more algebra than they rest of us (Theo Epstein, stats tool though he is, gets a pass because his team won a title).

A development more interesting than the As collapse occurred in this year's ALCS. Far be it for me to take delight in the downfall of another, especially when some many better paid commentators on TV and in the press do it so gleefully. But Steve "Psycho" Lyons will not be joining us in the broadcast booth at least not for the foreseeable future. I guess we all should have seen this coming, but I never believed it possible.

I imagine their must have been a segment of the viewing audience who enjoyed his "wit," "wisdom" and "insight." I was not one of those people. Moreover, no one I know enjoyed his commentary on baseball broadcasts. And yet, there he was calling games on Fox Saturday baseball with Thom Brenneman making you miss Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, as impossible as that seems. It's amazing that a lack of talent, humor and real insight into the game is not cause for dismissal.

I do agree that his off color comments on people of Hispanic descent merited punishment. But is saying that Lou Pinella was "hablaing Espanol" so terrible? I don't think so. It's certainly stupid, a poor attempt to be folksy. Very poor indeed. Far worse, and less intelligent, was his remark that he was uncomfortable sitting next to Lou Pinella (who is of Hispanic descent) and he feared for the safety of his wallet. That was enough to get him fired.

The strange thing is he had a history of this type of behavior. During the Mets-Dodgers NLDS matchup, he cracked on a fan wearing unusually thick glasses. The cute little epigram was "wearing a digital camera on his face." Of course, there was no way for Steve Lyons to know that the fan in question was almost blind, but there was no need for him to say that either.

Then there was the infamous criticism of Shawn Green for not playing a game against the Giants during Yom Kippur. Shawn Green just happens to be Jewish. Amazingly, Lyons survived that incident. He was suspended without pay, but he wasn't fired. I guess this was his third strike.

I am somewhat torn about this. Part of me is glad that he's no longer broadcasting baseball because I thought he brought nothing to the table. Part of me understands that what he said was colossally ignorant and has no place in civilized conversation. But part of me knows that we've all either made off color comments about other racial or ethnic group. And part of me fears political correctness will eventually overwhelm free expression.

One must ask the question how dumb is Steve Lyons? Even if enlightenment in this area is beyond your intellectual capacity, at some point the instinct to self preservation should come to the fore. If you have been caught on two prior occasions for general insensitivity, and disciplined for religious insensitivity, avoiding any type of ethnic insensitivity might be a good idea. If those of you who read this (all 1.3 of you) aren't smart enough to grasp the self preservation concept, I would suggest this course of action. Simple politeness.

Take a page from General Patton (as depicted in the Oscar winning film with George C. Scott). After omitting the Russians from a speech on his experiences in England where he ever so briefly mentioned Anglo-American world rule in a postwar scenario, Patton found himself in hot water with his superiors. The organizers of his appearance assured the General that his remarks would be off the record, but word got out and caused a huge controversy.

Patton said to his superiors that he would have mentioned the Russians if there had been any present at the time. He said he didn't like the SOBs, but he would have mentioned them out of simple politeness. Apparently simple politeness is far, far beyond the capacities of our society.

Do not misconstrue the tone of this post. Racism is not acceptable. Under no circumstance should you make someone uncomfortable because of their heritage. I merely suggest to those individuals who are not sufficiently enlightened to abandon racial prejudice or clever enough to recognize the consequences of ethnically insensitive comments, that you should at least be polite enough to keep your mouth shut. I apologize for the grammar, but if you can't not be a moron, at least be a quiet moron.

In the long run, I think it's a victory for us all to have Steve Lyons off the air. Unless, of course, the network finds a permanent replacement who proves to be worse than Psycho. I guess we can always hope.

Would that I had more to say on the A's punking the Red Sox this evening, but who can do a beating like that justice? Plus it was my misfortune to run into a cat with a 2004 World Series ring this evening. That coupled with an old friend who told him that I stopped drinking St. Louis beer (Bud/Bud Light) in the wake of the Cardinals collapse in that unfortunate series is enough to put a damper on my enthusiasm. In my defense, I am (and have been since those who know the Cincinnati Kid can remember) a Miller High Life drinker.

The Cardinals awful play is merely one excuse for not drinking St. Louis beer. I have some others, but I will not expend both barrels on Anheiser Busch until I get paid for it. The only reason I'm posting tonight is that I have been alerted to the existence of this site recently. It can take you to this site, which was surprising and disappointing for a brief moment, until one realized that the English and their govt were left behind in the New World.

Go here, and see how short and expensive life can be. I must say I wish I had more to add, but I must disappoint my loyal readers. All I can say is got to the site above, or click on this particular link. Even if it won't find you treasure, it might help you find the missing piece which can make us all soldiers.

It is now about 36 hours after the main portion of this post was composed. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking when I wrote it. I don't know why I made the English government reference. I have no idea what it meant. Nor do I understand where the make us all soldiers bit came from. The original intention with the last link above (which sends you to a site entitled "When Tools Attack") was to make some bad joke about tools attacking failing to include the Red Sox who are, as we all know, giant tools.

It wouldn't have been very funny, so I guess it's just as well that I went the Kellen Winslow II route. It was certainly in poor taste with the unpleasantness overseas, so I apologize. Part of me wanted to delete this post altogether, but in the spirit of honesty and cynicism that are the hallmarks of this blog, I had to leave it up with my apology. This is yet one more from the long list of reasons why one shouldn't drink and blog.

From beer with dinner to White Russians at the bar to more beer on my return, I should never have posted. But I did, and I won't try to save myself the embarassment. I only wish I had the flight data recorder going to help me understand the English in the New World referrence. All I can say in my defense is that at least I wasn't dumb enough to drive that night.