This was not a very good week in Sedition in Red Sox Nation land. I think, at this point, that I just might be out of things to say about Notre Dame. Maybe I might have something to throw out there if they ever manage to win a game, but that isn't looking very likely at the moment. Who knows what Navy is capable of after the last 40 years of losing to the Irish? And Duke is looking tremendously better than they have in living memory.

It is true that the last two weeks have seen some improvement. They seem to be moving closer to victory, but that's not the way things are supposed to be. That's not the way things are supposed to be at all. It was supposed to be a thing of beauty. Even if they manage to beat BC, it's still depressing. BC is supposed to be the spoiler of seasons, not Notre Dame.

And then for the first time since 1995, the Boston Red Sox have won the AL East. The Yankees twelve year reign of terror is over. If I were a Red Sox fan, however, I wonder just how optimistic I'd be as the playoffs open. In one way of looking at this matter, the Red Sox are rolling into the playoffs tied with the Indians for the best record in Major League Baseball. But that's only part of the story.

The Red Sox finished the season 42-30 against the AL East. The Yankees ended up at 39-33 in the division. There could be some small cause for concern there. After all, I'm sure Red Sox fans remember that the Yankees took the season series 10-8. That means the Sox won five more games against the Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays than the Yankees did.

I hope Sox fans will forgive me for going the long way around to make this point, but the rest of the AL East wasn't particularly good this season. Toronto did finish two games over .500, which really surprised me. I haven't paid much attention to them, even when they play the Red Sox. But the Orioles finished twelve games under .500, and the Devil Rays ended the year two games behind them.

I said all that to say this - managing to beat these teams more than the Yankees did isn't a tremendously encouraging sign going forward. Last I looked, none of these teams are going to be playing in this postseason. The competition facing the Red Sox as they chase that World Series trophy is going to be slightly more formidable.

The Red Sox did win the season series against the Indians and the Angels. But it seemed that their victories against the Angels came early in the season and then later on the Angels got the better of the Sox. One wonders just how much this matters when the division series starts. I wish it weren't the case, but the Angels and the Indians scare me. And not in the good way. The matchups seems all wrong to me. I can't stand either team, so it will be a lot harder to root for them than it would be to root for the Yankees.

The last time the Red Sox and Angels met in the playoffs was in 2004, and the Sox swept them in the ALDS. I know that's all in the past now, but I don't see the Angels winning this one, to tell the truth. I know all about his stats and his talent, but something about Vlad Guerrero doesn't inspire confidence in me. Their running game could pose problems for Varitek whose arm isn't really all that good. But that hinges on them getting on base, and I'm not entirely sure that they will do it consistently.

Should the Red Sox win and the Indians prevail, I won't much enjoy the ALCS. Until guys like Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore show me that they can produce in pressure situations, I won't be too optimistic about their chances. Obviously it's kind of hard to build a postseason resume when your team hasn't gotten into the playoff. But I don't remember them burning it up two years ago when they chased the White Sox down the stretch.

Of course the Yankees might be a more formidable opponent, and I'd love to see them beat the Red Sox because it will vex Red Sox fans much more than any other team taking an ALCS from them. Should the Red Sox fall to the Angels, that would be interesting, since they have had a nasty habit of beating the Yankees in playoff series lately. But I'm not too worried about that since, as I've said, I'm not holding out hope for an Angel win.

In unrelated matters, Donovan McNabb really showed me how wrong I was when I ripped him last week. He really took over tonight's game against the Giants, right? Getting sacked 12 times showed that his knee is completely healed, that he is the answer for the Eagles and the best QB of all time. Of course the dozen sacks weren't all his fault. Obviously the line sucked, and the coaches might have wanted to think about taking a different approach to blocking that guy who got six sacks by himself somewhere between sack two and sack six, but that's just me. But you can't tell me that McNabb couldn't have thrown it away two or three of those plays, can you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The season is 9 games old and the Red Sox are in the midst of a losing streak. That is good news for people who hate the team. For people who love the team, there is a silver lining or two about this cloud. The Red Sox are 6-3. They're in first place. Their one-two punch of Schilling and Beckett are both 2-0 with ERAs under 2.0.

However, as Jerry Garcia once wrote, every silver lining's got a touch of grey. Coco Crisp is on the DL. He broke a bone in his hand sliding/falling into third base. We haven't seen an uglier slide outside of Ben Affleck's career since Good Will Hunting. You have to applaud the organization for its keen sense of timing, extending his contract right after he gets hurt.

Then there's the fact that the Red Sox took two of three from Texas and swept Baltimore. Apparently, the Rangers have a great offense. It looked great when they put up 10 runs in their lone victory. As they're now 3-7, it seems that too much was made of the Rangers potential and not enough of their inconsistency. Let's not forget the damage that a certain Texas first baseman did to Team USA in this spring's WBC (doubly surprising, as he was allegedly playing for America).

As for the mighty Orioles, what can I say? They are currently .500. I don't think anybody expects them to play quite so well over the course of a full season. When the one thing that consistently draws fan interest is a pitcher's wife, it's probably time to cut your losses, trade Miguel Tejada and try to rebuild.

Toronto is a different story. They spent a lot of money this offseason. They gave the Sox a tough time last year. Losing 2 of 3 to them isn't that big a deal, is it? On the surface, it isn't a big deal. It's a long season. They play the Jays 16 more times before it's all over. All these things are true. But then again, there might be some cracks in the facade of Red Sox Nation.

The new short stop is still a good game away from the Mendoza line. Mike Lowell had a great game in his Fenway debut, but what about the 4 games out of every 5 when Josh Beckett isn't pitching? David Wells looked sharp in his season debut, right up until the moment when he threw his first pitch. Matt Clement and Wakefield are both 1-1, but their ERAs are dangerously close to Boomer's playing weight. Jason Varitek may or may not have triumphed in his battle with functional illiteracy. The Curly Haired Boyfriend might be daunted by his success rate in some of his recent attacks on certain memebers of the team (Manny and his hustle and Carl Everett and his ...unique...beliefs come to mind), but then again he might be lying in wait to attack AGon or Lowell or some other unsuspecting member of the team. For too long now, David Ortiz has enjoyed immunity. Just because he is both immensely likeable (even I don't hate him, which is very rare for a Red Sox star) and a decent human being doesn't mean that the CHB won't attack him.

I must leave you with those cheerful thoughts, and the promise that the first of my Great Moments in Red Sox history will be up soon. And the Willy Mo vs. Bronson Arroyo home run watch is now 2-1 in the worst product of the Boston music scene since Boston's favor.