I really don't like posting twice in one day, but I just couldn't get the post I wanted to finish last night done until the middle of the day today. These things happen. I thought about waiting until tomorrow to post again, but I decided I ought to go ahead and write this while the subject was still fresh in my mind.

After watching ESPN baseball coverage last night and tonight, with apologies to Charles Dickens, it was the best of quality starts and the worst of quality starts. The best - Curt Schilling overpowering the mighty Texas Rangers. The worst - Carl Pavano squeaking past the lowly Twins. The Yankees are in bad trouble this year.

When you look at the stat line alone, Schilling would seem to have an edge because he allowed only one run over his seven innings of work. Pavano also went seven against the Twins tonight, allowing two runs in the process. Pavano only struck out two batters, but he didn't walk anybody. Schilling struck out six, walked only one and allowed only four hits. It was indeed one for the ages and much, much, much better than Pavano's effort.

After all, it's not like Curt Schilling allowed a home run to an overrated bum like Frank Catalanato. Oh, wait... Minnesota had to manufacture one run against Carl Pavano with a single and stolen base by Tori Hunter and then a base hit to drive him in. Then Morneau doubled and two batters later, Hunter drove him in with another double. Both balls were well hit, very well hit. But Pavano recovered, got out of the inning and got a big win.

Before any Red Sox fan decides to remind me that the Rangers play in a notorious hitters park, think for a second and see if you can't remember the nickname for the MetroDome. Before you sprain something from the unaccustomed mental effort, it's the Homer Dome. I am aware that the Twins aren't built to hit home runs the way the Yankees can, but can you really make the claim that the Rangers can hit with the Sox?

To this point in the season, I think Pavano has been more impressive than Schilling. It is true that the Devil Rays produced several runs against Pavano on Opening Day in the Bronx. But the Devil Rays offense is considerably better than the Royals who put a man-sized beating on Curt Schilling in Kaufmann Stadium. I will have more to say on the Devil Rays later this week, because they're going to be a team to watch this season.

While Texas has some big names like Michael Young, Hank "Yes, my production declined at a strangely suspicious time" Blaylock, Mark Teixeira and The Man Who Once Was Sammy Sosa, they have fallen into a rut as a team. They put up decent offensive numbers, but as the guy I go to for my Red Sox fan's perspective said to me today, the Rangers look great on paper without ever bringing that to the field when it matters.

Minnesota, on the other hand, has a very good team. They're a small market team, and they can't throw money around the way the Sox and the Yanks do. But they compete year in and year out. Santana is probably the best pitcher in the AL, but they also have the reigning MVP in Morneau and the reigning batting champ in Mauer. Holding them to two runs after a shaky start on Opening Day is an important confidence builder for Pavano.

Carl Pavano now stands 17 wins away from the 18 I predicted for him before the season started. I realize that it's only two starts in, he's only won four games in pinstripes in a little over two seasons, he has bad karma hanging over his head from lying to the team about his injury last year and he has a hell of a long way to go to earn his teammates' trust once more. He took a step in the right direction today, and he better take 17 more steps like that because I really want to be right for the first time in a while.

As for other baseball matters, or at least matters peripherally connected to baseball, I have yet another problem with Bill Simmons. In his running diary on Daisuke Matsuzaka's first start, there was a very disturbing subplot. He reacted to the excessive grundle grabbing exhibited by Julio Lugo with an enthusiasm that was slightly less than decent. I leave you to make of that what you will.

But if I were the kind of writer given to bestowing movie quotes as awards, like the Sports Guy, I'd have to go to the cinematic tour de force Planes, Trains and Automobiles to the scene where Del Griffith (John Candy, in what might be his best role) takes Neil Page (Steve Martin) to task for his grundle grabbing. The purveyor of shower curtain rings hits him with this epithet: "Larry Bird doesn't do as much ball handling in an entire night as you do in an hour."

If I were the kind of person who tampers with perfection, I might be inclined to update that quote now that Bird has been retired for well over a decade. But I'll let it stand, because it has a Boston connection and there's no one on the Celtics that's worth elevating by connecting him to that film. That quote will also serve as my memorial to the golden age of John Hughes movies, since he lost his fastball after Uncle Buck.

On a completely unrelated note, at the risk of bringing my unique brand of insensitivity to an issue that should be handled with the utmost sensitivity, I have to laugh at MSNBC and CBS for handling the Don Imus situation with neither courage nor balls. If they don't have the courage to kill the golden goose (the coveted demographic that makes up his audience has considerable buying power, after all) and fire him for his incredibly stupid insensitive remarks on the Rutgers women's basketball team, they at least could have had the balls not to weasel out of the situation with a slap on the wrist.

I don't know what is the right way to handle this situation, I only know it's not a slap on the wrist suspension. Without going to the lengths that the South Park episode that dealt with Kramer's career suicide went to make the same point, there is no way that I could, as a white guy, understand how comments like Imus and his guest made resonate in the black community. I do know that CBS and MSNBC can't be all things to all people in this situation. They should have either fired him or stood by him. I think this suspension insults us all by trying to offend no one.

So it's down to two teams in the NFL. And at last, and in no small part due to my efforts, the Bears bandwagon is rolling to Miami for Super Bowl XLI. For all of those people who laughed at me following the Arizona game and the Miami game and the Green Bay game on New Year's Eve, now I'm right and you were wrong (I don't think I need to be more magnanimous in victory than Bill Belichick was in defeat). But my world makes a little less sense now than it did on Sunday morning.

Peyton Manning beat the Patriots. Unlike many in New England, I did not brace myself for the apocalypse. I didn't see it coming, but I am not as surprised by it as some commentators either. It was only a matter of time before he won a playoff game against the Patriots. These things happen in football. The quarterback of the moment always has a nemesis he must pass to get to the next level. Brett Favre and Steve Young both had to beat the Dallas Cowboys and Troy Aikman in their quests for immortality. Terry Bradshaw had to beat the Miami Dolphins and Bob Griese. In large part that is forgotten, because the average fan has the memory of a goldfish and the last five years are the sum and total of the NFL.

What really surprised me, what upset my comfortable world view was the manner in which Manning won. My calling him an archfraud in this space now hangs on the erratic right arm (and odd, nearly shot put throwing motion) of Rex Grossman. Not only did Manning win, but he came back from an 18 point deficit in the biggest game he'd ever played. That surprised the hell out of me, and a lot of people the world over.

But the thing is, it was bound to happen. Every year, Brady gets a little older, and that defense ages in dog years. People get hurt, and all of a sudden the Patriots look like a who's who of has beens and never will bes in the secondary. Ray Mickens was playing defensive back in the fourth quarter. Who knew he was still in the league?

I think the dynasty is over, not just because I don't like the Pats. Consider the Reggie Wayne near fumble on the game winning drive. Since 2001, those plays have been going the way of Patriots. Sooner or later, they had to run out of luck. It just seems like these things are all coming to a head at the worst possible time. As I said earlier, this team keeps getting older.

They really haven't reloaded through the draft as well as they needed to, either. Yes, Maroney was a great pick and he's their back of the future. But was Pioli in the men's room when it came time to draft Chad Jackson? If some one said that the Florida receiver turning in the best overall performance during this playoff run would be Jabar Gaffney when this season began, that person would have been laughed out of town.

When it really mattered, the Patriots wide receivers who came up big against the Chargers came up very small against Indy. That was pass interference on Troy Brown. He gave the Colt defensive back a forearm on his way by, which is what made it an obvious call, as opposed to the simple pick which led to the Reggie Bush TD. Blocking downfield before the ball is caught is offensive pass interference. But the enduring image of this collapse has to be Reche Caldwell and his creepy wide-eyed stare after each crucial drop.

So there we have the Patriots entering the decline and fall portion of their dynasty. They are thin (at best) at wide receiver. Their linebacking corps consists of Roosevelt Colvin, two aging stalwarts whose best years appear, like objects in Meat Loaf's rear-view mirror, closer than they are in Bruschi and Vrabel and then two guys who would be fortunate indeed if they were allowed to back up Urlacher and Briggs if they played for the Bears in Banta-Cain and Alexander. Their offensive line doesn't inspire terror. Their defensive line is outstanding, but the secondary is a mismatched crew destined to lose Assante Samuel in the not too distant future. But they have cap room, if they want to spend it.

Then there is my adopted team, the Chicago Bears. They overcame Sen. Obama's effort to jinx them, and they overcame me speaking highly of them to beat America's new team. It's too bad in a way that the Saints had to lose. If I hadn't become emotionally invested in the Bears, I would have been rooting for the Saints this year. If they'd won I would have rooted for them in the Super Bowl against the Pats or Colts. But there's always next year...

I was disappointed, but not surprised at Reggie Bush when he scored that TD. The play was the first real flash of the brilliance he showed day after day at USC, and it reminded me of the number of times he'd made arrogant celebrations like that against a certain team from the nation's premier Catholic institution of higher learning in which I am also emotionally invested. I was amazed that he wasn't flagged for the celebration.

If TO had done either the pointing at an opponent or the flip into the end zone he would have been flagged. If TO did both on the same play, he'd be in front of a panel at the league office as though it were the Spanish Inquisition and TO said the world was round. But some leeway is given to those who attended that first-rate academic institution in LA. Perhaps Reggie was taking lessons on how to behave in the adult world from fellow Trojan Sean Salisbury. Read this, and see if you can resist making a joke involving a manufacture of prophylactic products who shares the name of the school's mascot.

That joke about a reaction to TO taunting, flipping and dancing has been in my mind since I saw the play on Sunday. Unfortunately, TO had to do it again. It's like there is some sort of bizarre cosmic connection that causes him to go out and say something that didn't need to be said as soon as I get ready to make a positive reference to him. For the 1,000th time, I was told that it was time I gave up on TO today. I'm just not ready to do it.

I wish he hadn't said it, but I don't think it was quite as big an insult as the media has made it out to be. TO doesn't live in the same world that normal people inhabit. When he was a kid, his grandmother was the most stable thing in his world. Unfortunately, since he's been in the NFL, Bill Parcells is probably the most stable, positive influence in his professional world. Now Parcells is out of the league, for the time being anyway, and TO is still in Dallas. As his last fan, I am not looking forward to this coming season. What a media circus this will be.

If only TO could learn how to live without being the center of attention. Or even better, the media could act on their threat to stop paying attention to him. I love hearing that threat. As though the media could ignore the best source for the quick story so that the American sports fan could learn how to feel from the font of righteous anger with the least effort expended.

It reminds me of something I read the other day in Dickens' Hard Times:

Whenever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used - that is to say whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him responsible for the consequences of any of his acts - he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would "sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic." This had terrified the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions.

This applies to both TO and the media. Neither party in this dreadfully repetitive pas de deux can exist without the other. And neither is good for the other. He enables the media's indolence, and the media enables his penchant for attracting negative attention. Too bad for people who just want to watch football, but then are there any left? Every thing has to have drama and back story, now and it's too bad.