Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

Ernest Lawrence Thayer used those words to conclude his famous opus, Casey at the Bat, which was published in the Examiner in 1888. I use them tonight because there is no joy in doucheville, with Varitek at the bat representing the tying run in the ninth inning. Do I even need mention that he struck out rather lamely on a pitch 2 and 1/2 feet out of the strike zone to conclude the threat?

We've come a long way, indeed, since the days when Varitek was the apple of Red Sox Nation's collective eye having stood so bravely against A Rod when he was armored in catching equipment (complete with mask) and A Rod wasn't. Now he is mired in a slump which is so catastrophic that he finally looks as ridiculous on the field as he does off it.

On the plus side, at least Tek is working ever so hard, even on his precious days off, to lift himself out of this slump by his proverbial bootstraps. Of course, to bowdlerize the Sean Connery character from The Rock, losers always whine about trying their best; winners go home and experience coitus with the prom queen. Rest assured, Red Sox Nation, that, with Tek under the watchful tutelage of Dave Madagan, this slump is sure to end soon enough.

Speaking of Madagan, I hope he considers the example of his predecessor closely. After all, former Sox hitting coach Ron Jackson was part of that nightmarish turnaround in 2004. Jackson, more than any other outside influence, was largely credited with the adjustments that turned David Ortiz from a guy with a lot of potential into the Papi we all know and love (but me, apparently). And it was Jackson who was one of those purged from the organization after 2006 and the epic collapse. Maybe Madagan should have rented...

Leaving that aside for the moment, I think it's time we got to the bottom of a serious injustice. According to the build-up to this series, this was supposed to be about bad blood between the teams. Jonathan Papelbon, among others on this pitching staff, vowed retribution for the Devil Rays not disbanding their organization after a pitcher hit Coco Crisp in Fenway without the expressed written consent of the Red Sox. Why is Tampa stubbornly insisting on playing baseball and not simply forfeiting each game?

Perhaps someone in the Red Sox PR office was asleep at the switch. Maybe the Rays didn't get the memo that they were supposed to be pushed around and laughed out of their own stadium in this series. Instead, they've won two games. There haven't been any brawls. How dare they. And to top it off, they continue to help Varitek make a fool of himself.

And as for Papelbon, it's hard to take revenge on an opposing team when you aren't called upon to pitch. Nevertheless, it might be possible that he has already taken revenge. I think we all presume too much when we think Papelbon, with his tragically limited intellectual capacity, knows what revenge is, much less how a man goes about taking same.

But again, the real meathead in this is Francona. I can see that pinch hitting Varitek this evening was a desperate effort to shock his light-hitting catcher into some small measure of offensive production. And Varitek was, apparently, going to come into the game with Wake leaving. But surely there must have been a better option available, as in some bench player who might actually get a hit once in a blue moon? Or maybe not.

Speaking of meatheads, I forget how long it's been since I ripped the CHB. Since he'd spent so much time covering the Celtics (why, I don't know) and I spent so much time ignoring the Celtics, there just didn't seem to be a point. But know that he's back to covering the Sox and coming at Manny with guns blazing, it's time to revist everybody's favorite Boston newspaperman with a room temperature IQ (sorry, Bob Ryan, but you need to do some work to get to room temperature status).

It never gets easy to read a Shaughnessy piece. Buried in the middle of this particular "effort" is a sentence that reads "no one wants to demonize Manny." Was the man born with no sense of irony or did he have to work to lose it? He's ripping Manny for shoving the travelling secretary to the ground (which was kind of beat, but no one is saying exactly what the man may have said to Manny to provoke the normally spaced out slugger into shoving him in the first place. Not that that makes Manny right, just that we could use more info). Doesn't that demonize Manny? Not to mention the headline "This time, Manny being Manny is unacceptable."

And I seem to recall Shaughnessy finding it tremendously risible when Pedro mad-dogged Don Zimmer to the turf in ought four. But apparently that was OK because the old man in question (who is, incidentally, considerably older than the Red Sox travelling secretary) was affiliated with another organization. Or perhaps Zimmer didn't see the incalculable potential of an aspiring cub reporter for the Boston Globe who was still struggling to shake off his uncanny physical resemblance to Dr. Who while Zim managed the Sox?

I also love Shaughnessy calling Manny fans sycophants (not that they aren't). After all, it can be ever so difficult to understand the CHB when he talks, what with the proximity of his lips to Larry Lucchino's derriere and all. That said, I really hope America's Prom Date is enough of a douche to let Manny go to another team because he dropped the travelling secretary with a forearm shiver. Wouldn't that be a grand gesture to the morons in Red Sox Nation?

And in other news, Dan Duquette is being probed by the state ethics commission for selling World Series tickets to the mayor of Pittsfield at face value when he was working to secure a city site for his minor league team to play in Pittsfield. If you're going to get caught for something like this, why not just make it an outright bribe? And I still hate Duquette after all these years, even though he reminds me of a slightly more amusing version of Dan Akroyd from Caddyshack II to his turn as the auto parts mogul in Tommy Boy.

I guess I should clarify a statement from my last post. I never meant to include TheKobraKommander (the reader with whom I've conducted a running debate on the Roger Clemens saga) in with whiners like Simmons and Shaughnessy. At least TheKobraKommander has focused more on the facts of the case as presented in the Mitchell Report and avoided whining and pandering about what Clemens may or may not have done.

Since he went through the trouble of commenting on the post, I figured I'd throw this clarification up tonight.

TheKobraKommander has left a new comment on your post "It's not very often I find myself changing my mind...":

No doubt about the CHB and Simmons. I never said that Clemens doesn't deserve a fair hearing, I've merely said that: 1) The Mitchell Commission has reason to be suspicious and they didn't just pull Clemens' name out of a hat 2) Clemens has put himself in a dangerous legal position by accusing McNamee of lying.

The best thing Clemens could have done was to refuse to speak to the media or anyone about anything; just keep his head down, play ball, and let the truth take care of itself. You never win by playing the media's game, as you yourself seem to admit here.

I kinda like Seau's hat. He looks pretty dapper in them Sunday going to meeting clothes. Besides, it's cold out; don't you know that 90% of body heat is lost through the head?

BTW: can't Brady afford a tie and cufflinks?


The Kobra Kommander

I do think that Clemens may have embarked on a risky venture, but he really had no choice. To borrow an adage from political campaigning, a charge not answered is a charge believed. And if Clemens is telling the truth, he should have very little to fear in a court of law. After all, he ought to be able to buy better lawyers than McNamee can, and it ought to be enough to get by in a civil proceeding.

As for his sentiment that Seau looked good in that sporty little hat, I guess all I can say is that he would think a ridiculous get up like that looked good. I think Al Czervik said it best when he said: "Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?" I, however, cannot extend to Junior Seau the simple sarcastic pleasantry that Al offered the Judge when he saw him wearing the same hat.

As for Brady, there's just something about him that bothers me. He has absolutely no charisma. That's why he doesn't get the national ads that go to Peyton Manning, it has nothing to do with however many B-list actresses he's knocked up or not. There's a reason why he does print ads for Stetson, who knew they were still in business, by the way? He's a pretty boy with the IQ of a turnip and the stage presence of a bad mime in South Station at rush hour. Say what you want about Manning with his "Aw, shucks" Junior Simple mannerisms, but apparently it resonates in red states.

Brady did look like a tool without the tie and cuff links. If you're going to rock an ensemble like Brady was rocking the other day, it has to be complete. A guy in a Savile Row suit without a tie and in a French cuff shirt without cuff links might just as well show up with unshined shoes. I am not much of a fashion plate, myself, but when I take the trouble to dress up, I try not to do things half-assed.

Not that any one in New England necessarily cares, but on this date in history in 1921, the Decatur Staleys relocated to Chicago, where they became the Chicago Bears. I bring this up because I think, given average luck, the Bears will bounce back in a big way next season. Even in spite of my ghastly track record.

Over the last five weeks or so of this past season, the Bears defense started to look like the defense we all came to expect after 2005 and 2006. Nathan Vasher and Charles Tillman ought to be back in form after an injury plagued season. Darwin Walker started to look like the player he could be and not a dead weight in the middle at the end of the year.

Of course there are some problem areas. Most notably, with Kyle Orton as the best QB on the team, it might be time to give up football and look into other career opportunities. Then there is Cedric Benson. I still say he looked a lot better in his last two games before the injury and was on the verge of something good. Plus, after this unfortunate season, Bears fans needn't worry, Benson will not be joining the Pork Chop Express (my fantasy team, I stole the name from Big Trouble in Little China) for the rest of his life.

It's not very often I find myself changing my mind on any given issue. Some say I'm stubborn, some say I'm a contrarian, some say I'm any one of a number of unpleasant and unprintable things. Sadly, I've been thinking they might be right. But what can one do?

Today, I think I just might have to change my mind on the whole Roger Clemens saga. With the 60 Minutes piece and that creepy, Richard Nixon-esque press conference where he played that taped phone conversation, I stuck by him. I think, in part, because I couldn't put a human face on those who were hurt by Clemens' alleged cheating. Now I have that human face.

Bill Simmons provided that human face in his most recent contribution to ESPN the Magazine. Roger Clemens and the other cheaters must be punished not because of what they've done to make a mockery out of the baseball record books, but because they have hurt Bill Simmons' feelings. He used to treasure memories of some of Clemens' great days in Boston, but now he doesn't know how to feel about them any more.

I can't help but wonder if Dr. Phil is racing over to Simmons' house to help talk him through this grave emotional crisis. I realize that this is a sad, selfish and oftentimes stupid country in which we live. But the thing is, no matter what he did or what he didn't do, Roger Clemens doesn't owe any fan of any team a damn thing. Nor has he been proven to have done anything.

And what happens if he clears his name before Congress and in a court of law? Will Simmons, Shaughnessy and the rest apologize? Or will they still whine about what damage these allegations have done to Clemens' legacy and to the pure sport of baseball? I'm betting on the latter. Especially since they won't have to admit that they did as much damage in the rush to judgement on Clemens as he did in being accused.

In other news, the Patriots had their send-off as they left for Arizona in Foxboro. At the risk of sounding old and bitter, am I the only one who remembers a time when a team went to the Super Bowl without a rally? Are we really that bored and hard-up for ideas on how to spend our time that we now have to go out and say good bye to our team as it departs for the Super Bowl? I know 19-0 is historic, but it's not like they landed on the Moon or discovered a new continent.

So we have a tool of note for today, or more accurately, 15,000 tools of note. That's how many people showed up to listen to Tom Brady speak and watch the team get on busses. In January. In New England. In the snow. And honorable mention goes to Junior Seau for wearing that ridiculous hat.

So, it is January 8, a day of great historical significance in American. True, Elvis was born on this date in 1935, but while I love his music, I harbor no illusions as to the overall importance of a music mega star in the grand scheme of things in American history. With or without Elvis, we'd probably stand in about the same spot historically, I think, at this moment.

I do have some grievances to air with other so-called Elvis fans. There's been a lot of talk going around claiming that Viva Las Vegas is both the best Elvis film and an underrated song. Neither of those statements is accurate. Viva Las Vegas is a beat movie, it's very much like Speedway, but with a prettier co-star and a slightly less ludicrous premise.

I don't see how one could claim that the song is underrated. It is one of the most recognizable Elvis songs, more so even than #1 hits like His Latest Flame, Devil in Disguise, Don't and Fool Such As I among others. If you want to listen to an Elvis song that is genuinely underrated, I would suggest Elvis' versions of Gentle on My Mind, Memphis Tennessee or Snowbird (which are all covers of songs by other artists, but still excellent efforts and better than Viva Las Vegas). Or maybe you could really reach and get I've Lost You or It's Over (not a cover, but it does share the title with that great Roy Orbison song) or The Girl I Never Loved from Clambake, which was a terrible film with two underrated songs on its soundtrack. I could go on all night...

As for Elvis' best film, it's hard to choose one since his films were, in the main, terrible. They're light, frivolous, intellectually dangerous (as the insipid, treacly premises may in fact kill brain cells) and a disgusting waste of the poor man's talent. But I think Jailhouse Rock stands out from the crowd. In fact, I think it's a good film. Each time I watch it, I find myself thinking that if he'd been given different sorts of scripts and overseen by a manager who cared more about the talent than the bottom line, Elvis might have actually been able to act. But that's just me.

The real reason January 8th is important occurred all the way back in 1815. Andrew Jackson stopped a numerically superior force of British regulars led by the Duke of Wellington's brother-in-law at the Battle of New Orleans. Most Americans tend to overlook this battle because it took place after the Treaty of Ghent, which officially concluded the War of 1812, was signed.

It is true that the terms of the treaty called for the United States and the British Empire in North America to restore any territory conquered in the war to its previous owner. That said, if the British, who were still in their expansionist mode, found themselves in possession of a city at the mouth of the Mississippi River after the war, would they really have simply given it back? Or if they were willing to return it, would they have done so for free?

Losing New Orleans would have been a major blow to the American ability to hold the lands of the Louisiana Purchase. Losing control of the mouth of the Mississippi would also have made the westward expansion of the United States a much more difficult task. Now maybe that might have been a good thing from an environmental and human rights perspective, but we probably wouldn't be in a position to debate those merits had Jackson lost.

So we should still mark January 8 on the calendar for that reason, if nothing else. But enough of the history lesson. This is after all a sports blog. And the first battle line of 2008 was drawn between Sedition in Red Sox Nation and Red Sox Nation over the potential election of Jim Rice to the Hall of Fame. And for a change, Sedition in Red Sox Nation prevailed. Jim Rice won't be going into Cooperstown with a mandate. If he gets in, it will be through the charity of the Veteran's Committee. And I can live with that.

I have covered my objections to Jim Rice's induction to the Hall of Fame at length in previous posts, I won't do it again. I will say this, though. It is a victory for common sense that a man will not enter the Hall of Fame with his strongest credential being the fact that baseball people from his era remember him as the most feared hitter. As long as we have more objective criteria and fewer subjective criteria, it's a good thing.

Unless, of course, you happen to be Dan Shaughnessy and feel compelled to punish the world with prolix prose because you happened to have been born without talent, wit or charm. The CHB couldn't resist wrapping the Rice defeat up with the swirling Clemens saga. I wonder whether Clemens and his attorneys just might look up Shaughnessy should he be vindicated in court or in Congress.

Among the many questions I have on reading that piece, I guess I'd start with this: if virtually every player who played in the Rice era feels that he belongs in the Hall of Fame, where is the outrage? Hell, where is the second guy available for a quote after the shameless mouthpiece of Red Sox Nation, Jerry Remy?

And again, on the Clemens side of the argument: how can you justify not voting for Clemens if he is cleared in court or in Congress? If he is not proven under due process to have cheated, it's not the same as Pete Rose who pled guilty to gambling, then finally fully confessed to betting on baseball years later. Clemens deserves to be in the Hall on the strength of his 213 wins and 4 Cy Youngs before Brian McNamee alleges he injected Clemens with anything. A responsible journalist might feel compelled to shoe-horn that in to a column.

So, the BCS National Championship Game was played tonight, and still all any one can talk about is this Roger Clemens story. To respond to the lone gunman's comment on last night's post. It is an interesting point that Clemens could have been injected by a team doctor or trainer if he weren't receiving an illicit substance. However, I would counter that by wondering aloud what sort of nitwit pays someone to do something illegal with a check?

I disagree with the notion that Clemens put himself in the position where he has to prove himself innocent. When he stayed silent, every moron with a press pass wrote, talked and shouted that Clemens had to answer these charges. Had he not gone on 60 Minutes, would that somehow have gone away, or would the CHB and Jay Mariotti and Bill Simmons have screamed more bloody murder?

And if I'm not mistaken, Brian McNamee was an employee of the Toronto Blue Jays when he met Roger Clemens and injected him with whatever he was injected in 1998. It was only later that he served as Roger's personal trainer.

Then, there is the CHB's dismal insult to his readers' intelligence masquerading as a column in this morning's Globe. The press conference this evening where Clemens played the tape of his phone conversation with McNamee should have been stage managed better. If you read Jay Mariotti's "thoughts" on the situation, you might get the impression that Clemens ducked the question McNamee posed frequently "what do you want me to do?" I thought Clemens was crystal clear in his answer "I want someone to tell the truth."

Perhaps one can assume that Clemens meant the Pope or Mike Huckabee or Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Tank Johnson, but I was convinced that Clemens was telling McNamee to come clean. Perhaps there are those people out there who would have been more explicit in language and in tone, perhaps responding to McNamee's curses with similarly strident language. I wonder, though.

The worst thing Clemens could have done was been harsh with McNamee. He would have written a even less favorable story against himself for the legion of press drones out there. After all, McNamee introduced the topic of his dying ten year old child. The media would have burnt Clemens at the stake if he'd spoken harshly to the father of a dying kid. So I had no problem with that particular answer.

I'm not sure what taping that conversation gets Clemens in the long run. It makes him look a lot like Richard Nixon. Now, I'm as big a fan of Nixon as the next guy, but he did have a few issues with paranoia. And embroiled in a he said he said scandal like this, looking like Nixon probably isn't the way to go.

I don't see a problem with Clemens comments that Andy Pettitte's case is a separate issue. Why does it necessarily follow that because Pettitte admitted that received HGH injections from McNamee on two occasions in 2002 then Roger Clemens must have also been injected by McNamee? The transitive property only applies in algebra class, and it is not admissible in court as evidence, as far as I can tell.

This section of Shaughnessy's analysis of the Clemens interview bothered me most of all:

Asked what McNamee gained by lying, the best Clemens could do was, "Evidently not going to jail."

In fact, "not going to jail" was McNamee's reason for telling the truth (McNamee cooperated with Mitchell as part of a deal to avoid federal prosecution). McNamee faces going to jail only if he lied to Mitchell. Wallace then asked Clemens why McNamee would go to jail and the Rocket responded, "Well, I think he's been buying and movin' steroids."

Wallace then failed to ask a follow-up.

Not going to Federal prison, or any kind of correctional facility is pretty high on just about every sane person's list of priorities. Or maybe the CHB hasn't seen OZ. Perhaps the Massachusetts Department of Corrections could let him take a look at their facilities in Concord or Cedar Junction to educate him on what life in prison even in these enlightened times is like. Let's just say there's a good reason the Red Cross won't take blood donations from people who've spent more than 72 consecutive hours behind bars in the past year.

Maybe the CHB has seen the Untouchables or perhaps On the Waterfront a time or two too many. Not every person who oversees investigations into various crimes, misdemeanors and other such violations of the public trust is an altruist. Say McNamee stretched or bent the truth a time or two but provided the information to put some people behind bars and earned a few headlines for the occasional ambitious civil servant, might that not influence that ambitious civil servant to help McNamee out in return? That's how the justice system works in this country.

And closing his little piece of drivel with this cute little epigram: "And we've heard too many lies from those who came before and wound up guilty as charged" did very little to calm me down. What bearing does any other person accused in the previous round of Congressional hearings or in the Mitchell Report have on this case? It doesn't matter one bit for Roger's case whether Mark McGwire or Rafael Palmeiro lied or told the truth. For that matter, it doesn't have any impact on this case if Mark McGwire dressed in a damn tutu and stood outside an elementary school punching every seventh child in the face or jumped on Oprah's couch like Tom Cruise. Good work with the responsible, honest journalism. I bet Grantland Rice is real proud.

So, Christmas is finally over. And it couldn't come soon enough. I must say, I got everything I wanted. Mostly because I didn't really want anything. But there is nothing like a nice simple ambition like that if you don't want to be disappointed.

There are two stories I think need comment, or at least I feel like commenting on, since nobody (at least I hope) really needs to know what I think about anything. First, is a nice positive story that hasn't gotten nearly the attention it deserves. As a frame of reference for how little attention it has gotten, the event took place in 2004 and I just heard about it this afternoon.

In the email I received, was a story. According to it, Denzel Washington was touring a US Army medical facility providing long term critical care to servicemen and women injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he was shown the Fisher Houses, in which family members of the wounded men and women can live to stay close to their loved ones, Washington reportedly asked how much a facility like that cost to build. When he received his answer, he took out his checkbook on the spot and wrote a check to cover the cost of construction.

The story, like so many received in so many emails, seemed to good to be true. So I did some checking up on it. And there are some embellishments in it, but it is, in the main, truer than most. Washington did not produce his checkbook on the spot, and the amount of his donation is not known, but he did provide a substantial donation to the charity that constructs Fisher Houses.

It is still refreshing to read about a celebrity actually doing something beyond vaguely criticizing the current administration and trying to forcefeed their political views (if their opinions can be called that fairly). None of us really do enough to support America's military and their dependents at home, myself included. I realize that a lot of us want to do more, but are touching capital for expenses like rent, food and utilities ourselves.

More praise should be heaped on Denzel Washington for his outstanding generosity. Perhaps, as a result, more wealthy Americans could be influenced to follow suit. Far better for them to do the right thing for the wrong reasons than to do nothing at all. No one wants to see Americans killed or wounded, but protesting the war and criticizing the President. Even electing a candidate who will push for a quick withdrawl from Iraq or Afghanistan will only accomplish so much. Even if no more troops are hurt, what will happen to those who have already been maimed? If recent American history tells us anything, it's that the American people will try to forget this as soon as possible.

But this is getting a little too serious for this blog, and dangerously close to the political. There are other, more responsible individuals who ought to be taking care of these matters so I can waste my time and yours ripping Dan Shaughnessy for one of his more pointless columns. Today, the CHB tells us that he's betting this is Jim Rice's year for induction into the MLB Hall of Fame.

Although I don't know why I should have expected anything different from a writer and thinker of his caliber, I'm still a bit surprised that so much ink was spilled on an argument that defeats itself. Or would, if Red Sox Nation were capable of rationally analyzing a situation like this. The real reason, according to the CHB, that Rice ought to be in the Hall of Fame is that he was the most feared hitter in Major League Baseball from 1975-1986.

I have made my views on that subject quite clear. I cannot understand how Jim Rice with his 382 career home runs in a much smaller stadium, hitting in a deeper lineup, playing in the American League can be considered to have been the most feared hitter in baseball when a third baseman for the Phillies hit 548 career home runs between 1976 and 1988. It just doesn't work for me. But let's leave my opinion on that subject aside for a moment.

The argument that Jim Rice was the most feared hitter in baseball from 1975-1986 should have no merit in a Hall of Fame discussion. It is totally, completely and utterly subjective. We are 20 years removed from the era in question, relying on the memory of baseball people and writers who, let's face it, aren't exactly a murder's row in the American intellectual scene, at least not since guys like Grantland Rice and Ring Lardner passed.

And the notion that the Mitchell Report has paved the way for Rice to go to Cooperstown is laughable. If Rice's 382 home runs prior to the steroid era are worthy of induction, then how do we exclude Dale Murphy, Harold Baines and Andre Dawson from consideration for Cooperstown, but roll out the red carpet for Jim Ed? They all hit more home runs. They (with the possible exception of Baines in a few years) played for teams that were worse than any Red Sox team in the Rice era.

I didn't particularly understand the connection between Rice potentially making the cut for the Hall of Fame and the posthumous award being given to the late Larry Whiteside. Larry Whiteside wrote about a lot of sports stories in his career. Simply because he covered baseball in the town in which Rice played doesn't mean an immortal hand or eye has framed this fearful symmetry (with apologies to William Blake).

The real story is that the Jim Rice for Cooperstown movement is little more than a bullying effort by a small-minded pressure group. Red Sox Nation has decided that Jim Rice acquired merits in retirement that other players worked an entire career to earn. And if Rice is voted into Cooperstown it will be because Red Sox Nation had the muscle to accomplish what ought to have been impossible.

Somehow, Red Sox Nation managed to shift gears from loveable (at least in their own twisted world view) losers to despicable bullies in the blink of an eye. Cubs fans haven't been able to guilt (I realize that the Oxford English Dictionary might not include guilt as a verb, but then how many limeys have seen This Old Cub) enough voters into taking Ron Santo into the Hall of Fame. And I hope Red Sox Nation won't be able to bully Rice into Cooperstown, either.

In other news, tomorrow is the 28th of December. It's a day of limited significance. Unless, of course, your a BC fan and you get to watch your team face the Michigan State Spartans in the Peaches and Herb Memorial "Reunited and It Feels So Good" Bowl. Now, there are some who might attribute this hostility as the carping of a disappointed Notre Dame fan.

Trust me, it's not. I know BC fans can't grasp my position with their feble little minds. But it's better to go 3-9 than it is to win the Who Gives A Damn bowl for the 9th year in a row. Yeah, ND hasn't won a bowl since Newt Gingrich was whispering about a fevered dream called the Contract With America. But it's better to lose the Orange, the Fiesta, the Sugar and even the Gator Bowls than it is to win a game that's going to be trounced in the ratings by the Days of Our Lives. And maybe one day, when BC makes it close enough to the big time to play on December 30th, or even, God willing, New Years Eve, BC fans might start to grasp my point.

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.

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.

What a depressing weekend. I never would have believed that the Yankees could take two out of three from the Red Sox and it wouldn't make me smile. What is happening to the football team at Notre Dame is just that depressing. And the instability and unpredictability of the early stages of the NFL season isn't helping.

It's hard to find words to describe what Michigan did to Notre Dame this weekend. Suffice it to say, there just isn't a lot of fight in this vintage of the Fighting Irish. I guess the one moment that best encapsulated the debacle in the Big House this week came when the ABC telecast wound down mercifully. As they do for each team in each game, they chose the Chevrolet Players of the Game.

I didn't bother to remember which individual was singled out for Notre Dame, I just remember that he was a defensive player who recorded 9 tackles, including one for a loss. The team was beaten 38-0, and the player of the game was a defensive player. The bright spots were so few and far between that a guy who made a tackle behind the opponent's line of scrimmage merited a $1,000 donation in his name to the University of Notre Dame's general scholarship fund. How the mighty have fallen.

And as for the telecast itself, if ABC had dragged 3 of the inbred hayseeds who made up the home crowd in Ann Arbor, the network could hardly have assembled a crew more biased toward the Wolverines. That wouldn't have been such a big deal if they were at least decent announcers. Paul McGuire gets worse with each word that leaves his mouth. The world might be better served if they paid him more to stay home than they pay him to show up for work. Or at least unplugged his mike periodically. Let him think he's calling the game if they don't have the heart to get rid of him.

I found the brief segments where individual Wolverines were allowed to share fun little snippets of their thoughts and feelings about the game to be the most galling aspects this particular telecast. Granted, I have searched far and wide to see Jake Long give his own opinion of his strengths. And I was deeply shocked to see that literacy and the ability to point out forks in his family tree weren't among them.

A close second on the list of things that continue to vex me from the Michigan game is that Mike Hart delivered on his guarantee, so now this win will probably be cataloged in history with Babe Ruth's called shot and Namath's guarantee in Super Bowl III. Of course the fact that I predicted a Michigan victory in this space last week is absolutely no consolation. A blind man could have seen it coming with the way Notre Dame has played to this point.

Even with Ryan Mallett making his first start (and knowing Mallett would be a tool, with that name and all) I didn't expect Notre Dame to be 3-0. I knew with their opening schedule and a slate of untested players at key positions like QB, RB and WR that this 0-3 start was a very real possibility. What I did not expect, however, was that after 180 minutes of football I would find myself on a vision quest to see the Fighting Irish score their first offensive touchdown of this season. I could live with 0-3 if even one of the games were close enough to make me think that 0-7 weren't on the horizon.

The season has been so disappointing and surprising that I have struggled to find a good analogy. The closest I have been able to come to it is if I were to walk by one of those Dance Dance Revolutions games and hear Born to Run. Hearing that foolish machine play an Elvis song would hurt more, but surprise me less with the way Elvis Presley Enterprises operates. No, finding that Springsteen sold out in such a shameful manner would be the only equivalent to this travesty of a season.

Two final thoughts on Notre Dame-Michigan. First, I don't know now when I'll see 3:10 to Yuma. Russell Crowe attended Saturday's game in Michigan regalia as Lloyd Carr's personal guest. Eventually, I'll get over it because I love the movie Gladiator. But I hate Michigan, so it will take a while. And good riddance to Demetrius Jones as he transfers to Northern Illinois. Maybe he wouldn't have been as hurt by losing his job to Jimmy Clausen if he had tried to play a bit less terribly.

Then there is the bizarre NFL season to date. These weekend's games didn't do much to improve my state of mind. In fact, it made things much worse. First, no one on my fantasy team got in the end zone. So that put the kibosh on the Pork Chop Express. It didn't help that Chad Johnson had such a big game, as he was on the opposing team. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I hate Chad Johnson. TO made his shtick possible when he signed that ball in Seattle all those years ago, but every one loves Chad and hates TO.

Since the Cleveland vs. Cincinnati game was so surprising, it has been covered to death. I, however, have my own unique angle. I am (or more accurately now, was) in a suicide pool. For those who might not be familiar with the term, the people against whom I compete and I pick one team per week. If that team wins, we advance, When the team you pick loses, that's it for the pool entry. To make a long story short, I picked Cincinnati this week.

I had my reasons. In no particular order, here they are. As I understand it, the rules said I could only choose a team once. So I was trying to save teams who looked more like a guaranteed win for later on in the season. Fat lot of good that did me. In my inimitable wisdom, I decided that I was going to target teams that weren't very good and pick their opponent in the early going.

In week one, I chose San Fran over Arizona and that nearly blew up in my face. So I decided to pick against a team that looked dreadful in week one. So I chose Cleveland, who was so bad against Pittsburgh that they cut the guy who started at QB. And go figure, they scored 51 points. I would have bet going into the game that they wouldn't have scored 51 points by week 5.

It might be due to some neurotic streak in my personality, but I am not going to eat any crow on this Patriots win. Yes, the Chargers have an vastly superior pass rush than the Jets. But if you recall, the Patriots did just as good a job containing the same defensive package last season in the playoffs. And then when all New England seemed ready to fall in love with the Pats O-line, Dwight Freeny and Robert Matthis carved them up as though that were the object of pass protection and not the antithesis of pass protection just one week later. So I am not sold on this offensive line.

And the Chargers do have a better secondary than the Jets, so it was a more impressive performance for Brady, Moss and the rest. But the Chargers are not really that good in the defensive backfield. Maybe you think Quentin "Bad Mamma" Jammer qualifies as a front-line, shutdown corner. I don't. He's adequate, forgettable and occasionally regrettable to steal a line from the Simpsons President's Day Pageant in the Ralph Loves Lisa episode.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but Moss has always been a great front-runner. On national TV in the regular season, he just might be the best of all time. However, that isn't what gets players to Canton. Lynn Swann got into the Hall of Fame with weak regular season stats because he was incredible in huge games like Super Bowls. Moss hasn't gotten there yet, but he's fallen short in NFC championships. So forgive me for not putting on sackcloth and streaking my face with ashes as though I were a penitent man.

I didn't have much time for watching highlight shows or Sportscenter these past few days, but I wonder how much attention has been paid to another oddity at this stage of the season. During the four minute offense when the Colts had a chance to shut the door on the Titans, Manning threw two incompletions and took a big sack with under 3 minutes to go in the game.

If I remember correctly, the Titans only had one timeout, so even three running plays would have all but killed their chances to win, even if they went for no gain. Hell, even kneeling the ball three times would have run time and forced the Titans to burn their last timeout. It certainly would have been better than two incompletions which burnt mere seconds off the clock and a sack which forced the Colts to punt.

Granted it's all academic, as Indy went on to win the game, but for all the praise given Manning for his inexpressible brilliance it would be nice to see him take some heat for this one. Indy might have come up with a TD on one of those passes, but then again there could have been a deflection that turned into an interception or that sack could have turned into a fumble. Or Vince Young could have engineered game-winning drive when they only needed a field goal. You can't get lucky all the time, but you can be smart every day, as they say.

I don't have very much to say on the cheating scandal. Yes, every one tries to steal signs and signals. That's just one of the things that happens in professional sports. But having some front office flunkies sneaking around in the bowels of Giants Stadium with video recording equipment is a little bit excessive, no? All we need now is to find out that Kraft or Belichick referred to these guys as plumbers or a revelation to inform us that there is a recording system in the Patriots front office with a number of suspicious gaps in the tapes and then we have the NFL's version of Watergate.

I don't expect that there will be any kind of consensus on this issue. It's tricky. It seems to me that the Patriots and their apologists are dead wrong, because they're falling back on a defense that never got any of us out of punishment when we were kids. Just because every body else steals signs doesn't make it alright that your flunkies skulk around with cameras. Granted, Patriots fans as a group struggle to compose a more reasoned defense, but that's no fit excuse. But I have a strong antipathy to the Patriots, their fans and their management, so I might be wrong.

I guess I would be remiss if I didn't talk a little about this weekend's Red Sox Yankees series. I will keep my comments to a minimum since I fear my lengthy posts following the August sweep might have jinxed the Yankees a little bit, since they didn't gain any ground in the standings until very recently.

I will also refrain from making too many cracks about the three homer performance from Frank Thomas. I'd hate to beat Dan Shaughnessy to the punch by making some quip to the effect that the Big Hurt put a big hurting on Big Schill. Hell if I could work in blogboy blowhard, I'd write his whole column for him. I'd hate myself for it, since I'm sure the CHB all but wet himself with excitement when that third bomb left the Sky Dome or the Rodgers Centre or whatever the call it in Toronto.

I don't know what to make of Joba Chamberlain. It was nice to see him unveil his curveball for all of about ten seconds. He locked up Pedroia with it, but probably wasted it on JD Drew. JD Drew couldn't hit an eephus pitch at this point. As my old grandfather used to say, he couldn't hit the floor if he fell out of bed. My grandfather loved bad jokes and hated the Red Sox, God rest him. And then the media beat the story to death in an evening of good, hard work. Or at least work.

I'm not too worried about him letting up his first career run in the form of Lowell's homer. It had to happen at some point, as they say. Ideally, it wouldn't have come against the Red Sox, especially not in the manner in which it occurred. But Lowell is a very dangerous hitter in Fenway Park. That's part of life in baseball. If you throw heat it's not going to end well if a guy gets a hold of one.

What bothers me a little bit is that so much is being made of him now. Between the 17 and 2/3 inning scoreless streak and the "Joba Rules," he's a bad month away from being this generation's Mark "The Bird" Fydrich. Not so much from the eccentricity standpoint, but the young pitcher who gets a big buildup but never gets back to that early magic. Chamberlain's gotten too much attention. Hell, Clay Bucholtz hasn't gotten nearly as much coverage and he threw a no-hitter. This can't end well.

Finally, watching this evening's third quarter, with Charles Barkley in the booth, I am more convinced than ever that he should be announcing games. I know with the way the sports media is seeking uncontroversial controversy (think the NBC Sunday Night studio show) soon no sporting event will take place without Joe Buck or Cris Collinsworth or some similar bland, white-bread mouthpiece demanding that you take their position on an inconsequential argument.

John Madden is the last real loose cannon calling NFL games, and he's too old, fat and jolly to say anything that would hurt any one's feelings. But at least he avoids real controversy by being genuinely nice. That's why I like him, even as he nears senility. Every other announcer lacks the balls to say what's on their minds or the minds to have something to say. So Barkley should call games. Or I could to it. I'd work for food, short money and one of those set ups they use to conceal witness identities in mob trials.

It would take a Yankee fan to be naive enough to think that a three game sweep in this series means a damn thing. So what if the Red Sox had a chance to knock the Yankees out of contention in the AL East? So what if they had a chance to hurt the Yankees chances of getting the AL Wildcard? Dropping three straight games to your archrival is never a bad thing, right?

When you look at it, it's not as though the Yankees came in reeling from dropping three of four in Detroit. The Yankees threw their 1, 2 and 3 starters at Boston, while Boston countered with pitchers who weren't expected to win. And none of that would have mattered if Major League Baseball didn't pull a depressingly juvenile stunt in sending a representative to ensure that Terry Francona was wearing his uniform jersey while the Yankees had a man on base.

That one instance really cost the Red Sox the series. It had a major impact on the game played the night before and on this afternoon's game. Bud Selig owes the Red Sox an apology for that devious bit of trickeration. In all seriousness, while it was a strange incident, undoubtedly poorly timed and probably unnecessary, it's not really that big a deal.

If the Red Sox don't know how to play the Yankees with Jeter at second having faced that team 13 times prior to the game this season, then having their inspired leader on hand might not have been enough to help them there. After all, the team ought to know how to line up to defend Abreu or A Rod or Matsui in every conceiveale count no matter who's on what base. These guys in the Yankee lineup are fairly well known. The Red Sox see them on occasion, so nothing should disrupt their concentration on the task at hand.

However, nothing seems to be able to happen to the Red Sox these days that doesn't present complications. I'm not sure what to make of that incident which culminated in Joba Chamberlain's ejection. Yes, the Sox have hit A Rod a few times this season. But the Yankees don't seem to be the reactive type, or at least they haven't been in the Joe Torre era. Also, why Youkilis and why in the ninth with one out and a five run lead. It would make more sense to get him out as opposed to putting him on base and providing the Red Sox a spark to start a rally.

However, all that logic doesn't change the fact that he threw consecutive fastballs over Youkilis' head, entirely too close for comfort. I think the umpire made the right decision to eject him immediately after the second pitch. While I don't want to believe that Chamberlain was head hunting because it makes no sense in the situation, it's hard to argue with the fact that both pitches were essentially in the exact same location. One pitch can get away from you, but two is hard to explain.

Tonight, in the wake of a three game sweep at the hands of the Yankees, seems to be the perfect time for me to answer the recent attention that has been given to Red Sox Nation's presence in opposing stadiums. This is not a good thing. It's a symptom of the underlying problems in Major League Baseball.

Because the baseball season has devolved into a long, pointless tournament that only a very few teams can win because only they can afford to collect enough quality pieces to play at a high level, fans in a number of cities have long since given up on their local teams. Why pay to see a team that needs a series of major miracles to qualify for the postseason? So there are plenty of tickets to induce plenty of tools who have been priced out of attending games in Boston to travel to cities like Baltimore and Tampa and Kansas City.

Then there is the phenomenon of Red Sox Nation spreading like a virus through America. Since so many people can't afford to live in New England, there has been a diaspora of Red Sox fans. And since man businesses decided to forsake the expensive Northeast for cheaper regions, there are a ton of New England expatriates in Arizona, Florida, California and other such places. So the Red Sox have a small base in a number of other major league towns.

Also, this team and its myriad of vices draws to it with magnetic force every cutthroat, criminal, misfit, moron, hypocrite and douche in each city in which they play. Every person who thinks the infield fly rule has something to do with insects, every jackass who venerates the cliche fest that is Bull Durham, every person who always wanted to be a bully but never had the chance and every tool who thinks Bill Simmons is the lizard king is a potential Red Sox fan just waiting for the bandwagon to gather steam.

But those who remain and endure in New England are seldom any better than the new crop of Red Sox fans and the exiles. For every normal, sane, rational Red Sox fan that I know, there are at least ten that would sip the refuse at the Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant if John Henry's crack staff of PR people broke the story that it contained vitamins and minerals. For instance, there is the fan who tells me things like JD Drew's numbers are comprable to A Rod's and Red Sox fans will regard JD Drew as a bargain next season.

And after 2004, there were those teary eyed losers who railed and raved about how much this team had meant to their ancestors of the nth degree that had endured all the losing but kept the faith. If one in thirty of that class of fan could prove an ancestor of theirs had been on of the 10,000 odd fans who managed to fill Fenway to 1/3 of its capacity for the final game of the single greatest player in the history of the franchise, then I'd be a little less vocal in my criticism.

For every fan (or informed adversary like me) who knows who Jackie Jensen was or has read the John Updike piece on Ted Williams' final game, there is a massive legion whose only connection to the days before Pedro Martinez came to town comes from nostalgia pieces by the CHB, Bob Ryan, Bill Simmons and others. Red Sox Nation is a waste of time and space. We would all be better off if they would shut up, and perhaps refrain from breeding.

What does not help is that the media, for the most part, coddles and even encourages these jackasses to even greater levels of jackassery. Bill Simmons, who ought to know better (but he's from Connecticut, so I make allowances), seems to enjoy this trend to an indecent level. Of course, I shouldn't be surprised the SPorts Guy feels that way, since these bandwagon fans seem to regard him as a spiritual leader and fall all over themselves to worship at his altar.

This piece from USA Today, which seems to have sparked this new wave of attention to Red Sox Nation, misses the key point that ought to be made about Red Sox fans. Red Sox fans are caught up in a connundrum that is all the more maddening for their inability to recognize and understand it. Red Sox fans have all of the vices of Yankee fans. They're loud, they bully people who don't see things their way, they're boring and they have an inflated sense of their own baseball IQ.

However, Red Sox fans have none of the virtues of Cubs fans, to whom they are often compared. Cubs fans are patient, they endure losing without the cynical, affected posture Red Sox fans developed and have not shed since 2004. Red Sox fans are much more like fans of the other Chicago team. Like the White Sox, the Red Sox lost for a very, very, very long time. And just as the stigma of being second team in second city has tainted the White Sox fans, constantly coming off worse than the Yankees year in and year out still wears on Red Sox fans, even in this post-2004 era.

For a change, I am not the only one railing against Red Sox Nation. Red Sox fans have become so arrogant and unpleasant that Jim Caple (author of The Devil Wears Pinstripes) has himself repented of being a Red Sox fan. Caple wrote this piece ripping Red Sox fans for the way they have comported themselves following the 2004 chamopionship run. It's really quite good. Not quite as good as a three game sweep by the Yankees, but still worth the read.

One more happy note before I sign off... The season series between the Red Sox and the Yankees stands at 8-7 in favor of the Bronx Bombers. Good times. Good times, indeed.

Tonight marks the 200th post in the history of Sedition In Red Sox Nation. Truly, it was a fitting occasion with Roger Clemens pitching against Josh Beckett in Yankee Stadium on national television. With an atmosphere like that, you just had to know that something verging on the miraculous would take place. And it did. No matter what Red Sox fans will believe, it wasn't a humdrum miracle, like the team losing to the Yankees for the second time in two days.

I don't mean something as trivial as Clemens taking a no hit bid into the sixth. With four walks and a hit bats-person (I'm not convinced that Pedroia is a man), a little bit of the bloom slides off that particular lily. And even though the David Ortiz upper deck shot to the shallowest part of the yard which ended the no-hitter and provided a fit foil to set against the Reggie Jackson three homer performance in Game 6 of the 77 World Series celebrated in the finale of the Bronx is Burning, that was not the miracle.

The miracle came in that very same inning, when there was a man on base and the immortal JD Drew stood at the plate. Even though no one believed that the most disappointing $14 million man could hit an aging legend like Clemens with a man on base, Drew got a base hit. True, he didn't drive in the runner, but he took a step in a positive direction. After all, the Dr. Leo Marvin program in the cinematic tour de force What About Bob? was called baby steps, not giant adult strides.

This was an important base hit for JD. If he didn't get that hit, could you imagine how badly the Yankees own resident big ticket outfield disappointment would have shown up his former team over these two games? You might remember that guy, he used to play for the Sox, wear number 18 and go by the name of Johnny Damon. He might be dropping the ball as far as big picture production goes, but he now has a homer and 4 RBI against the team that wouldn't pay him $52 million over four years, but threw a $70 million chunk into procuring the "services" JD Drew until 2011. And the Yankees have managed to win 14 of the 16 games in which Damon has played in left field of late.

One thing should be abundantly clear following tonight's pitching performance. Josh Beckett should win the AL Cy Young, the NL Cy Young and whatever awards correspond to the Cy Young for AAA, AA, A and winter ball. And he probably would have salted away the corresponding pitching award for the Japanese league had he only allowed 11 hits tonight. Even that home run for A Rod should barely count against him, as it was a line shot to the opposite field and barely went out of the yard.

In fact, I think we ought to be fair to Beckett and go ahead and chalk this one up as a win anyway. After all, the Yankees left 7 men on base, including six in scoring position against him tonight. And they only had 13 hits in 6 and 2/3 innings. That's almost as good as a shutout, at least in the mind of the average Red Sox fan. Just because he didn't win the game doesn't mean it should affect his statistics adversely.

There is a school of thought that a manager probably should have taken his starter out after 100 plus pitches over six innings and a dozen hits. Of course, some might think Francona is trying to rest his bullpen after that taxing series with the White Sox this past weekend and an off day on Monday. Then again, perhaps it is unfair to blame Francona for his decisions. He may have been bored into catatonia by this piece in which Dan Shaughnessy managed to miss the point to a degree I would not have believed possible, even for an epic misser of points like the CHB.

I think Francona might be dumb enough to think that Shaughnessy was right. But I think even a mind as sharp as Tito's could have been dulled by the impressive array of bad puns, bad jokes and bad logic that made up this farce of a column. One day, a courageous editor might want to whisper to Dan Shaughnessy that whatever he is with ceased to be it sometime in the waning days of Ty Cobb's career. Just because you are dimly aware of recent developments in popular culture like the Bronx is Burning and Superbad, doesn't mean you sound cool or clever when you try to throw them in to spice up a vanilla piece.

A more intelligent and perceptive writer might have drawn from a classic film like Patton, which features an excellent scene in which George C. Scott as the great general enumerates the myriad of woes besetting the German army right before they launch the offensive known to history as the Battle of the Bulge. The weather is terrible, the supplies and morale on the German side are virtually non-existent and on top of everything, the Germans had not mounted a major winter attack since the time of Frederick the Great (he ruled from 1740-1786, for those who aren't history buffs). For all those reasons, it looked like the Germans wouldn't attack, and it was for all those reasons Patton knew that attack was imminent. That would have really classed up a comparison between this Yankee team and the Red Sox in 2004.

Unfortunately, the Yankee bullpen was something of a cloud on this victory. Kyle Farnsworth reminded every one why he's been given so many chances for so many teams. He had the velocity that has kept him in the majors, and the inconsistency that has kept his bags packed. That two run homer Farnsworth surrendered to Youkilis really hurt. Thankfully, JD Drew was able to put a silver lining on that dark cloud by striking out feebly.

Unfortunately, I subscribe to the theory first advanced by Jerry Garcia, that every silver lining has a touch of grey. That touch of grey: Mariano Rivera got his second save of the series. It's always good to see Rivera pitch more like he did in his prime than he pitched at the beginning of the year. But the thing about that is, Rivera is not a young man any more. So there is not a very high likelihood of him being available should it get to that point in tomorrow night's game. Of course, Joba Chamberlain will be available tomorrow, and who knows what might happen. But it would have been nice to see the Yankees have a shot at a sweep and have all of their weapons ready to go against the hated enemy.

From the "there's a method to my madness" category, it might not have made for a well structured post with the two Drew criticisms sandwiched around the long Frederick the Great/Patton digression. In my defense, I hoped to mitigate the bad karma and reverse jinx potential I have bestowed on JD Drew. I remember that game where he hit two three run homers against the Diamondbacks not too long after one of my long diatribes against him. Nor have I forgotten the hot start to this season he put up after I spent the better part of the offseason railing against his signing, even though that seems like a more distant memory than the Prussian monarch I referenced tonight.

PS - I don't know if you recall the post in which JD Durbin was lampooned as tool of the week (back when there was a shot that I might actually have the discipline to post a tool of the week segment on a weekly basis). Since that time, the tool of the week segment has been modified to a tool of note segment. And more astonishing, the tool JD Durbin has pitched effectively for the Philadelphia Phillies. Kudos to Theo and the mental giants on Yawkey Way for letting him go for absolutely nothing. At least they managed to dream up Sox Appeal. Nothing like exploiting the inability of modern men and women to connect on an interpersonal level to perpetuate the subspecies of troglodytes who root for the Red Sox to undermine our societ. But I digress far to far, and I must sign off for the night.

I'm sorry I haven't been more consistent with my posts lately. It's been a little hard to find material to blog about with the recent winning streak, especially with the way the Red Sox destroyed the White Sox as the swept the four game set this weekend. My personal life isn't interesting enough to merit a post, in fact, it's boring enough to do more damage to my traffic than this week of silence has done.

I don't really want to post too much about the NFL at the moment because there isn't a lot to say about preseason. I am psyched that the season is right around the corner now. Yes, players can get hurt and teams don't pay players anywhere near regular season salaries so owners make lots of money and sell fans an inferior product. The CHB covered that to death in his recent column on the topic, which was basically the same lame premise he does to death every August.

I like watching the guys who are fighting for their football lives battle in the last minutes of these preseason games. Yeah, it's not the same quality as a regular season game, but it can take on a desperate intensity that makes the games worth watching, at least when the games come up against reruns or even the latest run of terrible original programming on the Turner family of networks.

And as for the risk players take, no one has yet come up with a reasonable alternative to get players some game experience before the regular season opens. Practices and scrimmages are important tools to get teams ready, but players need to face other teams in front of the crowd even if it is only for a few series. But I'm not interested in the future prospects of Kevin Kolb to write a full post about it.

One thing I've noticed that bothers me as I've watched the preseason games is the NBC studio show. If you've read this space regularly, you probably noticed that I hate Cris Collinsworth. And I hate Bob Costas. And I hate Tiki Barber. Put them all together and it's a very, very bad thing. It's even starting to make me slightly dislike Jerome Bettis, who should be immune as a Notre Dame player who submitted a huge performance in a bowl victory.

It seems to me that the folks who run the NBC studio show have made a decision on the way they want their broadcast to work. They seem hell bent on manufacturing controversy so that they have something to talk about. They want to be the edgy show. So they aired Tiki Barber's criticism of Eli Manning's leadership. Tonight, they brought up things from Jerome Bettis' memoirs that might cause contention with his former team.

This bothered me on a number of levels. First, Bettis has been retired for over a year. He's old news. Then, who even knew he wrote a book? He's Jerome Bettis, not Albert Schweitzer. It's good that he wrote the book. It's good that he might be a positive role model for other people. But I don't think the book jumped off the shelves. If his book had any merits as a tell-all tome, it probably would have generated more impact without this little forum discussion.

I've come to believe that these guys are becoming a sort of male version of the View. They don't bring any new insights to the table. They waste time that could be devoted to showing more highlights that we probably already saw ten times. They try to start problems that don't need to be started so that they have something to talk about to justify their existence.

I understand that they have an unenviable time slot from a football news perspective. With ESPN, NFL Network, the web and Direct TV, people have access to scores, highlights, injury updates and anything else under the NFL sun long before the NBC guys take to the air. But there is still a game to be played and some panel must introduce it and provide half-time fodder. So they try to manufacture their own stories and that's beat.

While I'm posting, I have to pass this story on, in case you haven't seen it yet. In Japan, there is a recall on arcade arm wrestling games because they're breaking arms. I find that to be pretty damn funny, but then I'm a bad person. Imagine having to go to the damn emergency room to tell the doctor that an arcade arm wrestling contraption kicked your ass? Provided it happens to some one else, that is not beat. In fact it could be the anti-beat. In fact it's awesome.

I was surprised that there is a mechanical arm wrestling contraption on the market. How bored could you possibly be that you'd want to arm wrestle a machine in the arcade? It's good that these people with too much time on their hands get hurt by the machines they use to occupy their attention for a few seconds. Perhaps I ought to be a bit more sensitive, but personal growth is a long, painful process. Kind of like arm wrestling a Japanese arm wrestling game.

MAX MERCY HALL OF FAME #5

I didn't want to do this, but I feel I owe it to intellectual honesty. Jason Whitlock has to be inducted to the Max Mercy Hall of Fame. It's difficult for me because I really like his writing in general. I was glad to link his piece ripping the Mavericks and Dirk Nowitzki for all the whining they did following their collapse against the Heat two NBA Finals ago. But no one can write a sentence like this: "No one in America writes more provocatively and intelligently about football than yours truly."

If George Orwell (who wrote more provocatively and intelligently than any other writer about everything) had written about sports, he couldn't make that statement and look himself in the mirror. If Chinua Achebe (not dead, but my favorite living black author) wrote about sports, he couldn't make that statement. If Dr. Martin Luther King had written about sports, he couldn't make that statement. If Frederick Douglas had written about sports, he couldn't make that statement. No one who writes about sports can make that statement.

Hell, no one who writes about anything can make that statement. No one with any sense of propriety or intellectual moral rectitude can say that they write anything about anything more provocatively and intelligently than every other writer in America. How big does your ego have to be to make a statement like that?

This is obviously a delicate area for me, not so much because Jason Whitlock is the first African American writer to receive this dubious honor, but because I am calling a writer's ego into question when humility is not one of my virtues and when I have devoted a shocking amount of space in a blog primarily about the Boston sports landscape to defending Terrell Owens who has quite an ego of his own.

I think the difference between TO's man crush on himself and Jason Whitlock's boasting is that TO has to step out on a field and prove his worth against 11 guys on the opposing team who want to rough him up every time he touches the football. Jason Whitlock has to type up a column, get it past an editor and hope emotionally stunted people with social problems stumble across it on the Fox Sports website. There are objective criteria against which TO's performance can be measured to see if he is earning the right to his arrogance. That isn't exactly the case for Jason Whitlock.

The sad thing is, if you took the time to comb through all 194 posts on this blog, I'm sure you'll find instances where I did basically the same thing. Particularly if I'm whining about the CHB or Mariotti being paid handsomely to write garbage whilst I labor in obscurity. Of course, my standard defense is that I abhor all forms of hypocrisy but my own. Even more depressing, I published my 100th post in early March of this year. So in those 5 months and 10 or so days, I've published 94 times. I really need to get a life.

I don't know if you happened to catch any of the Tigers Yankees game this afternoon. I was grievously offended that MLB allowed Clemens to return from suspension and overshadow Curt Schilling's quest to win for the first time since coming off the DL on August 6th. And as for that nifty little play where Clemens struck out the batter at the plate and then Posada deked the runner on third into the third out, that was but a silly little farce. Varitek and any of the Red Sox pitchers could do that at will if they weren't about such tactics which pervert the spirit of the game, or if they had the brains to think of something like that.

Today was a banner day for New England sports fans. Most importantly, the Red Sox basically increased their lead over the Yankees, even though it won't show in the standings. So Steve Phillips and the Mike and Mike crew have jumped the gun by scheduling their discussion of whether or not it's time to press the panic button in Red Sox Nation for tomorrow morning. Tim Wakefield went eight innings and Paps closed it out in the 9th. Meanwhile the Yankees overcame a Rivera blown save to win in the home half of the 9th. For all intents and purposes, the lead might as well be back up to ten, maybe twelve games.

While it may be an impressive feat to hold any given 9 men who are paid to hit a baseball without a hit for 6 solid innings, let's not forget that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are not exactly the 1927 Yankees. It's true that getting BJ Upton to end the game when you're up by three and there isn't a soul on base is the basic equivalent of fanning Ruth and Gehrig with the bases loaded.

Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that they just dropped 2 of 3 to the Orioles. Nor does it change the fact that Eric Gagne looks a lot more like a mistake now than he did when the CHB mushed him with this puff piece. One can only hope said article brings the same magic to KG that it has to the Sox to this point.

The real triumph came in the form of an Esquire magazine piece naming Tom Brady the best dressed man in the world. Call me old fashioned, but who gives a damn? What exactly is the methodology that produces lists like this? Was any consideration given to the day when he was photographed looking like an unmade bed and rocking a Yankees hat? I must confess that I was a little disappointed that they included the pope on the list. Not so much that His Holiness didn't top the list, but it seemed like they were making fun of him a bit. Benedict XVI wears the same papal vestments that Popes have worn for quite some time, right?

Of course, I only bring up this monumental achievement of Brady's to express the hope that this small victory and the fact that the team won the offseason will keep Patriots fans warm when Randy Moss and Stallworth come up short, the thin secondary gets thinner and the inside linebackers get their AARP cards. Of course, I was also the guy who spent much of the spring angry at the amount of hype given to the Lance Briggs holdout while one hardly dared whisper about the Asante Samuel contract situation. So what do I know?

Among the several things I know at the moment: Lance Briggs has since signed with the Bears. Asante Samuel has yet to sign with the Patriots. For me, it's fascinating to watch this situation unfold. Samuel is looking for a massive deal like the one Nate Clements signed with San Francisco, and I can't say I blame him. Why not shoot for the stars? The team certainly seems to need him, since Chad Scott went down for the year in the first week of camp, and defensive back was not a strong point from jump street.

But the team has a valid point, as well. Samuel has 16 career INTs, but he picked up 10 of them last season in his contract year. While ten interceptions is, in the grand scheme of things, a very productive season for an NFL defensive back, one must still temper one's desire to throw bags of money at a guy who broke out in a contract season. One also must temper one's admiration of a ten interception season when 3 of those picks came during Rex Grossman's inexplicable effort to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on the brand new field turf in Foxboro last November.

Too often, cornerbacks in the NFL have shown flashes of brilliance only to burn teams who sign them to big contracts down the road. However, the Patriots do not have much depth in the secondary. Rodney Harrison is a year older, and his injury history is not encouraging. The rookie from Miami needs to show he can behave like a human being in the event of a fight. Eugene Wilson in adequate, maybe. Chad Scott was old, now he's on the shelf. Randal Gay probably grew up tough as hell because of his last name, but hasn't proved himself over the course of an entire season to the point where he deserves to be the number one cornerback on a contender.

I guess what really bothered me was that the Bears were ripped for not signing a linebacker when their linebacking corps was still in good hands. Urlacher is Urlacher, the overplayed vitamin water ads notwithstanding, and Hillenmeyer is quite good. Jay Mariotti even went so far as to suggest that the Bears should have dealt Briggs to the Redskins for their number one pick and then used said pick to draft Ted Ginn Jr. (in case you're wondering, I will be tracking Ginn's performance as one more way to show my solidarity with the anti-Jay movement).

Of course, Belichick will work some magic, and maybe our old friend Vladimir Putin can get another crack at a Patriots Super Bowl ring. So none of this will have mattered.

I want to end tonight with the first random thing I hate in quite some time. Tonight, it's Carrie Underwood. The other day, I happened to be listening to Mike FM, the station with no DJs and totally random music. They happened to play Carrie Underwood's Before He Cheats. That song bothers me because of the line: "right now, he's probably buying her some fruity little drink cause she can't shoot whiskey."

Every time I've heard that song, I ended up going back over the list of things I look for in a woman. And wouldn't you know, the ability to shoot whiskey just isn't there. Maybe I'm crazy, but what the hell do I want to spend time with a woman who drinks like I do? So I can share a his and hers moment where we both exit through the screen door without actually opening the damn screen?

The sad thing is, there are people in this world who do think that a woman who shoots whiskey is an ideal mate. I could only imagine the horrified looks on my parents' faces if I were to bring such a woman home. I wonder how the introductions would work: "Whiskey-drinking Annie, I'd like you to meet my mother and father."

I have to say that it might be refreshing to go to a wedding and not worry about whether I would be the biggest drunk there, unless of course it were my wedding and the other contestant just happened to be the bride. That would, indeed, be a sad day in my world.

I would like to be a guest at that wedding, though. Especially if I got to sit in the back row and make bets with other guests as to whether the bride or the groom would make the biggest drunken spectacle of him or herself. Imagine that, offering odds or setting up a system of squares to see who passed out first, or who fell into the cake, or who threw the first punch at whom?

Plus, to get back to the song, based on my experience, a woman who shoots whiskey is very likely going to be cheated on at some point in her life. The women I know who knock back a shooter or ten tend not to be at the top of the aesthetic spectrum. They tend to lack polish, sophistication, and, to be frank, manners. So the song becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You warn a guy not to cheat when you're doing something that might drive him to cheat... It seems like you might have missed a step somewhere down the line.

Today started off with two unpleasant surprises. First, I opened the Globe to the Sports section and almost choked on my damn cereal. The Boston Celtics are trying to lure Reggie Miller out of retirement. I understand that the youth movement of the last two seasons has left a bad taste in the region's collective mouth. But skewing ancient isn't the right answer.

In Pulp Fiction, Marsellus Wallace reminds Butch the boxer that people who think they age like wine are gravely mistaken. Unless, of course, by that those people mean that they spoil and turn to vinegar. Reggie Miller is looking much more like vinegar than Dom Perignon at this point. And throwing him out in a crunch time lineup with 2 other defensive liabilities (it's kind of hard to be a defensive stopper at that age) and Rajon Rondo doesn't seem like a nice thing to do to Kevin Garnett.

I know the plan is not to have Miller playing 35-40 minutes a night, but something more like 15-20. Nevertheless, it's still like relying on that little donut spare tire to take you out on the interstate. He's 42. He's not playing 20 minutes a night for 82 games, let alone the playoff run we are told to expect from this bunch. That little spare tire will get you to the gas station in one piece, but when you put all your hopes into a two year window and a 42 year old jump shooter is the missing piece... well that's just depressing. Depressing enough to make me mix metaphors as though I were the CHB.

Speaking of every body's favorite newsman who bears an unnatural resemblance to Dr. Who, he made a funny today. That's how bad this panic move to lure Reggie Miller out of retirement is. Even the CHB can crack a joke about it and have said joke be moderately amusing. Shaughnessy asked: "Why not just see if Cooz wants to lace 'em up one more time?" That's not half-bad. Hell, for the CHB that's pure comic gold. And that was the second unpleasant surprise of the morning.

My final unpleasant surprise came this evening watching the first preseason game on FOX. Troy Aikman cautioned fans not to expect DeMarcus Ware to put up numbers reminescent of Shawne Merriman's 17 sacks from last year under new coach (and former Charger defensive coordinator) Wade Phillips. There I was anticipating that exact type of performance. And even if Ware should get 17 sacks, they shouldn't be measured against Merriman's uncanny performance from last year as Ware will (I hope) play all 16 games this year. And before I move on, let's not forget the little problem of Merriman's 4 game suspension for the use of illicit performance enhancing drugs. But good work on the call, Troy.

And before I sign off, as tomorrow is Friday, and I've really been trying not to post after I've had a few, I've been doing some thinking about my proposed candidacy for the Presidency of Red Sox Nation. I think part of my problem in the initial phase of my campaign has been a lack of statements to clarify my positions on issues which must be addressed.

I propose that a more dignified song be found to celebrate (or in my case, grieve) should the Red Sox continue their disgusting habit of winning home games. "Love that Dirty Water" is beat (from an aesthetic standpoint), it glorifies a shameful lack of respect for our regional waterways on the part of our ancestors and it is no longer the case. In fact, Boston Harbor is now so clean that the EPA and state officials have finally gotten around to banning boats from dumping sewage within three miles of the Harbor.

Look at the Red Sox chief rival. The Yankees feature "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra. Granted Frank Sinatra doesn't enjoy the stellar reputation among music lovers that has made the Standells the darling of the nation these many years, but he's still somewhat recognizable. Good grief. Sinatra has a song book; the Standells have spark notes. Surely there must be some artist with some song that has roots in the community and just a bit more dignity. I'm not looking for Rachmaninoff, here. Just something that isn't a one hit wonder with a lame hook that has somehow dug into the collective psyche of morons in New England like a tick.

I would also do away with the 8th inning tradition of singing along to Sweet Caroline, which is another beat song. If you really want to listen to it, I have it on Coco Crisp's authority that New England's official Sweet Caroline Station is WROR (105.7 for those of you wishing to tune in at home). Singing along to Sweet Caroline, especially with the slight adaptions inserted by Red Sox fans at Fenway is no better than bringing a glove to the game if you're a grown man or doing the damn wave.

I am also not a huge fan of the pink shirts. I realize that a small portion of the proceeds goes to benefit breast cancer research. But let me let you in on a little secret... you can donate money to breast cancer research without buying a Red Sox shirt. I know this. I know people who do it. You could even donate the money you spent on the shirt or the hat or whatever other pink souvenir you purchased directly to the good people doing the cancer research. Granted you wouldn't have the pink souvenir, but maybe the satisfaction of donating all of your money to cancer research and none of your money to the "John Henry's getting divorced, again" fund could keep you warm at night.