It's amazing that in a world full of unanswerable questions, the biggest one on my mind right now has nothing to do with Bruce Springsteen's recent endorsement of Barrack Obama. This isn't so much a political complaint as a logical complaint. Given his recent track record, you'd think the Boss might go a different route, and endorse a candidate he didn't want to win, what with the fact that he hasn't backed a winner in what seems like a generation. But that's just me.

The real unanswered question of 2008 has to be why in the name of all that is good, just and holy is Mike Mussina still pitching. And more to the point, why did he think it was a good idea to pitch to Manny Ramirez. Generally, I like irony, and even those things we claim are ironic when they're mere coincidences. Not so much tonight.

The Red Sox under Dan Duquette's inspired regime brought Manny to town at what looked like a ludicrous price because, and only because, they were outbid by the Yankees in the Mike Mussina sweepstakes. Then, it looked like a panic move. Now it looks far too good.

Even with my extensive capacity to describe things that anger me, I am at a loss for words here. In the last season and a half, Mike Mussina hasn't aged. He hasn't decayed. He's fossilized. I would feel more comfortable taking the mound myself in a big game than letting Mussina pitch against a middle school girls' softball team. I was shocked to find that his ERA is still only 5.75.

There was always something funny about Mussina's career. Has another pitcher who won so many games in his career ever been so invisible? I know he played most of the best years of his career in Baltimore, but not all of those Oriole teams were horrible. A few made the playoffs. Ripken broke Gehrig's consecutive games played record. People paid some attention to Baltimore then.

And what do we really know about Mussina after a long and fairly successful career? He throws a knuckle curve. He won a surprising number of games when you look at his career stats. And right now he sucks so much it's not even funny. For the love of God, he was replaced in this game in the fourth inning by Jonathan Albaladejo. Now maybe this season will go down in history as the start of something bug for Jonathan Albaladejo, but it will surely be the sad finish to what was once a good career for Mike Mussina. And I'm pissed that he got two shots at the Red Sox before the curtain fell.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I also came across this interesting piece, attributing the reason the Mets acquired Johann Santana while the Red Sox and Yankees backed off in the end to the fact that the Mets turned a 30 million dollar profit last year while the Red Sox lost nearly 20 million and the Yankees lost almost $50 million. I just don't see how, even with their gargantuan payrolls, that the Red Sox and Yankees lost money last season.

The Mets landed Santana because they were desperate. They didn't make the playoffs. The Yankees did. The Yankees had the inside track on sports headlines in the offseason and in the early stages of this season with Joe Girardi replacing Joe Torre after over a decade of managing the Bronx Bombers. In order to stay even remotely relevant after last season's catastrophic collapse, the Mets had to make a big splash. They were more willing to part with prospects than the Yankees were to surrender young talent, some of whom have already played well at the big league level.

Assuming the Yankees don't come back tonight, they'll be 1 game down in the standings and 3 games down in the season series to the hated Red Sox. It's far too early to panic, since the Yankees are as young as they've been in a long time. They should get better as the season goes along, especially considering what Girardi was able to do with a younger, far less talented group in his one season in Florida. But when Bartolo Colon and Curt Schilling come back for the Red Sox, they'll still be fat and old.

And has any one asked why Schilling can blog and create new mods for his disturbing cyberLARPing fetish when he hasn't thrown a baseball yet this season? How will all the king's horses and all the king's men put Humpty Dumpty back together again if he's allowing himself to be distracted from his rehab? And as the presidential race heats up after the conventions, won't Schilling be distracted further by his efforts to keep McCain from winning by helping his campaign?

Sorry I haven't updated this site in a while. I know how desperately the two or three of you who read this regularly await each post and the host of insights it provides into the world of sports, life, the universe and everything. I just haven't felt much like posting.

I know a blog allegedly devoted to baseball, and the Red Sox in particular, ought to have had more baseball related content posted by this point in the season (to date, I think all I've done is a halfpost complaining about how fraudulent the season opening in Japan was and what a pointless waste of time the exhibition series in LA was). Hell, I haven't even gotten around to congratulating Kansas for winning the NCAA tournament thanks to my reverse jinx effect.

It's nice to see that the Red Sox haven't exactly lit the world on fire yet this season. I am going to wait a little before I celebrate, though. After all, a cursory check of the standings tells us that, at least at the start of tonight's games, the Baltimore Orioles are currently on pace to win 138 games this year. I wouldn't be much of a Catholic if I denied out of hand the possibility of miracles, but I just can't see this edition of the Baltimore Orioles demolishing the MLB record for wins in a season.

And of course we must assume that the Red Sox will only get better. After all, Curt Schilling is still rehabbing his injured shoulder and eventually he will come back. So what if he's more dangerous with his mouth (especially to Republican presidential hopeful John McCain) and his pointless blog than with his pitching at this point in his career. Humpty Dumpty will be back on the mound soon enough.

It was only a minor bump in the road when Beckett was roughed up by the Blue Jays in his season debut. After all, if Delcarmen hadn't allowed a grand slam to Frank Thomas, Beckett may not have gotten the loss. Then again, if Beckett hadn't stunk out the joint and left the bases loaded, Thomas might have had a hard time hitting that grand slam in the first place, but things will get much better for the Sox any day now.

Bartolo Colon and Mike Timlin are also going to come back at some point, we think. So this Red Sox team is best compared to a slumbering giant waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting American League. Other teams from whom big things were expected this year, like the Tigers and Yankees, can't be compared to slumbering giants, however. After all, I half-expected that the Yankees would just forfeit the season after Bill Simmons pronounced them the second most relevant baseball team in NYC right now.

I found that line amusing. The Mets may have acquired Johann Santana, but they'd have to win the next 13 or so titles in a row to overtake the Yankees in the hearts and minds of New Yorkers. Mets fans are a sort of New York equivalent to that guy who became a Red Sox fan in any other MLB city in the last 10 or so years. These people desperately want something to stick out their chest and feel big about, and rooting for the second biggest team in NYC or the second biggest team in America was one way to do it.

I'll believe in the Mets when I see them standing in the winner's circle at the end of the year. It seems every big ticket addition to the Mets takes at least one season to perform at the anticipated level. Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran took a year, and with the bigger deal, the bigger headlines and the fact that he's very old for a small power pitcher, makes me think that a slow April is just a sign of things to come from Santana this season.

Back to the Red Sox, I can't help but wonder when Congress will leave off investigating the likes of Roger Clemens and persecuting poor, innocent Bill Belichick to answer the real questions that vex those of us who observe the sports landscape. Based on a very, very, very small performance sample last season and countless pointless articles this offseason, I have been led to believe that Jacboy Ellsbury is the greatest outfield prospect since Mickey Mantle. And yet, he's bravely hitting .200 and hasn't made Coco Crisp expendable yet.

Just say that to yourself, out loud, one time. Jacoby Ellsbury hasn't made Coco Crisp expendable yet. And let's not forget that Coco Crisp has made himself expendable, making over $2 million to hit .220 (yeah, Crisp is hitting .250 at the moment, but I'm an incurable optimist) and produce an abysmally small number of runs for a number eight hitter in an AL East lineup.

Of course, there are intelligent Red Sox fans, like this blogger, who think one can bench the $2 million man in center and leave Ellsbury to founder and fail to fulfill his promise in center. Personally, I'd love that option. Using Crisp as a late inning defensive substitution would send a nice comment to those of us who sneer at the Red Sox attempts to out-Herod Herod (the Yankees), by wasting $2 million on a situational replacement. And forcing Ellsbury to play every day and founder under the criticism of the press and fans when he doesn't produce will, at the very least, imair this team's future.

Unfortunately for Humpty Dumpty, all Tito Francona's horses and all Tito Francona's men could not put him back together again this evening in the Bronx. The Yankees took two out of three from the Sox, and there are some signs that everything that has gone so spectacularly awry to this point just might start coming together over the next few weeks. Whatever else may happen, it's sure to be a downbeat post on 38pitches, and that's usually cause for celebration on this end.

But baseball is only a peripheral concern this evening. Over the last few weeks, the story that Michael Vick owned a home where his cousin lived and allegedly operated a dog fighting ring has for some strange reason become the biggest single problem in America today. A very, very, very small part of this is my fault because I enjoying ripping Vick and his alter ego Ron Mexico. But now it has gotten way out of hand.

Out of all the parties that have weighed in on this sordid little mess, it is hard to determine who is the most wrong (not grammatically or stylistically elegant, but this situation defies conventional forms of expression). Somewhere in all of this, a tool of note is waiting to be mocked. Clinton Portis, tailback of the Washington Redskins, is a good place to begin.



Portis has waded into the midst of this farce and attempted to defend the indefensible player (Vick) and pastime (dog fighting). NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was not only disappointed, but also embarrassed at Portis' words of something less than wisdom. I don't know if Portis found much time to study jurisprudence in his time at the University of Miami, but that's no excuse for some of what he said.

I particularly enjoyed this gem from Portis' comments: "I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it's his property. It's his dog. If that's what he wants to do, do it." While I appreciate the sanctity of private property as much as the next man, I don't think the "a man's home is his castle" defense is going to fly in this case. Just because you own a house doesn't mean that you or your guests can commit felonies there till the cows come home. You (or your cousin) can't run a meth lab or fight dogs or ritualistically kill people in your home and get away with it. That's just not the way the world works.

But some of the forces that have arrayed themselves against Michael Vick in this are little better than his would-be defender Clinton Portis. Animal rights groups are calling for the NFL commissioner to make sure that dog fighting is treated with the greatest possible severity under the newly adopted standardized personal conduct policy. And even better, a member United States House of Representatives agrees. And all I can say is...who cares?

Dog fighting is a felony. As such, it should be treated like any other felony under the terms of the new conduct policy at best. At worst, people should realize that just because they have formed inexplicable attachments to a vaguely domesticated four-legged pest-carrying civic nuisance doesn't mean the rest of us have to follow suit. Domestic violence, operating a motor vehicle, providing dangerous narcotic substances or partaking of same are far more serious offenses than going to the occasional dog fight or sponsoring a combatant.

Don't get me wrong, I do not support dog fighting. I think it is an antiquated, barbaric, disgusting endeavor. It should be illegal. Offenders should be punished when caught in the act. I just hate dogs. And before any reader rises up with bleeding heart over my egregious insensitivity to man's best friend, consider this proposition: when should a felony committed against an animal be regarded as more serious than a felony committed against a person? If your answer isn't never (the malapropism is deliberate, hoping to shock the dog lover back into consciousness), then you're a jackass, and the world would be best served if you opted to save the next generation from the burden of your progeny.

And as for Congressman Tom Lantos, who feels that he needs to take time out of his busy day to press Roger Goodell to strike down on Michael Vick with great vengeance and furious anger, I wonder would the Gentleman from California kindly consider the notion that he and his 434 colleagues might want to exercise the power of the purse to stave off financial ruin from the nation? Perhaps it's better that the Congress confine its powers to regulating sport. God only knows what a mess they could make out of the nation if they actually addressed issues of immediate concern like the war.

I will leave you to decide which of the interested parties can best be described as a tool of note from this post. If I say any more, I fear my readers and I might meet in the Place Where There Is No Darkness.

There are some things in life that come down to a question of perspective. For instance, one man's glowing tribute to a deceased icon from another team in another sport in another era can also be another man's shameless attempt to exploit a populace of sheep when the market for a given team's paraphernalia is saturated. Apparently every fan who wants them must already have all the pink shirts and red shirts and blue shirts that they could justify owning. So the Red Sox brass cooked up a blatant, disgusting sham of a tribute to Red Auerbach tonight.

Perhaps I'm too cynical, and I allow my hatred of the Red Sox to cloud my mind. Maybe that's why I think it strange that the Red Sox chose the night of their first home game against the New York Yankees to lament the passing of the greatest basketball mind since Naismith. I'm sure it was just coincidence that it should happen to be a Friday night and a national TV game. There is no way that this fine event could have any ulterior motive.

Giving the devil his due, I must congratulate whichever of Henry's minions was responsible for engineering and marketing this "tribute." Even I, believing it to be artificial and in poor taste as I do, think it was brilliant. Bringing the 16 banners from the rafters across town to adorn the Green Monster before the game started was the mot juste. I only wish that I and my small band of loyal readers were that clever and that shameless, maybe then I'd break the century mark for daily hits.

Fortunately for me, the universe has a way of evening the scales. Somewhere, I think Red might have cracked a smile about something that happened in Boston sports for the first time in years after A Rod took Big Schill deep in the 4th. It was also edifying to see Mientkiewicz advance two runners with a sacrifice bunt to help the Yankees manufacture their first run of the night. Up until Varitek tied the game with what I can only assume to have been Sammy Sosa's infamous batting practice bat and Crisp hit that triple, I was convinced that the bottom three in the Red Sox order would struggle to manufacture a case of athlete's foot.

Interestingly, down by 3 in the seventh, Francona elected to pinch hit Wily Mo Pena for Pedroia with runners on first and second rather than sacrifice to advance the runners. Perhaps Francona was thinking (assuming he can, in fact, think) that Petite was tiring. Unfortunately, that was not the case. He struck out Pena, and Proctor came on to retire Lugo and Youkilis. It is also possible that Francona may not have even known the situation. Or maybe he just had no confidence that the top of his order could drive in runners from second and third with one out should he call for the sacrifice.

I understand that one run one run isn't going to tie the game there, and it is now a moot point because the Yankee bullpen made the lead go away in the 8th. But at least it's more proactive to sacrifice and advance runners to second and third with one out than it is to sit back and hope for a big inning. But I blame myself for the 8th inning rally more than I blame the Yankees or credit the Sox. I jinxed the Yankees, because I had written this joke: "that rally just died in Jason Varitek's arms as though it were the 1980s band Cutting Crew" as he stepped to the plate. I feel like a tool right now, but I leave it in for the sake of intellectual honesty.

And Francona was lucky that burning Pena by pinch hitting him when he couldn't field Pedroia's position did not come back to haunt him tonight. The fact that it would have made infinitely more baseball sense to pinch hit Cora and have him execute the sacrifice or strike out like Pena did than wasting Pena in the first place did should temper the pride Red Sox Nation derives from tonight's comeback victory ever so slightly. I will concede that pinch running for Giambi made perfect sense right up until the point where a spare part from and made up of lesser spare parts unknown made the last out of the game batting fifth.

The Red Sox had no confidence going into that 8th inning. You could see Schilling's man-and-a-half sized ego deflate when A Rod hit his second. Personally, I think that it should have counted as a grand slam, even though only two men were on base at the time. After all, Coco Crisp managed to fall out of the field of play into the home bullpen, very nearly breaking his back in the process. The total, complete and utter humiliation for the player and the team in that one shining moment ought to be worth at least one additional run on the scoreboard.

Even in the ninth, when the Sox sent Hideki Okajima out to pitch to the heart of the Yankee lineup, it could not help but remind Red Sox Nation that Papelbon must be treated with kid gloves as though he were Samuel L. Jackson's character in Unbreakable this season. But Okajima rose to the challenge. He was a little upset with some of the calls that led to the Abreu walk. And maybe he had a point, but Abreu has a reputation for having a good eye, and reputation goes a long way. There was a time when Greg Maddux could bounce the ball like a cricket bowler throwing a googly and still get a strike call. That's the way it goes.

The guy I go to for my Red Sox information actually called me before the game to get in my eye about the green uniforms. His quote at the time: "Think Notre Dame." Of course, I didn't point out that Notre Dame hasn't exactly produced the desired result in their last few green jersey games (last year's game against Army doesn't really count). I was saving that for a big moment, like the second A Rod homer, but alas, he wasn't taking my call.

I do have to give him credit on one point, he said that he saw Schilling letting up at least five runs tonight. And he had that part right. He wasn't concerned when I spoke to him before the game, because Pettite didn't scare him. I guess he was right about that too, since Pettite was good enough when he had to be, but not exactly dominant over his 6 and 1/3 innings of work.

Even with the Red Sox having all the momentum because of their impressive comeback, this shapes up to be an interesting series for the Yankees. It is not going to be easy to win tomorrow or Sunday, with Karstens and Chase Wright making their Fenway debuts. Pettite came up big for them, and it would have been nice not to have wasted his performance. It would be nice to have the Sox lose two games this weekend and a sweep would have been awesome, but that's obviously impossible now.

I must say I wonder whether the artificial confidence a sweep for the hated Red Sox would instill in Red Sox Nation might have been worth all the bragging bravado I would have to endure. After all, sweeping that mighty lineup would not be a miracle (or even a fair sized country wonder to borrow an expression from Edwin O'Connor) with the starting rotation decimated by injuries to Wang, Pavano and Mussina. A comeback against Rivera is nice, and three blown saves for a closer of his stature is not exactly encouraging even if it is only April.

Rooting against the Red Sox is far more important than rooting for any one team. I will enjoy the inevitable collapse of this team with its suspect fourth and fifth starters, still not exactly proven middle relief and pathetic hitters manning the last third of the order. The bullpen held the fort and even chumps like Varitek, Crisp and Cora can't get out all the time. It is possible that I should be more repentant or keep silent, but I'm just not that kind of guy.

After all, I can't help wondering now that all the king's horses and all the king's men managed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again...how humble is Humpty Dumpty? I'm surprised he hasn't posted yet. I wonder, since my technical consultant tells me that a hit on this site has originated from a password protected area of wordpress (which supports his blog) twice in the past two weeks, whether he's waiting on me waiting on him?