While I have been trying to avoid posting in the middle of a bender, tonight it seems as though I have no choice. Our long national nightmare just keeps dragging on as the Patriots refuse to do the right thing and lose. Even as the core of their defense ages in dog years, with Bruschi, Seau, Harrison and Vrabel winding down at the wrong time, they still manage to win week in and week out. And it's a damn shame.

I must confess, I was amazed to see two personal fouls called on Rodney Harrison in one season, let alone one game. He is a great player, and although it hurts me to say this, a sure-fire Hall of Famer. That said, he is now, and has always been a dirty player whose playmaking capacity, strength and toughness grow impressively in inverse proportion to his opponents' abilities to deal damage in return. In that sense, he is the evolutionary Jack Tatum, a kinder, gentler cheap shot artist for the Bill Clinton era in America.

I am coming to the conclusion, to borrow a phrase from an old episode of the Simpsons, that the Patriots suffer from Three Stooges Syndrome. If you remember, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic explained Mr. Burns longevity was a result of that condition, that there were so many diseases and conditions attacking him at once that they cancelled each other out. The Patriots have so many dueling vulnerabilities that they just might be invulnerable. And what a shame that would be for the Republic.

But after a certain point, how can one maintain interest in ripping a functionally illiterate quarterback, a sunshine soldier at lead wide receiver and a decrepit defense? Especially when they seem hell bent on getting stronger and faster and healthier with each swipe I take at them. I know they are a very good team, and I think I'm devoted enough to intellectual honesty to give the Devil his due when I criticize them. It just seems that they are so eminently beatable that this little thing of theirs has to come to a screeching halt at some point. I just wish it had been tonight, 16-1 had such a lovely ring to it.

The real story of today, however, is the savage beating Green Bay applied to Seattle. I have always expected to be a minor villain in the local sports scene, what with the fact that I harbor deep-seeded irrational antipathies to every local team and all. I didn't expect to become a minor villain to a lunatic fringe group of Seahawks fans because I dared provide a rational analysis of their team, their town, their "traditions" and their QB.

Seahawks fans, or at least the few that tripped over this blog in the dark, took umbrage at the fact that I called Matt Hasselbeck the fifth best QB in the NFL. I think the real thorn in their side came out of my assertion that the gap between 1-4 and 5 was bigger than the Grand Canyon. And yet as we sit here tonight and look back on the mauling they received at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, I could very nearly take a small measure of solace from the fact that I was more right than they were. Favre, Romo, Brady and Manning aren't in the same league as Hasselbeck.

I just wish the Packers had had the chance to utterly humiliate Seattle in the Emerald City in the vicinity of the 12th Man. Since they have a proclivity for stealing traditions from Texas A & M, I have a suggestion for Seattle fans. Texas A & M plays Taps across campus when one of its alumni who serves in the military dies in the line of duty. It occurs to me that the Seahawks fans could construct a similar ritual for this time of year when the Seahawks' Super Bowl hopes are crushed.

They shouldn't play Taps, since that would insult the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces, but they should be able to create a parallel tradition for their own minor tragedies. Yeah, Seattle has loud fans. So do most NFL towns. And most of them didn't boost their nickname from the town in the Wizard of Oz. So maybe Seahawks fans could gather and play Follow the Yellow Brick Road to mourn yet another year of Seahawk failure when the chips are down.

And as for the 12th Man, I haven't the time or the inclination to do the research right now but we all know they ripped of Texas A & M. In point of fact, I have the time, but I am a bit buzzed right now and working real hard on a full-on drunk, so I just won't do it. But I can, through the imperfect medium of my memory, trace Texas A & M 12th Man references back to the 1986 bowl game where the 12th Man selected to cover a kick from the Texas A & M student body tried to steal a towel from Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown as a souvenir. I can't trace the Seattle 12th Man back past the turn of the century. Case closed.

Before I conclude yet another meandering window into my own tormented mind, I want to say one more thing. In the past, Tom Brady has come under fire in this space for being a balding metrosexual. Perhaps I ought to have been more sensitive, since it must have been difficult to blaze that trail as publicly as Tom Brady has, but sensitivity isn't my strong suit.

That said, Tom Brady seems to have more hair now than he did at this time last year. Now, I wouldn't be much of a Catholic (and Lord knows, I'm not) if I didn't allow for the possibility of miracles, but I don't believe in this particular miracle. Never having set an NFL record myself, I don't know if setting the touchdown mark cures minor physical ailments, but I think old Tom Brady might just be on the Rogaine or at the very least sporting hair plugs. Could this be some sort of under appreciated performance enhancer? Would that I knew enough science to investigate.

Rest assured that my running debate on the Roger Clemens story with the KobraKommander will be resumed in the not too distant future, if for no other reason than this is my blog and I'll be damned if I let him have the last word.

I know I really ought to post more frequently, but I'm feeling very depressed. The damn Patriots keep winning. I was eliminated from the loser's bracket in my FFL playoffs by a cat who looks like the stunt double for BlackAdder. Plus, I really hate the holidays.

So many things about Christmas really bother me. First, there's the dreadful weather that we've been having lately. One day, I might understand why 88% of New Englanders can't drive in the snow. For the love of God, we live in a region that's almost assured of two to three storms of over ten inches in the course of a given winter, even in spite of Al Gore and his global warming.

Then there's shopping. I hate going to stores. I hate picking things out for people, especially when I'm not entirely sure what they like. I mean, it can't be my fault that I am self-involved and cheap, right? Above all, though, I hate shopping because it always involves two of my least favorite things - waiting in line and dealing with people.

But what really bothers me most at this time of year might seem like a small thing. I have no truck with atheists who celebrate Christmas. That drives me right up the wall. What kind of person celebrates the birth of somebody else's Messiah? It's bad enough that Christians participate in the materialistic sham that really hasn't honored Christ the way He ought to be honored since Charles Dickens was roaming the Earth writing on repentant misanthropic misers. But to have people who don't believe in Jesus celebrating His birthday (even though we don't really know exactly what date he was born) is just one more of the things that make this time of year fall short of expectations.

But this isn't a blog about general societal decay. Or at least it's not supposed to be. Another reason for my extended silence (this time) is that I've been terrified into silence by a group of Seattle Seahawks fans who stumbled across my evaluation of Matt Hasselbeck and didn't find it to their taste. I must admit that I didn't harbor great expectations with regard to the intelligence of Seahawks fandom. But somehow they managed to fall short of those low standards.

I particularly enjoyed the comments accusing me of being just another Patriots fan. Even leaving aside for a moment my long track record of anti-Pats posts, the particular item in question that stirred up this tempest in a tea cup started off with words to the effect that sometimes I wished I were ignorant enough to be a Pats fan. Then again, if Seattle folk were bright enough to pick up on irony and sarcasm, then they probably wouldn't live in Seattle and rip off traditions from middle of the road colleges like Texas A&M.

I guess this means that the city of Seattle and perhaps even the state of Washington are now closed to me. So you have to forgive me for grieving in silence for so long. My sources inform me that the state of Washington is full of a horrid mixture of hippie tools in Birkenstock and backwoods survivalist libertarians. With a grouping like that, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I'd need a passport to get there from Logan. At least they can get angry with me to distract them after the Hawks exit the playoffs in the wildcard round.

I thought that the Pats were very lucky that Cleo Lemon apparently gets a bonus for each sack he takes. He must, what with the way he refused to consider throwing the ball away at any point in the course of the game. With the defense forcing four Patriot turnovers, there were plays that a remotely competent QB could have made. It might not have been anywhere near enough to win the game, but perhaps Miami could have challenged the Pats a bit more than they did.

I thought the game of the week was the Minnesota-Washington matchup tonight. For the last few weeks, I've been force fed a line of nonsense about the Vikings being a scary team come playoff time. Perhaps if they had fared better against Green Bay and Dallas earlier this year I might have been more likely to swallow it. There's no way I'm buying that after the Redskins dismantled them.

With Adrian Peterson, the Vikings do have the makings of an explosive running game. I know that seems a strange way of expressing that idea, what with the fact that he's only a rookie and he broke the single game rushing yardage record against a Bears defense that hasn't completely eroded yet. But he wasn't terribly effective before he was hurt against the Packers a few weeks ago, and the Redskins did a decent job against him tonight.

And it's true that Minnesota can stop the run, at least according to the stats. Only three teams have rushed for over 100 yards in a game against Minnesota this season - Green Bay, Dallas and now Washington. Unfortunately for the Vikings, that list consists of at least 1/3 of playoff bound teams in their conference and maybe 1/2 of them (if Washington can beat Dallas next week).

This loss is particularly bad for the Vikings because unlike Dallas or Green Bay, Washington isn't particularly good. While Romo and Favre are without question light years ahead of their "peers" in the conference, the Redskins started a guy who is 36 years old and ten years removed from his last NFL start. The Redskins can do a lot of things on the football field, unfortunately they don't really do any one thing tremendously well.

So now Minnesota is fading away in the playoff race. They aren't out of it, but they do need Dallas to beat Washington on the road. And unless Wade Phillips is dumber than a bag of hammers, Romo won't play a lot (if he plays at all) and Owens should be out. That leaves the immortal Brad Johnson starting in his old stomping grounds. Seems like a safe bet that Washington will be the final playoff team this season, doesn't it?

Since the title of this blog would indicate that it should be baseball themed, I have a baseball story to pass on to you. I imagine you must have seen it by now, but I feel I ought to complain anyway. Sam Zell, billionaire and the second biggest moron to own a professional team (behind the Benefactor), intends to divest himself of the Tribune Company's crown jewel (the Cubs). Along the way, Mr. Zell is considering selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field.

Can you believe that? Wrigley Field ought to be sacrosanct, but not in any kind of blasphemous sense. I am always running down the current owners of the Boston Red Sox for finding new ways to exploit the ignorance and gullibility of their fan base as they extort Red Sox Nation. But to their credit (even though I feel bile rising into my mouth as I write this), at least they haven't pimped out the naming rights to Fenway Park. What a world.

For those of you who braved my insulting rhetoric about atheists (and agnostics, I suppose) and the Seattle Seahawks, I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, even though I probably won't have one myself. I may post tomorrow, if anything grabs my attention. But if I don't, you have my holiday wishes. And a warning. Don't be stupid, don't drink and drive. And I'd like to wish all of the American military personnel and our nation's veterans a Merry Christmas, and God willing a safe one too.

There are some occasions when I wish I were a Patriots fan. Not to enjoy this undefeated season in the making, not to jump on the bandwagon and not to find out if, as the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss. But to be able to quip after the Patriots bye this week that the NFL finally found a way to stop the Pats from scoring. I imagine that if I were as dumb as the average Pats fan, I could convince myself that I were clever dropping a line like that.

Thanks to Mike Shanahan's hesitation and a fair-sized hangover, I left Travis Henry in my fantasy lineup this week. So his DNP didn't help, and Manning's epic six interception performance still ending up netting 21 points thanks to a FFL commissioner whose struggles with incompetence should make him the subject of a made-for-TV movie of the week, I came in to tonight's game trailing by 1.5 points. All I needed was one catch for six yards from 49ers TE Vernon Davis to win. That didn't seem like an unreasonable expectation, did it?

Of course, with the brilliant pass protection scheme of the San Francisco offense keeping Davis in for max protection, even though it didn't work at any point in the game, that simple hope was doomed from the start.

This season has forced me to face an unpleasant reality. So much attention has been paid to Tony Romo's new contract, Brett Favre's milestones, Peyton Manning's Super Bowl championship and Tom Brady's illegitimate kid and amazing stats. But there has been a vast, dishonest, corrupt conspiracy to divert attention away from the greatest quarterback in the game - Matt Hasselbeck. With the way he put up numbers against the 49ers in tonight's game, the NFL must waive the whole retirement for five years requirement to induct him into the Hall of Fame immediately.

I've been wondering why Hasselbeck is shunted aside in favor of guys like Manning and Brady. It can't be a question of talent, numbers or overall success. It has to be because he's bald and he has that sad little emasculated voice that distinguishes true he men like Hasselbeck and Bill Simmons. Hell, field generals like Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas wish they could have an epic moment like the overtime playoff game when Hasselbeck announced over the stadium PA when the Seahawks won the coin toss that the Hawks would take the ball and win the game. Alas, Hasselbeck threw an INT which Al Harris returned for the winning TD.

It must be a conspiracy, though. It can't be because Hasselbeck is barely above-average at his position. Nor can it be that he is more prepared to provide an excuse for his failure than to drive his team to success. Nor can it be tied to the fact that he plays in a dick town whose most notable football tradition was shamelessly ripped from Texas A & M. As an aside, why couldn't Seahawks fans have stolen the bonfires which collapse and kill the builders instead of the 12th man.

Unfortunately, the story didn't garner the national attention it deserved, but Hasselbeck and his teammates made sure to remind themselves of Super Bowl XL prior to this season's meeting with the Steelers. They brought motivation from the bad calls which they felt deprived their team of the championship they so richly deserved. Whether it was because he spent too much time reading his playbook out loud to clam his children, because State Farm wasn't there for him, because they dwelt too much in the past or because the Steelers are just that much better, the Seahawks were soundly beaten.

This game against San Francisco is fairly typical of Hasselbeck's career. The Seahawks came in expected to win, even without Deion Branch and Shaun Alexander. San Francisco has been dreadful all season, no matter how much they spent this offseason. And Hasselbeck was throwing the ball all over the place. He's always very good in the games he's expected to win. But when the team plays a better team, he folds.

I said all that because Steve Young appeared in the broadcast booth tonight, complaining that Hasselbeck is ignored because he plays in the Pacific Northwest and toils on a team with very little tradition of excellence, so they don't draw media attention. That isn't the case, necessarily. With so much coverage by ESPN, ESPN2 the NFL Network and FSN, with the interest in fantasy football and with the internet, fans have so much access to so much football information at every minute of every day. If fans aren't focused on a player it's performance based, not regional bias. Maybe Hasselbeck is the fifth best QB playing right now, but the Grand Canyon separates him from 1-4.

In other news, BC lost again this week. It seems like an annual rite of passage, like the swallows returning to Capistrano in California in March. Thanksgiving approaches, BC controls its own destiny for an automatic berth to a BCS bowl and a .500 team upsets them. And all of a sudden, there is no BCS berth. And then the whining about BC missing out on higher profile bowls because of the perception that BC fans don't travel well begins in earnest.