Here’s another competition in Anchorage; you’ll love it…

“McCain Palin Rally vs. Obama Biden Rally in Anchorage! The Blow by Blow”

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/

For the Cubbies fans – you wanted Soriano, you got him. He looked exactly as lost as he did in the 2003 World Series, right before the Yankees dumped him. Flailing at anything, striking out on two pitches, lost in a fog in the field.

But the Curse of Cubdom is, per the eminent historians at Elysian Fields Quarterly, still payback for the wrongs done Fred Merkel which led to the Cubs’ last series win, in 2008. The baseball gods were busy strewing pebbles on the Wrigley infield the other night, as is their way.

As to Torre and Hank Steinbrenner. The fact of the matter is the relationship between Torre, the Yankee front office and the team was like an old marriage between Britons that had gone stale. Everyone needed someone new, and everyone respected everyone else and got divorced quite politely, thank you. While Torre moved on to LA and some exciting new squeeze, I don’t think you will find a Yankee fan who isn’t happy for him. As to the Yankees, their fans are taking this like it was ’97 and Mo coughing up a homer at Cleveland – inspiration and a hot coal of angry, determined desire in their guts. The problem, of course, is that A-Dog is playing third for the foreseeable future and, as a winner, he is only marginally better than Soriano. In other words, he’s not a winner. Never has been. He’ll rack up great stats, but he’s the guy who hits a leadoff homer in the 7th of a 5-1 game (making it either 6-1 or 5-2), as opposed to the clutch guy who singles in two to break a 4-4 tie in the 8th. A-Dog comes up in the clutch spot – he flails like Soriano and GIDP. But, A-Dog was not Hank’s project. He was George’s.

Manny, of course, had the best line of the night. Asked if he had any words for the Boston fans he said ”No. I’m in LA now.”

OT bmaz – Sway

Hey bmaz don,t make me laugh so hard it hurts HA HA. if anybody wonders what I mean I have had a double lung transplant two weeks ago

Lazy question, but since the experts are here: does anyone remember, off top of head, where in the Biden/Palin debate she dropped the line “Say it ain’t so, Joe”?

>

Hope so, but Beckett usually has ONE bad inning…

PS Oh yeah, Fuck the Yankees! Just sayin’.

Randiego has been mercilessly hammering on the Patriots lately.

SD 3 MIA 17 half

Hold the trashtalk Randiego! You can earn the right next Sunday Night on national TV.

Pats looking for an upset over the Niners

49ers + 3 at home. They give you two for a home game. The Niners are favored by the smallest of margins. That’s Las Vegas, look at the records:

The 49ers are 2-2. Of the two wins, one was notable SF 33 @ SEA 30 week 2; the other was a home victory against the Lions. They lost to ARZ at home and NO on the road.

I pick the Pats by 6 (if the defense shows up and plays with passion.)

Falcons just scored TD, following interception, with 3:35 left in 4th. 27/17 Falcs over Cheeseheads.

GB scored TD. 27/24 Falcons

I’m not a Cubs fan, but I do feel for the real ones. The Dodgers really sucked this season, and the Cubbies most assuredly did not.

Here’s 3 things that might comfort them:

[1] Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Gildenstern Are Dead – the first scene for sure. En route to Elsinore one of the numbskulls is flipping a coin, which to this point has come up one side 47 times or so, and the oddity leads them into a discussion about the central role of randonmess in human events.

[2] I’ve mentioned this before somewhere on this site, but baseball’s Darwin [I see Nate Silver as baseball’s Stephen Jay Gould], Bill James arrived at the sure sign of there being no god in the mid-90’s. In a early dead tree-based iteration of what I gather now is a subscription-only blog, the long-time Royals fanatic and current Red Sox consultant found little, for all practical purposes NO, meaningful advantage in being the better, or since the introduction of intraleague playoffs, best, “team” [in the sense of producing a better in-season record, and deserving it], in terms of predicting which MLB franchise would go on to take any given season’s Whirled Serious hardware.

[3] The Red Sox Nation suffered the Curse of the Bambino [and not at all in silence] for about 90 years [just from “about” you can tell I’m not a Bosox fan either], and since then it doesn’t seem to matter what the front office does

[EG On the assumption there’s a certain utility in being able to hit the odd home run, dispatching Manny to the left coast and going with a broken down former phenom and the pre-maturely portly Greek God of walks does not strike the casual fan, even many self-appointed experts, as a sound strategy. But then I suppose the same can be said of the Obama campaign engaging Appalachia knee-jerk bigots in discussing racial stereotypes – & I for one sure like that, even if the consequences are far-term. Seems like that Obama fella is one smart cookie.]

they’re constantly in contention and winning at least their share.

What was it Ray kept hearing in Field of Dreams? “If you build it, they will come”.

It’ll come, Cub fans. Just not necessarily in my lifetime, or yours.

[4] Speaking of Field of Dreams, its author wrote another baseball classic, most unfairly yet to be acknowledged as such despite its being at least as qualified, that stands as a peon to the Cubbies of the first decade of the last century AND to Iowa, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy

[though the author was- is- a Canuck…which suggests your geographic proximity to Canuckia hasn’t exactly done you any harm, even accounting for Conrad Black- on which front my thinking is that the eskimos may not say so but owe you a Thank You – though they’re so quiet up there maybe I just missed it]

which means you’ve got TWO literary classics to the credit of your beloved Cubbies – and what do New Yorkers have that’s comparable? Richard Ben Cramer’s book that despite appearances, Dimaggio was as much of jerk as Al Stump proved Ty Cobb was a psychopath;

[5] Jee-BUS Chitowners – just look at what you DO have:

no worst than the second best opera house in Americaa, plus a world class symphony orchestra;

top flight schools, particularly in economics, philosophy, law and engineering, none of which are so cowardly as to fail to consider options because Rush or Bill O’Reilly says they reek of “socialism”;

a grand tradition and style in journalism and investigative reporting that’s so strong it’s even been able to survive having produced Novak the Undead – IOW you got Studs Terkel!;

a lively political environment with a reliably predictable dominant flavor of corruption in government, plus pretty much the best guy ’round to help keep it below the level of the Black Plague [unlike Mississippi and Sweet Home, I hasten to add];

you’re “The Second City”, but not at all a bad way: firstly you’re definitely not so egotistic as to call yourself “The City”; you’re no part of the Elite East; or Dumbed-Down Dixon, or Anti-Science Appalachia; or the Waco West [or indeed have much of anything in commmon with the Divine Ms M. Ivins’ beloved- & eternally asshat-backwards- Texas; or the Wierd West that thinks the Gipper and Ahnold are real;

[6] St. Paul has relieved you of much of the pressure from the legacy of the 1968 DNC;

and

[7] now you’re about to get the White House… and along with that credit for having made, not just one but TWO critical contributions to the ability of the nation to fulfil its promise.

Don’t be so damned greedy!

wow.