Beaneater

What's up with the PH? Do we really want Bill Hall in CF in the 9th?

And Lester will get his richly deserved W. Probably.

Oh crap. Ortiz won't really hit into a triple play here, will he?

That's like two weeks' supply for Papi.

Or not. Jon Lester, ladies and gentlemen!

I'm foreseeing the words "hard-luck loser" in tomorrow's sports page.

6-11 with, 6-3 without.

I'm only speaking as a human being here, but his pay doesn't get cut, he stops embarrassing himself before a national audience, and his team will certainly be better off for it. That would make sense to me, but then I'm not a professional baseball player.

I've been thinking some variation of this for a while. Great minds and all that.

It seems like I've seen this game so many times before. We hit the ball like gangbusters but only squeeze across a run or so. The opposing starter settles in and starts cruising. Our starter manfully guts through 6-7 innings of fine work but leaves with the score tied. Then John Wasdin comes in and we're done.

My screen says "M Napoli stole third". That's a software glitch, right?

Am I remembering right that Napoli always kills us? EDIT: Luckily he has Wood batting behind him.

Did Drew just swing at the first pitch?

Thanks. I'm up extra late here in West Africa. I won't be around for the whole game though. We are ripping the ball tonight, by the way.

Speaking of superstitions, through two innings Jon Lester has a... oh, never mind.

Here's msubulldogs21's prize: Autumn's last chill rain Falls on steaming asphalt-- More pink Yanks hats now And rhet's: rhet wins talksox pool A Bronx win becomes his own-- Cold, tainted vict'ry Feel free to have them printed on T-shirts.

OK, final results here. example1, rhet, and msubulldogs21 all finished atop the board with 8 points. rhet and msubulldogs21 nailed the first tiebreak -- a 6-game World Series. Neither of them bothered to fill in a WS MVP, so they're both disqualified and I declare myself the winner. On second thought, maybe I've been in the Third World too long. That's how elections here work half the time. The prizes, custom haikus, will be forthcoming. I will even generously donate one full haiku for each winner. And yes, with the Yankees' WS win, this postseason pretty much qualifies as the most useless waste of time in playoff history. Seriously -- the teams I was rooting for went 6-24 this postseason. That bites.

Well, here's the pre-WS update: Beaneater - 3 points, 3 max Dojji - 3 points, 3 max Jacoby_Ellsbury - 4 points, 4 max Quinny - 2 points, 2 max Christian Snyder - 2 points, 2 max yeszir - 4 points, 4 max example1 - 4 points, 8 max ORS - 4 points, 4 max rhet - 4 points, 8 max Paradisecity - 5 points, 5 max BSN07 - 1 point, 1 max TheKilo - 2 points, 2 max msubulldogs21 - 4 points, 8 max Basically, if the Phillies win, Paradisecity is the the talksox champ. If the Yanks win, example1, rhet, and msubulldogs21 share the crown. So the teams I'm rooting for are 0 for 6 this postseason. All it will take is a Yankees victory to seal the craptacularness of this October.

Well, I'm not sure how much we care about baseball at this point, but here's an update on the Showdown. Each participant has some points (or point) in hand, with the chance to get more if things fall their way. Here's the rundown: beaneater - 1 point, max of 3 Dojji - 3 points, max of 5 Jacoby_Ellsbury - 2 points, max of 10 Quinny - 2 points, max of 2 Christian Snyder - 2 points, max of 2 yeszir - 2 points, max of 2 example1 - 2 points, max of 8 ORS - 2 points, max of 4 rhet - 2 points, max of 8 Paradisecity - 3 points, max of 11 BSN07 - 1 point, max of 1 TheKilo - 2 points, max of 2 msubulldogs21 - 2 points, max of 8 Paradisecity will walk away with it if the Angels win it all. Several others will do well if the Yanks win. BSN07 gets the prestigious "First to be Assured Last Place" Award, thanks to his courageous pick of Twins over Yanks. I may still join him with 1 whopping point. Anyone have rooting preferences among the remaining teams (obviously there's no need to voice an opinion about the Yankees)? My second team was going to be the Rox -- I have a brother who's been in CO for many years so I root for them by osmosis or something. I dislike the Phils and am pretty much neutral about the Dodgers. So I guess it's Angels by default. Then again, considering that my preferred teams went 0 for 4 in the first round, maybe I should trick the baseball gods into thinking I'm rooting for someone else. Hey, uh, go Yankees! Yeah, Yanks-Phillies in the WS all the way!

From your keyboard to God's ears.

You made almost the same picks as me. That's probably a bad sign for you. Care to provide tiebreakers? Or I can do them for you... Cards in 4, Smoltz MVP.