Deja vu all over again

Today's exciting Bears win - over the Lions on an interception return in overtime, recalling the 2001 season - got a small measure of regional revenge, but yesterday's Northwestern game was incredibly depressing. Basanez looked erratic and had his worst game of the year, Sutton did very little (besides have a fumble get returned for a touchdown in a bad 14-point-swing early in the game that basically set the tone), the Cats squandered a valiant second-half effort by their defense by doing nothing offensively, and they ended up losing 33-17.

The game reminded me a lot of the 2000 Iowa game. Why? Because under Randy Walker, this Wildcats team does not seem comfortable playing the favorite, even to a minimal degree. Consider the following situation:

November 11, 2001: A week after beating Michigan 54-51, Northwestern goes to Iowa and loses 27-17. Looking at the raw numbers doesn't tell the whole story, as Damien Anderson still ran for 132 yards, but Zak Kustok was sacked eight times and NU was down 20-3 as late as two minutes left in the third quarter before scoring a couple late and ultimately meaningless touchdowns.

So why did they perform so badly against a team that finished 3-9? Some would say simply that this was "a classic letdown game," and in fact the USA Today recap said just that. On the other hand, Northwestern had significantly more talent than Iowa and had scored at least four touchdowns in six straight games. So what was the problem? I would argue that Northwestern simply responded poorly to being the favorite, and not just the favorite, but the one with all the attention.

Generally speaking, being a fan of Northwestern is much more rewarding than being a fan of a Michigan or Ohio State. Not because NU does more winning - obviously not - but because of what individual Northwestern seasons mean. If Northwestern has a mediocre or bad season, fine - we all expected that. When they have a good season, that's great - if NU wins nine games, that's amazing, while nine wins by Ohio State is just another season they didn't win a national championship. Then you've got Michigan fans fighting internal battles with themselves when they have even an average season (and the Wolverines will certainly still make a bowl). That's why I'm glad not to be a Yankees fan, or Duke basketball fan (Tyler's recent "I hate it when we're ranked preseason #1" posts get very little sympathy from me), or whatever. It's not because success bores me per se - although that's really more or less true - but because I firmly believe (and I said as much to Craig in a conversation we had around the same time that he made that linked post) that you cannot appreciate the good without the bad. If you win the Big Ten championship six times out of ten, then a season in which you go 8-3 or 7-4 is suddenly a crippling disappointment. Of course, Northwestern will almost certainly never win a national championship, but que sera sera.

But here's the problem with all of this. Sometimes, that general sense of playing the underdog perpetually serves as a kind of inspiration for the team - witness the success of Gonzaga from double-digit seed lines in the NCAA Tournament and their subsequent early-round failings with seedings like #3 and #2. Northwestern seems to do a similar thing. In 2000 and again this year, they managed to get some attention nationally, but most of it seemed to be of this variety: "Those feisty Northwestern Wildcats! They score so many points and have no defense! That's adorable." However, after beating Michigan in 2000 - and coming back from a 28-10 deficit in the second quarter to do it - the attention was a little more like "Wow, this team could be for real!" At which point they promptly lost to a vastly inferior Iowa team.

A similar thing was true here. Northwestern was actually ranked ahead of Michigan for the first time at their meeting since 1959, and everyone made a big deal out of that. NU was playing at home, where they had won in 2000, and they were racking up tons of points and yards; meanwhile, Michigan was unimpressive and failing to live up to their preseason ranking.

So, of course, Northwestern lost and looked terrible doing it in exactly the place where everyone would have expected them to succeed - on offense. Some credit goes to Michigan's defense, but Northwestern really beat themselves with the overthrown passes, the critical fumble, the holding penalties, and the works. (Plus, Michigan had at least one blatant interference penalty not called on them, though it would likely not have made an ultimate difference.)

I realize, of course, that it's a little hypocritical to call out Michigan fans for complaining about a mediocre season and then get so huffy over Northwestern's lack of success, but of course I don't have various national championships to fall back on, and there is little expectation that Northwestern will be back next year, once Basanez leaves. So... it was disappointing. On the other hand, this team is almost certain to make a bowl (it would take an embarrassing loss to Illinois - and losses to Ohio State and Iowa - to avoid bowl eligibility), so at least there's that, even though it will probably be the Motor City again. Oh well.

That's all, folks

Well, that happened. The Sox winning is not the worst thing in the world, of course, but there are a number of problems that go along with it.

1) We have to hear about how noble and stoic the long-suffering White Sox fans were, compared to the "whiny" fans of the Red Sox and Cubs. No one points out that the difference is that the Red Sox and Cubs have much larger fanbases; is it really any wonder that no one noticed 88 years of griping by the forty thousand legitimate Sox fans in the city?

2) We have to deal with the bandwagon of casual fans who don't bother to pick a side and simply claim whoever's winning as their own. I was IMed last night by one guy who had recently posted on a message board that he was a fan of both teams (to which I replied, simply, "Dude."), and his message was "Well, we won." We??? You didn't win shit, Captain Fairweather. It's silly enough to say "we" unless you're talking about the team from the school you attended, even though I do it sometimes, but to use it when you don't even have a single strong rooting interest? No, no, no.

3) We have to read obnoxious, insulting columns like this one, in which the inimitably bad Scoop Jackson puts down 95% of Cubs fans, calls them out for not hating the Sox enough, and then has the gall not only to wonder why Cubs fans hate the Sox, but to play the race card in discussing it! This isn't the first time Jackson has accused Cubs followers of racism; one of the first posts I ever made in the blog format of this site was a rebuttal to his column suggesting that Dusty Baker was being run out of town for being black. Here's one bit from this column that stands out:

"There's something racial about this," one South Sider says at Murphy's, another Wrigleyville landmark. "It doesn't make any sense for a third of the city to hate the Sox like this."

Give me a fucking break. For starters, you're going to tell me Sox fans don't hate the Cubs? Of course they do! Is it okay because Cubs fans are saddled with the "white yuppie" rep? A couple posts ago, Justin noted in the comments that he knows Sox fans who would curse the Cubs with their last breath. The irrational hate is coming from which side?

Meanwhile, I don't know about you, but I don't hear "Sox fans" and think "black people," no matter how large the minority population on the South Side may be. I think "heavy-set white guy with a thick Chicago accent, possibly with a mustache, broken capillaries in his cheeks, and a blue-collar job." I doubt most Cubs fans think differently. If you have to ascribe the hate to something other than simple fair play - why shouldn't I hate the Sox and their fans when the reverse is so often true? - you could ascribe it to socioeconomic differences, but that's grasping at straws. I don't hate the Sox because I hate poor people. Doesn't that sound ridiculous as even a suggestion? Yet somehow Jackson can write the equivalent of "Cubs fans hate minorities" and get his bullshit published.

I hate the Sox and their fans for one simple reason: they hate me. I think readers of this blog had figured that out by now; Jackson, despite apparently living in this city, doesn't seem to get it. Is he trying to justify his obvious Cubs disdain by pulling the old playground defense of "They started it?" Guess what: that doesn't fly. The hate flows both ways, and if the Cubs had won the Series last night, the beer would not be flowing happily in South Side bars - and if you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself. And you don't know Sox fans.

No one "started" it. It's perfectly natural, and basically expected, for two teams in the same city (or even just the same general area) to develop a rivalry. I challenge you to name a place where this isn't true. It may not always be quite as strong as this one seems to be, but so what? You give as good as you get, and that's how it goes. And that's okay. But Jackson seems to be claiming that Cubs fans are the instigators, which is like calling the chicken a fucker for laying the egg. It's just stupid. The whole point of a rivalry is to be rivals. If I threw a party when the Sox won, what kind of rivalry is that?

In the end, who's whinier? The team that complains about not winning the World Series or the team that spends most of its time deriding the first team and then just can't understand it when they win it all and the first team isn't happy for them? I've got my money on the latter. Am I bitter that the Sox won the World Series? No, not really. But this martyrdom shit they're trying to pull in its wake? That bothers me, along with the fact that - I suppose predictably - it took about two seconds for most Sox fans to invoke Cubs fans in a concerted effort to rub our noses in it. Not only is that bad on its own, but it's going to half-ruin any future Cubs World Series win for me, because I won't just be able to be happy; my thoughts are going to be drawn to the Sox, and their fans, and how thank God this is finally going to shut them up for a while. I have no desire to make the Sox center stage of my celebration, not like people are trying to do to the Cubs with a "let's all point and laugh, children" attitude. You know what? Fuck you guys.

So, okay. We all get it. The Sox won. Good for them. I'm happy for the minority of fans who aren't going to spend the next decade being obnoxious about it. For the rest of them, I don't really care one way or the other. I'd rather not expend any hate on it; it's a waste of my energy, and, if Jackson's column is anything to go by, it's exactly what Sox fans want. They want Cubs fans to seethe, and resent them, all so they can point and say, "See! They hate us!" Come next year, this city is only going to have forty thousand Sox fans once again, and everything will more or less return to normal.

The White Sox won the World Series. Now let us never speak of it again.

Never mind.

Of course, a couple innings after I finished that post last night, the White Sox won again thanks to Geoff Blum (who?), though not before they kept me up until 1:30, guaranteeing I would feel lousy all day today. Despite the fact that the Series has been somewhat competitive - three games decided by five runs total - that doesn't mean much if the Sox are just going to roll. And I think they will; it's hard to imagine them losing tonight with everything else going on (the Astros demoralized, starting their worst starter). So I'd better get at least one more list out of the way before the season ends. Partially per Jan's request, assuming that request wasn't sarcastic (and if it was, ha ha Jan, you bastard, you get another list)...

The Top Ten Series-Defining Pitching Performances in Postseason History

Honorable Mention: Mike Scott
Because Scott's team - the 1986 Astros - didn't get out of the NLCS, he is confined to honorable mention. But just think: had the Astros been able to clone Scott, they might have been in the World Series 19 years before now. Scott took the hill in Game One and threw a complete-game five-hitter; after the Astros had lost the next two games, Scott came back in Game Four and threw a complete-game three-hitter for a 3-1 win. With a 2-0 record, an ERA of 0.50, and 19 strikeouts to one walk in 18 innings, Scott was named MVP of the series even though the Mets won every game he didn't start to take the NLCS in six games.

Honorable Mention: Whitey Ford and Johnny Podres
Combined, New York's Ford and Brooklyn's Podres won four of the 1955 World Series' seven games, taking two each. Ford won Games One and Six, the latter a complete-game four-hitter; Podres, the Series MVP, threw complete games in Games Three and Seven, the latter a 2-0 shutout that won the Dodgers the Series. Oddly, while this was expected of Ford, Podres was hardly Brooklyn's ace; he had gone just 9-10 during the season. (Dodger ace Don Newcombe had gone 20-5 that season and won the first ever Cy Young Award the next year, but was 0-1 with a 9.53 ERA in the Series.) Points off because the Series' stars never actually had to face each other and because they played on opposing teams.

10. Grover Cleveland Alexander, 1926 World Series
An aging Alexander, 39 years old, wasn't making his last Series appearance, but two years later, he gave up 11 ER in 5 IP in a Cardinals loss. 1926, on the other hand, was his last hurrah. He threw complete games in Games Two and Six, 6-2 and 10-2 wins for St. Louis. Jesse Haines had as good of a Series - as with Ol' Pete, Haines was 2-0 and his 1.08 ERA was even slightly better - but Alexander gained legendary status when he came into Game Seven to replace Haines. With the bases loaded and the Cardinals clinging to a 3-2 lead, Alexander entered with two outs and struck out Tony Lazzeri. Alexander then put the Yankees down in order in the eighth, and the ninth inning, improbably, ended when Babe Ruth walked and was subsequently caught stealing second. Alexander allowed just three earned runs in 20.1 innings while striking out 17, but it was his save - possibly the most famous of the first half of the century - that makes his Series so memorable.

9. The Dean Brothers, 1934 World Series
They combined for 49 wins in the 1934 season, and Dizzy and Paul Dean were just as good in the Series. Dizzy threw a complete game to win Game One 8-3; after Detroit won Game Two, Paul went the distance in a 4-1 Cardinals win in Game Three. The Tigers evened things at two games, then went up 3-2 when they beat Dizzy 3-1 in Game Five. However, that was the lone blemish for the pair. Paul outdueled Schoolboy Rowe 4-3 in Game Six (both threw complete games), and Dizzy blanked Detroit in an 11-0 Game Seven laugher. For the Series, Dizzy and Paul won all four games for the Cardinals, threw four complete games, and had a combined 1.43 ERA (seven ER in 44 IP, including just two ER in 18 IP for Paul).

8. Mickey Lolich, 1968 World Series
Denny McLain won 30 games that year, but the Series was Lolich's show. After McLain lost Game One, Lolich threw a complete game and even hit a home run in an 8-1 Game Two win. The Cardinals won the next two games - roughing up McLain in Game Four - but Lolich returned in Game Five with another complete game in a 5-3 win. The Series returned to St. Louis with the Cardinals up 3-2, but after McLain won Game Six (thanks in large part to ten runs in Detroit's half of the third inning), Lolich came back after just two days off and threw his third complete game of the Series, outdueling Bob Gibson in a 4-1 win that brought the title to the Motor City.

7. Bob Gibson, 1967 World Series
He was beaten in 1968, but '67 was Gibson's show. He threw a complete game in a 2-1 Game One win, then tossed a five-hit shutout in Game Four to put the Cards up three games to one. After Boston rebounded to even things at three apiece, Gibson returned in Game Seven and shut the Red Sox down again. He threw a complete game, allowing two runs on three hits in a 7-2 Cardinals win - he also hit a solo home run in the fifth that put St. Louis up 3-0; in other words, he provided his own winning run.

6. Jack Morris, 1991 World Series
Morris has 254 career wins but is not in the Hall of Fame, largely due to his style of inning-eating pitching that generates a fairly high ERA. In the 1991 Series, however, Morris was as strong as he'd ever been. Though he walked nine with just 15 strikeouts, he only let in three earned runs in three games. He went 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA, winning Game One and, of course, throwing a ten-inning complete game shutout in the seventh game as the Twins won.

5. Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, 2001 World Series
The Yankees wish this tag team didn't exist, because they had little trouble with the rest of the Arizona staff. In Game One, Schilling went seven innings, allowing just one run and three hits in a 9-1 D-Backs win. The next night, Johnson threw a three-hit shutout. The Yankees squeaked past Brian Anderson in Game Three and beat Byung-Hyun Kim after Schilling left another seven-inning, one-run, three-hit performance in Game Four. Game Five saw the Yankees win again as neither Schilling nor Johnson threw in the game, but when the Series returned to Arizona, Johnson allowed two runs in seven innings as the Diamondbacks rolled 15-2, and the seventh game featured both of them. Schilling went six dominating innings, but then, clinging to a 1-0 lead, allowed the tying run in the seventh and the go-ahead Yankee run in the eighth. Two outs later, Johnson - the day after starting - came back and mowed down four straight Yankees, allowing the bottom of the ninth to happen. (Incidentally, the winning run was scored by Jay Bell, who entered the game pinch-hitting for Johnson in that ninth.) The duo were named co-MVPs of the Series - they won all four games while losing none (Johnson was 3-0), combined for 45 strikeouts in 38.2 innings, and allowed just six total earned runs for a combined ERA of 1.40.

4. Orval Overall and Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, 1908 World Series
In the second of back-to-back World Series victories and - sigh - the last one the Cubs would win to date, Overall and Brown absolutely dominated the Tigers. They combined to win all four games, recording three complete games. Their combined ERA was 0.61 - two earned runs allowed, both by Overall. Overall recorded one out in the seventh inning of Game One; Brown came in and got the last six outs - meanwhile, the Cubs scored five runs in the top of the ninth to take Game One 10-6 and give Brown his first win. The next day, Overall threw a complete-game four-hitter to put the Cubs up 2-0. After Detroit took Game Three, Brown threw a four-hit shutout in Game Four, and Overall finished things the next day with a three-hit shutout in Game Five. For the Series, the Tigers hit just .209, and if you remove Ty Cobb's seven hits, the rest of the team hit a mere .187.

3. Sandy Koufax, 1965 World Series
Koufax actually lost Game Two 5-1, putting the Twins up 2-0 on the Dodgers, but only two of the runs were his and only one was earned. It would be his last. The Dodgers won the next two games, and Koufax won Game Five with a four-hit shutout. The Twins won Game Six, but Koufax returned after just two days off and threw a three-hit shutout in Game Seven to give Los Angeles the Series. Named MVP, Koufax allowed just one earned run in three games for a 0.38 ERA, and he struck out 29 in 24.0 total innings.

2. Lew Burdette, 1957 World Series
One of the greatest performances by a guy few today have ever heard of, Burdette almost singlehandedly won the Braves their last Series before 1995. After Warren Spahn lost Game One, Burdette went the distance in a 4-2 Game Two win. The Yankees rolled in Game Three, but after Spahn's ten-inning complete game (capped by Eddie Mathews' walkoff home run) won Game Four, Burdette came back with a seven-hit shutout in Game Five. The Yankees squeaked out Game Six, but Burdette threw a second shutout in Game Seven at Yankee Stadium. For the Series, the MVP was 3-0, with three complete games and a 0.67 ERA - just two earned runs in 27 innings.

1. Orel Hershiser, 1988 playoffs
1988 was Hershiser's year. He was named MVP of both the NLCS and World Series, and with good cause. In the NLCS, he went just 1-0, but that wasn't his fault so much - in Game One, he left with one out in the ninth and a 2-1 lead, only to see Jay Howell give up the losing two-run double to Gary Carter. Hershiser started again after just three days off in Game Three and was the pitcher of record when the Dodgers took a 4-3 lead in the top of the eighth, but it took four Los Angeles relievers to record the next three outs, and in the same span the Mets scored five times. Hershiser earned a save the very next night when he got the last out in a 5-4, twelve-inning win that evened the series at two games apiece. Returning for the seventh game, Orel decided not to leave anything to chance and threw a complete-game, five-hit shutout. The Dodgers won 6-0 and rolled into the Series, where Hershiser threw a three-hit shutout in the second game and another complete game, this one with four hits, in the 5-2 clinching victory in Game Five. For the 1988 playoffs, Hershiser was 3-0 with a save, three complete games, two shutouts, 32 strikeouts to just 25 hits, and an ERA of 1.05.

It's about time this Series got more interesting

A four-game sweep? Where's the fun in that? (It was easily the worst part of last year, I'll tell you what.) I may be rooting ever so slightly for the Sox, but not so much that I want to see the Series go by the wayside that quickly. Seriously - aside from the period between 1998 and 2000 when the Yankees lost just one of thirteen World Series games (gag me), the Fall Classic hasn't been consistently non-competitive (including last year's sweep) since the period between 1988 and 1990 when the losing team took just one total game (4-1 Dodgers, 4-0 A's, 4-0 Reds). These things seem to cycle (that span followed the 1985-1986-1987 corridor in which every Series went seven, and was followed by 1991-1992-1993 in which the first went seven and the next two went six, the latter ending on Joe Carter's home run), so let's hope we're in for some good ones the next couple years. You know, some good ones? In the meantime, maybe the Astros will be able to at least take this six. I'd settle for that. Of course, the Sox could still win this game (as I write this, it's only going into the eleventh, but I can't wait any longer to submit this post), but the Astros could too. And at least it's in extras.

While I'm in a listmaking mood, here's my take on another one:

The Ten Most Overlooked Home Runs in Postseason History

Honorable Mention: Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager
With the 1981 World Series tied at two games apiece, the Dodgers and Yankees engage in a pitchers' duel in Game Five. Ron Guidry goes seven and allows just four hits for New York; Jerry Reuss throws a complete-game five-hitter for L.A. With the Yankees up 1-0 in the seventh, Guerrero and Yeager - the #6 and #7 hitters on the team - go deep in back-to-back at-bats for the Dodgers. Los Angeles wins the game 2-1 and finishes the Series in its sixth game three days later.

10. Lenny Dykstra
Dykstra actually has two big - and generally overlooked - home runs on his resume, seven years apart. The first came in Game Three of the 1986 NLCS, a two-run shot in the bottom of the ninth that won the game 6-5 for the Mets and gave them a 2-1 lead in the series. (It was also the last NLCS walkoff home run for 18 years.) Seven years later to the day, Dykstra won Game Five of the 1993 NLCS for the Phillies, 4-3, with a solo home run in the top of the tenth. The Phillies won two nights later as well and returned to the World Series (one which, of course, spawned a much more famous blast.)

9. George Brett
Brett's most famous home run against the Yankees featured pine tar, but his three-run shot off Goose Gossage in Game Three of the 1980 ALCS was bigger. It sent the Royals to their first World Series, turning a 2-1 seventh-inning deficit into a 4-2 win; it came off a prime-of-his-career Gossage, who was largely unhittable at the time and had an ERA under 1.00 the next year; and it embarrassed the Yankees with a 3-0 sweep that closed out at the Stadium. Though they made it back to the World Series in the strike year of '81, this wipeout largely signaled the start of one of the longest periods of dormancy in Yankee history, with not a single playoff appearance between 1981 and 1995.

8. David Justice
We could have been headed for another 1991 Game Seven in the sixth game of the 1995 World Series, but Justice's solo shot in the sixth inning off Cleveland reliever Jim Poole provided the only run of the game. It was just enough to back up eight innings of one-hit ball from Tom Glavine and bring the Braves their first World Series title since 1957 and the only one (to date) of the Bobby Cox era.

7. Sandy Alomar Jr.
The only hiccup in the Yankee resurgence of 1996-2000 came at the hands of the Indians in 1997, and was largely thanks to Alomar's shot. His second of the series, it came in the eighth inning off Mariano Rivera - a year into his run as Captain Unhittable in the postseason - to tie the game. The Indians won that fourth game 3-2 in the ninth and took Game Five the next night to send New York packing.

6. Edgar Martinez
While we're on the subject of the Yankees losing, how about Martinez? The fifth game of the 1995 ALDS is the one everyone remembers, with Ken Griffey Jr. scoring from first on a Martinez double in the eleventh, but that doesn't happen without Game Four. The score was tied 6-6 going into the bottom of the eighth, but after John Wetteland loaded the bases, Martinez smacked a grand slam that all but guaranteed his heroics the next night. (Jay Buhner hit a solo shot two batters later to make it 11-6, and the Yankees picked up two in the top of the ninth, but the slam stood up.)

5. Rick Monday
Monday may be best known for a flag-saving catch he made while with the Cubs, but the biggest home run of his career came in the 1981 NLCS. With a pitchers' duel between Fernando Valenzuela and the Expos' Ray Burris knotted at one in the top of the ninth, Monday came up with two outs and drove a solo home run off Montreal reliever Steve Rogers. Bob Welch slammed the door in the bottom of the inning and Los Angeles eventually won the World Series.

4. Jack Clark
Surely Cardinals fans remember this one, but most casual fans are much more likely to think of the Ozzie Smith home run that ended Game Five of the 1985 NLCS. Clark's shot came at Dodger Stadium and so couldn't end the game as Smith's did, but it did effectively end the series. Facing Tom Niedenfuer - the same pitcher off whom Smith went deep - Clark came up in the top of the ninth with two on and two outs. The Cardinals trailed 5-4 following Mike Marshall's home run in the bottom of the eighth, but Clark's home run made it 7-5, and that's how the game finished. Perhaps if the Cardinals had ended up winning the World Series this would have a more storied place in the lore.

3. Hal Smith
Everyone, of course, knows Bill Mazeroski, but he likely wouldn't have had a chance to be the hero of the 1960 World Series if not for the unlikely Hal Smith. Smith, the Pirates' backup catcher, came up in the bottom of the eighth with Pittsburgh down 7-6, with two out and two on. He had only entered the game in the top of the inning and was making just his eighth trip to the plate in the whole Series, yet took Jim Coates out of the yard. The Yankees would end up tying it in the top of the ninth, but obviously we know what happened next. (Interestingly, Mazeroski - with 11 home runs in 538 at-bats during the 1960 season - was even less of a threat to homer than was Smith, who hit 11 in just 258 trips.)

2. Bernie Carbo
Carbo does tend to get some credit, but it's hard not to be overshadowed by Carlton Fisk. Have you ever seen video footage of Carbo's home run? And if so, were you alive in 1975? Because I wasn't and can't recall doing so. It was only just last week that I saw footage of Dwight Evans' catch on a Joe Morgan drive, pretty important in and of itself. Carbo came up in the bottom of the eighth with the Reds having extended their lead to 6-3 on a Cesar Geronimo home run in the top of the inning. With two on and two out, Carbo came in as a pinch-hitter and took Rawly Eastwick over the wall. Four innings later, cue Fisk. With the exception of Kirk Gibson in the 1988 Series, Carbo's home run may be the biggest moment for a pinch-hitter in, at the very least, World Series history.

1. Don Baylor
In his book Now I Can Die in Peace, Bill Simmons suggests that you can identify a bandwagon Red Sox fan based on his memories of the fifth game of the 1986 ALCS, with the bandwagoners showing their colors by not remembering Baylor's home run. Everyone, of course, remembers Dave Henderson - though my guess is that few people who aren't Sox fans remember that Henderson's shot did not end the game, that the Angels tied it in the bottom of the ninth, and that Boston only finally won in the eleventh - but Hendu can't do it without Don. Baylor came up with one man down and the Angels holding a then-sizable 5-2 lead. Facing Mike Witt, Baylor's two-run shot cut the lead to 5-4 and allowed Henderson's two-run blast off Donnie Moore to give the Red Sox the lead. Even though it took a sacrifice fly two innings later (which, fittingly, was hit by Henderson and scored Baylor) to win the game, the double home run punch in the ninth effectively ended the series for the Angels - they went down quietly in Games Six and Seven despite returning to Boston with a 3-2 series lead, and didn't even make the playoffs again until they won the World Series in 2002.

The Wizard of Pods

Just really weird. When Podsednik knocked it out, I actually yelled out loud, "Are you kidding me???" This prompted Alma, in the other room and with no idea about what I was yelling, to reply, "...no?"

You've already heard the stats, of course: Podsednik now has two postseason home runs after having none in 507 at-bats during the regular season; he's only the 14th guy in history to end a World Series game with a dinger. Well, here's something you haven't seen: those home runs, ranked.

The Top 14 World Series Walkoff Home Runs of All-Time

14. Chad Curtis
The Situation: Game Three of the 1999 World Series. The Yankees had already won the first two games in Atlanta by a combined 11-3 score. The Braves led 5-1 in this third game, but the Yankees came back with one in the fifth, one in the seventh, and two more in the eighth (on a Chuck Knoblauch home run). Mariano Rivera threw two scoreless innings in the ninth and tenth, and Curtis led off the bottom of the tenth with his second home run of the game, a solo shot that gave the Yankees the 5-4 win.
Series Result: The Yankees end up winning in four straight games for the second straight year.
Why It's Here: No home run on this list carried quite so little ultimate drama as Curtis'. His team was already up 2-0, they had two more home games coming up even if they lost this one, and the Braves' bats were freezing; besides Bret Boone, who hit a stunning .538, no one on the Braves who had at least seven at-bats in the four-game series hit better than .231, and Andruw Jones and Brian Jordan were a combined 2-for-26. This didn't turn any tides, that's for sure.

13. Mark McGwire
The Situation: Game Three of the 1988 World Series (which, of course, features a more famous shot we'll see later). The Dodgers have taken the first two at home and the A's desperately need a win, which they get. Four Oakland pitchers hold L.A. to one run on eight hits, and while the A's get only five hits, the last is a solo bomb from a young McGwire in the bottom of the ninth to pull Oakland within 2-1 in the series.
Series Result: Oakland doesn't win again; 4-1, Dodgers.
Why It's Here: While McGwire's homer could theoretically have been a momentum changer, it wasn't. The A's lost Game Four and were shut down (two runs on four hits) by Series MVP Orel Hershiser in a complete-game Game Five clincher. The home run was also McGwire's only sign of life in the entire series, all but literally; in five games, he hit 1-for-17, .059. Only Jose Canseco - who popped out right before McGwire's blast - was worse, going just 1-for-19, .053. (For the series, three A's regulars hit below .100. And you wonder why they lost?)

12. Dusty Rhodes
The Situation: Game One of the 1954 World Series. The Indians, winners six years prior, had won 111 games in the regular season, but that didn't stop the Giants from stealing one. The Indians got two in the first, but New York tied it back up with two in the third and it stayed that way until the bottom of the tenth. After Willie Mays walked and stole second, Hank Thompson was walked intentionally to bring up Monte Irvin. Rhodes came on to pinch-hit for Irvin and took Bob Lemon - in his tenth inning of work - out of the yard for a three-run homer and a 5-2 win.
Series Result: The Giants end up shutting down the powerhouse Indians in four straight games.
Why It's Here: A pinch-hit home run is pretty dramatic (again, see below), but Rhodes wasn't nursing any lingering injuries, and the Giants ended up running away with the Series, as the Indians hit a brutal .190 as a team. With that kind of pounding in effect, any drama is pretty much canceled out.

11. Tommy Henrich
The Situation: Game One of the 1949 World Series. Henrich becomes the first man ever to hit a walkoff home run in a Series game, as his solo shot off Don Newcombe in the bottom of the ninth opened the scoring and ended the game, 1-0.
Series Result: The Yankees lose Game Two by the same 1-0 score, but win easily in five.
Why It's Here: Though it deserves credit for starting a trend, Henrich's homer isn't well-remembered and rightfully so; the Yankees mostly coasted in this Series and surely would have won with or without Henrich's help.

10. Scott Podsednik
The Situation: Game Two of the 2005 World Series. Despite having no home runs in the 2005 season, the light-hitting Podsednik smacks his second of the playoffs in the bottom of the ninth - even more improbably, it comes off of Houston Astros closer Brad Lidge, usually lights-out (though this is the second straight appearance in which Lidge has conceded a home run that lost his team the game). The White Sox win 7-6.
Series Result: As of this writing, the White Sox hold a 2-0 lead.
Why It's Here: It's too soon to rank this one any higher, and if things keep going the Sox's way, it won't deserve to be any higher. With all the bounces that have gone Chicago's way in these playoffs, was anyone really expecting Jose Vizcaino's two-run single to slow down the Sox?

9. Mickey Mantle
The Situation: Game Three of the 1964 World Series. Entering the twilight of his career (1964 was the then-32-year-old Mantle's last season with 30 home runs, 100 RBI, as many as 110 hits, and a .300 average), Mantle belts what is, aside from his 500th home run in 1967, pretty much his last hurrah - though he hits three home runs in the Series and this is only the first, Mantle's blast in the bottom of the ninth makes the Yankees 2-1 winners and gives them a 2-1 Series lead.
Series Result: Though Mantle hits another in Game Seven, the Cardinals win it 7-5 and take the Series 4-3.
Why It's Here: It's a dramatic moment for an aging star, but Mantle's walkoff didn't even help his team win the Series, as the Yankees fell to a team with better pitching (MVP Bob Gibson was 2-1 with a 3.00 ERA and 31 Ks in 27 IP for the Redbirds).

8. Derek Jeter
The Situation: Game Four of the 2001 World Series. The reigning three-time champions, the Yankees are on the ropes after having lost the first two games in Arizona by a combined 13-1. The Diamondbacks can't pitch Schilling and Johnson in every game, though. New York squeaks by 2-1 in Game Three, and while Schilling dominates again in Game Four, he leaves before the eighth. Byung-Hyun Kim coasts through the eighth, but runs into trouble the next inning, conceding a game-tying two-run shot to Tino Martinez. He comes out for the tenth, his third inning, but while Scott Brosius and Alfonso Soriano fly out, Jeter takes Kim deep again to win the game 4-3 and even the Series at 2-2.
Series Result: The first chink in Mariano Rivera's armor came in Game Seven of this one, as the Diamondbacks won the Series in dramatic fashion, four games to three.
Why It's Here: Again, Jeter's team didn't end up winning the Series, and they hit just .183 as a team. Jeter, despite the Game Four heroics, had an uncharacteristically lousy Series, hitting just .148. This solo shot was his only RBI, and he struck out six times.

7. Alex Gonzalez
The Situation: Game Four of the 2003 World Series. Down 2-1 after losing Games Two and Three by matching 6-1 scores, the Marlins need a win at home to get back into it. They score three runs in the first and then cling on for dear life, but all seems lost to typical Yankee magic as New York scores two in the ninth on a Ruben Sierra pinch-hit triple to tie it. Chad Fox and Braden Looper combine to shut down the Yankees over three extra innings, however, and Gonzalez leads off the bottom of the twelfth with a solo bomb off Jeff Weaver to win it 4-3 for the Fish.
Series Result: The Marlins win the next two as well and take the Series in six.
Why It's Here: Things were probably starting to look like "same old Yankees" at this point, so Gonzalez's home run can be considered a legitimate tide-turner. That said, it doesn't have quite the same cachet of the six above it.

6. Carlton Fisk
The Situation: Game Six of the 1975 World Series. Trailing Cincinnati 3-2 but having the final two games at home, the Red Sox are down 6-3 in the bottom of the eighth when Bernie Carbo hits a dramatic two-out, pinch-hit three-run homer to tie it. The game goes to extras, where Dick Drago and Rick Wise hold the Reds scoreless thanks in part to Dwight Evans' catch that robbed Joe Morgan of at least extra bases. Fisk led off the bottom of the twelfth and hit a towering shot to left; his waving of the ball fair while starting down the first base line remains one of the most indelible images in postseason history.
Series Result: The Reds refuse to fold up after Fisk's heroics, winning Game Seven and the series by a 4-3 count.
Why It's Here: Ooh, controversial! But let's face it: Fisk's home run, no matter how dramatic, didn't win the Series, and his team even ended up losing on top of that. If I were ranking these home runs in a vacuum, Fisk might make the top five (though the competition is stiff), but just because it took place on TV doesn't make it better than it was. And if you add in the context, where it wasn't even part of a winning Series, that puts it here.

5. Eddie Mathews
The Situation: Game Four of the 1957 World Series. In their first Series since moving to Milwaukee, the Braves find themselves down two games to one to the defending champion Yankees. In Game Four, Hank Aaron and Frank Torre both homer to stake Warren Spahn to a 4-1 lead after four innings, but Spahn gives it away with three in the ninth and the game goes to extras. The lefty gives up another run in the top of the tenth, but after a John Logan double tied the game for the Braves, Mathews - in only the sixth year of a Hall of Fame career - hit a two-run blast to give Milwaukee the win, evening the Series.
Series Result: Behind deserving MVP Lew Burdette, the Braves win Game Five 1-0 and Game Seven 5-0 to win the Series 4-3.
Why It's Here: It may not be as endlessly replayed as the Fisk home run - largely because it can't be - but Mathews' shot came for a team that ended up winning its Series, even if Burdette was probably the most directly responsible for that. Mathews is also one of only three 500-homer men to join the Series walkoff club.

4. Kirk Gibson
The Situation: Game One of the 1988 World Series. Dennis Eckersley had just started his run as the game's most dominant closer, but he couldn't hold a 4-3 lead here. Pinch-hitter Mike Davis walked with two outs, bringing up a hobbling Gibson, who wasn't even expected to show up in the Series but came on for pinch-hit duty. After Davis stole second unnecessarily, Gibson drove Eckersley's pitch into the right field stands to win the game 5-4, causing Jack Buck to proclaim, "I don't believe what I just saw!"
Series Result: Despite Mark McGwire's shot in Game Three - making 1988 the only Series with multiple walkoffs - the Dodgers waltzed over the A's in five.
Why It's Here: It was just Game One, and it was a Series that the Dodgers cruised in, but you could make the case that Gibson's home run set the tone. It certainly didn't set the tone for Gibson, who didn't make another appearance in any of the remaining four games, but it sure put the A's on the road to ruin. Plus, I mean, I don't believe what I just saw. That alone is good for Top Five.

3. Kirby Puckett
The Situation: Game Six of the 1991 World Series. Setting the stage for a long, dramatic Game Seven, Puckett evened the Series for the Twins. The Braves squeezed out a run in the seventh to tie the game at three, but nothing more happened until the bottom of the eleventh, when Puckett led off with a solo shot off Charlie Liebrandt, spawning another famous Jack Buck call - "And we'll see you tomorrow night!"
Series Result: The Twins won Game Seven in their last at-bat as well, and took the series 4-3.
Why It's Here: Among home runs that did not directly win a Series, Puckett's is the tops. It came about as late as possible, it created a great call, and it led to a Series win for its team.

2. Joe Carter
The Situation: Game Six of the 1993 World Series. The Phillies, down three games to two, lead 6-5 after a five-run seventh inning; they bring out Mitch Williams to start the ninth, hoping to send the Series to a seventh game. The Blue Jays have other ideas. After a Rickey Henderson walk and a Devon White flyout, Paul Molitor singles and Carter goes deep off Williams to win the Jays their second consecutive Series.
Series Result: Well, duh. Jays in six.
Why It's Here: For one thing, it's one of just two walkoffs that was hit with the winning team trailing at the time (Gibson's is the other). For another, it's one of just two home runs to win a World Series and one of just seven to win a playoff series. But how many home runs effectively ended the career of a solid player? Williams had 43 saves in 1993 and 172 between 1988 and 1993 - but after Carter's blast, Wild Thing made just 52 more appearances in three years with three different teams, racking up a 2-7 record and just six saves before he was finally gone from the league after a brief stint with the Royals in 1997. By comparison, Eckersley put up a 0.61 ERA two years after Gibson's home run. It's quite possible that this was the single most damaging hit in the history of baseball. Carter had three more 100-RBI seasons but never returned to the playoffs; this was, as the call went, the biggest home run of his life.

1. Bill Mazeroski
The Situation: Game Seven of the 1960 World Series. In their three wins, the Pirates had won 14-8; the Yankees had won their three by a margin of 38-3. A slugfest in Game Seven didn't seem to benefit Pittsburgh, and trailing 7-4 going into the bottom of the eighth, it might have seemed a long shot. But the Pirates tagged Bobby Shantz and Jim Coates for five runs that inning to take a 9-7 lead, going ahead on a three-run home run by backup catcher Hal Smith. New York tied it back up in the top of the ninth, but Mazeroski, leading off the bottom of the inning, won the game 10-9 by knocking it over the left field wall of Forbes Field - the first man ever to end a postseason series on a home run.
Series Result: Pirates, 4-3.
Why It's Here: You can't deny this one for several reasons. First of all, it was the first home run to end a postseason series and is still one of only two World Series-ending walkoffs. Second, it defeated the Yankees, the AL powerhouse who missed the Series just twice between 1949 and 1964. Third, it brought the Pirates their first Series in 35 years. And fourth, it was Game Seven, the moment of truth for both teams (even if the Blue Jays had lost Game Six, there was another coming). You just can't get any more dramatic than this.

One more... this week.

Sox-Astros. Probably better than Sox-Cardinals - at least there aren't too many Astros fans around here - but certainly not great. I keep going back and forth on whether the Sox winning would actually be a good thing or not - I really don't like the Astros, but the Sox? In Gene Wojciechowski's article on ESPN.com, he has one person quoted whose thoughts more or less sum up mine:

"People have tried to convince me to root for them," Szczudlo says. "I'm sorry, I can't do it. I'd feel like I was betraying [the Cubs]. I don't think it would be true. It would be like I was abandoning them."

Szczudlo admits it: she's jealous and sad, too. "I know there are Cubs fans who are cheering for the city of Chicago," she says. "But the extremists are feeling like I do."

I don't feel like I'd be abandoning the Cubs per se - after all, a mild rooting interest in the White Sox isn't quite the same as going to the Phone Booth with a Sox jersey on (though good luck getting a ticket, regardless) - but there is certainly the jealousy aspect, and some aspect of betrayal. For better or worse, there is a rivalry here - and rooting for your rival, no matter who they're playing, is generally uncommon. Were Red Sox fans rooting for the Yankees in the late 90s because at least one team from the AL East was winning titles? Were Duke fans glad to see North Carolina represent the ACC last year? Do Manchester City fans think fondly on Manchester United's dominance of the English Premier League because at least it's a team from Manchester? Hell fucking no.

So maybe I'm an extremist. But while I won't bother rooting vigorously against the Sox, I certainly don't plan on supporting them. I get the feeling I won't be missed on the bandwagon.

In other news, I won the lottery! If by "the lottery," you mean "three dollars in the lottery." If the Powerball jackpot rolls over, I'll find myself driving to Wisconsin again before Saturday to roll the three bucks over; if it doesn't, I'll probably just have Alma cash it on one of her trips there. I got the bucks for playing 29, as part of my birthdate, as the Powerball number in one of my sets.

I also played 4-8-15-16-23-42 just for grins, but it turns out that hundreds of people did the exact same thing (link taken from Alma's blog). Good thing it didn't win; can you imagine having the winning Powerball numbers and only getting 400 grand? (Not that I'd say no to 400 grand.)

Sorry, this post is also about baseball

Well, the White Sox made the World Series. The interesting thing is that the total lack of hubbub seems to vindicate the inferiority complex of the Sox fans. If the Cubs were in the World Series right now, I have little doubt that this place would be going nuts, and so would the national media. The White Sox? Hey, good for them. And that seems to be the bulk of the reaction. If the Cubs had made the Series, I would have worn my jersey to work; all day today I saw just six people wearing anything Sox-related.

But I think I've figured out part of the problem. A lot of the issue seems to be that the White Sox are, historically, just as snakebit as the Cubs or Red Sox. (For example, the White Sox finished above .500 every year between 1951 and 1967 but only made the Series once because the Yankees and others were in the way - take 1964, in which the Sox won 98 games but still finished a game back of New York. In that same span the Cubs finished over .500 just twice, and neither time were they closer than 14 games of first.) So why don't they get the same press?

Two reasons. One is this: for better or for worse, I think journalists tend to subscribe to the "They threw the World Series so it's their own damn fault" theory. Is this fair? Of course not; why punish the son for the sins of the father? But insofar as people talk about "curses," this is definitely of the "brought it on yourself" variety. (So were selling Babe Ruth and rejecting a goat, but neither in the same violation-of-the-sanctity-of-the-game way.)

I think the other is simply a matter of rivalry. The Red Sox have had the Yankees to measure up against since the Ruth sale; the Cubs have the Cardinals, the Yankees of the NL. The White Sox have... well, quick, name the White Sox's biggest rival. Most Sox fans would probably tell you it was the Cubs. What about in the AL? I mean... the Twins? The Indians? Certainly the White Sox don't have a more successful counterpart in a Yankees or Cardinals vein. (No, the Cubs don't count.)

Having a rivalry is always a key to getting taken more seriously on the national stage. Name a team in any sport that makes headlines every time its coach sneezes and odds are they have a major rival about whom the same is true. The fact that the Sox are not really involved in any such situation helps to keep them out of the limelight.

Anyway, I think I may have come to an uneasy truce. Can I really root for the Sox? Probably not. And more importantly, Sox fans don't want Cubs fans on the bandwagon. (See: the Reinsdorf-Cusack feud.) What good does it do me to hop on when they'd just as soon throw me off? Still, I think I'd rather see them win than either the Cardinals or Astros - at least it's Chicago, and the mere fact that no one seems to be talking about them suggests to me that I'll probably be able to avoid most of the annoyance.

(For more on who Cubs fans should be pulling for, check out this article: who are Cubs fans supposed to choose between St. Louis and the Sox? Some say "St. Louis because it makes the NL Central look better," some say "Sox because it's a Chicago team." For me the most telling line is when the author wonders, "Sox fan, Cubs fan... can't someone be a plain old Chicago baseball fan?" Well, two questions regarding that. One, how many Sox fans do you think would be rooting for the Cubs if they were in the Series? I'd rather not extend them a courtesy they wouldn't return. And two, do you think anyone ever said "Giants fan, Dodgers fan... can't someone be a plain old New York baseball fan?" I'm betting not.)

Is there a point here? I guess not. I started to think maybe I wouldn't feel as bad if the Sox won, but having to hear that every year until the Cubs won? I don't plan on leaving this city any time soon, so I'd really have to hope that the Cubs won soon.

Ugh. This whole situation annoys me. Why couldn't one team I liked even a little bit get through?

Hey Chicago, what do you say?

Another perspective on the Cubs fans/Sox fans thing:

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/columns/articles/1013bickley1013.html

I agree that the rivalry is mostly in the head of Sox fans due to their feelings of inferiority regarding the Cubs brand. But I think the writer, as well as the people he talked to, underestimates how hard it is to root for the Sox when you live in the city and have to put up with Sox fans manifesting that inferiority complex in the form of near-constant insults. Just listen to the sports radio, which - seemingly against all odds - appears to be practically dominated by Sox fans. Perhaps the most popular show is ESPN 1000 AM's Mac, Jurko and Harry, which runs from 3 to 7 in the afternoon drive time spot; as far as baseball goes, the show is on a virtual par with Hannity and Colmes. Dan McNeil, the lead host, is a rabid Sox fan; Harry is a Cubs fan while Jurko's allegiance seems best described as "leaning to the Cubs from nowhere in particular." It would be hard to say McNeil hates the Cubs - at least, he doesn't outright hate on them on air - but he does seem to spend much of the year needling the others for their chosen team. By comparison, Harry and Jurko play the Colmes role - absorbing Mac's abuse with good nature, and flattering the Sox more often than not. Sure, there was plenty to flatter this year, but the point here is this: if Cubs fans were so invested in this rivalry, there would have been a lot more instances on the show of people just screaming at each other angrily over game results. The three argue plenty between themselves, but an angry Cubs-Sox rivalry does not seem first on the agenda, even as strongly as Mac pushes the Sox.

Meanwhile, in the course of listening to AM 720, which carries the Cubs games, I don't think I have once heard even a passing reference to the White Sox, and certainly not a rivalry-induced potshot. So take from that what you will.

However, just because most Cubs fans aren't invested in the rivalry doesn't mean we should give the Sox and their fans a free pass for being total asses about it. Right? I don't hate the Sox, but their fans - and, for similar reasons, their manager - annoy me, so I can't in good conscience root for them to win. So I'm mostly watching the ALCS the same way I'm watching the NLCS - with results-curious disinterest. I like knowing who wins, but I won't really like it if any of these teams do win - it's the 2003 World Series all over again (where I wanted to root against the Yankees as always, but found it really hard to root for the team that had caused the Cubs to break my heart). Combine this with a bad start to the Bears' season (save the aberrational Lions game) and I'm really hoping Northwestern is for real.

Birthday shouts-out, presented by William Safire

Belated shouts-out to Ryan (24, Sunday) and Leah (26, Monday). An early shout-out to my sister (19, Friday).

Crazy baseball ending. Does Doug Eddings take his place with Don Denkinger and Rich Garcia, or was this a mediocre but not awful call made worse by his confusing mechanics and Josh Paul's desire to get off the field? I have my answer; discuss.

Pitch Invaders

Technically this post could go in the soccer blog, but it's not about soccer as much as about a soccer video game (some would say "same difference," but whatever), and anyway that blog has a readership of maybe three if I'm lucky. And ultimately it's more about me than about anything else, but you do kind of have to wade through some stuff first. Good luck.

Ever since we found out about FIFA 2006, Drew and I had been really excited for it, which was kind of annoying since we had to wait about a month for it to actually get released Stateside. Yesterday we finally got a chance to break it out and played a few games, the results of which follow. (I know this looks horrifying, so let me promise that a recap of video game results will most likely be a one-time thing. Anyway, I'm sort of building up to a point here, though you may not find it interesting.)

Juventus 0-0 Liverpool (Juventus wins 3-1 on penalties)

I had no idea that there were extra-time options, but when a game ends in a draw you can take kicks, a period of ET, or just take the draw as it stands. I know Drew loves penalties, so we went with that, but it took us several shots to figure out how you were supposed to bend the shot so that it wouldn't just ram right into an immobile goalkeeper. Since Drew went first (he was Liverpool), I figured it out sooner, and thus was able to take the victory in none-too-impressive fashion.

Chelsea 1-2 Manchester United

I'm pretty sure this is the first goal I ever scored in this game, including playing the demo (which was even harder than the Gamecube version, unsurprisingly because try playing anything with a standard computer keyboard). I was already down 2-0 when I scored, though.

AS Monaco 2-0 Manchester City

This time I was the road team, City, and even less got done. I must have hit the woodwork seven times between this and the Chelsea game combined; it was like what watching last month's Bolton game must have been like. Plus my defense seemed to be getting worse.

Brazil 0-2 Finland (abandoned)

My annoyance with the woeful play of my teams' A.I. culminated in this game, in which Drew's first goal came less than two minutes in when my goalkeeper mishandled a shot from the end line that no goalkeeper in the world would have let in (how anyone can score at a one-degree angle from the goal-mouth, I have no idea), and his second came just before halftime when, for some reason, two defenders hanging off Mikael Forssell were completely ineffective. Meanwhile, Brazil couldn't do anything offensively, which, I mean, come on. I was so irritated at halftime that I simply quit the game.

Brazil 7-2 Cheltenham Town

Desperate to find a scoring touch of any kind, I forced Drew to play this game, matching up the best team in the world with a middling English League Two squad, the rough equivalent of having the 1992 Dream Team play your high school in a basketball game. Ronaldo had four goals and Robinho three, thanks mostly to the ridiculously superior team speed enjoyed by Brazil that allowed any player to simply outrun the defense and more or less score at will (when I was hitting the right buttons). Drew actually got a couple goals back later in the game, which if you ask me is a pretty impressive result for Cheltenham Town. Let the record show that I offered to quit the game at halftime since I only wanted to get a scoring touch of any kind, but Drew plugged on. (I think he may have won the second half 2-1, though I wasn't trying quite as hard to score at that point - he doesn't want to hear it, but that happens to be true.)

Anyway. Do I have a point here, you're asking? (Assuming you've even made it this far, and if you have, hi Drew.) And I guess the point is this: I'm really not all that good at video games. (Better points coming, I think.)

For someone of my age this might seem ridiculous, but I didn't have video games for a long time growing up - I think we got our first gray-box Nintendo in 1992. 1992??? Can that even be right? It sounds ridiculous to think about it but it probably was (since Super Mario Brothers 3 was the game that came included, and that was released in 1990 and wasn't bundled with the console right away). So relative to some people, I was introduced to video games pretty "late in life," and we never had that many. I was like someone who tries to learn a language as an adult - it's just harder than doing it in your formative years.

It didn't help that I've always been rather legendarily impatient. My mom describes how I never wanted to do anything I couldn't do well - I basically refused to walk until one day I just stood up and crossed the room, as though I'd been practicing in secret. It's this level of impatience that wouldn't have suited me for a musical instrument and held me back on the guitar - why would I want to play scales when I could play songs, even if I was never going to be able to play more complicated songs without practicing? I was always very bad at this sort of thing, really - while I consistently made the honor roll in middle school, I was almost never - possibly only once - a member of the "effort honor roll," because I always had at least one 3 comment on my grades ("Usually satisfactory in effort and attitude" - 1, which I'm sure everyone remembers, was the always popular Mike Tobin away message "Interested, alert, and eager to learn").

So what was my deal, exactly? And what is my deal today, since a lot of this continues? (Though I bought a book/CD set to work on learning Tagalog, I did the first chapter months ago and have yet to pick it back up, though I really should one of these weekends.) I think it's just something to do with a strong dislike of failure. I don't want to say a "fear of failure," because I don't know that I'm scared of it; I think I just find it annoying that I could be bad at anything.

The problem, of course, with this way of thinking is that it extends to things that people would expect me to be bad at. Am I going to get laughed at for missing a couple notes on a guitar when I've just picked it up? No one's expecting me to be some kind of prodigy virtuoso, after all. But it's not so much that I think I'm going to be laughed at for failing as that I don't like associating myself with failure. Essentially, I'm a perfectionist of the worst type - if something can't be done well almost immediately, it isn't worth doing at all. You can see the language parallel here - to be struggling with something in my head is awkward to me. Alma sometimes likes to hear me say things in French, but I constantly find myself correcting and revising what I've just said while she reassures me that she wouldn't have known any better. No, baby, but I would know. To say something I know is wrong and not correct it is anathema.

So what does all this have to do with video games? I'm getting to that. My impatience extended to the idea of playing a game for a long time and not being able to get past a certain level, or enemy, or that sort of thing. I beat Mario 3 using a Game Genie (embarrassing!) just to be able to beat it, though I didn't know that you had to hold down the up arrow after doing so and the game went into permanent pause mode. More recently, I used a walkthrough guide to easily beat the original Legend of Zelda just so I could see the whole thing. If you think I would ever have had the patience to wander Hyrule looking for secret doors, you're kidding yourself.

And that's where we get back to the soccer game. Drew, having played more video games than I have over the years (and likely for longer overall), adapted more quickly to the relatively complex controller setup; at least that's my theory. Certainly I made passes in several situations where I was intending to shoot, which isn't going to help you score. But the historical impatience explains why I'm not as good (though I was blaming it on the A.I., that really just seems silly, doesn't it?), and that I'm not as good explains the current impatience, as well as why I hate playing sports games on anything but the easiest settings. (Why would I want to waste time getting up to the computer's level when I can throw it down past my own, and then beat it 200-0 in every game? That's what Drew and I do with our NCAA Football game, to the extent that we created a team, made every player's rating as high as possible, and just trounce the CPU in every outing while playing on the same team.)

So I guess the point of this whole thing, aside from explaining a little bit about me to anyone who actually had the fortitude to wade through the game results, is this: Drew, you're better than I am at video games in general and this one in particular, certainly for the moment and quite probably, based on the above, for the foreseeable future. Let's create some awesome players, play on the same team, and just kick the computer's ass a whole bunch. We both know that's more fun.

The doomsday scenario averted

Tyler gets credit for referring to a Yankees win over the Angels in tonight's Game Five as the "Doomsday Scenario," and with good cause. Check out these LCS matchups:

ALCS: Yankees vs. White Sox
NLCS: Cardinals vs. Astros

Shudder. As a Cubs fan, that set of matchups really doesn't get any worse, so fortunately the Angels beat the Yankees again, making them, between this and 2002, the only team to do so in a divisional series since 1997 and the Indians (I had convinced myself that the Chuck Knoblauch Game came in that series, but actually it wasn't until the 1998 ALCS, which the Yankees - sigh - won despite his little hissy fit).

Of course, I can't really root for the Angels, can I? For starters, they just won three years ago - yeah, that may have only been partial karmic payback for 40 years of general futility and the 1986 Stomach Punch series against the Red Sox (when they came within one strike of the World Series only to have Dave Henderson's homer put them behind - though I think everyone forgets that the Angels actually tied that game in the bottom of the ninth and the Red Sox won on a sac fly in the 11th, hit by none other than Dave Henderson), but come on: BORING. Seriously, you guys.

On the other hand, who the crap else am I going to root for? There's no way I want either St. Louis or Houston to win - while one school of thought says the Cubs might look a little better if the WS champ comes out of their division, I say fuck that. I hate both those teams and have no interest in seeing them raising any banners.

And then there's the White Sox, a special case here in every sense of the word. Let's break down the pros and cons, shall we?

PROS
* First of all, just getting some new blood in there. Okay, so the Astros would be new blood too and the Cardinals actually have won just once (1982 over the Brewers) since they squashed the Impossible Dream in 1967, but we've already established what the deal is there.

* A positive baseball-related experience for the city of Chicago for the first time since Woodrow Wilson was President.

* If 1918 and 1917 go down in consecutive years, can 1908 be far behind?

* Winning the World Series would surely bring White Sox fans the attention they've been whining about for years now. Maybe they'd shut up.

CONS
* White Sox fans are already, by and large, totally obnoxious about the Cubs, letting their obvious inferiority complex about the amount of attention the Cubs get turn them into complete assholes even though the rivalry between the two teams has thus far been confined to a handful of games in the middle of the summer and the mere fact that they exist in the same city. Now take that and add the smugness of a championship - we wouldn't hear the end of it until the Cubs won a World Series, and possibly not even then.

* Ozzie Guillen: unmitigated douchebag. Seriously, someone needs to tell this guy to just shut up already.

Because I grew up away from Chicago, I always considered the Sox my low-grade second team - I could be happy with positive results for them because they were also a Chicago team. Of course, they only made the playoffs once in my conscious life before I came to college (1993; 1983 was too early to count), and once I got here I realized three things: 1) there is in fact quite a sizable rivalry; 2) it means way more to Sox fans than it does to Cubs fans; 3) Sox fans are total jackasses about the rivalry. Listening to them brag about taking two out of three in an only-so-meaningful June series is just embarrassing; you'd think they'd just won 110 games or six straight pennants. Then again, it is the Sox, with a history that, somewhat amazingly, manages to be even more futile than the Cubs' - I guess you take what you can get.

The point is this: how can I, in good conscience, root for the Sox to win it all, when if they do so I will never, as a Cubs fan, be allowed to live it down until the Cubs go all the way? (And we all know that may well never happen, though I shudder to think that.) Does a team whose fanbase would do that deserve my support? I think not. (And for the record, let's assume that the Sox do not win this year and the Cubs win before they do - do you really think Cubs fans would immediately turn around and stick it in the face of Sox fans? No - we're just going to be happy that it's finally over with and to have won. I'm sure that Sox fans would be as well, but I'm equally sure that large numbers of them are thinking about how best to rub it in the face of their Cubs fan coworkers, and I guess my point is this - most Sox fans are jerkoffs.)

Hence why Sox-Yanks, the other version, was the Doomsday Scenario. As I said to Tyler, only slightly hyperbolically, I would root for a team of SS officers with Hitler pitching before I would root for the Yankees - but could I really root for the Sox when doing so was like asking myself to be punished? I still think I'd rather see the Sox win it all than the Yankees, if only for the novelty factor, but Yankees fans would have the decency not to rub it directly into my face if they won, mostly because they don't care about Cubs fans (and why should they?). They would have gone after Red Sox fans, and so whatever.

So what's the course of action now? Eh. I'm not sure I can really root for anything - not even "a well-played game," because what good is a memorable series if it matches up two teams I don't especially like? (Last year's NLCS being a great example - could I have cared any less who came out of that one?) But I guess I root ever so slightly for the Angels - sure, they won it before, but Angels fans aren't going to rub it in my face, mostly because Angels fans don't actually exist. (The crowd shots at Angels games are created through the help of Jim Henson Studios and a complex system of mirrors.) All of the other three teams? Are totally going to rub it in my face (by me I mean all Cubs fans, of course). So that's just no good.

Bleh. Hopefully one of these years the Cubs can get good again and give me a real reason to care about the baseball playoffs - there's only so much anti-Yankee rooting one can do, really, until it just turns into apathy. (Between 1998 and 2000 in particular, October sports might as well not have existed.) And in a year like this, with three teams I can't like and one I can't care about, it's just another bad day at the office.

Our long national nightmare is over.

In the end it didn't take very long at all - barely more than a week. But I have come to the conclusion that the Weight Watchers points plan, or a points plan of any kind really, is not for me. Below, some reasons why.

* Maybe it's better to go to bed hungry than stuffed, and maybe you should find yourself feeling hungry for some time before actually eating. But I was hungry all the time. I mean, all the time - I'm talking about "going to Subway, eating a foot-long turkey sandwich, and still being hungry afterwards, never once feeling satiated." Is this, to some degree, what you need to do to lose weight? Maybe, but I can't keep that up.

* The obsessive point-counting, it turns out, caters much more to the bad side of my OC nature than the good side. It's not just comments like the one about Chipotle being far too many points, it's not wanting to buy tofu because there were "too many" points in a package. Tofu! I'm pretty sure it's possible for me to resist buying candy and pop for reasons other than "too many points in a package;" after all, I dropped regular pop more or less cold turkey a couple months ago and have done just fine avoiding it between a lot more water and the occasional diet soda. Combine that with the fact that refusing to get things that are plenty healthy just based on some arbitrary formula is kind of counterintuitive, and you can see where this is going.

* It got to the point where Alma flat-out refused to talk about food with me because I was kind of freaking her out, and she was right - we weren't talking weight control so much as the early warning signs of an eating disorder. The obsessive counting, denying myself food even when hungry... this had the earmarks of something that could have gone beyond a simple "diet." I doubt I would ever have let it get that far - when she said this to me, tonight, I was already preparing to kick the system. But her reaction cinched it.

* This will seem like a rationalization, but I don't think I need to diet. Let's examine the history of my weight for a second:

1982-1996: Generally speaking, I was a skinny kid. When I graduated eighth grade I probably weighed around 130 pounds.

1996-1997: In the space of about a year, I put on something like 50 pounds.

1997-2001: From high school into college, I weigh around 180 pretty consistently.

2002: Over the summer, down to 165.

2003-2004: Back to 180-185.

2005: Near 200 for the first time in my life.

It's worth noting where the break points happen. 1996-1997 was my freshman year of high school - meaning that it was also when I stopped walking to school on a consistent basis. I got a ride to high school every morning for four years, and more often than not was picked up and brought home. So while in middle school I walked a mile or more every day - and the afternoon walk was uphill - in high school I rarely walked at all. I also developed a Blimpie sandwich habit, but I think the walking is even more telling. Note that my weight stayed pretty much the same for the rest of high school and into college - I didn't even put on a freshman 15, probably largely due to the fact that I had to walk again, canceling out the decline in quality of food I was eating.

In 2002, the weight loss was due to running and exercise at the gym. While I probably ate generally better while living at home, I didn't really eat less, just a bit less junk. So when I went back to college and put the weight back on, that's more attributable to ceasing the exercise regimen, not what I was or wasn't eating at school.

Similarly, the 10-15 pounds I put on after graduating college can be attributed to this: after I left school, I didn't have to walk any more. Worse yet, I wasn't working consistently. So what was I doing? Mostly sitting around the apartment. Was I eating any worse? Not really - to some degree I was probably eating better. But I wasn't exercising at all. And that, I think, is where the weight came from.

So to hell with the diet. I'll try to eat better, but eating less is just going to drive me crazy. What I need to do is join a gym, and go to it four or five days a week. Of course, I doubt any of the gyms around here is all that cheap - but ultimately, won't it be worth it? More so than what I'm doing now, anyway.

Ready or not, here it comes

Because whatever magic fairy controls Chicago's weather has a tremendous sense of humor, the temperature dropped 30 degrees from yesterday to today. Yeah, it's my fault for not looking at Weatherbug in the morning and just assuming, even though it's October, that it would still be 80 degrees, and it's equally my fault for not running back upstairs and grabbing my jacket. But still! 30 degrees in one day!

The one thing I don't miss about not working (aside from the sleep) is all this goddamn tax I have to pay. Yeah, that's better than not making any money at all, but when I'm only pulling in 450 dollars a week and I'm losing fully 18% of that - nearly a fifth! - to taxes? What the fuck is that? In particular, I don't understand how they calculate this shit. Two weeks ago I made just under 250 dollars because I only worked three days (and one was short), and my "federal w/h tax" was 7.50, or about three percent. Last week I made 450 dollars. Was the tax 13.55? No, it was not! It was 34.52! What the FUCK? Sorry, I didn't realize making 12 dollars an hour for all five days of a week instead of three put you into a higher tax bracket! Fuckers.

I can live on this kind of money, of course, but then hopefully I can eventually parlay one of these temp jobs into a full-time position that pays more than temp money.

One thing I can't do is buy things that aren't necessary and cost more than a little bit. One of these things is an iPod, which I desperately want now that I have to ride the bus for 45 minutes to an hour every day. Anyone know about off-brand MP3 players that cost less and aren't total shit? Let me know.

I just saw there's a Chipotle two doors down from the Subway at which I've been standardly eating lunch. Subway is good because it's generally low-fat and it provides ample nutrition facts. Neither is true of Chipotle, but it's so good and I haven't been in so long. Unfortunately, I have to use my "flex points" on eating at Alma's (since I'm not going to ask her mother how many points are in her egg rolls), so trying to shoehorn in even one Chipotle visit every other week will prove challenging. If I get the exercise rolling, maybe I can go.

If you made it this far, a reminder to the Lost fans that Drew and I are blogging the experience now. Yes, I managed to get Drew - Captain Anti-Blog - involved in the process. Next thing you know he'll spend 30 minutes a day writing what he had for lunch and complaining about politics.

Days go by

Not much to report. Been working at my new job assignment; it's not bad so far, though perhaps not quite as fast-paced as the last one was. Still, I can't complain.

Started on the diet/exercise plan. At first I thought I would try to shoot for between 25 and 30 points per day, but Alma thinks this is probably not enough and my stomach is inclined to agree with her. After five days of trying it that way, I think I'm going to move up to 35 to 40 and see if that helps (my dad's original suggestion was 44 points anyway, which seemed outrageously high at the time but now sounds delightful). I know I'm trying to lose weight here, but there's no reason I should feel constantly hungry.

Anyway, the idea was also to exercise, which will allow me to eat more. Today Alma and I went to the gym. I did 20 minutes on the bike, twice what I did last time, followed by 15 reps on each arm with 15-pound weights of three different exercises (the chest press, the standard bicep curl, and another one whose name I don't remember). I probably burned between 150 and 200 calories. Not a lot, no, but cut me some slack. It's a start.

In nerdy blog news, those of you who are not big fans of Lost won't have to put up with it anymore only because I have given it its own blog. I freely admit to being pretty lame on this one, but I wanted a place to talk out (and compile) my thoughts on the show and predictions. Just be glad I never started one for Harry Potter.