2004 World Series Champions: Boston Red Sox!

No more chants of "1918". No more falling to the floor when I see the Buckner replay. No more people talking about some silly curse. The Red Sox have beaten the Cardinals for the World Series title.

Here's my proposal for the victory parade. Let's have a float with Johnny Pesky, Carleton Fisk, Yaz, Tony C., Spaceman Bill Lee, Jim Rice, Luis Tiant, Dom DiMaggio, the spirit of Ted Williams and Bill Buckner on it.

This was the craziest rollercoaster ride I've ever been on. I haven't slept normally in two weeks. Our street is erupting in car horns and yelling and screaming. The comeback against the Yankees was a once in a lifetime event. But then they came out and dominated a very good Cardinals team. The party in Boston might not end until sometime in January.

So now Boston has the reigning Super Bowl champion, and the World Series champion. Can we pull of the trifecta and have a John Kerry presidency? God, I hope so.

Battening down

So the Red Sox are threatening to win the series tonight. I'm barricading us into the apartment. I'm treating this like blizzard or hurricane preparedness. I've got bottled water, flashlights and batteries the shortwave radio. Boston will be going insane win or lose by the end of this week.

We're all stunned and have no idea how to behave or what to expect. We want them to win so this rollercoaster ride can be over. We're all exhausted. After all the years of learned helplessness though, we're all waiting for the giant shoe to drop and for them to break our hearts again. Personally, I think they'll win the whole thing. I hope tonight, but if not, then by Saturday and in horribly dramatic fashion.

Mosh

Sorry for turning this blog into Red Sox Central the past week or so, but it's been that kind of time around here. Believe it not, there's something much more important than the World Series looming. The elections are coming up and I wanted to mention a few links.

I'm never sure what to think about Eminem. He's clever, mysogynistic, and right now, angry as hell. Here's his take on the election. And it's pretty damn close to mine too. Show it to as many undecided people as you can.

It's one week away. It's time to stop talking and talking and talking and talking. It's time to exercise our rights as citizens and vote.

The World Series View from a Townie Bar

Last night, the Red Sox had one hell of crazy adventure in game one of the World Series. Jen and I were at the Abbey Lounge on the Somerville/Cambridge line to see our friends in Benny Sizzler.

The Abbey is a dark, tiny two room club. The bar is in one room and the stage is in the other. As far as I can tell, the rock room is in Somerville and the bar is in Cambridge. It's a townie bar that's in two towns. It's the kind of place where the only mixed drink that you should order is scotch and soda.

We got to the bar around the 4th inning and the Sox were up 7-2. We caught up with the Benny crew and by the time they hit the stage it was 7-7. The band kept asking for score updates between songs. Benny kept blasting through song after song. Those guys are merciless, I tell you.

After their set, we all crowd back into the bar side of the club, to watch the 7-7 tie in the 8th. We all see Manny's rollercoaster ride of a play to allow the Cards to tie it up 9-9. Chil, the singer/bassist in Benny literally collapses in front of the TV. His knees buckled. Some how the Sox get out of the inning with a tie.

In the bottom of the 8th, Mark Bellhorn hits a home run that clangs off of Pesky's Pole in right field, putting the Sox up 11-9. The bar goes wild, and then panics when Fox cuts to possibly the dorkiest fan in Red Sox Nation celebrating Bellhorn's heroics. It's a guy in a replica jersey doing the white guy dance. The guy behind me screams, "Dammit, now the whole country thinks we all dance like that f*cker!"

Sox win!

It's very late, and I would love to sleep, but I can't. The streets are exploding with car horns and happy screams. You see, the Red Sox have managed to win 4 straight games to beat the hated Yankees in the ALCS.

Jen and I are very happy for her baseball boyfriend, Johnny Damon, who snapped out of a horrific slump by hitting two home runs and driving in six runs.

I'm beginning to wonder if they'll still be outside screaming tomorrow morning when I leave for work. We live about a mile down the street from Fenway Park. This is much louder and wilder than either time the Patriots won the Super Bowl. I wonder if it will be like this if John Kerry wins in a few weeks. I'd like to think so.

I've been a Sox fan since birth. I'm happy, but there's still another series to win. At least I hope so. The audio clip below is a recording of some of the chaos.

Oh my God! That's Curt Schilling's music!

The Sox did it again. Tightrope game all the way. Hm. What did this one have in it? Curt Schilling with sutures in his ankle pitching on guts. (You can see the blood on his sock in the pic if you look closely.) A disputed home run. An bit of cheating from Alex Rodriguez. It felt like I was watching wrestling at that moment. You know, when the ref has his back turned and somebody gets hit by a chair, except in wrestling, nobody ever clears up the call and gets it right.

One more night. One more game. One more miracle? We shall see. Go Sox.

Red Sox stay alive and give the city heart attacks

What the hell did I just see? It looked like a 6 hour long, 14 inning baseball game where the Red Sox beat the Yankees. Holy crap, it was.

I had so much nervous energy that I started doing sets of pushups after the 11th. Needless to say, I'm pretty sore. I can't even imagine how sore and emotionally spent the players must be.

Huge props to David Ortiz, who is becoming an icon around Boston now. A Carlton Fisk for the 21st Century. Also, a clap on the back to Jen's baseball boyfriend, Johnny Damon, who had a very rough day with a wasted bunt attempt and a caught stealing, yet he turned it around by scoring the winning run.

The rollercoaster continues. They're back in NY tomorrow, with the duct taped Curt Schilling pitching for the Sox tomorrow. OK, I must sleep sometime. How about now?

Autumn in Boston

It must be autumn here, as the leaves are changing, my coats come out of storage and the Red Sox are breaking our hearts.

After falling behind 2-0 in the ALCS against the hated Yankees, the Red Sox returned to Fenway on Saturday night. Jen and I had a party with a bunch of friends to watch. It was our first time hosting as a married couple. Well, Jen did most of the hosting. She's the best.

As for the Sox pitching on Saturday, they were the worst. They managed to give up 19 runs and fall behind 3-0. Fortunately, nobody at the party was an angry drunk. Oh well, there goes the season, we said. I hope the Astros or Cards whoop them, we said.

Jen and I didn't watch much of the game on Sunday. I couldn't take the disappointment. I went to bed early, hoping for the best. And at 1:33 this morning, I heard it. The people on my street started screaming and yelling happily. We must have won in extra innings, I thought to myself. I dragged myself into the other room and found that it was true. I fell back asleep and hoped it wasn't a dream.

So the Sox live on to torture us another day. I hope they get to torture all the way until Halloween. Go Sox.

Poetry 365: Krypton Is Just Days Away

Superman lies in state
we shuffle through the rotunda
as quiet as he is.
Security arrives and
"Hail to the Chief"
I am close enough to hear him ask
to nobody in particular,
"Red, yellow and blue?
Are you sure he was a patriot?"

Photographic evidence

Here's a picture from Ted Tyler of jimrhoades.com of the half marathon. Note the new aerodynamic haircut. Joe says he's never seen the "C'mon, you wanna throw down?" look from anyone running a race before. I figure it's the head tilt and the Shaolin haircut. Actually, I think it's the "Put that camera down and get yo' ass out here" look.

Boston Half Marathon

Jen and I ran the Boston Half Marathon with our friends from New York: Irena and Priscilla. We had an awesome day for a race with temperatures in the 60's. We all set personal records. Jen and Priscilla ran together for most of the race until Jen's patented finishing kick appeared in the last 0.1 of a mile. Jen finished at 2:21:56 and Priscilla at 2:21:59.

Irena and I ran the first 9 miles together. She set the pace early but ran out of gas around mile 9 and gave me the green light to run at my pace. I ran an insane last four miles. My last 5K of the race was 24:54, which is my second fastest 5K ever, and somehow I ran it at the end of a half marathon! Irena finished with 2:09:52 and I crossed the line at 2:03:28.

I reached my personal goal of finishing in less than double the time of the winner. I almost reached the 2:00 mark, that was my secondary goal. The next half marathon will be in Houston with my old pal Willis D. After that, it'll be the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C. next fall. I can't wait.

A Call to Arms

So I want to start a new project that combines two of my passions: music and group blogs. The idea is to have people write stories about their life based around songs. I'm trying to figure out how to host the music so that readers like you can hear the song for yourself.

Stumbling around the web this morning I found www.radioblogclub.com, but I can't figure out exactly what the hell it does or how it does it. Anybody got a clue about this? It looks like it's in a "coming back soon" mode. (Much like my old group blog: Thunk. For anyone wondering, I don't think Thunk is coming back. I could change my mind, though.) Does anyone know any other good ways to point to music, I really don't feel like ripping and hosting the music on my own servers.

For those of you with a need for a music fix, without some boring story about me walking around on a brisk autumn day in the parking lot of the Best Buy that's built in an abandoned Sears with my iPod and random play, jumping three feet in the air when a creepy carousel song from this year's Mermaid Parade comes on and then being brought back to a happy happy earth when a lovely Bishop Allen song comes on, here's a lovely Bishop Allen song called "Things Are What You Make of Them". Go buy their records. They'd buy yours.

Poetry 365: Mixing the Sand

Turn the shovel over
until there is nothing left
but what we dreamt of as infants
and what we will become after old men.

5k

Tuning up for the Boston Half Marathon next week, Jen, Jess and I ran in the Somerville 5K yesterday. I pulled off a 24:47. That's my first offically measured 5K at an 8:00 minute mile pace. I'm very pleased. I ran into a few people I know during the run and was even able to chat a little bit. I noticed we stopped talking when we hit a hill though.

Next stop: half marathon.