Go Go Sox

I was driving home on Friday, stuck in miserable DC traffic, exhausted, stressed. The announcers on ESPN radio (the names escape me right now) were doing a serviceable job describing the incredible bottom of the sixth inning. You could feel it happening -- the White Sox blowing the lead, the Red Sox winning the game, the Series turning around, and then a weekend full of rainouts and stories about the character of this Red Sox team, the City of Boston, blah blah blah. I was happy for my friends who were Red Sox fans after last year, but by this year's playoffs, I was rooting for bat-nuts crazy Ozzie and the South Side kids (at least in this series -- I don't know if the Cubs contingent arising out of LaGrange, Glen Ellyn, and Downers Grove, Illinois can handle three years of

a) Dusty's disaster (Bartman gets all the blame, unfairly),









b) Red Sox miracle,







c) White Sox win it all).

(Plus, I speak on behalf of a world full of baseball fans by saying that we needed this series to be over to stop Chris Berman from announcing baseball games. It's nothing personal . . . well, actually, it is personal. Berman seems like a nice enough guy, but hasn't he made enough money from being ESPN employee number one to stop announcing baseball? Can't we convince him to move to Boca and announce bocce games? The nicknames, the yelling, the lack of any sophisticated baseball knowledge, THE YELLING! . . . it would all be perfect for bocce.)

I got home in time to watch El Duque get two infield popouts and a gut-wrenching 3-2 check swing strikeout of Johnny Damon. It was so exhilerating that I didn't even hear Berman. Wowsa, what a tremendous performance, followed up by two more innings of great pitching against a team with two of the scariest hitters in the game and a crowd dying to explode.

Anyway, I'll shut up now and let Matt Welch take over. I've read Mr. Welch since he started his "war blog," back when a lot of us were more warlike than we are now. He is a funny writer, a sweet guitar player, a non-crazy libertarian, a contributor to Reason's Hit & Run blog, a Bill James disciple, and a California (Anaheim, LA) Angels fanatic. He also gets off a good rant every now and then. Saturday, writing to Red Sox fans the day after their team was booted from the playoffs, is one of those times:

"Good Riddance: El Duque is my very favorite pitcher in baseball -- the best ever in Castro's Cuba, and one of the five best in that island's incredibly rich history; has pitched some great ball in the States (especially in the postseason), and is just a mess of athleticism, unnecessary physical flourishes, and miles of secret guile. When the radio told me he was coming in with the bases loaded and nobody out to protect a one-run lead in Fenway, I knew it was time to check out the teevee. What I saw was one of the single best one-inning pitching performances in my lifetime, which he followed up with two more scoreless innings.

The main Yahoo sidebar story? No Repeat in New England. The ESPN announcers, as the White Sox were celebrating their first postseason win in EIGHTY-EIGHT years, and the camera was following a jubilant Duque? "And the Red Sox championship season is finally over! The Nation blah blah blah blah blah blah!"

Good-wickedy-bye, Afflecks. And yes, I will use that cheap shot -- in fact, if I use it for every time I've heard some Masshole talk to me about Donnie Moore, it's gonna be all Affleck, all the time, for several months around here.

Look, I know you're hurting, and that this little display of mine is unseemly. Fair enough. But Johnny Damon on a popsicle stick -- has there been any recent champion so thoroughly insufferable, so impervious to hearing the rest of the "nation" collectively say "OK, we're really done having to listen about the Curse & the Stephen King & Drew Barrymore & all the rest of it"? The story of the Sox-off is about crazy-ass Ozzie Guillen screaming wild-eyed obscenities at the umpire. It's about goofy Paul Konerko hitting home runs, scary rube Bobby Jenks throwing the ball 100 miles per hour, and El Duque pulling out one for the ages. Sometimes it's just not about you.

I rooted for the Loser Sox last year after they eliminated my boys, and I'm still fond of many of their players and haircuts. But man. Imagine how annoying you find the Rally Monkey, multiply it by 100, and then force every national broadcaster to see the entire history of the Western World through an epic storyline of Gene Autry, Jim Fregosi, and Darin Erstad. Go on, try it."