Theo Epstein is General Manager of the Boston Red Sox no longer.

Pedro, Theo (heck Byrnes and McCracken too) and I am sure Manny can’t be too far behind.

Must be a proud day for Lucky.

I’m sick.

On the Saturday after the White Sox dusted the Boston Red Sox in the ALDS, I was in Logan Airport killing time in the Fox Sports Bar before a flight I was taking to watch that evening’s Bruins-Penguins hockey game in Pittsburgh. A grizzled, lightly bearded man of above average height with broad shoulders walked into the bar with a large duffle bag. He had a White Sox turtle neck on, and a White Sox Division Series Champs hat on. College football was on all over the bar but since I had been so taken aback by the stunning efficiency with which the Pale Hose dispensed the Red Sox, baseball was still fresh in my mind. So I decided I would tell the genlteman just how impressed I was with his guys.

I told him “congrats.” “Thanks,” he said. “I pitch batting practice for the White Sox.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” I said. “Yesterday must have been a real thrill.”

He opened his duffle bag and pulled out a baseball and told me that it was the baseball from the final out of the White Sox’ first post-season series victory since 1917.

He held it in the air and told me, “I can’t wait to bring this ball to Mr. Reinsdorf. He might have won 6 titles with the Bulls but baseball is his love.” I told him I imagined that would be a special moment both for Mr. Reinsdorf and him.

Sensing my interest in baseball history and memorabilia, he pulled something else out of his bag. It was the lineup card from Game 3 of the ALDS, another item that will probably be worth quite a bit someday.

“I’d never sell it. I’ll give it to one of my kids.”

“Good for you.”

He also showed me his ticket to the post-game celebration at the Sheraton near Copley Square that Reinsdorf hosted. The ticket read “Wicked Sweet Celebration”, a creative name for a party given its setting and a tasteful dig at Boston vernacular. Hey, the White Sox had earned that right. They would fly back to Chicago on Saturday but for one night, Boston was theirs. He explained that Reinsdorf deserved credit for putting on the caliber of party he did.

“Magnificent spread, more food than you could ever eat and a full open bar.”

He then said to me, “you want to hear something neat?”

“Sure,” I said, as if I hadn’t been completely engaged by all of the fascinating tidbits he had already shared.

“After yesterday’s game, Mark Buehrle came up to me in the clubhouse and let me know that the guys voted me a full share of the post-season winnings. I won over $100,000 yesterday, so let me buy you a beer.”

“Sure thing,” I told him.

He went on to explain, “See I only do this part time. I only make a few road-trips a year and help out around the clubhouse at home and pitch batting practice from time to time, but I work for the City of Chicago and have a wife, four kids, a mortgage and bills to pay, you know? This $100,000 means a lot to me, and if they win the Series, shit…”

He stopped himself, as if the thought of the $300,000+ he would stand to make was more than he could fathom.

“Well the White Sox just picked up another fan. I’ll be pulling like hell for you,” I told him.

“Thanks.”

Just after he bought me a beer, it was announced that his flight would begin boarding. He settled up his tab, grabbed his duffle bag of White Sox dreams and made his way over to the gate.

Less than two weeks later, a lifelong White Sox fan that grew up on the South Side of Chicago would win that unfathomable sum. I never got his name, but after recounting my story, I toasted him Thursday night while out with a dear friend and fellow baseball enthusiast.

“He bought me a beer at Logan the day after the White Sox beat the Red Sox, and to repay him, I’ll buy you one.”

We ordered, and then I said, “To my airport pal that bleeds Pale-Hose black, may he enjoy the World Series victory in a way he never thought imaginable.”

Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox, a most deserving championship club.

In the 5th inning, Oswalt was Munsonned.

Geoff Blum?

Really?

I love the playoffs.

Roy Oswalt will take the ball for the Astros tonight and try and help Houston cut their 2-0 deficit in half. While his counterpart Jon Garland is no slouch, Oswalt is the best pitcher in baseball right now, so I think we may have a Series yet. Stay tuned…

Roy Oswalt outclassed Mark Mulder last night and pulled his teammates up off the mat and into the World Series after they had suffered one of the most devastating losses in baseball history just two nights prior. There is a lot to be excited about with respect to the upcoming Fall Classic. From an historical standpoint, the mere fact that within the next 10 days or so, either the Chicago White Sox or Houston Astros will be crowned World Series Champs makes the match-up interesting. Houston, in their 44-year existence, has never been to the World Series while the White Sox haven’t won one of these things since 1917. From a pure baseball vantage point, the traditionalists can really perk up over this one. Pitching and defense have carried both the White Sox and the Astros to where they are today, and the team that pitches and defends better in this Series should be the winner. Think George Steinbrenner will enjoy this one? Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez will square off against Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

Because they were able to dispel the Angels with relative ease, the White Sox hold a significant advantage. Their players are rested and Manager Ozzie Guillen will have the luxury of lining up his starting pitching however he chooses. And what a starting staff he has. In Games 2-5 of the ALCS, Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia and Jose Contreras pitched consecutive complete games, an incomprehensible feat by today’s standards and a remarkable one on its merits alone. The last team to do that in the postseason was the New York Yankees, who pulled it off in the 1956 World Series, including most famously Don Larsen’s Game Five Perfect Game. Guillen also has a remarkable bullpen at his disposal. In Neil Cotts, Damaso Marte, Bobby Jenks, Cliff Politte, Dustin Hermanson and the unflappable El Duque, Guillen will have plenty of live arms to turn to should his starters falter or the game go long into extra innings. Chicago had the American League’s best ERA among starters and 3rd best among relievers.

Like the Angels, Houston will have major trouble putting runs on the board against the White Sox. Houston finished the season 24th in Major League Baseball in runs scored and anyone that has watched this postseason has seen how they operate. If it’s not Lance Berkman, Jason Lane or Morgan Ensberg doing the damage, it’s nobody. Still, when a team finishes the year 24th in runs scored and still manages to get into the World Series, postulating that said team can’t win because they won’t score enough is a tad ridiculous.

It’s particularly ridiculous when you consider that this White Sox offense is hardly a juggernaut itself, and Houston’s pitching should be able to carve through them with relative ease. Ozzie Guillen likes to call his offensive style “Smartball” but really the Pale Hose offense functions this way; they score no runs when they don’t homer, a few runs when they do hit home runs and score a good amount of runs when they homer with men on base. Problem is, they have trouble with that last part. The White Sox had the 4th most home runs in the American League in 2005 but ranked just 11th in on-base percentage. They’re decidedly impatient and give up way too many outs from a tactical standpoint (bunts, stolen base attempts…etc.) but when Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye and company are getting a hold of balls, they can score enough to win when backed by that phenomenal pitching staff.

Planning on hitting home runs and in fact doing so are two completely different things, however, particularly against this Astros pitching staff. The Astros front-3 in this Series are as good as any three in recent memory. Everyone knows about Roger Clemens, the Game One starter and many now know about Roy Oswalt, who will get the ball in Game Three. The guy that has flown under the radar this season has been Andy Pettitte, Houston’s Game Two starter. He threw 222 innings this season and had a 2.39 ERA. For all of the talk about Clemens, Chris Carpenter and Dontrelle Willis for the National League Cy Young Award, really only Clemens was better than Pettitte. He had his finest season as a professional baseball player in 2005, though you would never know it because he did it in southeastern Texas and not the Big Apple. Houston Manager Phil Garner also has a very good bullpen he can turn to. Brad Lidge and Dan Wheeler were tremendous this season, and Chad Qualls is no slouch either.

These teams are virtual equals, and predicting a winner would be an exercise in guesswork and little more. Houston has a better front three, Chicago the advantage at 4th starter. Lidge is the best reliever in the Series but Chicago features more bullpen depth. The White Sox have the slight offensive advantage but Lance Berkman is a true game-changer…and so on. One team’s strength is cancelled out by the other’s in a different facet. So because of the rest factor, I’ll give the edge to the White Sox, who will clinch their first World Series in 88 years on Saturday, October 29 under a cool sky on the South Side of Chicago.

David Pinto, linking to Viva El Birdos, nails exactly what happened at my apartment last night.

I must admit that I yelled when Pujols hit that ball. My wife and daughter came running to see what was the matter. It’s not that I’m a particular fan of either team. It’s just rare to see victory snatched from the jaws of defeat so dramatically. The 1986 Mets comeback in game six of the World Series was water torture. This was shock and awe. This was something to yell about.

I too yelled, and afterwards wondered why. I didn’t have a horse in this particular race. Johanna, sleeping in the next room, awoke suddenly and asked me what the problem was. “When I can speak again, I’ll let you know what I just saw,” I told her.

In the 7th inning, the score stood at 2-1 Cardinals.

“You shall not win so easily,” said the Gods of Baseball. “Sons of LaRussa shall be tested in faith!”

And just like that, an error, a single, and a home run put the Astros ahead 4-2. Lance Berkman, being the disciple of the aforementioned mythical spirit of baseball, launched the baseball bleacher-ward.

As you know by now, Uber-closer Brad Lidge had his 2nd straight shaky outing, notching two outs against the chafe of the Cardinals order, Dos Johns. Then a seeing eye single by David Eckstein, who was then proclaimed the best/toughest/grittiest (might as well just called him “whitest”) baseball player ever by Thom Brenneman and Bob Brenley. Steve Lyons just smugly nodded. He knows who butters his Eckstein.

I digress. Lidge, fearful of Jim Edmonds, throws but one pitch in five in the vicinity of the strike zone. Luckily, Edmonds obliged by swinging at a nasty slider. The rules of baseball where on Edmonds side, where four balls signify a walk and he trotted down to first. Cue Pujols. Two pitches later, the ball is crushed into the relatively large Texas (that’s where Houston is) night.

Lidge pouts. Pujols chortles. 5-4 St Louis final.

The Astros have won two playoff series in their 43 year history: the 2004 NLDS, and the 2005 NLDS, both against Atlanta. Twice before, they were in the NLCS (out of three times) and held the elimination game and blew it in the final two (2-1 in 1980 [best of five] and 3-2 in 2004). Right now, baseball is forcing the Astros to look down the same barrel of the same gun.

What is in the Astros’ favor? Roy Oswalt and Roger Clemens are slated to pitch the next two games, and the kind of bizarre fluky fact that the Cardinals are 1-3 in NLCS in the Wild Card era. Also, it’s pretty tough to lose a series when you stake out to the 3-1 lead (though it has happened in the last two seasons).

In the checkered history of the Houston Astros, they have folded more than they have succeeded. Although they are still odds-on-favorite to take this series, the game tonight obviously didn’t help bring the Astros their first National League pennant.

Tonight guaranteed more baseball to be played by these two teams. I have no real rooting interest in this game, so I could just watch and enjoy, and I was treated to one of the better games of the post season so far. For the first time since mid-September, baseball is fun again. Yes, my friends, baseball is fun again because of the drama of the post season was rejuvenated by Messers Pujols and Berkman.

If you were watching Monday Night Football when Albert Pujols hit a home run halfway to El Paso to take the Game 5 lead facing elimination against Brad Lidge and the Houston Astros with 2 outs in the ninth inning, well, then you deserved to miss it.

For the first time since 1959, the Chicago White Sox are going to the World Series. Bully for them.

One of the things that I talk to my friends about is how much I hate the White Sox franchise. Not only did they try to ruin baseball through tight-fisted ownership, and actually throwing the World Series, but they have had an intensely boring franchise history, with very few players that can conjure up enough feeling to say “Man, I sure do want to hear more about them…” In fact, until this postseason, I would have said they were more pathetic than the cross town Cubs, because they hadn’t won a playoff series since 1917, and no one cares. Not even in home town Chicago.

Of course, the 2005 version of the White Sox have told me to shut up, and slapped me across my face. I have to say that this year, my feelings against the Pale Hose probably caused me to underrate them. Of the four American League teams in the playoffs this year, I would have given the White Sox the longest odds to capture the pennant. My bad…

Anyway, I am not writing to tell you all this. One thing that has annoyed me this offseason is that the Small Ball mantra has been beaten into the heads of the viewers by such intellects as Tim McCarver and Thom Brenneman. I wrote the following about the idea of White Sox small ball perception vs. the way the Angels actually play on the Blair Wasdin Project:

The White Sox hit 200 Hr, 5th most in baseball. The Angels were 21st, with 147.

Despite this, the Angels scored more runs in a pitchers park (760) than did the White Sox in a hitter’s park (741).

The LAA’s K’ed a scant 847 times in 2005, 29th most in baseball. The White Sox were higher…17th (1002). As a result, the K:BB for the hitters was 1.90 for the Angels, and 2.30 for the Pale Hose (comparison: Red Sox was 1.60 despite their take and rake approach. The Yankees were even better at 1.55)

The reason for this is that the Angels actually played small ball smartly. They sacrificed 4 times for every 600 PA’s, they gained 9 bases through SB this year (approximately worth 5 runs, or half a win) while running at a 74% clip. Because they make contact a lot, they can hit and run successfully. Basically, the Angels play smartball. They don’t go deep in to counts because they don’t walk or strike out a lot, but they put the ball in play enough that their “single, run and hold the line for Vlad” offense actually works.

The White Sox are credited for SmartBall, despite hitting and running with guys that aren’t equipped for it (such as game 1 when AJP was nailed at 2nd), running without rhyme or reason (67% steals…but because they ran 204 times, they lost a whopping 42 bases to being caught. That’s just over 23 runs, or about 2 wins). They bunt a lot…almost 5 times per 600 PA’s. That’s a lot of outs to give up to net 741 runs. In fact, adjusted for park’s the White Sox scored 4.5 runs a game. This is compared to the Angels 4.9. (This might seem like a small difference, but its 65 runs over the course of the season…the difference between having the Yankees offense and the Reds…or even more dramatically, the Braves vs. the Royals.)

Basically, saying the teams are similar is all kinds of lazy analysis with the bats.

With the arms, the White Sox have 4 “#1 level” pitchers (one of the top 30 starters in baseball)…the Angels have 2, with one of them not available for the season. The White Sox bullpen is full of guys having their best years…the Angels are full of guys that throw really, really hard with crazy movement.

Are the two teams alike? Kinda…

But the Angels actually play the White Sox game well. The White Sox just keep trying to beat themselves, and are bailed out by a very good pitching staff and a home run. The Angels are the team the White Sox get credit for being.

In the next week, expect more talk of the fraud of SmartBall. Rest assured that I will be adding this as another reason I hate the White Sox.

Sorry…

Despite my far-to-infrequently posted criticisms of the Red Sox front office, I have a lot of admiration for Theo Epstein. I like the guy a lot. Enough that I want to see him captaining the Good Ship Red Sox for the better part of his professional career.

Because of that, I am at a crossroads right now. Theo’s contract expires on October 31st, and according to Peter Gammons, the sides are pretty far apart in extending Theo. Which is to say in a few weeks, just as free agency is coming, the Red Sox don’t have a general manager in place. This makes me anxious, as the Red Sox have a pitching staff to fix and four positions to fill.

According to Gammons, the main sticking points seem to be money, and control, two things that Theo wants more of that his bosses are reluctant to surrender. This, fair reader, got me thinking. What if the tenant of sabermetric principles, the idea of easily replaceable talent (ironically, a tenant the Red Sox basically ignored this year) has wafted into front office hiring realm of baseball? This does not bode well for Theo, as his assistant, Josh Byrnes, has been a highly touted general managing prospect since he came over to Boston from Colorado. Byrnes probably will command less in way of salary and control also, which probably makes him a more attractive candidate to Larry Lucchino.

If Lucchino (I’m only using him because he is Epstein’s direct boss. Let’s just say he’s analogous to the entire ownership team) sets a salary limit for the general manager position (for the sake of ease, lets say 3 years @ $900k), and Theo says no, there is really nothing keeping him from saying “Thanks for the World Series…Josh, you want 3 years @ $800K?”

Unfortunately for our Young Genius GM, he doesn’t really have much of a bargaining position here. The available jobs out there so far are Tampa and Philadelphia. Whereas Philadelphia is an attractive job to be sure, they have Mike Arbuckle there, who is basically their Josh Byrnes, a younger, internal option that would be able to run the franchise. Tampa would be interesting, but it would amount to a demotion as the Rays are a pitching staff and 15,000 fans per game away from contending.

There is another team that has a vacancy though, with their GM’s contract expiring. The Yankees.

This does not worry me though, and it shouldn’t really bother any but the most paranoid of Sox fans. If Gammons is to be believed, than Epstein wants more leeway over personnel decisions as much as he wants ample compensation. That isn’t going to happen in New York as long as the team is run by the oft-mentioned Tampa contingent of the Yankee front office.

There are GM assistantships out there too, but come on, the guy won a World Series. He’s also about 30 years too young to take the Gillick route and be a special assistant to the general manager. Theo doesn’t have much in terms of bargaining position.

What’s left is public relations. This PR conscious organization can’t really let their one-season-removed-from-a-world-title GM go without backlash from the fans out there that pay their salaries. It’s this more than anything that makes me think that not long after the completion of the 2005 World Series, that there will be a press conference announcing how Lucchino and Epstein have kissed and made up, while agreeing to work together for the next three-odd years. The only question here is…what if it doesn’t?

The story of Game 1 was simple. Small-ball sucks, and its common defense is 100% illogical. Jim Caple’s piece over at espn.com this morning has this quote from Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen…

“We failed today at moving the guys over,'’ manager Ozzie Guillen said. “We didn’t do the job and when we fail doing that, it’s hard for us to win. We don’t have the type of team that’s going to score 20 runs.'’

But that is exactly why the White Sox should not be attempting steals with their catcher and trying to sacrifice everytime a man is on with no outs. When you don’t have a great hitting team, outs become particularly precious. When you treat outs as frivolously as these White Sox do, it will always impede your ability to score runs, not enhance it. By my count the White Sox gave away five outs last night: a caught-stealing by both Scott Podsednik and A.J. Pierzynski, failed sacrifices by Podsednik and Aaron Rowand and an unbelievably stupid bunt-for-a-hit attempt by Jermaine Dye in the 6th (yes, that’s giving an out away). Giving up an out may seem somewhat harmless but there are three aspects of the strategy that severely debilitate an offense’s ability to function. One, proponents always fail to account for the possibility that execution of the play can fail. Giving up an out in exchange for something else is sub-optimal in its own right, but not a killer. Simply handing a team an out, on the other hand, kills and that’s exactly what happened last night. Two caught-stealings, two failed sacrifice bunts and a bunt pop-up to the pitcher by Chicago’s #3 hitter. Execution failure should always enter into the strategic equation. Two, giving up outs disallows a team to have a prolonged, multi-run inning. So you get the guy over to second, but then what? You’ve used up one of the three outs you are allotted in an inning, and even though you are 33% further along the basepaths to scoring one run, you are also 33% closer to being altogether out of the inning. Three, the opportunity cost of giving up an out is always unknown, but potentially enormous. Because of their ability to hit home runs (they hit the 5th most of any team in baseball), this applies especially to the Pale Hose. Consider last night’s game that featured a Joe Crede home run, deep outs by Tadahito Iguchi and Paul Konerko and a lined shot right at Juan Rivera by A.J. Pierzynski. You think on a team that notched 199 home runs in the regular season and was on the ball for much of the night that they might have been able to muster another one out of the park with five additional opportunities? And if they did, or even if someone just walked, singled or was plunked in the back like Rowand, it could have been an additional six opportunities. Or seven or eight…you see it’s not just the five outs they gave away, or the potential of those five additional plate appearances. They also gave away the potential of each incremental plate appearance that would have resulted from success in any one of the original five. It’s devastating.

The White Sox gave away five outs last night and lost 3-2. Think Ozzie learned a lesson? Doubt it.

In light of last night’s game, there can be no more doubt that Alex Rodriguez likes to kick kittens and Derek Jeter would make a perfectly fine candidate to replace Ms. Miers as the next nominee to the Supreme Court bench. Kidding aside, the Yankees lost simply because they were contained by a very good Angels pitching staff. Ain’t no shame in that. Plenty of teams had a tough time putting up runs against the Halos this season.

Now we get a damn intriguing ALCS, one that I predict will feature at least one extra-inning tilt, probably two. These games will be close and have the potential to go long because once you’re facing the Angels and White Sox respective bullpens, merely scratching one across becomes a tall order. Much will be made of how these teams play small-ball and that’s how they have gotten to where they are. Pay it no mind. Both teams pitch the hell out of the ball and the White Sox play sparkling defense to boot. That’s how they win. When they score runs, it’s because they get some guys on and hit with some pop, just like everybody else. The White Sox scored their runs against Boston behind home runs from Paul Konerko, A.J. Pierzynski, Tadahito Iguchi, Juan Uribe and even Scott Pdsednik. The Angels scored their runs this series thanks to home runs from the likes of Ben Molina, Garret Anderson, Juan Rivera and a deep triple last night from Adam Kennedy. You get ‘em on however you can, you bang ‘em around with efficiency by hitting with some pop. There’s no great strategic element to it.

Game 1 pits Jose Contreras, one of the very best of the second half, against Paul Byrd, a good pitcher in his own right. Byrd will have to come up huge tonight, as I just can’t see a weary Angels squad mustering much against Contreras. Enjoy what ought to be a wildly entertaining series featuring two of the finest run-prevention units in Major League Baseball.

The latest edition of Goldman’s Pinstriped Bible offers the best summation of the absurdity that is the “stats geeks vs. baseball men” discussion that I have seen.

First and foremost, the stats-versus-experience (or scouting, or observation, what Madden means when he says “eyes”) is overblown. There is no such conflict. You can’t run a baseball team without a healthy dose of both. There are things that scouts can tell you about players and their physical abilities that statistics do not record. Statistics are results-oriented, an objective record of something that has already happened. If a batter hits a home run, the statistics put a one in his home run column. The scout watching him can tell you if he hit that home run with a crisp, short swing that should lead to more home runs as he advances, or a long, looping stroke that will be easily exploited by advanced pitchers. Scouts tell you the “how” of a story.

It also features a fantastic explanation of what a baseball manager’s role really is.

This may be no fun for the manager, but he’s just the factory foreman. He doesn’t own the factory and so he has to take instruction. In this, he is no different from the rest of us. If he wants to bunt, and the general manager doesn’t believe in the bunt, then the manager shouldn’t have taken that job. If he wants to bunt he can buy his own team. There are several million people in the New York area who are working or on their way to work right now, wishing that they could take the week off. Heck, they don’t even want to take the week off - they just want to take two hours for lunch, maybe drink their coffee slowly for a change, or take a little stroll around the park.

It’s the best piece I have seen in a while from Goldman, and given the consistent quality he churns out over there, that’s saying something.

The Astros defeated the Braves yesterday in a game that immediately takes its place among the very best in the history of Major League Baseball. You know the story. The Braves jumped out, the ‘Stros fought back, the Rocket came on and Chris Burke finished Atlanta off. Two things struck me as I was watching this game. First, Joey Devine is going to feel pretty rough over this thing and he will probably take more than his fair share of heat for surrendering Chris Burke’s home run, but the goat of the game was Kyle Farnsworth, who took to the hill with a 6-1 lead in the 8th and squandered it. Second, Minute Maid Park is a joke. Neither Lance Berkman’s 8th inning grand slam nor Chris Burke’s 18th inning game-winner would have been home runs is any other park in baseball. Brad Ausmus’ game-tying home run was hit a long ways but because of the way the park sets up, whether or not the ball had cleared the yellow line in left-centerfield was unclear. That’s because there is no room between the fence and the beige overhang that juts out from that area of the ballpark. So when a ball clears the fence, it does not drop over it, it caroms wildly off of a beige wall. Minute Maid needs an overhaul. Ballpark foibles, interesting though they may be and an indelible part of baseball history, should remain just that - a part of baseball’s past. Ballparks’ unique characteristics, so long as they do not compromise fair play, can and should always exist, but a hill in centerfield with a flagpole exposed? Please. Fenway Park had a mound rising up to the Green Monster but Tom Yawkey had the good sense to do away with such poppycock all the way back in 1934, when he decided to have Duffy’s Cliff flattened. And speaking of the Green Monster, it only exists because of the plot of land that was available to the Red Sox in 1912. So why in God’s name did Minute Maid’s designers erect a 19-foot wall just 315 feet from home plate? Beats me, but probably to replicate one of Fenway’s unique features. Cleveland did something similar, but with more reasonable dimensions. But simply imitating the distinguishing characteristics of classic ballparks ignores that some of these characteristics only came to be because of the limitations that existed in the times they were built. Such limitations no longer exist, and ballpark designers should be careful that in trying to offer up a hat-tip to older ballparks they do not tamper with the integrity of game-play.

I’m playing around with some layout/look/feel type stuff while I’ve got some free time (you know with the Sox being eliminated and the Yanks/Angels rained out). So if stuff keeps changing or stops working or anything, it should be fixed momentarily.

If you’ve got strong opinions about the way it looks, leave a comment or email me. In the mean time, pardon the construction.

Johnny Damon after yesterday’s loss (according to Dirt Dog)…

You want to put people in the seats and I’m the kind of guy who can do that. I’m looking for five plus. I’m looking for a lot. For what I bring to the table night in and night in. We know how good Manny and David are, but I also help them look real good. They make me look real good.”

Johnny’s Stats for September and Postseason…
Sept.: .290/.337/.366
ALDS: .231/.286/.308

So get to it, front office. Do everything you can to hammer out that 6-year deal for Damon and make sure you trade Manny (2 HR’s yesterday).

Go White Sox.

If you haven’t seen highlights of Brian McCann’s home run off of Roger Clemens last night, run - don’t walk - run to the nearest television, flip on ESPNews and wait for the highlight. Kid’s got the “Holy Shit, did I just hit a postseason home run off of Roger Effin’ Clemens” look going as he circles the bases and then totally flips out at the plate. Never thought I’d say it but Turner Field is rocking these days.