A Red Sox player once hit a home run in an at bat that was not only the last one of the game and the season, but was his final one as a Red Sox, and of his career. That year, he wore the same number as another Sox player whose last name appears in a Twilight Zone episode, which originally aired on a day when the first player hit a sacrifice bunt in his only plate appearance of the game in a game-winning, ninth-inning rally. This bunt was fielded by what Hall of Fame pitcher?

Did you know that in the state of North Dakota it's illegal to bring up centuries-old, irrelevant laws for the purposes of making the four people not familiar with the concept laugh on Sundays?

Can you believe that shit?

In the diner at the corner of Somethingty-first Street. Car pulls up to light. I notice the driver has backwards Sox hat with the now-common socks on the back, which is the front, due to the aforementioned backwards-ness. He notices my Old English B, and we give each other simultaneous thumbs-up. Chan rolls eyes, but dude's girlfriend in passenger's seat is very impressed, realizing what a special club she's marrying into, probably saying, "When I went out with this other dude, Nick something, there was no camaraderie between him and other yankee fans. It was almost like they were...robots. Let's move that wedding up, Red Sox Guy."

It's so funny watching Chan deal with this stuff. And, of course, after that car left, the next time the light turned red, the van that pulled up was driven by another guy in a Sox hat. Gold.

Beat Chan 14-5 in a darkness-shortened Wiffle Ball game in Central Park today. Actually, we would have kept playing despite the literal pitch dark, but a guy kicked us out. I shut Chan down in the first before picking up 3 in the bottom half. He, surprisingly, tied it at three, but I came right back with 5 in the second. He cut it to 8-5, before I scored 6 in what would be the final frame, due to getting kicked out.

Also, I'd like to go on record as being extremely pro-Johnny Damon. I really hope we re-sign him, and I don't think he'll go to the yanks. He represents the way the Red Sox play and act, and I don't want anybody else in center field or leading off for us.

Sign held by a homeless guy on 42nd St: "Parents Killed By Ninjas/ Need Money For Kung Fu Lessons/ Revenge Is Sweet!"

The reason I was down there was because my mom came into town to go to this poster auction viewing thing. Which was very cool. While we were there, the one other guy in the place sees us (Ma in her kerchief, and I in my dirty Sox cap) and says, "Ahh, my two passions, posters and the Red Sox." New York, New York, it's a hell of an outpost of Red Sox Nation.

It was cool to be in midtown tonight. It had that holiday feel, but without the cold.

Also, there are now officially two people in the world who don't completely blame Larry for Theo's leaving. Surprise, surprise, the other one is related to me. My mom also has decided to take Theo at his word. I still don't know why he'd go out of way to call a press conference just to lie to our faces.

Tony Massarotti: "deep in our hearts, we all know the truth. Epstein did not trust Lucchino"

Bob Ryan: "Theo lost a power struggle with Lucchino. We can draw no other conclusion."

Boy, do I hate being spoken for. How much more plainly could Theo have said the exact opposite of these things? It's just weird that people are seeking out all these secret messages in Theo's words, but are ignoring the blatantly obvious ones.

Believe me, if it comes out that Lucchino caused Theo to leave, not because some writer says so because they feel like it (and tells me that I feel the same way), but if some actual proof comes out, I'll say "terrible job, Larry." And my main emotion about this whole thing, just so you know, is my sadness over Theo being gone. The last thing I want is for people to think I'm somehow anti-Theo since I'm not blaming Larry.

And again, if you've done the research, and have a different opinion than mine, I completely respect it. If you're going by someone else saying the new "Let's Go Red Sox" ("Fuck you, Larry"), well, as a caveman once said, "Next time maybe do a little research."

You've probably heard that the NBA has instated a dress code for players to follow during press conferences and while on the bench in street clothes. I was totally appalled by this. It seems clear to me that the NBA sees how white people aren't going to games as much as they used to, and is trying to make the black players more "palatable" to them. First of all, if I was running a business, and you didn't want to buy my merchandise because you felt it "wasn't white enough" for you, I wouldn't want your filthy money anyway. (This is why I stay away from business. See the Theo Epstein issue.) The last thing I'd do would be to say, "Hey, black dudes, you're scaring the white folk. You have to dress more like them now." They might as well have just painted all the black players white.

Then again, Chris Webber, on Bill Maher's show, told Bill that the above thinking is also racist, because it implies that to dress nicely is a "white thing." And that is a good point, but I still say the NBA purposely targeted things that are mainly worn by their black players.

But there's another way to look at that, which is to say that it's more of a generational thing than a color thing. Still, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it's a racist thing. And I've heard David Stern interviewed about this and I'm not changing my opinion.

Mike & the Mad Dog talked about this at length. Those guys can say the most racist things without even knowing it. Mad Dog kept saying innocently, "The middle-aged white guy just can't relate to gold chains and hats worn wrong." (I think it was Rick Reilly who pointed out to him that there's no "wrong" in hat-wearing.) To me, it just really says something about society when the answer to that "problem" is not to teach tolerance toward people who dress differently, but to take those people and force them to look the way the audience wants them to.

Again, if middle-aged white people don't watch the NBA because of the way the players dress at press conferences, than they don't deserve to see some of the best athletes on earth. Screw 'em. I'll take their season tickets. (But, again, if the point of business and marketing and advertising is to cater to the people with the most money, even if it means forcing rules on people of races that rich people don't like, then I never want to have anything to do with them.)

That said, I have a radical new idea for baseball. No uniforms at all. Everyone should wear what they feel comfortable playing in. We know who's on which team. In the other sports, uniforms are needed on the field or court or ice because the players are intermingling. In baseball, if you're wearing a glove, you're on the defensive team. There should never be any confusion, no matter what clothes everyone is wearing. How about it, national pasttime? Try it out on Independence Day, at least.

In pun news, Chan & I were headed out to Dunkin' Donuts earlier tonight. He said he just had to put on his shoes--Merrell's, he told me they were called. He followed that up with, "Like Edward J. Murrow" (which, apparently, he felt was a similar name to "Merrell"). I said, "You're thinking of Edward James Olmos." And you know I had to chase that with "You were Olmos right."

Later, we talked about how wordplay isn't funny unless you come up with it right away. So, you may not have laughed at the line above, but had you been there and experienced the timing of it, you'd be creating new wordplay awards and presenting them to me in prime time.

I know we were already co-champs of the A.L. East, but now, in my mind, we're the true champs. Because it turns out Matt Lawton is an admitted user of horse steroids, saying that he took them after signing with the yanks. So that game-winning homer against Baltimore is negated, and we get the division by one game.

It doesn't bring Theo back, but it's something. I'd like to thank the yanks for their commitment to cheating, which always cheers me up.

Well, Theo said it wasn't because of Larry, it wasn't about money, or the Shaughnessy article, there was no power struggle, they all trusted each other, he thought a lot about it, but he's leaving, the team will be fine, he will be fine.

Henry said it wasn't because of Larry, that he himself is to blame and that he even has to ask himself if he's fit to be an owner. He said part of the reason why they didn't try to sign Theo earlier was because he had a romantic notion that Theo would be his GM for the rest of his life. (Welcome to my world, John.)

As I sat watching (and later listening after ESPN cut it short), I thought about what people would think and say about this. People's minds seem completely made up that Larry is this horrible person. I'm still trying to find the hard evidence of that. The things I've seen from Larry have been: Him helping to turn this franchise around, making Fenway a lot more enjoyable to go to, hiring Theo, and giving me lots and lots of happiness.

I've been saying this the whole time, and when watching Theo talk, I thought, Okay, good, people will see it wasn't Larry's fault. But I quickly realized that this will all be seen as "damage control" and just not trying to stir the pot, since these guys have all been friends with each other for quite some time.

Sure enough, I went right to (puke) dirtdogs, and my thoughts were confirmed, as the big bitch called the press conference "48 minutes of nothing."

I guess I must be totally naive about this, because everyone else seems to know all this stuff about Lucchino that I seem to be missing. And I have no reason to defend him, other than the fact that he, along with Theo and the other owners, turned the Red Sox from one of the most made-fun-of entities in the history of the world into the champions of it.

This is all just my opinion. People I really respect are saying a lot of bad things about Larry. I have heard them all out. And it's not like I'm really mad about it, like Larry was a relative of mine or something. I just wish we could just be sad about Theo, and trust that the guys who brought him in will find a good replacement for the irreplaceable, without being so hostile. Again, I'm probably just being naive, and just so afraid to have a big fan revolt, and to see everything crumble to the ground. But I'm, like, 95% certain that everything's gonna be okay with this team.

After all, our Lord Theo said so.

Theo press conference at 1 PM.

Did you know that on the day Lou Gehrig gave his famous speech, the Red Sox scored 35 runs? I didn't.

We're sitting there in the living room, and all of a sudden, out of Chan's laptop comes that song "I Know This Much is True."

After about ten seconds, he still hasn't turned it off, so I ask, "What are you doing?"

He says, "It's this radio station for cats and dogs."

Moving on, I watched the most recent episode of Curb, and there was an "Eeny Meeny" scene. It was hilarious, as was the rest of the episode, so I'm not complaining. But surely Larry knows that we remember the "Inka Dink" scene from "The Statue" episode of Seinfeld from season 2. I was even waiting for Cheryl to say "Larry, this is like that Seinfeld episode." My crazy theory is that Larry grew up with "EM," and originally wanted to use it on that Seinfeld, but was overridden by an "ID" person. And now he's basically done the same scene, using "EM," out of spite.

I, for one, had never heard of "Inka Dink" until that Seinfeld episode. And the "Eeny Meeny" I grew up with differs from the Larry David version. His ends with "And out goes Y-O-U." Mine ends with "My mother said to pick the very best one and you are it." You'll notice that mine leaves no doubt as to whether "it" is good or bad, like Larry's does. But that's where the humor lies, since in both the Seinfeld and the Curb, the joke is in arguing over whether "it" is good or bad.

About baseball: I miss being seven years old. I miss just knowing about the what the players looked like, whether they were good or not or had a cool name, and maybe a couple of facts from the back of their baseball card. And if owners and general managers even existed, they just did their work and I didn't know anything about it. Chan keeps telling me I'm wasting my time worrying about baseball all the time, asking "Don't you need a break?" "I'd love one," I say. But, like the passengers on Kramer's bus, baseball keeps "ringin' the bell!"

"I am Batman."

This was another one of those events where I knew it would be a big deal, but I didn't know it would be "danger of getting separated from Chan in the crowd"-big. The parade went up 6th Avenue from Spring Street to 23rd Street, which is about 30 blocks. We took the only spot we could get, around 16th Street. Here's the crowd lining 6th Avenue:

Looking up 6th:

And down again. My point is there were a lot of people:

The most recognizable silhouette is that of the feline. I totally made that up, but still, cats are cool. Here's one that was across the street in a window:

Horses: (click any of these to enlarge)

I was telling Chan we should have gotten a place on 6th Avenue downtown just so we could watch the parade from our balcony. Actually, we will get to see marathon runners go by from our window on Sunday, but we'll have to stick our heads WAY out and look WAY down the street:

This thing actually was scary:

With stupid:

W dukes it out with Lady Liberty:

The classic "big baby" costume:

Watch out for the Baseball Furies:

A large, long-beaked bird:

But I don't wanna be a pirate!:

Is this Jhonny Peralta's dog? Either way, he's about to be consumed by a jolly roger (left):

The flag-tossin' corps, or whatever they're called:

What's futuristic Paul Shaffer doing with that drag queen?:

This cross-eyed Eddie Munster was doing some awesome dances:

A couple o' popes:

One of two people going with a Metro Card-themed costume:

Wonder Man:

Santa with his pants down:

A dice. Or a die, or whatever:

This lady was playing three flamingoes and a rubber chicken:

Pac-Man and Blinky aka Speedy:

A trio of Angus Youngs:

Ogre:

This dog was with Dorothy, but was dressed as a hot dog instead of Toto:

Later, after my video camera had run out of battery, Chan & I were at The Enchilada, and we saw three girls dressed as Team Zissou from The Life Aquatic. So, what I'm saying is, I don't have any footage of my favorite costumes of the night. Terrible job. Also, going to this parade didn't make Theo come back. Terrible job again.

Anti-terrible job, Cap'n.

Good bye, Theo. We'll all miss your fine general managing, guitar playing, and adult contemporary casu-al-ternative wardrobe.

I'm really sad he's gone. I thought he'd be around for ten years. But baseball goes on. And I definitely don't want to bother with blame until actual proof from a paper other than the Boston Globe comes out. Theo basically said he doesn't want to be the GM of the Boston Red Sox. That's all we've got to work with right now. Eric Wilbur wrote this:

"'In my time as general manager, I gave my entire heart and soul to the organization,' Epstein said in a statement. 'During the process leading up to today’s decision, I came to the conclusion that I can no longer do so. In the end, my choice is the right one not only for me but for the Red Sox.' Now, the question will be asked time and again over the coming days: Is it that he no longer can do so, or would not be allowed to?"

Who will be asking this? People who read Theo's exact quote and DECIDE they want it to say something different? Well, doing the opposite seems to be the Boston Globe's trademark, so I guess that answers my question.

While this Theo stuff is going on, don't be too distracted, because Bush is still "president." Check out all these bad things about his new choice for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito.

Also, I know some of you are feeling like the Sox are basically this:
But we'll get past this. Besides, just remember, yankee fans don't even know who Theo Epstein is, so they can't make fun of us. (Also, they can't make fun of us because they haven't won a World Series in recent memory.)

Note: Picture above is also a preview of the pictures I took at the Halloween Parade.

Ever.

Theo's apparently gone.

But do we believe that?

Who knows.

I'm going to a Halloween Parade. Somebody let me know on Opening Day who is and isn't on the Red Sox.

Wait, here's the official team statement.

It is interesting that the paper associated with Bostondirtdogs turned out to be completely full of shit.

Halloween: Pissing off religious types since a long time ago. I'll take all the candy you don't eat, religious types.

Above is me in '81 or so, dressed as The Greatest American Hero. By far, my best costume ever. The travesty is that I'm holding up a Clark bar. I can only guess that I'd already started sorting the good candy on the floor, and the Clark was the only thing left in the pumpkin-thing, so I held it out, surely at mom's request, for the picture.

Have you heard of this all-lesbian Zeppelin cover band called Lez Zeppelin?



I saw them recently, and had a mixed reaction.

The good: The Jimmy Page woman was great. Dressed the part, acted the part, and, most impressive of all, played the part. As in played almost every note exactly like Page himself did. She even broke out the...

as well as the "you know those guitars that are like...double guitars?" guitar, which I guess I didn't get a shot of. The Bonham woman was a hard-hitter who also played her parts ovaries-on, but, like everyone except Page, didn't dress like a British guy from the seventies. As in most band reviews, this one will tell you that the bass player, the female John Paul Jones, was, uh, pretty good. Can't complain. And the Robert Plant lady was a really talented singer.

The bad: Okay, if you're gonna be a Zeppelin cover band, you better make a group decision on whether or not you're gonna go all out, looks-wise. I guess they figure the lesbian thing is the real gimmick, and as long as they play Zeppelin songs, nobody's gonna ask much more of them. But why wouldn't a person--any person--want to dress up like Robert Plant? Actually, she was wearing a pair of jeans and a simple black top, which Plant has been known to wear. But they weren't seventies-style jeans. And she didn't even have blond hair. Or curly hair. That stuff's no big deal, though. What bothered me was that she didn't sing in that real primal scream-style of Plant's. Her voice was more like Christina Aguilera's or something. Between that and the way she'd gesture at the crowd with her hand up in the air like a drunken sorority chick at a karaoke bar, it almost felt at times like I was watching Avril Levine's band do a one-off Zeppelin cover. I don't know, maybe you have to be born with a voice like Robert Plant's. (Or exchange your soul for one.) She also seemed a little uncomfortable up there. (Which is where a blond wig and an over-the-top outfit would come in handy.)And when you play "Whole Lotta Love" a little too fast, it sounds like rap-metal.

But it was cool to hear a bunch of Zeppelin songs live. I don't think I'd ever seen a cover band before this one. Not even those midgets who play Kiss songs.


They played most of the classics. Except for "Stairway." The highlight was the fifteen-minute "Dazed & Confused."

I really liked the show. It was fun. The singer can only get better with her Plant mannerisms and style. If you want to hear Zeppelin songs live, I'd definitely recommend these ladies over some middle-aged wanker dudes pretending to be Zeppelin because they've got nothing else going for them in their lives, whom I just assume make up all other Zeppelin cover bands.

I read that there's also an AC/D-She. And a Cheap Chick. I don't know if those are all-lesbian groups or just all-female.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, Theo will be signed.