Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

Kick ass, you guys

Special bonus section: this weekend in hateration.

So of course the one Sunday this season that I'm front and center in the living room, ready to watch every minute of Patriots football action, I remember that they're actually playing Monday night—and realize that because I have to get up at the crusty ass-crack of dawn Tuesday to go on yet another business trip, I won't be able to watch most of the game after all.

I did watch four other games on Sunday—more on that in a minute.

As Murphy's law would have it, I then proceeded to miss the best Patriots game of the season. The headlines I saw while sitting at my gate at Logan this morning were bursting with superlatives about the Patriots and in particular about Tommy, who threw for 372 beautiful yards and four fantastic touchdowns.

He was intercepted once, according to the highlights I saw (God bless JetBlue), but the Pats defense turned that turnover back around thanks to a goal-line interception by Rodney Harrison.

Meanwhile, Vikes QB Brad Johnson was sacked, hurried, harried, mashed, fried and fricasseed, and called it afterwards the most embarrassing game he's ever been a part of. A Minnesota crowd that was whipped into a highly un-Lutheran frenzy at kickoff was drifting for the exits in the fourth quarter as the Pats took the 31-7 lead.

Today Sportscenter is showing a veritable Bradyfest, including highlights of all his wins (ten of them, with no losses) in domes, including Super Bowl XXXVI, and the announcers are slavering over his "virtuoso performance." This is as it should be, dammit. Formal acknowledgement of Brady's utter superiority is always welcome in my world—and the more I see No 12 on the screen instead of No 18 or No. 7, the better. Let's hope this continues.

But I still missed the stupid game. Lovely. Of course, I am also taking a perverse kind of superstitious credit for the dominance—maybe I should miss more games if that's how they play when I do.

Then again, if my fiancée had to physically tear me away from the TV and push me into bed last night at 9 pm (an hour after I really should have been in bed), he'd probably need a cattle prod, a whip, a chair and a hot poker to keep me away from the Colts game next weekend. No chance of me missing that. None. I am also hoping the weather is crappy, so our ticket connection wants to give up his seats. But that's getting ahead of myself.

Sunday, I kicked off an afternoon and evening of solid football with the Eagles-Jacksonville game. Now, I know that Jacksonville is much improved, and the Eagles did lose to the Saints recently (who are also much improved), and I like the Eagles generally, but damn. It wasn't that big a point spread in the end, but if you watched the game, it was clear they got their asses handed to them. It was a stinker.

After that, it was time for the main event for the Sunday schedule—Indianapolis at Denver. My dad had taken Denver and the points in his football pool, which told me with virtual certainty it would be a close game and Indianapolis would win. Nonetheless, I was queasily rooting for Denver, though they have historically owned the Patriots, because I cannot let go of my completely irrational, yet fiery, hatred for all things Indianapolis and Manning.

Sadly, my dad's gambling jinx came through again, and in the worst way—Denver kept me hoping right until the end, after Mike Bell sliced and diced the Colts defense, finally scoring standing up to go ahead 28-23. A truly glorious instance of the Peyton Manning Face was shown on the sideline—he looked just like an oversized Calvin, tossing a football around and scowling in a blue and white baseball cap:

The fact that his face wasn't obscured by a helmet just made it all the more enjoyable.

But then, before he'd even trotted back out on the field to commence more infinite audibles, the predictable ball-washing started: there's still a lot of football left to play. You can't give Peyton Manning this much time. Peyton Manning is the best thing since sliced bread. Peyton Manning still makes the best cappuccino I've ever tasted. Et cetera. I will never understand the fascination.

But then, those assholes on the Denver defense couldn't deal with the Colts offense any better than the Colts d-line had dealt with Bell. There was just no defense in this game on either side. Back and forth, up and down the field they went. The Colts scored again. They traded field goals. Manning ended up with the ball with a minute and change to go, and Adam Vinatieri was warming up on the sidelines.

I cringed, anticipating the inevitable comparisons, and naturally, they followed. Peyton was driving down the field to set up for Vinatieri, and the announcers were wetting themselves with triumphant comparisons to Brady at the end of the Super Bowl(s) and Adam Vinatieri's clutch kicks with the Patriots and then I ripped out my own eyeballs and threw them at the screen.

Okay, I actually gave the screen the double middle finger as Adam's kick sailed through the goalposts and told the smirking Peyton Manning on the sideline to "Kiss my ass," but eh, close enough.

I cannot wait for that game next week. I hope it snows. I hope it's 40 below zero. I hope Peyton Manning gets sacked 12 times and intercepted all the times he's not eating turf. I hope the Colts have to play the rest of their season with at least one in the loss column, and I hope every time they look at that record they have to remember a wet, cold, windy humiliation (again) at the hands of the Patriots.

Anyway, after that, FOX showed the end of the Raiders-Steelers game. No sooner had they switched over than Ben Roethlisberger, with a clear lane to run in for a touchdown, instead through a terrible incompletion and the Steelers turned the ball over on downs to end the ballgame with a devastating loss to one of the worst teams in the league.

So that helped.

Finally, there was the Dallas-Carolina game, which I didn't see the end of, but I did see Drew Bledsoe on the sideline in a stadium jacket and a visor, applauding for his backup, who has now taken over his job. That's twice, now, at least, that he's found himself in that position, twice when he's had the opportunity to make everyone in his organization totally miserable, and twice when he's swallowed his pride, picked up a clipboard, and applauded on the sideline for his usurper. I may be glad he's not our QB anymore, but he will always have my respect and admiration for that.

Moment of Silence

I still have a voicemail saved in my phone of my father calling up during a Patriots' blowout several years ago, and the first thing he says is, "This is like Red Auerbach, lighting up his victory cigar."

Even if you aren't a Celtics fan, you know Red Auerbach. You know about his victory cigar.

Today, the man who architected Boston's greatest sports dynasty and the NBA's all-time winningest franchise passed away from a heart attack at the age of 89.

Cardinal Anticlimax

When the Red Sox won two years ago, I think most of the people in the country were genuinely happy for them. I think most of the people in the country were at least happy not to hear about the Curse and Red Sox suffering anymore, anyway.

When the Chicago White Sox won last year, I think again most people in the country were happy for them--it had been even longer since they won the World Series than the Red Sox, and not many people knew it before that postseason. They were a Cinderella team, rising out of the mire of losing seasons, from the outhouse to the penthouse in one whirlwind ride.

That's who the Detroit Tigers were this year. After finishing in last place just the year before, they got a wizened, chain-smoking, old-school inspiration of a manager in Jim Leyland, a flock of fireballing young studs on the pitching staff, and set about energizing a city otherwise being devastated by yet another wave of the job losses and corporate bankruptcies that has gutted it bit by bit, year after year, since its postwar heyday.

The AL Central, for that matter, was the miracle division this year, between the Twins, the still-competitive White Sox and the out-of-nowhere Tigers. The real baseball magic this season was the AL Central.

The St. Louis Cardinals are--statistically speaking, now, not just subjectively--one of the worst teams ever to win the World Series, in terms of their regular season wins (83). The Cardinals had a shot in 2004 and blew it. A shot in last year's playoffs and blew it. This was the charmed third time, but far from the fairy-tale narrative many of us find so addictive about watching baseball.

According to my own interior barometer, the Tigers were it this year--from the very beginning they were the ones who captured my imagination. They were the ones with the compelling story. For the Cardinals--a bland team, there's just no getting around that--to win it all is a total anticlimax, from where I sit. And to win it 4-1 over that scrappy Tigers team...meh.

There wasn't even one particular heartbreak a la Bill Buckner that can now be mythologized and passed down through the ages--the Tigers booted the ball around, pitched like crap, were suspected of cheating, and in most ways failed to even show up.

I know Cardinals fans are ecstatic--there must have been some serious frustration in getting so close to the Promised Land so many times in a row and losing every time, and I can at least understand that feeling of catharsis--but as for the rest of us out here looking for a classic story, classic characters to go along with the Fall Classic, this Series has let us down.

Part VIII

In honor of today's anniversary, I'm reposting my "Pretty Good Year" essay in its entirety here. Go here to start from the beginning.

Epilogue: What now?

Tears on the sleeve of a man
Don't wanna be a boy today
Heard the eternal footman
Bought himself a bike to race
And Greg he writes letters
And burns his CDs
They say you were something in those formative years
Hold onto nothing
As fast as you can
Well still pretty good year...

Part VII

The World Series

And when the band you're in starts playin' diff'rent tunes I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon... --Pink Floyd

Part VI

ALCS, Game 6
ALCS, Game 7

And yet dissect this further--probe down through the tissues of happenstance and mystery, and it only gets stranger...

Part V

ALCS Game 4, Inning 9+
ALCS Game 5

"There's no such thing as the perfect ballplayer, but there is such a thing as the perfect fit." --Theo

So what was it?...

Part IV

ALCS: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3, and the first 8+ innings of Game 4

after all the jacks are in their boxes and the clowns have all gone to bed you can hear happiness staggering on down the street footprints dressed in red and the wind whispers mary

A brilliant history teacher of mine in high school used to say, "The past is a different country."

Come with me, then, to the exotic locales of October 12, 13, and 16, 2004...

A brilliant history teacher of mine in high school used to say, "The past is a different country."

Come with me, then, to the exotic locales of October 12, 13, and 16, 2004...

Part III

The Regular Season, cont'd:

The Brawl Game; The Streak; Division Dreams; Wild Card;

Postseason Prologue:

The Division Series against Anaheim.

Was it the smirk? ...

Part II

The Regular Season, cont'd

The rebirth of Manny Ramirez; The specter of Game 7; .500 ball; The Nomar Trade

I can't find the article, but I remember it mentioned they were eating chicken and pasta...