Bissinger On Kerry Wood

H.G. Bissinger, of Friday Night Lights fame, has turned his attention toward the Cubs' hard throwing and hard luck Kerry Wood in the latest issue of the New York Times' fine quarterly sports magazine, Play.

The Sox Continue to Roll

The fraudulent idea of the Curse of the Bambino no longer sells books, and curmudgeonliness does not sell papers among the denizens of Red Sox Nation these days, so Dan Shaughnessy continues to be upbeat about the Olde Towne Team:

Josh Beckett is back, a 4-2 winner over the Tribe last night. The Red Sox have won five in a row, lead the Yankees by 14 1/2 games, and own the best record in baseball. And the reeling Yanks are afraid to pitch Roger Clemens in Fenway Park this weekend.

Could life be any better?

We suddenly have a San Diego weather mass over our region. The tunnels are open again and you can get where you are going in no time. The Patriots have a chance to go 16-0 and it feels like we all might win the lottery. Next thing you know, some dietician will discover that hot fudge sundaes cause you to lose weight. You'll be able to drink water from the Charles, all college tuition will be free, and the Celtics will experience good luck.

These are heady days over on Yawkey Way, and the return of Beckett is just one more brick in the wall of wonder that is the 2007 Red Sox season.

And why not? After last night's win over an Indians squad that will be in the running into September and maybe beyond the Sox are poised for another sweep. Jon Lester is coming back, and as Shaughnessy implies, the guy who was supposed to take the Yankees over the top appears to be ducking us. In case you are curious, the Red Sox' Magic Number is 98.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The Guardian's Sport Blog has an annotated list of England's Six Best Football Performances since they last hoisted the World Cup way back in 1966. In typical self-flegellating England fashion, one of the matches that makes the cut did not even end in an England victory. The comments prove as edifying, contentious, and entertaining as the list that inspired them.

You Don't Say?

I have to admit, I did not even realize that there was any doubt, but some of the victims of the January 1972 "Bloody Sunday" shootings were innocent, according to someone who was at the time a captain with a parachute regiment of the British Army and who was on the scene in Derry that day. The fact that the revelation comes from a General, Sir Mike Jackson, is probably what makes the story important, but it really just gives official imprimatur to what we already know.

Hat Tip to HNN.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

Another week, another successful Red Sox run, another (largely) angst-free week of our regular weekly feature, "Dirty Water," in which the Thunderstick and I discuss the week just passed in Red Sox Nation. I'll let thunderstick go first, as usual:

Thunderstick: Not to go all Sportsguy on you but three weeks ago when I was in Vegas, I sat down at a blackjack table on the first night I was out there with $300, my bankroll for the night. And after kind of grinding for a bit, I caught one of those 20-25 hand runs where you win 18-20 hands including all your double downs and splits. After that run that lasted maybe 30 minutes, I was sitting up about $700. I pulled back my original $300 as well as $200 in winnings and put it in my pocket to fund a chunk of the gambling the next two nights I would be out there. The other $500, I played loose and fast with trying to really win big for the rest of the night knowing that even if I lost it I had had a good night on the tables and could go to bed happy.

Those 20-25 hand runs are the kinds of runs that get people hooked (and in some cases addicted) to gambling. They are the ones where you know you are getting good cards on most of the hands, but even if you don't, you know you are going to pull it out anyway. That's what I feel like watching the Sox right now. I sit down and I just know they are going to win most nights. A lot of those nights, it's like getting a 20 right off the bat and knowing that unless something freaky happens you are going to win that hand. Some of those nights (like the third game against Texas) they fall behind and are a run or two down in the late innings, but they pull it out--like having a 16 against a 10 and you are long odds to win, but you know when you hit you are going to get a 4 or a 5 and you do. And even when you have a setback and lose a couple hands, or you lose 2 of 3 to the Yanks, you know the next set of games or hands will give you that cash back and start winning again--which is what that Texas series for the Sox and the Yanks series against the Angels felt like this weekend. The Sox are in the midst of one of those streaks that just makes the rest of the season fun. They are now like I was when I was up $700. I put my original money away, plus some winnings and had fun knowing the only way I was going to bed upset that night was if I lost the winnings and then went into what I had put away and lost that as well. The Sox have an 11 game lead, 13.5 over NY. As long as something akin to me pulling out the money I put away and losing it doesn't happen (like a rash of injuries to key players or poor management decisions), the rest of this season should be a lot of fun.

It might be boring to a lot of people reading this, but for us Sox fans, there's nothing better than writing this and basically saying "yep, more of the same, not sure what to comment on this week." The Sox are just playing really, really, really well. And to make things even more fun, the Yanks are playing really, really, really bad. Even this week, the Yanks fans can take one last run at glory by basking in the hullaballoo of Clemens coming back and what that might mean. Do I think Clemens will make that big a difference? I think he'll help, but I think the Yanks are too far gone at this point. But if I was a Yankee fan, knowing how bad things have been so far, I'd take this week as an oasis to allow myself to think "maybe Clemens comes back and goes the rest of the season and has a 2.00 ERA and wins 95% of his games and this inspires the team and they step up and play better and make an incredible run to the playoffs". Why not--it's baseball, you have to cling to hope. But while the media is covering that and Yanks fans are thinking about it, we Sox fans see Beckett coming back (one of the leaders for the Cy Young when he got hurt a couple weeks ago) and we can now see Timlin's and Lester's return on the immediate horizon. So while the Yanks get Clemens, we'll get back one of the top 5 pitchers in the AL, a key late-inning reliever and a 5th starter. I'll take the latter group of players over Clemens (Also note that in the 22 days since Clemens said he was coming back to the Yanks not for the money, but because it was the most likely place for him to win another title, the Yanks have gone from 5.5 to 13.5 back. Bravo on the judgment Clemens--maybe you should have waited another couple weeks to decide).

Meanwhile the Sox roll on. Two more with Cleveland after a nice win last night (I really like that Cleveland team--there are tough outs up and down the lineup and the pen looks great--their starter wasn't great last night, but they have other that are). Three with NY with a chance to put the last stake in their hearts. Then 7 out west against Oakland and ‘Zona. Not the easiest schedule, but several more chances to send messages which the Sox have done almost every time out this year when given the opportunity. I'm really feeling like it'll be a fun rest of the season now!

dcat: You know, as much as I try just to enjoy this -- and trust me, I'm enjoying this immensely -- the Brave New World of Sox fandom after 2004 is still unsettling for me. I'll admit it -- in the back of my mind right now is the nightmare that was 1978. I was seven years old, and that season was the crucible in which my Sox experience was forged. We all know the details, so I'll spare a rehashing of them, but it was as a seven-year-old in the throes of first love with the Sox that I grew to realize that no lead is entirely safe.

You are a couple of years younger than I am, and in 1978 I believe you had just moved to New England, so while you inherited 1978 you never lived it, and as we discussed in an email last week, that makes you largely free of that particular anxiety. Nonetheless, it is still unsettling for me to see us with a lead this big that continues to grow and to know that we are not even at full health, that Manny has just now started to mash, and that we have not seen JD Drew even come close to approaching the career means toward which we have to assume he will gravitate. Jonathan Lester would be a potential #3 starter on almost every team in the league. Mike Timlin has been a vital bridge to the closer spot over the last few years. Beckett could still be the pick the start the All Star Game. In sum, this is a team that, frighteningly enough for the rest of the league, could actually improve.

Like you, I really think this is a good Indians team. In fact at the beginning of the season I though two teams were going to break out -- the Indians and the Brewers, and so far that seems to be happening. Last night the Indians started to rally in the 9th off of Pap, and had a great chance to win that ballgame when Sizemore, Blake, and Hafner (had he stayed healthy Hafner would have been my MVP last season) came to the plate with guys on second and third. Papelbon reached back, however, and shut them down. That is a team that has serious postseason aspirations, and at least for one night we held them off. Who knows what the rest of this series holds, of course, but the reality is that we just keep beating good teams. May was supposed to be one of our two toughest months, and we have made mincemeat of it. Even against lesser opponents in the next month or two we may not keep up this pace, but right now it feels good to be a Red Sox fan.

As for the Yankees, well, the Clemens investment does not look like a great one. We almost gave them hope last week by losing that series to them in the Bronx, but we get them again this weekend with what could well be a chance to make the Roger Clemens return the most highly anticipated anti-climax in sports history. As you metioned to me a couple of nights back, how the hell do you bring Clemens in as the savior with that contract and then hold him off until after the Red Sox series? From this vantage point on the horizon, that looks an awful lot like a white flag that I see waving.

San Antonio News

I'm in San Antonio for another weekend. A couple of stories caught my eye in this morning's San Antonio Express-News:

The first involves a federal discrimination suit. While the court did not agree that Richard O. Cook had been fired because he had filed a discrimination suit against the Texas Human Rights Commission. But these details, from Jaime Castillo's column in the Metro section this morning, are alarming and Castillo's conclusions spot-on:

This is no time to question the jurors. They heard all the testimony. They judged the statements and the body language of the accused and the accuser over several days of trial.

But a piece of evidence introduced in the case speaks to how woefully inept we are as a country at having honest discussions about race, ethnicity and discrimination.

During the trial, Cook testified about finding a "Mexican Application for Employment" on his desk shortly after he filed the complaint with the human rights commission.

"It is not nessesary (sic) to attach photo since you all look alike," the application begins.

Under the space reserved for a person's address, it states: "If living in car, give make, model and license #."

The choices under estimated income include, "welfare," "unemployment" and "theft."

Skipping to near the bottom, the application asks: "How many children do you have?"

There are spaces reserved to "1st wife," "2nd wife," "best friend's wife" and "neighbor's daughter."

The capper is the blank left for the applicant to "sign your name as it appears on your tattoo."

Now, there are those who will argue that this is funny between friends. But put yourself in Cook's shoes.

He's a Mexican Iraqi working in a Hill Country sheriff's office where only four out of the agency's 41 employees are Hispanic.

Although he attempts to ignore it, throwing away the application doesn't do any good.

Cook testified that he was given a second copy by a fellow deputy who said he took it off the bulletin board at the Gillespie County law enforcement building, which houses the sheriff's office, the Fredericksburg Police Department, some state troopers and a local game warden.

The response to Cook's allegations, even before a trial could be held, is the way too many so-called "minority" issues are greeted today: with sneering.

To my mind, this case is not about whether or not Cook has a sense of humor. In some contexts some might find it funny. But in the context of a job that sort of behavior is unacceptable. In the workplace people have the right not to share someone else's sens eof humor, especially when the joke is about the ethnicity of the target. Most Mexican Americans i know might be able to laugh at the faux application. Few would find it funny if it were placed on their desk (not once, but twice) when they were applying for a job.

The second story represents an equally problematic decision by Texas authorities. For a decade students from Texas high schools who graduated in the top 10% of their classes have been guaranteed admissions to UT-Austin or Texas A&M at College Station. republican lawmakers are trying to repeal that law and in so doing to restrict access to the best state universities. Who will lose in this scenario? Studnts from poor districts and disproportionately minorities. Who will gain? Students from affluent districts and disproportionately whites:

The House Mexican American Legislative Caucus notes the law has resulted in 170 high schools in 71 counties being able to send students to one of the state's two flagship campuses — UT-Austin and Texas A&M-College Station — for the first time.

But the law created a backlash in wealthier suburban communities with highly competitive schools. Parents say their children instead are attending universities outside Texas.

The policy was put into place in order to get away from a policy of race-based admissions that Republicans, of course, opposed. Now the state GOP shamefully wants to scuttle that compromise. There is no excuse for enacting such a policy that will only serve to restrict access for those who most need it. And we are not talking about opening up the admissions floodgates -- we are talking about kids who have excelled at their own public high schools. The solons in Austin, however, have decided to privilege affluent and overwhelmingly white suburbanites over the rest of the state. So much for fairness and standards.

At the South Africa Blog

Over at the South Africa Blog I have written a long post about South African rugby, which is dealing with a bizarre selection controversy in the run-up to this year's World Cup. I also have posts on Africa and Climate Change, Oil and Governance in West Africa, Jerry Falwell and South Africa, and much more.

Srikeouts For Troops

Loyal reader Greg provides a link we should celebrate: "Soldiers find comfort in Zito's program: Those injured during war benefit from Strikeouts for Troops." It is far too easy to be cynical about something like this. I am going to choose not to be -- cynicism in this case almost always benefits everyone but the soldiers who deserve better than I believe they are receiving. It's not their fault if they happen to root for a team from the northwest. Or at least it is not entirely their fault.

Who says John Edwards doesn't get it?

Me, I guess. Wow. I was shocked when I read this:

Edwards: Move Past 'War on Terror'
"NEW YORK (AP) - Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a "global war on terror," calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.

In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a "bumper sticker" slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

"We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes," Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. "By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam." "

Defending Tim Wakefield

Over at Fire Joe Morgan Ken Tremendous kicks the bejesus out of an inane anti-Tim Wakefield screed from Newsday's Wallace Matthews.

Insert String of Expletives Here

@!$#!$#^%^%#$!!!! Seriously -- (*^^&%*&)((*^*^%$#@!!!

Dear Diary . . .

Over at his Diary Blog Tom has a fantastic post that wades far and wide, with discussion of the nature of American busy-ness both real and contrived, some useful reminders about civil rights and a challenge to some enterprising historian willing to look closely at Cleveland's overlooked contributions to racial equality (as an aside, I'm working on a project that will have chapter in which Lary Doby figures prominently), and an absolute obliteration of yet another sloppy Benjamin Schwarz review in The Atlantic Monthly.

Celtic Pride and the Lottery

Let's just say that most Celtics fans are a little bit anxious about tonight's draft lottery. They have approximately a 39% chance to draw a top 2 slot in the draft, which will garner them either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. Anything else? Not so good. Hopefully the ghost of Red Auerbach (via C's representative and Hall of Famer Tommy Heinsohn) will compensate for these vexing visions of Tim Duncan dancing through my brain.

Dan Shaughnessy: Optimist (?!)

Last night's Sox loss to the Yanks in the Bronx was a desultory affair, but Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe is still uncharacteristically optimistic that the Sox are going to run away with the AL East. Too many years of being forged in the crucible of being a Sox fan prevents me from such blithe positivity, and if the Yanks pull another one out tonight the old panic may start to flutter, but the Curly Headed Boyfriend has a point -- historically this sort of lead holds up, and the parallels with 1978 simply are not applicable. Still, I hope the Sox can jump out to an early lead for Tavarez tonight. No sense worrying us needlessly, after all.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

I'm back from San Antonio and am watching the Sox-Yanks game. In that spirit, here is this week's edition of Dirty Water, a conversation with Friend of dcat, The Thunderstick:

Thunderstick: Well we stand on yet another Monday morning after a great week of baseball for the Sox, taking 3 of 4 from Detroit, one of the top AL contenders, and then winning 2 of 3 from Atlanta despite starting two minor league call ups and having to face Smoltz and Glavine. The lead has been extended to 10.5 games and with the exception of Beckett's finger, all seems to be well in the Nation.

Two points this week that I think speak to why this team is in the position they are in. First, the bench and role players have just been huge. Getting contributions from Manny, Ortiz, Pap and Schill was a given to have this team be good. But to be a great team, you need guys like Lugo, Cora, Coco, Okajima, Wily Mo, Hinske and the rest of those guys to come up big when they need it. Even in a blowout loss the other night, we at least saw some of the bottom of the bullpen guys take it for the team, get through the game and not force us to use up the more important relievers. Special teams always get contributions from these kind of guys at crucial points and we're getting them.

Second, we always talk about how imporant it is to win series during the year. Well at this point, the Sox have played 15 series on the year and they've won 12, tied one and lost two. That's just remarkable. This team has really taken the one game at a time approach to heart and you haven't seen a lot of those letdown games that you get after big wins or big series. I think that's why we are winning almost every series we play.

So the question remains as to how this fast start plays out. Is it like 1995 where this team is off to the races now and will never really be threatened all year? Or is it like 2001 or 2002 (I can't remember which) when they started out like 40-17 and then played .500 ball the rest of the way and missed the playoffs? I tend to think it's the former. With the pitching on this team, I just can't see many long stretches of merely .500 ball being played by this team. Additionally, it doesn't look like we've got a powerful Yanks team to contend with. But if the Yanks are going to make a move, you gotta figure it needs to happen in these next three weeks. This series, they get their top 3--Mussina, Pettite and Wang against the Sox 1 or 2 (depending on how you look at it--I think Beckett is the 1), in Schilling and the 4 and 5 in Tavarez and Waker. If you are the Yanks, you really don't get it set up much better than that and you get it in the toilet bowl that is Yankee Stadium. In a couple weeks in Boston, they'll likely have Clemens for the game. If you are the Yanks (and thank god you are not), you have to take 4 of these 6 games. 3-3 means you are still 10.5 games back and losing 4 of 6 might signal the end of at least any hopes of the AL East. This is going to be a tough Sox team to make up 10.5 games on, much less 12.5. So here's hoping Waker gets things rolling tonight and we can start putting the final nail in the Yanks coffin in the next three days.

dcat: It does not matter what the standings say, what the records are, what day of the week it is, or what time of the year -- Sox-Yanks is always huge. I know in our solipsism we tend to annoy the rest of the world with this rivalry, and there are other great rivalries in the sport. At the same time, though, none of those rivalries has had both participants be so good for so long with each game thus meaning so much as these two teams. Here we are in mid-May, and as you say, the Yanks pretty much need to be in, if not desperation mode, at least in a late-season mindset. If they do not improve what they have right now, Clemens simply will not make that much of a difference -- something we have asserted might be the case anyway.

Despite our lead, despite the early-season mismatch in the rivalry, I find myself hating giving up that bomb to A-Rod and at the same time falling behind early. I hate missing opportunities to score because as much as we seem to have put these guys in the rearview mirror, we both know that this Yankees team has had the lead against us in almost every game. At the same time, all the pressure is on them. The Yanks have, as you say, just about the best pitching combination they could possibly hope for in the next three games. It may not be enough. Jeter just committed an error and the Sox have loaded the bases. Have I said how much I love this rivalry? (Youks strikes out, with a little help from an ump's generous call on strike two. Have I said how much I hate the Yankees?)

San Antonio Bound

I am off to San Antonio for the weekend. I will write if possible, but do not be surprised if posting is light.

Weighing the Candidates

Over at McSweeney's John Moe entertains with "Pros And Cons Of The Top 20 Republican Presidential Candidates" and "Pros and Cons of the Top 20 Democratic Candidates."

In The Changer: C Notes

It's been a while since I've written my semi-regular feature, "In the Changer," in which I assess cd's that have been in heavy rotation. At some point, once I have finished downloading all of my cd's I may forego the seeming anachronism of reviewing whole albums. But for now, I'll proudly remain something of a dinosaur. This edition is brought to you by the letter "C."

Cat Power: The Greatest: Do you remember Mazzy Star? They were a 90s band that relied on slow, lush sonics and a lugubrious lead singer. To most minds, Hope Sandoval was Mazzy Star. Well, my ears tell me that Cat Power is to Mazzy Star as Chan Marshall is to Hope Sandoval. But better. The momentum comes less from what qualifies as uptempo than from the internal impetus that derives from the lead singer. This is mood music for the moody. B+

Ray Charles: The Best of Ray Charles - The Atlantic Years: We all know from the Jamie Fox biopic that Ray Charles was bad motherfucker. Listening to these recordings reminds me of the fluidity of music at a certain point in the last century in which what emerged was not quite rock, though it rocked; not quite blues, but definitely bluesy; not quite soul, though damn, it was soulful; and not really jazz, although without jazz it would not exist. Charles' music represents both an intersection of and in some ways a rejection of the pigionholes of genre. His piano riffs and his voice pour out effortlessly and his lyrics represent a constant come on. Jamie Fox's mimicry, however brilliant, could not quite capture Ray Charles in all of his complexity because Ray Charles was sui generis, and thus fundamentally uncapturable. A-

Coldplay: X&Y: Gather a bunch of rock snobs together and mention Coldplay. Nothing will divide the room more quickly. The hipper the snob the more disdainful they will be about Chris Martin's band. The disdain is more the stuff of reaction than substance, a sort of tautological mishmash that ends up amounting to the fact that they hate Coldplay because they hate Coldplay. Me? I love Coldplay. Not top-five band of all time type-love, but love nonetheless. Maybe it's my sympathy toward Britpop. Maybe it is the fact that I am a sucker for a gripping melody in the midst of rock's sturm and drang. Maybe it's their ability to mix the plaintive with the propulsive. Or maybe I'm just not that hip. (Though I think I'm still sort of cool. Is that a distinction without a difference?) X&Y does not quite hit the highs of its predecessors, which is no insult in light of the transcendant heights those albums attained. I loved 2000's Parachute from the outset, but its place in my musical biography was assured on a long drive from Washington, DC to the Deep South for a research trip during January 2001. The old beater that I rented had only a cassette player, and I copied my cd of Parachutes to go along with a shoebox of tapes. I was in the midst of what would prove to be a tangled break-up with my live-in girlfriend and that tape pretty much carried me to the grimly sublime melancholy state that we all enter when a breakup is pending. 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head lacks the autobiographical element and had to rely merely on being a nearly perfect pop rock album. X&Y (I'm leaving out a discussion of their 2003 live album) is in its way less showy, quieter, takes longer to absorb. Martin's obscurantist lyrics are front and center with his piano just behind, but as always the guitars cascade and soar and crash, the melodies collide with the bass and drums, and for an hour or so I can forget that CMart and Gwyneth named their kid "Apple." I'm not hip, I guess, but I also do not buy the Coldplay backlash. A-

Jim Croce: Classic Hits: Jim Croce wrote two types of songs. He wrote catchy, white-boy blues numbers redolent of rockabilly about roller derby queens and bad men, the baddest man in the whole damned town-type bad, don't pull on Superman's Cape, don't piss in the wind bad, except they are not that bad once you peel away the layers (or once they hustle people strange to them or mess with the wife of a jealous man). His is a world of lowlifes and hustlers and working class heroes who toil in car washes and race stock cars and shoot pool. Jim Croce also wrote ballads. The sorts of ballads that would make a man like Bad (Bad) Leroy Brown or Jim (with whom you don't mess around) regret their missteps and their lost loves. Some of these ballads are very good -- "Operator (That's Not the Way it Feels)" and "Time in a Bottle" probably have worn the treacle best over time -- and some of them are not so enduring. Realistically, Jim Croce, who died too young in a plane crash, probably did not write twenty great songs, but a man who can teach life lessons this good, and so many of 'em such catchy, entertaining sumbitches, well, I'll cut him some slack. B+

Crooked Fingers: Dignity and Shame: Eric Bachmann is nearly a decade into his career with Crooked Fingers, which is, for all intents and purposes, his solo project with side players. The former frontman for the late, great Archers of Loaf has parlayed his raspy voice and jangly guitar into quite a second act, F. Scott Fitzgerald notwithstanding. He has a capacious gift for melody, and as close readers have probably gleaned, I am a sucker for melody amidst the maelstrom, but maelstrom there must be. This might be the most complete Crooked Fingers album, which is more of a compliment than it probably seems, possibly because Bachmann gives himself over to his collaborators more than ever before and he embraces an abundance of styles that might seem dilettantish in less capable hands, but that instead show an artist increasingly comfortable in his skin. A beautiful indie-pop duet with Lara Meyerratken on "Call to Love" is one of many highlights on the album that shows a wizened indie-rock veteran spreading his wings. A-

The Cure: Acoustic Hits: OK. I'll admit it -- when it comes to the Cure I am one of those guys who draws the line in the sand and says that they were better back when. I'd say that you can use Disintegration as a pretty good demarcation point. After that I'm not sure if I think Robert Smith and company lost it a bit or I simply stopped paying attention or perhaps those two concepts are inextricably bound to one another. Whatever it is, the 80s were the Cure's golden era, and this remarkably lively acoustic overview (At the risk of record company wrath, a friend of dcat made this for me, and I believe it is one disc of two, with the other disc being the regular versions of these songs, so don't go to Amazon and try to find an album by this title) of their career shows why their old stuff is so remarkably good, and why Smith's angstful lyrics cauterized a generation of wounded proto-goths who probably got lots of wholly unironic nookie listening to "Let's Go to Bed." But the acoustic treatment also shows that maybe there is more to the new stuff than I thought. Nah. On second thought, go get their back catalogue, and feel free to stop with Disintegration. B+

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

Thunderstick: Another good week in Red Sox Nation topped off with a thrilling, unexpected comeback, although we see what might be the first problematic injury of the season with Beckett. While a cut finger isn't something to really fret about long term (surely I'd be much more concerned if he had shoulder stiffness) it might cause him to miss a start and given how he's been pitching, we don't like to see that.

Two topics of interest today for you dcat--first, yesterday's comeback. Sure it was against an O's team that just isn't that good and it was helped by two O's miscues, but anytime you come back from 5-0 down in the 9th to win, it's usually an indication of a special team. Not necessarily a great team, but one that has that "never-say-die" mentality that is needed to win a championship. I don't have any statistical evidence to back this up, but it seems like the teams that make that run deep into the playoffs are those that win games decided by 1-2 runs and teams that have some large number of comeback wins. Certainly the second of these can be applied to the Sox as they've come back many times this year to win games. Sunday was just the most extreme example, but it's something we'd already learned from this team and something we hope will continue all year.

Second, the next 10 days and the remainder of the month could be an important checkmark in the season. We noted a couple weeks ago that other than August, May looks like the toughest month on the Sox schedule. We are in the midst of 16 straight days without a day off and while we as fans love when the team plays every day, we also know the value that the players place on the offdays. So far, the Sox are 5-1 in this 16-game stretch, but those wins came against a Toronto team that has been ravaged by injuries and a Baltimore team that just isn't good. Tonight starts up 10 straight against Detroit, Atlanta and the Yanks again. We sent a message to Minny a couple weeks ago taking 2 of 3 and only losing a game 2-1 in which the Sox started Tavarez and the Twins started Santana. So I'd love to send a message to Detroit (and Cleveland who we see shortly after this 16 game stretch) by going 3-1 against them to tell them that while the AL Central may be a lot deeper than the AL East, the best team doesn't reside there. Similarly I'd like to send the same message to Atlanta in case we see them come October.

Finally, we get the Yanks again. Now one might argue that with the Yanks being 8 games out and tied with Baltimore it should mean that if I'm not going to call the O's series a big series, I shouldn't call the Yanks series one since the teams are about equal. But we all know what maintaining an 8 game lead and then going 2-1 against NY would mean. It's been a while for Yanks fans since they've been in this boat, but as a Sox fan who has watched Boston chase NY for the last 10 years during the regular season, I can assure you that there is that time during the season when you just realize that you aren't going to win the AL East. It may only be halfway through the season when there are still a lot of games left, but you know it when it comes. I've seen it many times the past 10 years. Doesn't change the fact that as a fan you think to yourself "that's OK, we can still get the wild card and in a seven game series in the playoffs, the regular season is meaningless" and all that is true, but it's just not the same. I don't think holding on to an 8 game lead until that series and then going 2-1 puts Yanks fans in that mood quite yet, but it gets them one step closer to experiencing it, so it's a big series because every step the Sox can take to that point is big and every step the Yanks take back to make it look like it'll be a dogfight all summer is big.

dcat: I'll be honest with you -- I am having a hard time maintaining my perspective right now. Every sign points to this being not just a good or even very good Red Sox team. The pitching, the lucky breaks, the opportunistic hitting, the production from almost every guy on the roster, and don't forget the pitching: All point to what could be a historically good season.

I'm listening to the Sox-Detroit game that was close for a while but that has turned into a laugher. Dice-K is out to try to polish off a complete game (take that, Jim Leyland, you cantankerous Old School ass) and to give us a great win to start off a four-game series that should be a true test. May was supposed to be our rockiest month, and yet we have done nothing but improve and stretch out the lead so far. Our starting staff has done so much to save the bullpen that we oftentimes have to go out of the way to find ways to get innings to Paps. (The Sox just won with Dice-K tossing the first complete game of the year for the Sox -- he did not walk anybody.

I especially agree with you on the Yankees. Let me try to explain my views by way of a cultish pop culture analogy. For whatever reason, Zombie movies have been a popular theme at Hacienda Dcat (Perhaps because Friend of Dcat Jaime is living with us for the summer before he moves to Arizona, and he and Ana are huge fans of those types of movies). If Zombie movies have taught us anything (and they have) it is that the seemingly undead are resilient. They do not die easily and just when you think you are safe, another stiff-legged, moaning, vacant, living dead comes to try to chomp on your throat. Suffice it to say that the Yankees are just that sort of evil, hard-to-kill entity. That gutteral, barely animated presence we will continue to feel will be Joe Torre and his army of ghoulish, foul-smelling killing machines. The only solution is to keep blasting away.

[For whetever reason, I feel the need to pause right now to plug "Shaun of the Dead," which I am ashamed to say that I had not seen until this past weekend. Funny, violent, ironic -- definitely check it out. Furthermore, Jaime is out of town, but we have just received 28 Days Later from Netflix on his request so that we can watch it (or he and Ana can see it again) before we go to see 28 Weeks Later as soon as possible.]

If I know the Red Sox, they will hit us in a the stomach at some point -- it is hard to imagine any team sustaining this level of excellence for the duration. They are playing so well right now that losses seem like aberrations. Perhaps this Beckett avulsion will fester into one of his full-fledged blister situations and will put him on the DL. Maybe a few of the bottom-of-the-order guys will come back down to earth. Maybe the next part of the schedule will prove to bring us back into line with our Pythagorean projection [it's a Sabrmetric thing -- it involves a formula of runs scored and runs allowed that proves to be a fairly reliable predictor of wins -- it looks something like this: {Projected Wins = (r ^ 1.83) / ( (r ^ 1.83) + (ra ^ 1.83)) x 162} Just trust me on this.] Or maybe, just maybe, we really are in the midst of a special season. As we always seem to say, the next week should be telling.

Aussies Lead the Way

Over at the FPA's South Africa Blog I have some commentary on Australia taking the lead in pushing for change in Zimbabwe. Let's hope that other countries, including the United States, follow suit.