Tossing Batting practice while wondering what inning those “who’s your daddy” chants will officially become tiresome in the World Series…

Welcome back basketball, I missed you. Normally basketball is a sign of cold weather looming, but not anymore, now that I live in the South. (I could also get used to watching the World Series at an outdoor patio at night in late October)

I am excited for the Celtics being the biggest a-holes in the league, that should be entertaining. I’ve convinced myself that Rasheed Wallace is just misunderstood.

I’m also setting the over/under on technicals for the season on the C’s at 161. I will take the over.

I’d also make the prediction that the Celtics are whistled for more technical fouls as a team than Lebron James is whistled for personal fouls. James was among the least whistled player a year ago which I think should preclude you for being on the all-defensive team.

Anderson Varajao is what Bill Laimbeer would look like with tattoos and long hair.

The last two weeks for the Patriots is kinda like when Alabama plays Chattanooga in the middle of the SEC schedule just for a break. You can only play who’s on the schedule in the NFL but the fact the Pats went almost six quarters without allowing a point, while scoring 80 unanswered was hilarious.

I’m real glad there were no roughing the passer flags thrown against the Bucs, this way here we Pats fans were spared the obvious “God Save the Queen” jokes.

Mark McGwire, is going to be the Cardinals new hitting coach, I guess the Cardinals are going to forgo playing a National League schedule next year and go play that slow pitch softball home run tour of MLB ballparks.
I don’t get this one, I just don’t think of great hitter when I think of McGwire, I mean steroid jokes aside he hit .300 once, and averaged close to a strikeout per game for his career.

Chone Figgins, is quite possibly the worst postseason hitter ever. Every single year the Angles are in the playoffs, and every year he’s listed as being the difference maker, well this October he was a robust 3-35.
Speaking of overrated, at least if I have to suffer through the Yanks winning I hope the myth that Mike Socisia is the best manager in baseball can finally be dispelled. He managed that series like he still suffered the lingering effects of acute radiation poisoning from the Springfield nuclear power plant.
He manages aggressively, and I have no problem with that, but the media treats him like he’s reinventing the sport by bunting, and using the hit and run, when in reality his teams run into outs, have no patience at the plate, and fold in big moments.

Welcome back shitty Brett Favre, and just a shade early this season, last year he waited til Thanksgiving to suck, but with him coming out and seeing his shadow at Heinz field does that mean we only have six more weeks of Vikings playoff talk?

Hey Mangini, are you sure you don’t want to take some toxic waste off the hands of the good folks from the state of New Jersey? The Braylon Edwards deal was a sham even Al Davis cringed at.
The NY Metro area hasn’t seen such a one sided deal go in their favor since the Dutch bought Manhattan for $25 worth of beads. Hats off to the Jets though, they played Mangenius like an unwitting Indian chief being extolled the virtues of Oklahoma as its new luxurious home.

Oh, I get it a 35 year old shortstop coming off a couple injury plagued sub-par seasons rededicates himself in the offseason and has a career year, and it was just the new trainer and workout regiment huh?

I remember when I saw that article the first time, in 2001 and it marveled at how hard Victor Conte had trained Barry Bonds for the rigors of a 162 game season.

Congratulations to Scott Kazmir for winning the Joe Nathan award given to the pitcher who looks so bad on the brightest stage against the Yankees that the only logical explanation is a boat load of gambling debts to some guy named Vinnie “The ambiguous body part” from Brooklyn.

Someday someone somewhere will explain to me how Andy Pettite is good. He throws one pitch a cutter, that couldn’t break a pane of glass, and a curveball in the dirt, yet every postseason he looks like the reincarnation of Warren Spahn.
I guess the newest “shipment” comes in around late September for him every year.

Lastly, a happy anniversary to all the Sox fans reading this. Five years ago tonight our lives changed profoundly for the better. Everyone from Mark Bellhorn, to Keith Foulke deserves our undying gratitude for lifting a weight off the shoulders of all of us.
October 27th, 2004 will always live among the happiest moments of my life.

One thing I will never forget is working the day shift at the Globe the next day. Now usually an afternoon shift allowed me to do some homework, shoot the breeze with people, show up late and leave early. But on this day the phone rang off the hook all day long like it was Friday night during high school football season. Calls came in from around the country, almost none of whome were redsox fans before last week, congratulating me on "my historic win" and telling me how hard they rooted for us, and seeing us win made them so happy. At first I tried to explain, how I all I did was crack open a bottle of champagne after the game nearly dousing a Boston cop before intelligence prevailed, but it was too much so I just let the accolades and congraulations pour in. It was truly amazing, even more so now that the rest of America hates us.