After watching game 6 last year, I am doubtful.

I hope they do, but it's the Red Sox.

SSSSHHHHH!

Yes, I know it's 8-1, top of the 4th, with one on and no outs. I don't CARE. I won't believe it until the last out in the 9th.

It's the Red Sox. Of _course_ they can manage to find a way!

They don't always blow the league championship - sometimes they wait and blow it in the Series, instead. And they must blow it eventually. Far too much of the Boston psyche is based on the Red Sox not winning the Series; I hate to contemplate the magnitude of the paradigm shift that would have to follow. As a Boston-area resident, I don't care to see it.

Fortunately, there's nothing to worry about. The Sox are nothing if not reliable.

The Yankees have not come back from this far behind in ANY postseason game. Never mind that they came from behind in the regular season more thyan anyone else (Dodgers were 2nd). This is a game 7; the paradigm has shifted. I say the Sox go to the World Series, after this most amazing comeback in postseason history. And THEN, the world must end. Or something. Depends whether or not Stephen King is writing the script. Something with the Old Ones and an undead Babe...

StopstopstopstopSTOP!!!!

I'm holding my breath here.

As-you-know-Bob, Stephen King _is_ writing a book with Stewart O'Nan, about the Red Sox's season from a fan's perspective.

But you know, I think the levels of unreality in this series are high enough already, not matter what happens. The undead would be superfluous.

(Cardinals-Astros going to 7 as well, Clemens will start tomorrow night.)

Kate - hold my hand, please - I'm SCARED!

There, there. There, there.

Just think, Derek Lowe looks rather like Owen Wilson, and nothing really bad happens in an Owen Wilson movie, right?

(Wait, is that tempting the Woof Gods? Never mind. And Wilson has been in some really sucky movies.)

The current Yankees pitcher perpetually looks like he's going to cry, does that help?

You must not be a Bulls fan. Not that I'd blame you, these days.

A really determined sports team can blow _anything._

Owen Wilson --- choke.

But Johnny Damon's hair? Too soon to tell.

As a lapsed Cubs fan, I'm not sure what to make of these playoffs....

Seventh-inning stretch, 8-1 Boston.

This is not what I call reliable.

What is this "reliable" you speak of?

Well, they just put Martinez in to pitch, for _no_ apparent reason, and Matsui led off with a double.

This is not good.

Well, they just put Martinez in to pitch, for _no_ apparent reason, and back to back doubles with a run scored.

This is not good.

(Sorry, I thought I'd caught that first comment--even refreshed the page & it wasn't there.)

(Waaah.)

After game 4, I posted something about how strange I found it that the Boston fans and players were wildly celebrating their extra-innings win as if they'd just won the World Series, even though they were just prolonging the inevitable. Then of course, they won an unprecedented two more.

OTOH, they might have just found the way to lose: Pedro Martinez, he of the total collapse from Boston's last appearance in the ALCS, has just come in and given up back-to-back doubles and a run.

After game 4, I posted something about how strange I found it that the Boston fans and players were wildly celebrating their extra-innings win as if they'd just won the World Series, even though they were just prolonging the inevitable. Then of course, they won an unprecedented two more.

OTOH, they might have just found the way to lose: Pedro Martinez, he of the total collapse from Boston's last appearance in the ALCS, has just come in and given up back-to-back doubles, a base hit up the middle, and two runs.

stop. Stop. I tell you STOP.

The key to being a Sox fan: zen.

Suspend judgment, suspend anticipation. Just be.

SHUT UP! I said, just BE!

Janice and I are showing, via our comments, just how quickly it's happening!

OTOH, Martinez just got the second out on a strike.

A Bostonian perspective: reliability isn't really what Red Sox fans have come to expect. The glory of the team is that they find new and different ways to lose. And even if they get out of this one, they still have another series to do it in...

The key to being a Sox fan is loving the ride. And this is quite a ride.

You wrote too soon. They let Pedro pitch.

Yes. Bellhorn. Yes.

Oh, must wake up my husband....

I'd call that reliable, Charles. The Sox can be absolutely guaranteed to not win the World Series. It's a lot like the more predictable examples of genre fiction - the beautiful heroine always finds the murderer and the detective always marries well (or something like that), so there's no suspense there, but the narrative details of how they do it hold the interest. (Of some people, anyway - I have only an academic interest.)

You wrote too soon. They let Pedro pitch.

All I can say is, the Astros must not win tomorrow night. A Texas-Massachusetts World Series would be just too hack-screenwriter an outcome.

It's just that our hostess seemed so certain that they were to be reliably expected to lose this game... completely closing off the possibility of greater disappointment down the line...

Chris Q: Worse than last year's dream outcome?

Cubs-Sox?

Please.

... or should I say, "better than last year..."

I acknowledge the possibility of victory. It could happen.

aiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!

Nyarlathotep....

aiiii....

Don't muck with the old ones.

Jill: may I recommend that you take slow, deep breaths? Possibly put your head between your knees? Talk a brief walk around the house? It's a commercial break going into bottom of the 9th, now would be a perfect time to collect yourself.

Really. If you have a full-on nervous breakdown in comments, Making Light will never be the same . . .

(And I _agree_ with you, generally, Woof Gods and all.)

Oh, fudge; the announcers are starting to take it for granted.

I, like Teresa, acknowledge the possiblity of Red Sox defeat. I would like this noted by whatever dieties are relevant.

Oh, fudge; the announcers are starting to take it for granted.

I, like Teresa, acknowledge the possiblity of Red Sox defeat. I would like this noted by whatever deities are relevant.

Kate - you are a fountain of wisdom and serene peace.

And I, a budding Yoga teacher. So far from serenity and peace.

Yet... can a New Englander possibly not have an aneurism with a 10-3, bottom of the 9th, Pennant situation vs. The Yankees?

I ask you.

Argh. Sorry. I didn't realize that had double-posted.

I shall now, however, stop acknowledging the possiblity of defeat.

All right!

So... what will be the most painful Series loss possible?

Holy shit.

Ho-lee karp.

Kate - I'm going to bed now. Thank you, enabler you. In cyberspace, if you're allowing, I'm hugging you.

Now, sleep.

Eeeeeeee!

*hugs* back to Jill. Get some sleep--you'll need it for Saturday . . .

*chokes*

They...

But...

Dear Lord.

Quite the series. The Red Sox definitely deserved this pennant.

FWIW, I watched the last hour of the game with the sound off (God Bless America made me switch the soundtrack to the radio) so I watched the game while listening to Madeline Albright at the City Club on NPR. And I still managed to yell at the TV at the appropriate moments.

As far as the World Series goes, I refrain from mentioning the name B*** B******.

Grr.

When are you people going to wake up and realise that cricket is where it's at...?!?!?

I've been living in the US for three years now, and I still don't understand a word of this thread...

The last time the Red Sox made it this far, I had just moved to Boston.

That was 1986.

I never have the TV sound turned on for Fox telecasts if I can help it -- the Sox radio guys generally do a much better job. (Fox almost never shows you or tells you how the fielders are positioned; what's up with that?)

BTW, while the Sox weren't really out of character here (they're known for inspirational victories laying the ground for vaster and more crushing defeats), perhaps the other team was...

Re a Texas-Massachusetts Series, and hack writing: Hey, the Old Guy always uses hack writing. Have looked over this Bible thing?

But after the Sox --and Kerry -- win, I won't care much.

Re the overall situation: Folks, you don't understand. This is the 21st Century. The Yankees have yet to win a Series this century, and have choked in every single post-season this century. They will continue to do so, especially since they've picked up a new curse: The Curse of A-Rod. As I said when he left Seattle, "What profiteth a man if he signs a $25 million a year contract, but never gets to wear a World Series ring?"

A-Rod will never wear that ring. Bank on it.

I don't care. Whatever else happens, the Yankees Will Not Win The Series. Again. A perfect record this century. That, by god, is Victory Enough.

I wonder if Sox Zen works on elections, though?

Okay, Julia. Here's the basic setup:

1. The Boston Red Sox are famous for breaking their fans' hearts by almost winning, then somehow contriving to lose at the last minute. Sox fans have been known to spend the last few seconds of winning or near-losing games on their knees in front of the TV, waiting in agony to see how the Sox blow it this time.

2. A lot of baseball fans in cities across the country hate the Yankees for having a better team than they do. The Yankees have won their League Pennant and the World Series oftener than any other team.

3. It has long been believed that the source of Boston's sorrows is the legendary Curse of the Bambino, brought on by selling young Babe Ruth to the Yankees. This is untrue. Boston is actually cursed because the Red Sox took an unconscionably long time to get around to hiring any black players. Whatever the cause, the Red Sox haven't won the World Series since 1918.

4. Red Sox fans have sorrows, but to be a fan of the Chicago Cubs is a tragedy. The Cubs must always lose. This is more or less a matter of religious faith with them. Their fans nevertheless suffer when the Cubs lose, just as though they'd expected some other outcome.

5. The Red Sox and the Yankees are both in the American League. The Red Sox have lost a lot of pennants to the Yankees. The Cubs are in the National League.

6. It is generally believed that some variety of Apocalyptic Last Days will result if the Red Sox and Cubs ever win their respective leagues' pennants and meet in the World Series, as that would theoretically mean that one or the other of them would have to win.

Julia, I know it's about baseball.

Thank you for that remarkably clear explanation, Teresa. Until then all I had gathered was that it involved baseball. (I assumed baseball rather than gridiron.) The thread suddenly makes a lot more sense now...

The real problem with the Red Sox is that for decades they were cursed with a phenomenally pigheaded and ignorant front office -- about many things, race certainly not least among them. The classic example of their idiocy is that they had a chance to sign Jackie Robinson before the Dodgers and Willie Mays before the Giants, and passed on both.

The last major hires and hangers-on from that group lost their decision-making roles just a few years ago...

And Teresa has explained it all and it's very right.

Of course there are those people who still say that the Pats would never win the Super Bowl, and they've done it twice now.

I will not watch any games for fear of invoking my late grandfather's curse. If he watched any Red Sox game, they would lose. Even if they had a lead, and it was the bottom of the 8th, if Antone Pacheco watched that game, the Red Sox would lose.

I will not watch. I will not watch.

The other Kate, the one that knits and is never the Thing and certainly never Mafia.

Giblets, at Fafblog! has the best response so far:

Who are you people, and what have you done with the Red Sox?

This post offers an explanation ...

For whatever reason, the above Fafblog link doesn't function for me (it links to the fafblog main page.) The earlier post probably referenced is the first one on this archive page:

http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_10_fafblog_archive.html

I lived in Boston in '86 (I was in kindergarten, in love with baseball and the Sox, and heartbroken.) I wish I could be there now.

I am Yet A Different Kate.

Since I still live in Boston, I was able to watch the game, with the sound off, and have the radio guys on, instead. Because if I had to listen to Tim McCarver for more than about 3 minutes at at a time, something would be dead, and it sure wouldn't be me.

I'm way too hyper, here. (And insomniac.)

I became a Red Sox fan in 1986. You see my problem, I'm sure.

But, however, this is freakin' fantastic. I could reel off the records set here, but I will just say, I want to play the Astros not because of political metaphors, but because the Astros have Roger Clemens, and I am bitter.

The end.

The final paragraph of this morning's lead story in the New York Times:

It was actually happening. The nerd was kissing the homecoming queen. Paper was beating scissors; scissors were beating rock. Charlie Brown was kicking the football. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees for the American League pennant.

God, I hope the Sox win it all.

Then I'll never have to hear about the curse again.

I would like to thank Kate N. for keeping my head from falling off last night. I'm glad we don't live in Somerville anymore - I am sure I would have gotten absolutely no sleep last night, as opposed to the five or so hours I snagged down here in Maryland.

I also think there's a joke in there somewhere about someone having played college ball at Miskatonic, but I'm too tired to create it.

Never mind the political overtones if the Astros win the NL pennant; the Sox will have to deal with Clemens, again.

I didn't watch the game; the local Fox affiliate is owned by a broadcasting company currently being boycotted. Thanks for conveying the sturm und drang of the event so well.

I find that I am managing to bear Steinbrenner's pain without much difficulty. BTW, one of the best observations on being a Cubs' fan I've ever heard is: "Following the Cubbies is the best way I know to grasp the vanity of human wishes."

I'm glad the Sox won. Really. It'll give my entire history class a reason to jeer at my professor on Monday.

But did the campus really have to stage a near-riot, complete with firecrackers? I was one of about ten people not watching the game, and I would have liked to have gotten some sleep.

If the Sox win the Series I am taking a vacation. To Canada.

You know, Washington DC could have been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust, Karl Rove could have declared martial law, the Red Chinese could have invaded California with a million soldiers, and the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald would have still led with stories about the Sox winning the pennant. They know the priorities in Red Sox Nation.

Julia Jones: TNH's explanation was excellent. Let me just add some more recent history.

Last year, the Sox lost the pennant to the Yankees by a game-ending home run in extra innings.

The Yankees go on to lose the World Series.

Much recrimination, manuvering, etc., follows on both sides.

This series, Game 1. Curt Schilling is the Red Sox pitcher, brought in this season; normally excellent, he's got an injury to an ankle tendon that's going to require surgery basically the instant the series ends. Obviously in pain, he can't get it done, and Sox lose.

Game 2. Pedro Martinez starts for the Sox. Has been a great pitcher, starting to look mortal, isn't _bad_ but the Sox lose again.

Game 3. Sox get *shelled* 19-8.

The Sox are now down 0-3 in a best of 7 series. No team in baseball has ever won a series in this situation. Heck, no team in baseball has ever forced a Game 7 in this situation.

Game 4: Sox are three outs from going home, but tie the game in the 9th. Extra innings follow--lots of them, long ones--and the Sox win somewhere after one in the morning on a home run by David Ortiz.

Game 5: Martinez is back. This time the Sox tie it in the 8th, and they go to the 14th before Ortiz ends it again. The pitcher who gave up the losing home run in Game 7 last year, Tim Wakefield, pitches strongly late to help the Sox stay alive. (Did I mention that Martinez started that Game 7 last year, was left in too long by the manager, and gave up the lead and the tying run? That manager's contract was not renewed.)

Game 6: Schilling is back, having had his skin _stitched down_ over his tendon to stabilize the ankle. He pitches an amazing game, no extra innings are needed, Sox win.

And thus last night's game.

I'm not a huge sports fan, and I don't actually care that much about baseball. But this was absolutely _insane_.

***

Jill Smith: it's not that I wasn't involved in the game, trust me--my stomach at the bottom of the 7th felt very much like the elevator'd gone into free-fall--but I get calmer as other people get more agitated. I think it's my mutant superpower (not a very good one, I know).

I hereby state in public that I will be happy if only the Sox don't suck in the World Series. That's all.

The Daily Show had the best line:

"But if systemic racism were the cause, there would be a curse on the entire city of Boston!"

I am certain that this all comes of my decision to begin my magic realism novel about how Boston overcomes The Curse. If they win, I'm tossing it in the trash.

I'm glad I didn't stay up to watch this. I'd never have gotten any sleep. As it is, my husband woke me when he got home from work (internet access plus espn.com's live feature are lovely things) to tell me they'd pulled off the impossible and WON. And I was wide awake for the next half hour, gabbling away at the wonder of it all.

I came into work with a huge grin on my face. It has yet to fade.

Yes, even despite the co-worker I respect very much whose only vice is her Yankee fandom, just across the hall from me.

She's been good about not yelling at me about my silly grin and Red Sox t-shirt.

I think if the Red Sox win, and Kerry wins, it'll be the closest Massachusetts has had to a sweep ever (s the Pats already won in January). Pity about the Bruins and the Celtics.

Boston will be smug for a little while, no doubt about it. Right into the second month of next year's baseball season.

Did everyone hear how the curse was broken?

Back in early September, Manny hit a foul ball that hit a kid in the mouth, knocking out two of his teeth. This kid *just so happened* to live in... yes, you guessed it, Babe Ruth's house. This happened the very same day that the Yanks lost to another team by a ridiculous 22 points.

Here's the link if you don't believe me: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/09/02/taking_teeth_out_of_curse?pg=full

Just another example of the magic and mystery of baseball... :grin:

Or, should I say, :toothless grin:

Oh, I'm glad I can share the joy somewhere. Last night I had to explain to my husband (who GREW UP IN BOSTON) why Yankees fans were holding up pictures of Babe Ruth.

It takes a special kind of person to make me feel like a jock.

Or, should I say, :toothless grin:

Thanks to fast and efficient EMS, the kids teeth were recovered and reimplanted.

That happened during WorldCon, and I mentioned it to TNH at the time.

It's clear that the Sox are set on extracting the maximum agony possible from their fans this year. Which means they'll lose in the seventh game of the World Series, in the 13th inning, due to a sequence of events that could only happen to the Sox.

But, diehard Sox fan that I am, I do harbor the faint hope that the real curse on the team was that they had the most racist management in baseball. John Henry and his partners are the first Sox ownerhip since Tom Yawkey first bought the team to have no ties to the Yawkeys, and this is their second year of ownership.

And part of being a Sox fan is continuing to hope, even though you know they're the Sox, and thus divinely gifted with the ability to find new, creative ways to lose.

Alex, if you know enough about baseball to write one novel, you know enough to write a different novel. Probably several different novels.

This morning at Tor, Claire Eddy is wearing a vintage Boston Red Sox shirt. She's a lifelong Mets fan, so any team that can stomp the Yankees into the cracks between the floorboards is okay by her.

Seth Lerner, our mass market art director, isn't in today. Seth is a passionate Yankees fan. There's a large sign on his computer which he must have put it up last night before he left. It says he's not here, he's taking two vacation days off, and he's going to either be very happy or very sad; but either way, he isn't going to want to be in the office.

Jim Minz is buoyant. He's been posting anti-Yankees material on his door for years now. He says he now has a comeback for Yankees fans' "twenty-six championships": "greatest collapse in the history of postseason play." He's looking forward to Seth's return on Monday.

Out in the reception area (i.e., on the other side of an open doorway from my desk), there's a fairly arcane running discussion of Roger Clemens, pro and anti.

America, America.

If I ever have grandchildren, I intend to tell them all about Curt Schilling's performance in Game Six.

I will tell them how I watched him sitting in the dugout re-assembling his right foot with duct tape and a staple gun, then charged out onto the field screaming "LET'S ROCK!!!"

I will tell them how he then struck out twenty-one consecutive Yankees before his foot simply fell off. After chucking his foot at Alex Rodriguez's head, he fashioned a tourniquet out of the lacing from his glove and dragged himself off the field, trading obscenties with Derek Jeter then entire way.

And I will tell them how a terrified Yankees team didn't even bother showing up for Game Seven, as they weren't sure whether Curt was kidding when he promised to "feast upon their entrails" after the series was over.

Man . . . almost makes me want to have kids.

Earlier this week a woman who's a Red Sox fan found a postcard postmarked 1918 under a tile in her bathroom. 1918 was the last year the Red Sox won the World Series.

[Some of these things are -really- stretching it, people grasping for sympathetic magic straws!]

If anyone wants to write about this season in a magic realist vein, a little more material:

Last year, the illuminated CITGO sign in Kenmore Square was out of order during the playoffs. This year, it's again under maintenance, but they're being very careful to make sure that the side of the sign facing the ballpark stays lit.

A few years ago, the Sox started playing "Sweet Caroline" in the middle of the 8th inning. A crowd of Red Sox fans behind the visiting dugout were singing it in Yankee Stadium as the Sox closed out game seven. (Recent games have also featured a punk-rock update to "Tessie", the anthem of the Royal Rooters for the last championship Red Sox teams, way back in the twentieth century).

There has recently been some controversy over the eviction of Johnny Pesky from the Sox dugout. Pesky is a Red Sox player from very long ago who has been working for the team one way or another for literally decades, but the league office apparently dictated there be no supernumeraries in the dugout.

And Schilling's sutured ankle was bleeding in game six, as shown repeatedly on TV; no one writing in this vein should neglect the ritual possibilities of his bloody red socks.

That all said, the Red Sox may wind up confronting yet more of their past in Houston; Roger Clemens and Jeff Bagwell await...

I note that no one here has mentioned the best team in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals. (I grew up in NE Arkansas, an easy 5-hour drive up I-55 to St. Louis.)

We haven't played our own game 7 yet, and the Cards have found some interesting ways to lose in recent years, but I'm ready for a repeat of 1967.

I'm glad the Sox won. Really. It'll give my entire history class a reason to jeer at my professor on Monday.

But did the campus really have to stage a near-riot, complete with firecrackers? I was one of about ten people not watching the game, and I would have liked to have gotten some sleep.

If the Sox win the Series I am taking a vacation. To Canada.

Ow, piffle. You should just try living in Italy when Juventus wins, which they do with depressing regularity. And I won't even mention what happens in any World Cup (you know, the European Football, sort, where people play teams from other nations?) win. Ah. Firecrackers are nothing. NOTHING.

As for Teresa's excellent explanation - would she also be able, I wonder, to explain to a baffled foreigner how the game actually works? Nothing is impossible for Teresa, after all. I'm sick and tired of being terminally baffled by otherwise excellent works by Stephen Jay Gould and Stephen King.

Hey, if you want maddenly loud celebration with little real cause, teleport yourselves back to the Canarsie section of Brooklyn for the 4th of July any year between 1976 and about 1986. The poor pets hid in the basement for days, and the only real lull in the fireworks was between about 4 and 6 AM.

Things calmed down after the year that a couple of cars were set ablaze in the spirit of freedom...

This is almost enough to make me wish I had a TV.

Almost.

How The Game Actually Works.

It's like cricket, only simpler (except for the rules, which are intricately exact and almost never get invoked, except during this series which sported a balk and a runner called out for interference).

Nine guys on a side. Pitcher, catcher, three guys at numbered bases, shortstop as a literal stopgap measure in between 2nd and 3rd. Outfield, 3 guys standing out in a field.

Nine other guys, coming up to bat at whatever the pitcher can throw. Hit the ball, pray nobody catches it, beat out attempts to tag you with the ball or "force" you out at a base (1, 2 or 3), and finally cross home to score a run. You get up to 3 strikes (pitches thrown correctly) and 4 balls (pitches thrown crappily) every time you're at bat. 4 balls gets you walked to 1st base; 3 strikes makes you out. 3 outs makes the teams switch sides.

Each team getting 3 outs is an inning. 9 innings makes a game, unless it's a tie, because except for certain All-Star games baseball never ends in a tie.

It's a game of statistical likelihoods (will he hit? Will it go far? Will someone drop the ball he should have caught?) and daily, gruelling play. It's a breezy summer afternoon and long calm moments of waiting before the ball arcs high, lost in the crowd or the sky, disappearing into someone's glove in the outfield.

As you can probably guess, I'm a recent convert to the religion of baseball and the Holy Order of Red Sox Nation.

Alex C. Irvine's One King, One Soldier deals in magical baseball realism, plus the Grail, Rimbaud, Templars, the Oak Island Money Pit and more.

Ken Hite's capsule review: "Tim Powers methadone".

Less poetic article on how baseball works here.

I think one of King's better short pieces was the non-fiction piece on his son's team's Little League state championship, collected in _Nightmares and Dreamscapes_. It's one of my standard brain-calming reads. I shall be scooping up his forthcoming co-authored book on this seasons.

cd: going to look at Ken Hite's review, and then at the main page, I find:

Rooting for the Red Sox is quite obviously a sign of dementia; rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Darth Vader. (Or, given Steinbrenner's dugout-packing, like rooting for Darth Vader, Rupert of Hentzau, Moriarty, Dracula, the Klingons, Draco Malfoy, and the rich fat kids camp from across the lake.)

Besides being a funny quote, what's interesting is that I'm sure I know people who _do_ root for all of those characters, except the camp and *maybe* Moriarty.

David was trying to explain to me this morning why all of this is Important. When he got around to the part about Babe Ruth and started to tell me who Babe Ruth was, I said, "That much I know."

It's fair to say that baseball is America's secular religion. The order of play is extremely ritualistic, and a whole set of minor rites, such as the Seventh Inning Stretch have built up around the game. It also invites personal rituals, such as the other Kate who is never the Thing's refusal to watch a game she obviously cares about.

A couple of years ago I was holding forth on this very subject outside the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, when a tour bus pulled up and disgorged a rather large flock of nuns.

Turns out they were mostly Phillies fans who knew their baseball.

God, I hope the Sox win it all.
Then I'll never have to hear about the curse again.

This point of view has obvious appeal, but do we really want to see Sox fans rewarded for decades of drama-queen self-pity? Personally, I'd rather taunt them mercilessly as they wail and rend their garments for the thousandth time. They get their martyrdom, which they enjoy more than victory, and we get chuckles. It's a win-win situation.

On the other hand, I would hate to see either Jeff Kent or Tony LaRussa celebrating.

So, um... rain! That's it! I'm rooting for rain. Lots of rain.

um... rain! That's it! I'm rooting for rain. Lots of rain.

Careful there.
If there's a rain delay, the games could overlap with the election, and anything that deters voting is IMO a bad thing.

There's so much sympathetic excitement in the air about this, it's almost enough to make baseball vaguely interesting.

Almost.

Anna Feruglio Dal Dan:

There are over 90 stories, anthologies, and novels in the fantasy and Science Fiction genres involving baseball [Silver] The connections between Baseball and Science Fiction are also abstracted in a panel discussion [Dozois 2000]. A fraction of them involve baseball aboard a spaceship, space station, or (more commonly) on another planet. Other species observe the same laws of physics [Bhattacharjee 2003].

The issues of playing under a dome versus in a spacesuit have been treated, as well as the increased diamond and outfield areas needed in lower gravity worlds. More recently, it has been calculated that the trajectory with air friction and spin of a baseball hit in a one-atmosphere dome on the Moon could “loop the loop” on its way up from the batter. [xxx?]

In a vacuum? [Kleinbaum] reminds us that: “Anyone who's studied classical physics knows that a projectile in a vacuum has the greatest range when projected at an angle of 45 above the horizon. We can easily explain this by the fact that a projectile, in this over-simplified case, a spinless, seamless baseball flying through a vacuum, projected at some angle smaller than 45 strikes the ground such that the horizontal component of the velocity is greater than the vertical component. In essence, such a ball simply ran out of room. So little of its initial velocity was directed in a vertical direction that it was not in the air long enough to travel outward very far.

Conversely, at a larger angle, the ball lands having spent so much of its initial energy in going up that its forward velocity was so small as to make the range less than optimal. Thus, in the absence of air, we find the perfect balance between going up and going outwards at precisely an angle of 45.” Yet Adair notes that at earth’s airy surface: “To hit a ball maximum distance, the trajectory off the bat should have a 35 degree angle.”

Less often is any discussion of atmospheric density or temperature on the game. For that context, consider [bostonbaseball]:
Factors affecting distance added to a 400 foot fly ball to center field:
1000 feet of altitude +7 Feet
10 degrees of air temp +4 Feet
10 degrees of ball temp +4 Feet
1 inch drop in Barometer +6 Feet
1 mph following wind +3 Feet
Ball at 100 % Humidity -30 Feet
Pitch, +5 mph +3.5 Feet
Hit along foul line +11 Feet
Aluminum Bat +30 Feet

We leave it as an exercise to the reader to calculate the effect on baseball in playing within a 92-atmosphere Carbon Dioxide atmosphere (Venus), or the greater than one atmosphere methane/ethane atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon (Titan).

Mathematically:

“The numbers three and four appear prominently in the game of baseball. There are three strikes for an out, and three outs per inning, 3 ^ 2 innings in a game, giving the visiting team 3 ^ 3 outs per game (assuming no extra innings). In addition, there are 3 ^ 2 players per team. Four balls are needed for a walk. The number of bases can either be regarded as three (excluding home plate) or four (including it).” [“Baseball”, Eric W. Weisstein]

There is a calculational problem with the exact dimensions of home plate:

“Home plate in the game of baseball is an irregular pentagon….” The wide front edge perpendicular to the line connecting pitcher and batter is 17 inches long. Perpendicular from each endpoint of that, there are a right and left edge, each 8.5 inches long. From the endpoints of those are two diagonal edges allegedly meeting in a right angle, each 12 inches long.
“However, the Little League rulebook's specification of the shape of home plate (Kreutzer and Kerley 1990) [as described above], is not physically realizable, since it requires the existence of a (12, 12, 17) right triangle, whereas

12^2 + 12^2 = 288 =/= 17^2 = 289

The size of a baseball, and the curved shape of an unfolded baseball cover are explained as:

“A pair of identical plane regions (mirror symmetric about two perpendicular lines through the center) which can be stitched together to form a baseball (or tennis ball). A baseball has a circumference of 9 1/8 inches. The practical consideration of separating the regions far enough to allow the pitcher a good grip requires that the ‘neck’ distance be about 1 3/16 inches. The baseball cover was invented by Elias Drake as a boy in the 1840s. (Thompson's attribution of the current design to trial and error development by C. H. Jackson in the 1860s is apparently unsubstantiated, as discovered by George Bart.)

To excerpt briefly from:

Astronomy and Baseball
by Jonathan Vos Post
© copyright 2003 by Emerald City Publishing
Draft of 13 January 2003

[the entirety of which I am shortly to post on my blog]:

Baseball is like Astronomy. The best players are “stars.” A defense of 9 players (like 9 planets) observes a spinning planet-shaped baseball hurled in a parabolic trajectory. The offense, a batter, armed with a telescope-shaped bat, computes the ball’s trajectory and attempts a high-acceleration mid-course maneuver. If he succeeds, the ball launches on a new parabola for fielders to compute, while the batter attempts to orbit the pitcher on a close fly-by of three bases, returning to the launch site – home plate. The orbit is counterclockwise, like the Earth around the Sun.

This usually continues for 9 innings (like 9 planets), although there are sometimes extra innings (like Kuiper Belt Objects). The game is played either in sunlight, or under artificial illumination of a similar spectrum. The game is played only in a certain season, determined by the inclination of the Earth’s axis. Some people watch the game by naked-eye observation; some use binoculars; some get their data through antennae gathering radio waves. Complete data is tabulated, and widely published, along with predictions of the season’s future....

As the Exploratorium web site further puts it [Exploratorium]:

“The secret to understanding a curveball is the speed of the air moving past the ball's surface. As the ball spins, its top surface moves in the same direction in which the air moves. At the bottom of the ball, the ball's surface and the air move in opposite directions. So the velocity of the air relative to that of the ball's surface is larger on the bottom of the ball. What difference does that make? The higher velocity difference puts more stress on the air flowing around the bottom of the ball. That stress makes air flowing around the ball ‘break away’ from the ball's surface sooner. Conversely, the air at the top of the spinning ball, subject to less stress due to the lower velocity difference, can ‘hang onto’ the ball's surface longer before breaking away. As a result, the air flowing over the top of the ball leaves it in a direction pointed a little bit downward rather than straight back. As Newton discovered almost three hundred years ago, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, as the spinning ball throws the air down, the air pushes the ball up in response. A ball thrown with backspin will therefore get a little bit of lift. A major league curveball can veer as much as 17 1/2 inches from a straight line by the time it crosses the plate. Over the course of a pitch, the deflection from a straight line increases with distance from the pitcher. So curveballs do most of their curving in the last quarter of their trip. Considering that it takes less time for the ball to travel those last 15 feet (about 1/6 of a second) than it takes for the batter to swing the bat (about 1/5 of a second), hitters must begin their swings before the ball has started to show much curve. No wonder curveballs are so hard to hit. One important difference between a fastball, a curveball, a slider, and a screwball is the direction in which the ball spins. (Other important factors are the speed of the pitch and rate of spin.) Generally speaking, a ball thrown with a spin will curve in the same direction that the front of the ball (home plate side, when pitched) turns. If the ball is spinning from top to bottom (topspin), it will tend to nosedive into the dirt. If it's spinning from left to right, the pitch will break toward third base. The faster the rate of spin, the more the ball's path curves.” Adair quantifies that a major league fastball can spin at 1,800 rpm or 54 times faster than an old LP record. That’s a dozen rotations in the 0.4 seconds it takes the pitch to reach the plate.

Then the batter has to react quickly. As [Teresi] explains: “The batter, stepping up to the plate and staring the pitcher in the eye, has more to worry about than the Magnus effect or asymmetrical velocity dispersal on the pitch. This solid athlete must first carefully choose his bat’s starting angle and position before the ball is pitched. During the half second that the ball travels through the air, he must choose the bat’s velocity and acceleration in three dimensions, timing those motions perfectly to meet the ball within the 10 millisecond time frame it is over the plate. In other words, a timing variance of 10 ms means the difference between a ball hit straight over second base and a ball fouled over first or third base. Another example shows how precise this athlete must be. A slight miscalculation of one millimeter in the vertical coordinate during the 1.5 ms the ball was in contact with his bat (Plagenhoef, 1971, p.71) left the batter on the losing side in the decision for the 1962 world championship (Armenti, 1992, p. 29). All of these assessments must be held off until the last possible moment, in order to gather in as much information about the trajectory of the approaching pitch as possible. As if this didn’t seem enough to defy the laws of probability if not biology, the batter is required to do this while under a mental siege of distractions such as fans booing, risk of personal injury, and a sense of individual responsibility. Maybe this time the astute batter will judge and calculate correctly enough to hit a home run.”

... For another example, related to the fact that sixty-five percent of the ball’s energy is wasted as it collides with the bat and leaves the bat oscillating in the player’s hands: “Batters know from experience that there is a sweet spot on the bat, about 17 cm from the end of the barrel, where the shock of the impact, felt by the hands, is reduced to such an extent that the batter is almost unaware of the collision. At other impact points, the impact is usually felt as a painful sting or jarring of the hands and forearm, particularly if the impact occurs at a point well removed from the sweet spot. The sweet spot of a bat exists partly because bat vibrations are not excited significantly at that spot and partly because the spot is close to the center of percussion....

Also relating to the brief period of bat/ball impact [Teresi]: “Assuming the batter connects with the ball, the ball is compressed on the bat and rebounds with a certain force which is a set standard in the major leagues, relative to the pitch’s and bat’s velocities. Balls must have a coefficient of restitution of 0.514 to 0.578, a measurement of how "lively" a ball rebounds (Adair, 1990, p. 67). This means a typical baseball leaves a bat with only 35% of its original energy. The variation between balls used in the major leagues today generally means that any home run hit approximately 400 feet will deviate about four feet as a result of balls’ different restitutions.”

Skwid> There's so much sympathetic excitement in the air about this, it's almost enough to make baseball vaguely interesting.

I've met specialists in game theory who say that baseball is an unusually cerebral game for a popular sport. I've also known sports fans who consider that to be its biggest detraction.

Holy Crap, JVP...forget your Ritalin again?

The Astros are the winningest team never to play in the World Series. '86 against the Hated Mets still hurts to this day. The Cubs and BoSox are tagged as cursed, but the Astros are tagged as chronic under-achievers.

Still, you gotta think this is their year with Clemens on the mound tonight, even playing in St. Louis.

Not only do BoSox fans have to face Clemens if the Astros win, they've got to face Bagwell. Not up to the level of the Curse of the Bambino, but certainly One That Got Away.

Anna, it's simple. One team holds the field, and pitches the ball. The other side bats, and tries to run the bases. If they get safely round the bases and come home, they score.

If the batter hits the ball inside certain boundaries, it is "in play" until it stops being in play. While it's in play, the batter gets to run the bases.

If the ball goes up into the air and is caught before touching the ground, the batter is out, his baserunning doesn't count, and anyone who was on base and moved forward has to go back to where they were. This is why you see outfielders making tremendous leaping catches at the outfield wall.

If the ball touches the ground, then it's in play until someone retrieves it and touches the batter with it. Usually this happens when it's thrown to the player stationed at a base toward which the batter is running. If it's first base, he's automatically out. If it's any other base, he can turn around and try to get back to his previous base before the ball can be thrown to the player stationed there. This is why you sometimes see baserunners throwing themselves flat and sliding into a base: they're trying to avoid getting tagged.

You can also tag another runner who'd already gotten on base but has now been caught off base.

Two runners cannot be on the same base. If there's a runner between first and second, a runner on first, and the ball's been thrown to the guy at second base, the runner who's caught between bases is out. He's also embarrassed.

If the ball goes into the stands or out of the ballpark, it's a home run. The happiest of home runs is the one where there are already runners on all three bases, so you score four points off one hit. This is called a grand slam. The Red Sox did it to the Yankees in the seventh game.

You must touch each base as you go around, or it doesn't count. If you miss one, you have to go back and touch it, and are almost certainly going to get tagged. Whether you get tagged or not, you will get jeered at.

There are a lot of rules for batting. The ball must be thrown within a certain area -- not too high, not too low. If it's outside the target area and the batter doesn't swing at it, it's called a ball. If a batter accumulates four balls, he gets to walk to first.

If the batter swings at a pitch and misses, whether or not the pitch is within the target area, it's called a strike. Three strikes and you're out.

If the ball's within the target area and the batter doesn't swing at it, it's still a strike. Pitchers live and die by their ability to fake out the batter.

If you hit the ball a glancing blow, so that it goes off sideways or backward, it's a foul ball, which is a strike unless you already have two strikes, in which case it's just a foul ball and you can go on hitting them forever until something else happens.

If the ball hits the batter, he gets to walk to first. If the batter's team takes it amiss, bad things may happen to one of the other side's batters in the next inning.

Batters and baserunners can sneak forward to the next base when the pitcher isn't looking. This is called stealing a base. It fails oftener than it succeeds, but when it works it's great fun, and it puts the other team's nose out of joint. Pretending you're about to steal a base is a good way to distract the pitcher.

The team at bat gets three outs. Anyone left on base at the third out doesn't count. You only make points for safely coming home.

There are nine innings (minimum). An inning consists of both teams getting a turn at bat, so it's divided into halves. If it's the first half, it's called the top of the inning, as in "the top of the second," and the second half is of course the bottom, as in the bottom of the ninth.

When you get to the seventh inning, everyone takes a break, and the fans all stand up and sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." They're supposed to sing the national anthem at the start of the game, but more and more it's sung by some professional singer, which isn't as satisfactory.

Positions: Pitcher, on the mound. Catcher, behind home plate. First, second, and third basemen. The shortstop close in between 2nd and 3rd, to snag hits by right-handed batters. Three guys in the outfield.

There is a Designated Hitter Rule, which is Bad. There's the matter of foul lines, which I forgot to explain. And there are many other rules, which are mostly arcane. Balks, for instance. But I've given you the basics.

Jeez'o'pete. I'm actually finding the end of season baseball fun and interesting because of the Red Sox, but now I also get space-physics-baseball. Thanks, I think, JvP.

In our household, we're rooting that the Cards beat the Astros, then beat the Red Sox. Since the Cardinals are the closest thing to a good team we have in/near Kansas City... (my poor Royals, sigh.)

There is a Designated Hitter Rule, which is Bad.

AHA! Now I know why I like this blog so much - our esteemed hostess is among the ranks of the right-thinkers.

In fact, the DH Rule is the American League Heresy. *Ducking*

Teresa got this exactly right. The curse is and always has been bullshit (say I, as one who was at games 6 and 7 of the 1975 World Series against the Reds, and saw the Sox collapse in Game 6 of the '86 Series in a bar up in Franconia Notch).

For the God-awful longest spell, like late 1920s through just three years ago, this team was owned by the nastiest, racist, stingy bigots, the f*%#ing Yawkeys. First his nibs, and then his bitch second wife who sat there like a cryogenic corpse up in the club house watching "her boys" play the game through the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. They always lost because there was truly something sick and wrong with the organization. You didn't need a curse to explain it.

I said to my wife 3 years ago when the new owners took over from Yawkey bag man John Harrington, that now it was just a matter of time before the Red Sox win. If not this year, next year. But soon.

And, of course, the standard explanation for all things baseball ....

(In contention for the title of "funniest comedy routine of all time".)

Teresa, I think you are close to formulating the rules and customs of baseball as a creed. Translation into Latin or Greek would not be necessary.

I must commend to the assembled the marvelous "Yankees At The Bat" over at Peter David's blog. A sampling:

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Red Sox fans that day
The series, three to zip, with surely one game left to play.
For the Yankees were their daddy, and the Red Sox Nation wept
At the prospect of their team being ignominiously swept

A faithful few would hold up hope, but certainly the rest
Had given up the hope that sprung eternal in their breast.
“If only Lady History could be made into our bitch
If we could turn the tables on the Yankees for a switch.”

But history said down by three was far too deep a pit,
No team in all of baseball ever climbed up out of it
Plus upon that stricken multitude a grimmer specter sat
‘Twas the Curse of the Bambino that had made their hopes go splat.

Go read. Have fun.

TNH, a couple of quibbles:

Batters and baserunners can sneak forward to the next base when the pitcher isn't looking.

Baserunners can do this. I'd like to see a batter try it.

This is called stealing a base. It fails oftener than it succeeds

I don't think so. Given that even the umps who call players caught stealing the most often still only call about 40% of baserunners out, stealing a base is more likely to be successful than not. (Although I can't actually find stolen-base percentages online at the moment.)

And most importantly, There is a Designated Hitter Rule, which is Bad.

Precisely wrong. Watching pitchers flail away at bat, or try desperately to bunt in any conceivable circumstance... *that's* wrong.

Josh: Napoleon Lajoie once stole first base while he was at bat. While double-checking this, I learned that first base has been stolen from second base three times in major league play, by Fred Tenney, Harry Davis, and Herman Schaefer, after which the rules were changed to prohibit running the bases in reverse order.

Scraps DeSelby once told me that one of the interesting fruits of Bill James' statistical analyses was the discovery that stolen bases aren't such a hot idea. I misspoke when I said base stealing fails more often than it succeeds; the actual principle is that Stolen bases only make a modest contribution to team runs. Each caught-stealing event has about three times the influence as a stolen base. Follow the link to a discussion of offensive events.

As for the DHR, if this is real baseball, then everybody fields and everybody bats. If the pitcher's good enough to play, he's good enough to bat.

"If the pitcher's good enough to play, he's good enough to bat."

Or, given the Mario Mendoza rule (the Mendoza line...batting average under .200), bad enough to bat.

There is a sign on Storrow Drive, that is just before the Coply st exit that says "Reverse Curve." Actually, it's supposed to say that, but it's been defaced (more than once) to read "Reverse the Curse"

On my drive home at 5 am this morning,I noticed that it now reads "Reversed the Curse".

Kate Salter ( the one who knits and is not the Thing or Mafia and will not watch any red sox game.)

You do realize that if this is truly a sign of the Apocalypse, then surely Bush will win this election? ;^>

(And thank you for the explanation, I've lived here all but one year of my life and had no idea what the big deal was about either!)

6. It is generally believed that some variety of Apocalyptic Last Days will result if the Red Sox and Cubs ever win their respective leagues' pennants and meet in the World Series, as that would theoretically mean that one or the other of them would have to win.

That does seem a little unimaginative; perhaps whoever's in charge could take lessons from the fiend who oversaw Sam Shay?

Another quibble: both descriptions speak of three fielders on bases and shortstop between 2nd & 3rd. In the few games I've seen, the 2nd baseman and shortstop are ~balanced around 2nd, and \everybody/ shifts a little according to the batter.

Josh: note also that the batter can try to run to first if the catcher doesn't hold onto the third strike (although I'm not sure whether this is technically called stealing, and I understand it's very rare).

I'm still in mourning for my lost hockey season....but I know who to cheer for, and did my part yesterday by not gloating to the resident Yankees fan in the office. (I figured if I did just then, then the Universe would take a perverse delight in laying the smack down on the team I was cheering for. Whereas if I didn't gloat, then possibly I could out-psych Fate and the Universe. So I saved all the gloating for today. Hope I didn't screw their chances with Fate and the Universe though.)

My immediate superior also did her part by going to bed early--we've determined that on all the nights she watched from the seventh inning on, that the Sox lost. So she made sure to go to bed early last night.

I've heard that baseball is the most superstitious sport.

TNH: Napoleon Lajoie once stole first base while he was at bat.

I tried to track this down, with no success. Do you have a link? (Not that I don't believe you... I'm just curious as to the circumstances.) Was it on what would these days be considered a passed ball?

Scraps DeSelby once told me that one of the interesting fruits of Bill James' statistical analyses was the discovery that stolen bases aren't such a hot idea. I misspoke when I said base stealing fails more often than it succeeds; the actual principle is that Stolen bases only make a modest contribution to team runs. Each caught-stealing event has about three times the influence as a stolen base.

I thought that might be what you were referring to. Stolen bases are a great idea as long as you only get caught less than 1/3 of the time; and as a former Blue Jays fan who still has bad memories of Ricky Henderson in the 1989 ALCS, even though I know better it still feels like they have a disproportionate effect on the morale of the opposing team.

As for the DHR, if this is real baseball, then everybody fields and everybody bats. If the pitcher's good enough to play, he's good enough to bat.

I'll buy that argument when pitchers start taking batting practice. Or losing their jobs 'cause they can't hit.

TNH, you neglected the important point that the team whose home field it is always goes last. So the visiting team gets to bat at the top of each inning and the home team gets to bat at the bottom of the inning. If the home team is winning after the top of the ninth inning, they automatically win and don't have to play the bottom of the ninth.

I also think your conception of what's a tag play vs. what's a force play is mildly confused, but I have to go to bed soon. Go Cards!

Re the DH rule:

Forcing managers to make trade-offs and difficult choices isn't a bug, it's a feature. If not, why not just go whole hog and use two platoons, one for offense and one for defense?

Complaining that pitchers can't hit is like complaining that pawns can only move one square at a time. (Both rules even have exceptions.)

And there's nothing quite like seeing your team's pitcher make a clutch hit.

I find the DH rule valuable as a way to distinguish between the two leagues, and to screw with AL managers' minds when playing interleague games in NL parks.

I'm amused that there are situations where AL managers will make moves that remove the DH, however. Some years ago, IIRC, Randy Johnson appeared in LF for the Mariners against the Red Sox; it was part of a double switch shuffle that allowed him to skip pitching to one batter, then go back to the mound.

If I ever have grandchildren, I intend to tell them all about Curt Schilling's performance in Game Six.

Pete Butler, your description had me laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. Thanks.

If you look at a typical baseball scoreboa