"THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM, but the second mouse gets the cheese." Different circumstances present different risks and opportunities, and in this brave new world of psychobiology and genetics, how and why we respond to any specific circumstance seems to be increasingly explained by what's in our genes rather than what kind of diapers we wore growing up. In other words, nature seems to be edging out nurture as the chief culprit for shaping our behavior and identities. But, of course, the whole story is a little more complicated than that. Steven Pinker talks about the somewhat muddled implications of getting to know your genome in his New York Times Magazine article "My Genome, My Self". Mapping our individuality through our genes at first seems like a straightforward proposition (i.e. this gene makes you fat, this one makes you good at math). But the endeavor quickly becomes a rabbit hole that leads you from piece to piece to piece – all of which refuse to neatly add up and explain a concept like intelligence, let alone demystifying what makes you you:

The search for I.Q. genes calls to mind the cartoon in which a scientist with a smoldering test tube asks a colleague, “What’s the opposite of Eureka?”

REDBELT is an unusual little flick – a samurai/noir/fight film with turn-of-the-screw plotting, some enjoyable martial arts scrapping, trademark Mametian masculinity throughout (for better and for worse), and, yes, a somewhat dopey ending. But I dug it. Every scene contains both surprise and a sense of inevitability, and the characters and themes resonate with a singular, uncomplicated understanding of decency – a notion usually ignored, upstaged, or over-sentimentalized in movies. Here, despite all the twist and turns, decency remains the simple principle on which all the action pivots, and by the end, it becomes a virtue raised almost to the level of nobility.

EBERT LOBS BON MOTS on cinematic bombs:

No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out. (Armageddon)

And a lovely existential one:

Mad Dog Time is the first movie I've seen that doesn't improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. It is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line.

MIDTOWN HOLIDAYS

Humans
hobbling
along
the
sidewalks —

Some
drunks,
who
fell over
once
too often,
now perpetually stumble
even sober.

Some
just
shopping
and
looking around
but
not at where they're
going.

Bastards!

THE HOT STOVE AIN'T SO HOT these days, as everyone sits around waiting for someone else to blink.

MAN ALLEGEDLY ASSAULTS GIRLFRIEND WITH BURGER, as reported by the Onion. Sorry, I mean, the New York Times.

THERE'S LEX LUTHOR, Auric Goldfinger, Danny Ocean, Bernie Madoff, and Cobra Commander. And then there's Jack Handey:

The plan isn’t foolproof. For it to work, certain things must happen:

—The door to the vault must have accidentally been left open by the cleaning woman.

—The guard must bend over to tie his shoes and somehow he gets all the shoelaces tied together. He can’t get them apart, so he takes out his gun and shoots all his bullets at the knot. But he misses. Then he just lies down on the floor and goes to sleep.

—Most of the customers in the bank must happen to be wearing Nixon masks, so when we come in wearing our Nixon masks it doesn’t alarm anyone. . . .

More criminal genius here.

LET'S WIN ONE FOR THE GIPPER — er, I mean, the black dude! Salon takes a peek at the wacky world of "Racists for Obama" – just a little light reading to distract you on the day the nation attempts to save its soul:

Sean Quinn, of the polling site FiveThirtyEight, respected for its obsessiveness and eerie prescience, recently posted a hair-raising story about a pair of Barack Obama supporters. Quinn seems ready to verify its source, but only after the election. At any rate, it goes like this: A man canvassing for Obama in western Pennsylvania asks a housewife which candidate she intends to vote for. She yells to her husband to find out. From the interior of the house, he calls back, "We're voting for the nigger!" At which point the housewife turns to the canvasser and calmly repeats her husband's declaration.

Ah, racism. It's always a step ahead of us. Even before the majority of Democrats decided that Obama was electable despite being the first openly black presidential candidate, pollsters began gradually raising the level of speculation about the tide of bigotry that might overwhelm white voters once they got into that private little booth and faced the prospect of pulling a lever that suddenly seemed to read "Some Black Dude". . . .

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is the kind of weird, mind-bending and heartbreaking movie where you walk out of the movie theatre and don't feel quite right. Like, maybe the sky is the wrong color, or that person across the street can read your mind, or nothing is real and you're actually dead. (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Solaris were a little like this for me, too.) It's like Borges, Fellini, Dalí and Willy Loman made a movie together – bizarro, great and kind of a fantastic bummer.

A HIGH-SCHOOL BOY carrying a picture of his crush is badly burned in a fire, and doctors use her photo to reconstruct his face. Now identical to his crush, he moves in with her by pretending to be her long-lost twin sister.

- Plot summary of the manga series Pretty Face (via Comic Foundry)

NINE INNINGS AND THREE DAYS LATER, there's revelry on the streets of Philadelphia:

All around the city and suburbs, fireworks exploded, horns honked and pots and pans banged as if it were New Year's Eve. . . . In Northeast Philadelphia, thousands more gathered at the intersection of Frankford and Cottman Avenues, where city workers had greased the light poles to keep fans from dangerous, inebriated ascents.

There's a city that really knows its fans.

A SWING AND A MISS on ball four turns into a strike 'em out-throw 'em out double play. A take-out slide into second base would have done more good as a regular slide. A check-swing third strike ends the inning with bases loaded. And nearly every player was served at least one fat pitch which escaped unharmed. After all the missed opportunities, time eventually runs out on you. Ms. Benjamin handles the post-mortem for the Globe, and YFSF looks back on a good ride.

ASHES OF TIME (REDUX) is a weird bird, even for Wong Kar Wai. Veering from silly and melodramatic to simple and affecting – almost moment to moment and shot to shot – the movie has over-stylized camera work, preposterous sword-fighting, stirring heroics, over-the-top emotion, specious logic, a scene with a girl getting all sensual with her horse and many more scenes of a different girl standing around with a very sad donkey. Eventually the impulse to guffaw is overcome by the desire to weep, and the movie builds toward an unlikely and surprisingly emotional ending. As the review in the Village Voice puts it:

Wong has a bit of a wink with all of the deadpan death threats and grand allusions — women rake their cheeks along tree bark, limestone, and a horse's neck in fits of longing — before turning mannerism into the very stuff of transcendence, as with Maggie Cheung's penultimate lament. It's a knowing end-run around cliché that seeks to assert the damnable truth of cliché itself. In a move that would become his trademark, Wong rejects the happy ending for the almost ecstatically sad, making your heart soar even as he tells you, essentially, that it's impossible, all of it — that it'll never work.

SURELY, ALL OF THIS EXTRA BASEBALL IS GRAVY, as YFSF puts it. Nevertheless, hopes are high for a final game 7 (which should have been a final game 5), because we've been here before and it usually works out pretty well. But before we lose ourselves too much in anticipation, let's also remember where we came from, and how good it's been since:

It was on the bus the other day, heading from Fenway Park to the airport after their miraculous Game 5 win, that Kevin Youkilis reflected on all that he's been a part of - three comebacks from the depths of elimination - to Varitek, sitting next to him.

"I said, 'We're so spoiled,' " Youkilis said. "It's amazing. It's really amazing the games we play, and how much fun it's been. When we're all old and our children are all grown up, we'll sit around and meet up and talk about games like the game the other day. It's a wild ride, and we're very spoiled."

THE BEST BASEBALL STATISTICS CHART EVER tracks the win probability during the best elimination-game comeback ever. Sure, it seems like the cold, calculated view of a Sabermetrics-loving number cruncher. But when you look at it another way, it's an emotional barometer, as well – illustrating precisely how we felt at each point in the game, from sofa-slumping despair to furtive hopefulness and, finally, the bewildering heights of improbable, undeserved joy.

BEFORE GAME 5 OF THE 2008 ALCS BECAME A MAGIC ACT, while the Rays were still doing the pummeling and the Red Sox were the only ones at Fenway who didn't know the season was over, I averted my eyes from the grim disaster unfolding on TV by reading Bill Simmons thoughts on the season's other great loss:

I still miss Manny. I can't lie. It took me four solid weeks to accept that he was really gone. Three weeks after the trade happened, I flicked on NESN for the opening pitch of a Sox game, noticed the SkyDome and thought, "Yes, Manny loves hitting in the SkyDome!" A second passed. A lightbulb went on. My shoulders slumped. Manny was gone.

All 9,000 words of his story are worth reading (and he even includes one of my favorite Manny anecdotes in a footnote), but here I'll skip to the end:

So, how will this play out? I see Manny leading the Dodgers to the 2008 World Series, breaking their hearts and donning pinstripes next season. He won't feel bad, because he's Manny. The L.A. fans will feel bad. I will feel worse. It will be the single most painful sports transaction of my lifetime. It will make me question why I follow sports at all, why we spend so much time caring about people who don't care about us. I don't want to hear Manny booed at Fenway. I don't want to root against him. I don't want to hold a grudge. I don't want to hear the "Mah-knee! Mah-knee!" chant echoing through the new Stadium. I am not ready for any of it. You love sports most when you're 16, then you love it a little bit less every year. And it happens because of things like this. Like Manny breaking the hearts of everyone in Boston because his agent wanted to get paid, then Manny landing in New York because the Yanks offered the most money.

PHILADELPHIA IS AN EVEN MORE UNFORGIVING baseball town than Boston? I guess, take it from one who knows. Terry Francona managed the Phillies from 1997–2000, with a 285-363 record:

So he was "genuinely happy" to see [the Phillies] experience success of their own. He may not have shared that sentiment for a city that didn't show him a lot of love. In explaining the differences between the fans in the two cities, Francona said, "I think there's more love for their players here. They want [them] to do good so bad that when they don't, it just kills them. In Philadelphia, it turned to hatred in a hurry. Like ball one."

"FENWAY PARK, IN BOSTON, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark." The magic of tilt shift photography (click link above) brings to mind John Updike's description of Fenway in his farewell to Ted Williams, "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu":

Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities. Its right field is one of the deepest in the American League, while its left field is the shortest; the high left-field wall, three hundred and fifteen feet from home plate along the foul line, virtually thrusts its surface at right-handed hitters. On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 28th, as I took a seat behind third base, a uniformed groundkeeper was treading the top of this wall, picking batting-practice home runs out of the screen, like a mushroom gatherer seen in Wordsworthian perspective on the verge of a cliff. The day was overcast, chill, and uninspirational. The Boston team was the worst in twenty-seven seasons. A jangling medley of incompetent youth and aging competence, the Red Sox were finishing in seventh place only because the Kansas City Athletics had locked them out of the cellar. They were scheduled to play the Baltimore Orioles, a much nimbler blend of May and December, who had been dumped from pennant contention a week before by the insatiable Yankees. I, and 10,453 others, had shown up primarily because this was the Red Sox's last home game of the season, and therefore the last time in all eternity that their regular left fielder, known to the headlines as TED, KID, SPLINTER, THUMPER, TW, and, most cloyingly, MISTER WONDERFUL, would play in Boston. . . .

WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE, and it always feels this horrible. Amalie Benjamin (the shining jewel of the Boston Globe sports section, by the way) assesses the situation:

They have been in this spot before. A tight spot, and an unforgiving one. The Red Sox have been down and have made it out, as recently as last year's American League Championship Series, when they yielded three of the first four games to the Indians, and in the 2004 ALCS, when they lost the first three games to the Yankees. At those points, it did not seem as if the Sox were on the brink of a comeback.

Nor does it seem that way today.

In other words, every time this happens, it feels completely and utterly hopeless.

So that should be comforting, right? Right?

TITO GETS HIGH PRAISE from the media, if not from the fans. First, there's this column on ESPN.com, and then there's this defense by Bill Simmons in his mailbag:

Q: How many more times are we going to be subjected to Tito Francona's bonehead decisions? He is great at managing players' egos and building relationships with them, but please get him a coach to do the X's and O's before he kills us. We can't keep overcoming his major screwups, can we? I've said it since 2004 and it is still true … just amazing we keep winning despite him. I set the over/under of his ALCS miscues at four!

- Randy, Derry, N.H.

SG: You can read more of Randy's work at his "Mr. Ungrateful" blog. Here's my take on Tito: He has never been outmanaged in a playoff series; his players love him and play hard for him; he handles the media as deftly as anyone this side of Doc Rivers; and by all accounts, he's a genuinely good person. You're never going to find a perfect manager or coach. That person just doesn't exist. So if you had your druthers (love that word), you'd want your manager's biggest weakness to be, "makes some occasionally boneheaded decisions that rarely come back to haunt the team because of the horseshoe that was surgically inserted into his rear end during the '04 playoffs." He's certainly the best Red Sox manager of my lifetime. And beyond that, nobody spits sunflower seeds with more grace and precision.

Meanwhile, Tony Massarotti profiles Terry Francona and offers this fun little tidbit to illustrate why he may have the toughest job in baseball:

How in god's name can you justify that??? You are being paid millions of dollars and even my 9 year old son can do a better job than [a] sleep on the wheel manager like you.

- E-mail sent to Francona from Chembur, Mumbai (India)

IS EVERYONE'S FAVORITE DREADLOCKED GOOFBALL actually a bonafide genius? Joe Posnanski of SI.com makes the case:

The following column is dedicated to the admittedly bizarre proposition that one Manuel Aristides (Onelcida) Ramirez, sometimes known as Man-Ram or Manny Being Manny or just plain Manny, is a genius. Now, it's not an easy case to make that a man who tries to run to third on a ground rule double, who sometimes disappeared into the Green Monster during pitching changes, who gets pulled over by police for having overly tinted car windows is a genius.

And he's got some people who might back the theory:

Bill James, a baseball writer (and Boston Red Sox advisor) who has spent much of his life knocking down baseball myths, believes that Manny Ramirez is such a good hitter, he will purposely get into full-counts when there is a runner on first base. The reason? With a full-count, that runner will be running on the pitch and, as such, will become an RBI when Ramirez hits a double into the gap.

"I've seen it too many times to doubt it," Bill says.

Allard Baird, a longtime baseball scout and executive (and Boston Red Sox advisor) believes Manny Ramirez is such a good hitter, he will sometimes swing and miss at a pitch in April so that the pitcher will throw him that same pitch in September. The idea being: He won't miss that pitch in September.

"When it comes to hitting, the guy's mind works on a whole other level," Allard says.

REALLY GREAT COLLECTION OF BASEBALL PARK PICTURES from some famous graffiti artist guy I've never heard of.

DUSTIN PEDROIA IS A MONSTER and no one can stop him. Batting cleanup tonight (protecting Big Papi!), he went 4-for-4 with an intentional walk, scored three times, stole two bases (one with a slick headfirst slide into second) and made a bunch of crazy plays, including a giant leaping grab on a liner.

"A lot of people talk about Manny leaving," Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen said before the game. "I wish Pedroia was leaving."

The gamer at YFSF said it all:

Yes, a four-foot thireen-inch second baseman who weighs about a buck-thirty-five soaking wet is bringing his laser show to the four-slot for Beantown.

UPDATE: Pedroia left a few stranded in yesterday's game, but the romance with Guillen continued:

When Pedroia, who leads the AL in hitting at .326, made his first out of the series with a tapper back to the mound in the third inning, Guillen asked for the ball and held it out for Pedroia motioning like he wanted the All-Star second baseman's autograph. He then gestured to Pedroia again as Pedroia took the field before putting the ball in his back pocket. Eventually, Guillen flipped the ball to a kid in the stands.

Much more on the budding love affair between Ozzie and Pedey.

A WEIRDLY HOMOEROTIC POETRY MASH-UP in which every instance of the word "love" is replaced with "Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Player Carlton Fisk" in this poem:

"And know you not," says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

(Via kottke)

IN THE AFTERMATH of the Yankees' loss in "The First Game of the Final Series Between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium Ever!!!!", the Boston Globe rounds up the reaction in the New York media. With A-Rod going 0-5 with two strikeouts and two double play balls, including one with the bases loaded, there's this zinger from the New York Post:

We will remember Rodriguez dallied with Boston, didn't go there, came to the Yankees instead in 2004, and in his time here the nature of the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry has reversed to Red Sox champs, Yankees chumps. Rodriguez is the face of that historic flip-flop. He has bought into that role twice now, first when he forced his trade here, then last offseason when he accepted the largest financial package ever to return through the backdoor. He is all outsized. His greed. His lust for attention. His insecurities.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MANNY RAMIREZ, as chronicled in the Boston Globe's blog, includes a bet between Joe Torre and Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers on whether Manny will cut his hair:

As you know, Joe Torre asked Manny Ramirez to cut his hair, but I have this hunch it will never happen.

Torre disagrees, so now one of us will be making a charitable donation.

If Ramirez returns to Dodger Stadium a week from today to open the team's next home stand with all his hair, Torre said he would make a donation to Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA.

As part of the deal, Torre agrees he will say nothing more to Ramirez about his hair, believing Ramirez heard him the first time they talked.

If Ramirez shows up to Dodger Stadium without the dreads, Page 2 will make a donation to the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation.

As part of the deal, of course, I will say nothing more to Ramirez about his hair.

But just between you and me, who is Torre kidding?

You think he's going to bench Ramirez because the guy doesn't get his hair cut?

You think if he fines him it will make a difference, Ramirez knowing he's not getting paid by the Dodgers, so there's no money to take out of his pay?

You think the Red Sox are going to take it out of his pay, and do a favor for the former Yankees manager?

TOM WAITS INTERVIEWS HIMSELF, which is predictably a bit self-involved, but at least it's more interesting than your usual music magazine article.

Q: What's wrong with the world?

A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year . . . and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.

IT AIN'T OVER UNTIL IT'S OVER, and then sometimes it's not over even after that. The last two games against the Toronto Blue Jays each had do-overs. The first one featured a walkoff win, complete with dress rehearsal:

Few things are more embarrassing than premature exhilaration. That's what the Red Sox were guilty of last night at the Fens when they came storming out of their dugout to celebrate another apparent walkoff win, only to have plate umpire Sam Holbrook stop them short when he signaled that Jed Lowrie was out at home, the left leg of Toronto catcher Rod Barajas blocking Lowrie from his destination in the bottom of the ninth.

Instead of being in the vortex of a swirling bunch of delirious teammates, Lowrie was staring at a monitor in the runway behind the Sox dugout, watching a replay of the throw from Blue Jays center fielder Vernon Wells that deprived Brandon Moss of a game-winning hit.

"I got done with my clip, and on live TV [Jason] Varitek was hitting the ball," the Sox rookie said.

The following night was less dramatic, but just as silly:

No ninth-inning thunder last night. . . . But there were fireworks - after an apparent game-ending fly ball by Coco Crisp was nullified by second base umpire Bruce Dreckman, who called a balk on closer B.J. Ryan before he threw the pitch. The umpire ruled that Ryan had not come to a stop before throwing plateward.

"We saw it," Sox manager Terry Francona said of Dreckman's call. "He threw his arms up and we knew it was going to take a second."

With the crowd already headed for the exits and the Jays lining up for postgame high-fives, Jays manager John Gibbons, who had already begun strolling onto the field to slap some hands, flew into a rage when informed of Dreckman's call. He confronted the umpire, and was ejected.

"Their whole team was on the field," Sox catcher Kevin Cash said. "It was kind of like us [Wednesday] night, when we all ran out and Jed [Lowrie] was thrown out at the plate."

AND, OH YEAH, can we have more of these, please?:

The start of the game was delayed 15 minutes by rain but it lasted just two hours, 18 minutes, Boston's shortest game of the year.

"Great pitching on both sides is what it came down to," Toronto manager John Gibbons said.

AS MUCH HARD LUCK AS THE RED SOX recently had with great pitching but tough losses, Roy Halladay had worse:

It was Halladay's fourth straight complete game. He's lost the last three.

But then again, Pedroia was there to make sure everyone knew the Sox earned the win:

Lester allowed just one hit in eight innings, a clean single on Lyle Overbay's liner in the fifth over second baseman Pedroia's head. But Pedroia kept the game scoreless in the ninth when he dove to his right and nabbed Wells' grounder after Scott Rolen had doubled off Jonathan Papelbon (1-0) with two outs.

Pedroia gloved the ball and threw out Wells.

"Anybody's diving for any balls in that situation," Pedroia said. "It definitely got the crowd involved. It's a little bit of momentum. They could have had a run and it gets taken away."

Wells wanted to hit the ball up the middle.

"I saw it get by the mound," he said, "and I saw Superman at second base."

That play also earned Pedroia Baseball Tonight's number one Web Gem, by the way.

THE SCIENCE OF BASEBALL sometimes includes mad scientists. Sure, there's the famous shift – often employed against Big Papi – where the field is stacked on the right, leaving the entire third base side wide open. But then there's craziness like this:

Braves manager Bobby Cox was desperate, and he was plotting an ingenious plan. He was nearly out of right-handed pitchers, and players can't re-enter a game after they've been removed. If Mr. Resop, a righty, could play the outfield, that would allow Mr. Cox to replace him on the mound temporarily — and use a lefty specialist to pitch to Adam LaRoche — without losing him entirely. So after Mr. Resop pitched to three batters in the top of the 10th inning, Mr. Cox had him go to left field. When Mr. Resop returned to the pitcher's mound one batter later, it marked the first time a pitcher had pitched, played the field and pitched again in the same game since Jeff Nelson of the Seattle Mariners in 1993, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

But if Mr. Melvin had his way, the Brewers organization might be even more progressive. He has another counterintuitive idea: using relievers to start the game, and delaying the "starting" pitcher's entrance until the third inning or so. The thinking is that starters are typically among a team's best pitchers, yet nowadays they often pitch only through the fifth or sixth inning, well before many games are decided. By having them pitch later, they'd be around for the higher-leverage innings.

The idea would need to be tested first in the minor leagues, Mr. Melvin says. The only problem, it appears, is that it's too unconventional. "I can't get anybody to do it," he says.

THERE SEEMS TO BE A THEME DEVELOPING on ESPN.com's baseball widget. Today's headline: "Gagne blows save, but Kapler lifts Brewers in 12th." Good news for Gabe, at least.

ON A NIGHT WHEN BECKETT, VARITEK, LOWELL, CORA AND CRISP are all unavailable, this is a pretty great sentence to be able to read:

Jacoby Ellsbury hit two solo homers and Kevin Youkilis added a two-run shot for Boston, while Pedroia went 4-for-5 with three doubles and a single.

It's their sixth straight win and third late-inning comeback.

ESPN.COM WIDGET HEADLINE: "Reds rally off closer Gagne in 10th, stun Brewers." Isn't it more shocking that the Brewers were stunned?

TURNS OUT THE HEX WASN'T A HOAX, but did it actually become a pox on the Sox, and not a prank on the Yanks? It may have seemed like a great idea to bury a Red Sox jersey underneath the new Yankee Stadium as a curse on the Yankees, but the symbolism never really made sense to me. Turns out the jersey buried in concrete bore the name of one Mr. David Ortiz, whose .070 average and 3 for 43 slump definitely borders on the supernatural, but in a bad way. Looks like the construction worker's well-meaning curse may have backfired. Oops. Now that the Yanks have excavated the jersey, let's see if Papi gets his mojo back.

BOSTON.COM'S MOST EMAILED FOR THE DAY includes one notable news item from the Bronx.

BASEBALL PLAYERS MIGHT BE THE FUNNIEST OF PRO ATHLETES — but then again, the only sport I really follow is baseball so my theory might be full of crapola. Still, the personalities that make up, say, the NBA and NFL seem to me mostly humorless and/or too full of themselves to say something actually funny as opposed to just buffoonish-ly funny. Of course, Barry Bonds is pretty much the poster boy for "humorless, hyper-competitive, self-important meathead." But then you also have wiseasses like Kevin Millar, goofballs like Manny, clowns like Big Papi and a bunch of other fun-loving guys trying to keep things light over a long season. An interview with Dustin Pedroia in the Globe, while not hilarious, at least shows these guys aren't totally unimaginative dumbass jocks who take everything too seriously.

GLOBE: No marriage proposals?

PEDROIA: There was yesterday! [A woman held up a sign that said] "Pedroia's future wife" and had an arrow pointing down. I was like, "Jeez. This woman must be blind. Poor thing."

A CAT NAMED OSCAR IS THE HARBINGER OF DEATH in an old person's home, according to articles in the Boston Globe and New England Journal of Medicine:

Since he was adopted by staff members as a kitten, Oscar the Cat has had an uncanny ability to predict when residents are about to die. Thus far, he has presided over the deaths of more than 25 residents on the third floor of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death, allowing staff members to adequately notify families. Oscar has also provided companionship to those who would otherwise have died alone. For his work, he is highly regarded by the physicians and staff at Steere House and by the families of the residents whom he serves.

That sounds nice and all, but I have an alternate theory: I think the cat is killing off the patients one by one and stealing their souls. Why does no one else suspect this?

WATCHING 23-YEAR-OLD JON LESTER PITCH in his first big league start since being treated for cancer wasn't as interesting as watching his parents watching their 23-year-old son pitch in his first big league start since being treated for cancer:

In the third, Sizemore connected for a two-run homer off Lester, who was in trouble again in the fourth.

The Indians loaded the bases with one out but Lester broke Josh Barfield's bat on a comebacker that he bobbled before throwing home to force Garko. With Sizemore back up, Lester's mom, Kathie, couldn't watch as her son battled Cleveland's leadoff hitter.

When Lester finally blew a fastball past Sizemore for strike three to end the threat, his father, John, and Kathie jumped up and pumped their fists in celebration. However, she quickly sat back down and resumed her doubled-up position, seemingly afraid to watch anymore.

THIS JUST OCCURRED TO ME ABOUT THE HULK — the military was probably right in trying to bring that crazy mofo into custody. I mean, that guy was out of control, a serious threat to public safety. Sure, he was misunderstood. But he was a giant, violent, angry green ball of misunderstanding that could smash buildings and swing tanks over his head. So, yeah, let's get the guy some professional help so he can work out his issues — but for god's sake, let's get him that help under federal custody. I don't know why that didn't occur to me when I was a kid. Or maybe it's yet another sign of being old and fearful now.

ROGER CLEMENS MAKES ANOTHER COMEBACK in the year 2057 — a fun little short film by Michael Barber and Matt Oates.

EVEN WITH THE YANKEES 10.5 GAMES BACK, there are always reasons to keep watching. For one, the return of the Rocket means there's never enough distance between the Sox and the surging Yanks (their pitchers are pitching, their bats are hitting, their runners are stealing, and they've won 8 of their last 10, including a five-game winning streak and a Chien-Ming Wang complete game victory).

But beyond the ever-present fear of a Yankees uprising and Red Sox collapse (once a Red Sox fan always a Red Sox fan), there are also the little rewards that baseball bestows upon those who stick with the long season. Like taking satisfaction in watching wily Julian Tavarez (6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 5 SO) put up about the same pitching line as Clemens (6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 7 SO) – for approximately a gazillion dollars less per game.

Or there's Schilling getting one out away from a no-hitter, shaking off Varitek's call for a slider ("He's swinging"), and banking on his fastball instead ("He's taking"), on that fateful (second-to-last) at-bat against Oakland's Shannon Stewart. Or, as Schill himself puts it in his blog:

Now comes the infamous ‘shake’. In talking with Tek after the game it’s clear to me that he was 100% spot on with his thought, and I was completely wrong with mine. Why would he take a strike at this point? I had gone to 1 three ball count all day. I wasn’t going to walk him and the only thing you do at that point, by taking a strike, is allow me freedom to use my split. There was no way in hell he was taking. I was sure otherwise. So I shake off the slider, execute the pitch I want, and he lines it to right.

It was a game of minor statistical importance (hey, we're 10.5 games ahead!) played on a school day, so many of us caught on late that potential history was in the making. But that's because we're cubicle monkeys, checking in on the team between meetings and emails. Big Papi, however, realized what was going on even later than the rest of us, and he was actually there:

It was Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills who alerted the media to the fact David Ortiz was in the dark about Schilling taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning.

"Ortiz came up to me and said, 'I swear on my children, I didn't know it was a no-hitter,' " said Mills, who had the manager's office to himself after the game because Terry Francona decided Mills deserved some attention after his son, Beau, was drafted by Cleveland in the first round (13th overall). "After the game, he came up to us. You can go ask him."

Francona said Ortiz told him the same thing, and the big man owned up to his ignorance.

"I didn't know until after the first out in the last inning," said Ortiz, whose home run in the first inning gave Schilling the run he needed to win his sixth game against two losses. "That's when I got nervous. I looked at the board, saw all the zeroes. [First base coach] Luis Alicea, he asked me, 'What would you do? Would you bring the closer in?'

"He was messing around with me. I was like, 'He's pitching good, why bring in the closer? Later on, I looked at all those zeroes, and I see the zero under 'H,' I go, 'Wait a minute.' I'm looking around and everybody goes, 'Shhhh.' That's when I started getting nervous."

Utility guy Alex Cora had this response:

Sox infielder Alex Cora was dubious of Ortiz's claim. "How many people were at that game?" Cora asked. "Thirty thousand? Twenty-five guys on their side, and 24 [on ours] . . . he was the only guy not watching the game."

And random Red Sox fan Bill Chuck had this:

After reading David Ortiz's claim that he didn't know Curt Schilling had a no-hitter in progress Thursday, reader Bill Chuck e-mailed: "The fact that Big Papi was not aware of Schilling's no-hitter until one down in the ninth can only be attributed to David being Manny."

So there's the painfully close bid at a history-making no-hitter — and then there are the little things, like Julio Lugo's hidden ball trick, which brings its own kind of drama to the June proceedings:

Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell did not see Julio Lugo tag out an unsuspecting Alberto Callaspo Friday night, but he was ready to pronounce judgment on the play.

"That's not a real hidden-ball trick," Lowell said yesterday , "although I'm sure the stats say it is."

Lugo tagged out Callaspo when he strayed off second base, not realizing that Lugo — who had taken a throw from right fielder J.D. Drew — had not returned the ball to pitcher Josh Beckett, even though Beckett said afterward he was calling for the ball.

"I saw it on the replay," Lowell said, "I didn't see it while it was going on."

Lugo said once before he'd executed a similar play, but said the umpire missed it. "I try it all the time," he said. "It just didn't work.

"The umpire [Chris Guccione] was right on top of the play."

Lowell executed a similar play in 2005, when he was with Florida, and it also came against Arizona, when the third baseman tagged out Luis Terrero, who also strayed off the bag with Lowell still in possession of the ball. Why, then, was Lowell's play superior to Lugo's?

"Because [Lugo] didn't have to do anything," Lowell said. "[Pitcher Todd ] Jones had to sell it more than anyone.

"Jonesie, the only reason I didn't get rid of the ball was he was backing up home plate. I wasn't going to throw it to him. So I just waited. Then I glanced over to third and the third base coach and Terrero were both looking down at the time. So I said, I'll just walk over until Jonesie gets to the mound. If he asks for the ball, I'm going to give it to him. But we made eye contact and he saw me, then he walked around the mound, he's at the back, he started stretching. We were, honestly, about three seconds away from just forgetting about it because we couldn't wait anymore. And right there [Terrero] took a step off the bag, and it worked out."

No-hitters and hidden ball tricks both display some of the particular fun of baseball. It's a game with a long memory for little things and big things, each moment adding incrementally to a player's stats while also echoing the accomplishments of games past. So even though it's a long season in a game with a long history, even the smallest things begin to carry strange significance.

One day, Trot Nixon steps into the batter's box as a player for the opposing team, but what takes the stage is appreciation for the 13 seasons he spent as an original dirt dog. And on that same day, Kevin Youkilis has the first inside-the-park home run at Fenway since . . . Trot Nixon.

So, Mother's Day comebacks aside, there are other special moments that have nothing to do with winning and losing that are worth watching.

Or if you don't buy that, then remember this: 10.5 games is nothing when you're talking about the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

Suprisingly, it takes a New York Daily News columnist to remind us of how the tides can turn. After all, when the Red Sox were 8.5 games back on July 1, 2004, everyone began to count them out then, as well.

A COUPLE OF OLD GUYS SUBDUE A CRAZY PASSENGER on a Northwest Airlines flight while all the young dudes on the plane basically acted like weenies and "averted their eyes" to avoid involvement in the coming confrontation. Both of the old guys who stepped up are retired badasses — one is a former police commander, the other is a former marine captain. The best part though is how the wife of one of the geezer's reacted:

Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.

"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."

Clearly, all the excitement is gone from this marriage. I mean, what's a guy got to do to impress a lady these days?

WE'RE ALL SICKOS, according to the way it's laid out in this Salon article about Michael Moore's new movie:

When Moore interviews Tony Benn, a leading figure on the British left, his larger concerns come into focus. Benn argues that for-profit healthcare and the other instruments of the corporate state, like student loans and bottomless credit-card debt, perform a crucial function for that state. They undermine democracy by creating a docile and hardworking population that is addicted to constant debt and an essentially unsustainable lifestyle, that literally cannot afford to quit jobs or take time off, that is more interested in maintaining high incomes than in social or political change. Moore seizes on this insight and makes it a kind of central theme; both in the film and aloud, at the press conference, he wondered whether some essential and unrecognized change has occurred in the American character.

Sounds 'bout right.

MORE EVIDENCE TAVAREZ IS A NUTBAG, perhaps, even a bigger nutbag than Manny?:

If Tavarez is unflappable about nearly everything baseball, there is one thing that bothers him — when teammate Manny Ramírez rubs the top of his head, which he did in the dugout last week.

"Manny's always been a guy who is like 12 years old whenever he feels like it," said Tavarez, who has known Ramírez for 15 years. "I told him, 'Listen, we are on TV, so stop playing around.' I told him to stop rubbing my head. He knows I fall asleep easily when somebody does that to my head, but he [kept] doing it. Manny's a great guy and a great player."

Here's video of the head-rubbing incident.

TOP 10 COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO MOVIES, in order of best to worst (not counting The Incredibles — because it wasn't based on a comic book and it's animated — but otherwise it would have been number 2 on this list):

1. Superman: The Movie
2. Spider-Man
3. Batman
4. Superman II
5. Spider-Man 2
6. Spider-Man 3
7. X-Men
8. Hulk
9. Batman Returns
10. --

The point being: There aren't a lot of great comic book superhero movies. So even though 10 gazillion people watched Spider-Man 3 this weekend and 5 gazillion of them liked it and 5 gazillion of them disliked it, it still makes it squarely into the top 10 and dominates as a series.

CRAZY MAN HAS MADE FRIENDS. Strangely enough, psychotic relief pitcher-turned-starter Julian Tavarez has grown smitten with Japanese imports Matsuzaka and Okajima. This is the same Tavarez known for a long, colorful history of tantrums, including punching Tampa Bay Devil Ray Joey Gathright during a play at the plate in a spring training game and punching a phone in the dugout during the 2004 World Series when he was playing for St. Louis. Nowadays, you'll often see him standing at the top of the dugout and talking animatedly with Matsuzaka. Whether Matsuzaka has any idea what he's saying is questionable, but there's a lot of nodding going on, either out of politeness or self-preservation. Tavarez' affections are chronicled in this Globe story covering his last outing (a win):

The Sox bullpen continues to be a great source of shiawase — that's Japanese for happiness — which is why Tavarez goes out of his way to keep not only Daisuke Matsuzaka but Hideki Okajima smiling.

"They're all my friends, Okajima and Matsuzaka," said Tavarez, whose only trouble yesterday came in the third, when he walked Jorge Posada and Robinson Cano, then crossed up catcher Jason Varitek by throwing a slider when Varitek was calling for a fastball, which allowed Mientkiewicz to forgo a bunt and deliver a long ball instead.

"I try to talk to those guys, come out with a joke every day," Tavarez said. "Hopefully, they like me a lot. I just try to make them happy. I think I'm the only player who tries to say something every day, even if it's a stupid thing."

Along with stories of snake oil on his pitching arm and some pretty good pitching to boot, somehow Tavarez has crossed over from "dangerous nutbag" to "somewhat endearing dangerous nutbag," in a crazy Manny sort of way. Now it even seems Tavarez is hoping to learn how to throw a cut fastball from Matsuzaka. Perhaps, in exchange for tips on how to punch things.

OUR OLD ACE BARELY LASTED FOUR INNINGS, our new lead-off guy struck out three times, one of our two Japanese imports gave up a homerun with his very first Major League pitch and the boys in red didn't look so hot on the base paths (or the outfield) either. Sure, it was all against a pretty good pitcher. But it was also against arguably the worst team in baseball. Question marks abound, and, well, it is only the first game of the season, after all. But at least this, we know: It could have been worse. And it can only get better.

EVEN WHEN MATSUZAKA HAS A BAD OUTING, it's okay. So he gives up a walk every inning? It's still five innings of no-hit baseball. Maybe the hype machine has gone into overdrive, but if the cap'n says he's the real thing, then he's the real thing:

Matsuzaka? He has at least five or six pitches, maybe seven, though getting people like Varitek to identify them is like trying to crack the Da Vinci Code. At this stage, it appears Matsuzaka throws a four-seam fastball, curveball, slider, cut fastball, split-fingered fastball and changeup, the latter of which is the mythical gyroball that Matsuzaka throws with the arm action of a screwball.

Isn’t that right?

“I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you,” mused Varitek, eagerly awaiting a decision.

A short time later, in response to another question about Matsuzaka’s arsenal, Varitek nodded and said, “No.”

If you are somewhat mystified by all of this, do not be embarrassed. Matsuzaka has so many pitches that Varitek actually is using a cheat sheet similar to those employed by NFL quarterbacks. Depending on the game situation, the same sign can mean an entirely different pitch, which is why the time shared by Varitek and Matsuzaka this spring has been so critical.

FOR ANYONE GOING THROUGH A MID-LIFE CRISIS, this should make for some excellent reading. Ostensibly, it's about inventing yourself and making a good impression. But for me, it's about confusion and angst:

It is said that we are all three different people: the person we think we are (the one we have invented), the person other people think we are (the impression we make) and the person we think other people think we are (the one we fret about). You could say it would be a lifetime's quest to reconcile this battling trinity into a seamless whole.

(Via kottke)

DAISUKE MATSUZAKA HAS A BAD OUTING during spring training. Oh, no! It's the end of the world! It's the end of the world! We're all doomed!!!

Or maybe not.

LIFE IN THE BIG CITY AND FRIED CHICKEN CRAVINGS don't always make the best of friends. Or so I learned from this video. Unfortunately, I saw the video last week and ate at the fine dining establishment in question four weeks ago. But never fear, now that KFC has brought an expert in on the scene, I'm sure everything will be fine from now on:

Corrigan is a world-renowned expert on rodent problems. He once spent months living in a rat-infested barn to better study the rodent's behavior, and he has taught at the New York City Rodent Control Academy.

There's a Rodent Control Academy?

WHEN HUMAN AND APE GO TO WAR, it's good to know that the pigeons will be on our side – whether they like it or not.

Scientists in eastern China have successfully experimented with brain-motor skill manipulation in pigeons to "force the bird to comply with their commands." Micro electrodes have been planted into the brains of these pigeons to control their movement left, right, up, and down during flight.

Beware of bombs, Koko!

THE WAR BETWEEN MAN AND APE IS FAST APPROACHING as evidenced by this article on spear-wielding chimps. Planet of the Apes warned us that this day would come and now it's finally here.

GOOD NEWS FOR RED SOX-OBSESSED, MAC-WIELDING GEEKS like me. Here's an Applescript for building your very own season schedule in iCal in six easy steps. Blessed be the Mac development community, even if this particular member is an A's fan.

DICE-K CLIPS HIS TOE NAILS, film at 11. Or at least some thrilling coverage from the Globe. I wonder, can we really keep up with the moment-by-moment coverage of his every move the entire season?

NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING and just to prove it, Wired's made a list of 40 big unanswered questions of the universe. This one's my favorite because even if you answer it, it's still bewildering and bad:

How do entangled particles communicate?

One of the zanier notions in the plenty zany world of quantum mechanics is that a pair of subatomic particles can sometimes become “entangled.” This means the fate of one instantly affects the other, no matter how far apart they are. It’s such a bizarre phenomenon that Einstein dissed the idea in the 1930s as “spooky action at a distance,” saying it showed that the developing model of the atomic world needed rethinking.

But it turns out that the universe is spooky after all. In 1997, scientists separated a pair of entangled photons by shooting them through fiber-optic cables to two villages 6 miles apart. Tipping one into a particular quantum state forced the other into the opposite state less than five-trillionths of a second later, or nearly 7 million times faster than light could travel between the two. Of course, according to relativity, nothing travels faster than the speed of light - not even information between particles.

Even the best theories to explain how entanglement gets around this problem seem preposterous. One, for example, speculates that signals are shot back through time. Ultimately, the answer is bound to be unnerving: According to a famous doctrine called Bell’s Inequality, for entanglement to square with relativity, either we have no free will or reality is an illusion. Some choice.

The other fun and disturbing thing you realize as you read the other articles is how often scientists use giant particle smashing machines called super colliders to test their theories — and that smashing particles in giant machines could possibly result in creating a black hole that sucks us all up into oblivion. Crazy scientists.

"A HUGE PINBALL MACHINE DESIGNED BY A MAD SCULPTOR," also known as Fenway Park. ESPN.com has a spot-on appreciation of Fenway's timeless allure, including Manny's wee-wee escapade in the Green Monster.

DICE-K, THE MONSTER, GODZUKI or whatever ya call him is coming to America. The baby-faced, somewhat pampered $100 million man (plus perks) isn't exactly Jesus, but he'll be wearing #18, and he brings passion for the hometown team back from the dead as far as the faithful are concerned. Gordon Edes covers the drama in this play-by-play of hardball negotiations (essential reading), which at one point bordered on the absurd (police escort for a physical?).

But if the fear is that Japan's national treasure won't relocate so easily to his new nation (marketing ick-fest), especially amid the outsized expectations for a 26-year-old who's never pitched in the Majors before, we have this tidbit to give us hope that this kid is ready for the madness that is the American League East, even if J.D. Drew is not:

Asked about his expectations for next season, according to Sankei Sport [Matsuzaka] said: "I think getting a good start on the season will be a key to succeed. At this time, I feel Boston fans are welcoming to me, but I heard their character.

"When I'm not playing well, I am sure to have a tough time in Boston. I am going to do my best in order to make Boston fans be more excited."

Matsuzaka spoke with his new catcher, Jason Varitek, in a conference call the day after signing, Boras said.

When the agent visited in Japan this summer, Matsuzaka's wife asked for a favor. "She wanted to know if I could get Daisuke the jersey of his favorite player," Boras said. "I thought it might be Ichiro, or [Hideki] Matsui. No – it was Jason Varitek."

Right on, my yellow brother. Right on.

TRADING MANNY TO BOSTON is the best idea ever. This exchange, buried in The Sports Guy's mailbag:

Q: The Sox should just tell Manny he got traded to Boston. He won't know the difference.

- Mike H, Noxen, N.H.

SG: I love this idea. They could go all out with this: Call him up, tell him he's been traded to Boston, have him pack up all of his stuff, fly him in circles in the team jet for five hours, then drop him off in Cambridge and tell him he's on the West Coast. He might fall for it. By the time the season starts, it will be too late for him to complain. I really think this could work.

I HATE THE VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM, the inevitable and interminable purgatory that is a condition of every Red Sox online ticket sale. Every December, the Red Sox make tickets available for a handful of next season's games (ostensibly just in time for holiday gift giving). So every December, I spend a day sitting in front of the computer, living my life in-between 30-second automated browser refreshes that read:

Welcome to the Boston Red Sox Virtual Waiting Room!

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT PATRONS ARE SELECTED FROM THIS VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM ON A RANDOM BASIS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE TICKETS.

We are experiencing very high demand. As a result, all requests for seats cannot be served simultaneously. Please be patient, and your browser will be refreshed in: [30 . . . 29 . . . 28 . . . 27 . . . 26 . . . seconds]

When we refresh your browser, we will determine your status in the waiting room and, if appropriate, give you an opportunity to request seats. DO NOT REFRESH THIS WINDOW. We appreciate your patience.

Tremendous interest for Boston Red Sox tickets may produce lengthy wait times. While waiting, please be sure to read the following important information and check for general availability status below. . . .

Which is what I'm doing right now. And what I've been doing since 10:00am this morning. Waiting. And then, every 30 seconds, checking to see if my wait's over. And then I go back to waiting. And checking. And waiting. Every 30 seconds the message in the browser window refreshes, revealing the same message that was displayed during the previous 30 seconds.

But at the end of one of these half-minute nuggets, the Virtual Waiting Room will suddenly disappear, and I'll immediately find myself staring at a seating chart, plunged into an intense state of panic as I try to assess which seats are left to which games against which teams and on which days. The system allows you mere minutes to secure all your tickets before your time's up, and you can practically feel the good seats disappearing right in front of your eyes. It's the same feeling I imagined as a kid winning one of those 60-second shopping sprees at Toys 'R' Us — except now there's a $4 processing fee for each toy I grab and there are a hundred thousand other kids competing for the best toys right alongside me.

Keep in mind, we're talking about games in April and May, so it's already an act of faith to commit in advance the hundreds of dollars that the eight ticket per person limit represents. Yet the worst part isn't that all of this investment is based on a system that feels so fragile — linger too long or click the wrong button in haste and risk banishment back into the Virtual Waiting Room. And the worst part isn't that a lot of the weird purchasing restrictions and protocols are designed to discourage scalpers — and in fact do absolutely nothing to discourage scalpers — but instead make the process extra tricky for the rest of us. The worst part isn't even that you get to do this twice a year, once today and then some other day when the tickets for the rest of the season become available. The worst part is that, all things considered, this is probably as good a system for online ticket buying as we can expect. Go Sox.

IF MATSUI IS GODZILLA, then shouldn't Daisuke be Godzuki? According to the Wikipedia entry on Hanna-Barbera's "The Godzilla Power Hour":

Also included in the series was a cute diminutive Godzilla counterpart, Godzooky, who could summon the monster himself if necessary.

Makes sense to me, allowing that the monster Daisuke summons is the powerful and possibly mythical gyroball (not his pinstriped brethren, Matsui-san).

Anyway, regardless of whether it's necessary to call Daisuke Matsuzaka anything but Daisuke Matsuzaka, or whether we should be wary of reinforcing cartoonish cultural stereotypes, I say Godzuki as a nickname is still way better than "Dice-K". Where did the Globe come up with that? It's not remotely fun to say, nor does it convey the awesome might of a strange radioactive monster from a foreign land, which if nothing else, is at least intimidating. Dice K sounds like a second rate hip-hop artist, if you ask me.

UPDATE: Apparently, Daisuke is pronounced "Dice-K," so, uh, that's where the Globe came up with the nickname – it's his actual name (sorta). But it's still kinda lame. I much prefer the one he threw out there during his press conference:

His Translator: His nickname is the Monster in Japan. Now he’ll become the Red Monster. . . . [he's] very happy and excited to be on the Boston Red Sox.

17TH-CENTURY REALISM MEETS 20TH-CENTURY TELEVISION in "Joseph's Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob" (1630) by Diego Velázquez, now appearing in a really good exhibit at The National Gallery in London. The painting depicts Joseph's jealous brothers cleverly (and guiltily) offering their father false evidence of his favored son's death. Only Jacob's canine companion, straight out of a scene from Lassie, seems to know what the real deal is. One can almost hear the spaniel yapping, "Ruff! Something smells suspicious! Ruff! Ruff!" Apparently, even the masters will indulge in melodramatic plot devices from time to time.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE GYROBALL are illuminated by the Slate's Explainer, including the pitch's shared traits with the equally enigmatic googly:

Whether it has a sharp break or a big dip, some major leaguers and pitching coaches have dismissed the gyro as merely a variation on the cut fastball. The gyro has also been compared to a cricket pitch called the googly, which is also thrown with sidespin.

It's unclear whether Matsuzaka actually throws a gyroball. He's been evasive in interviews, saying that he might have thrown the pitch "sometimes accidentally." Carroll believes he saw Matsuzaka throw a few gyroballs during this year's World Baseball Classic. According to Himeno, at least two other Japanese pitchers use the pitch.

Hope the pitcher – and the pitch – are worth it.

LIFE'S ROUGH WHEN YOU'RE DEAD, especially if you've made a few enemies here and there – like, family. Hopefully, when I'm happy and buried, I won't leave a legacy of bitter, wounded people who post comments like these to my online memorial:

Some of the snubs are blunt. “Everyone gets their due,” a former client writes of an embezzling accountant. Or, “I sincerely hope the Lord has more mercy on him than he had on me during my years reporting to him at the Welfare Department.”

Others are subtler: “She never took the time to meet me, but I understand she was a wonderful grandmother to her other grandchildren.”

“Reading the obit, he sounds like he was a great father,” says another, which is signed, “His son Peter.”

Hayes Ferguson, the company’s chief operating officer, said, “Most often it’s cases of Sue posting that he was the love of my life and then we check and the wife’s name is Mary.”

No rest for the wicked, I suppose.

IT'S NOT YET WINTER, but ticket prices are frozen and it's chillier than normal at Fenway. Limping out of last season and looking ahead to the third season since that happy day, it's clear that little of the magic lingers. Along with having to endure a parade of turncoat idiots, missed aces, front office shenanigans, oppressive media regimes, squandered promise, and unfulfilled potential, we've also had to witness the St. Louis Cardinals win a World Series, which managed to stir up some kind of vague, deeply repressed disappointment – an unsettling flashback from a twisted, parallel dimension.

So when the Sox announce that an unprecedented number of ticket prices will remain unchanged for 2007, it's not just a team acknowledging that a day at the ballpark shouldn't require a second mortgage. It's also a franchise beginning to recognize the limits of the goodwill they earned from a grateful fan base. (Note: I refuse to refer to the fans as "Red Sox Nation" since the organization has managed to mutate that once noble term into a marketing ick-fest, as well.)

But then again, whenever ownership needs to bolster fan sympathies – and open fan wallets – there's always plan B. Or more accurately, plan NY. In the Boston Globe article, Larry Lucchino says, "Our challenge is to protect those lower prices for fans and families on a tight budget while still improving revenue. We still must compete with those with much deeper pockets, and we still must continue to make improvements to Fenway Park." He simultaneously acknowledges the financial limits of "regular" fans while also invoking our hatred for the Yankees as if it was a money-making incantation: "Abacadabra! If you still want to beat the Yankees, then sit your butt in those seats, stuff another Fenway Frank in your mouth and don't complain about how much it all costs."

In the end, the decision to freeze a majority of the ticket prices is a small gesture. (After all, the "lower prices" Lucchino says he wants to "protect" still help make Fenway the most expensive ballpark in all of Major League Baseball.) And clearly, the overall vibe on Yawkey Way is still one of desperation. This upcoming season could be the first in this ownership's reign where interest in the hometown team actually drops off. No more victory tours for The Trophy. Even fewer familiar faces to remind us of past glories.

Is this the last shot for the once infallible management to bring back the magic? Is this the year when the fans who were swept up by the euphoria of 2004 finally begin to stray? (Of course, the lingering anxiety for me is the possibility of discovering that my own interest could wane, as well. No one likes to feel passion fade away. . . . )

Sure, leaves are still falling, football's in full swing, and Mirabelli's on his sofa testing free agency in preparation for his next emergency police escort. But the stove is stoked with coals and you can already smell the grass at Fort Myers — it's just that the odor is a little different this time around. And all we can do is save our pennies for a seat at the park and see what fortunes the spring brings.

MY GIANT ONLINE MEDIA EMPIRE is kinda freaking me out. I've just added an iLike profile to go along with my Friendster page, my MySpace page, my Amazon.com wish list, my Netflix Friends profile, my homepage, my other homepage, my blog, my old Monster.com resume, my old HotJobs resume, my old Creative Hotlist resume, and whatever else Google can dig up. It's all out there for the world to see. And like the guy at The Sneeze, I don't even know why I signed up for half of these things in the first place. Maybe I should get myself a good alias. Because at the same time that I'm glomming onto every web template within clicking distance, I'm also terribly concerned about my privacy. Can you overexpose yourself and still have no one know who you are? Has the Internet turned us all into megalomaniacal, self-absorbed, social networking, paranoid cyber-stalkers? Or is it just me?

NIGHTY NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT, don't let the Cimex lectularius infest your home, drag you into legal battles with your landlord or co-op, force you to throw out your mattress and vacuum all your books, and generally make life miserable. Apparently, bed bugs don't just bite, they terrorize. And while everyone else in New York is trying to get rid of them, this guy keeps 'em as pets:

"People are afraid to admit they have bedbugs, because they feel it means that they haven’t had proper cleaning or hygiene in their apartment,” said Louis N. Sorkin, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. (He keeps a small colony of bedbugs in a glass jar at his office and lets them feed on his arm.)

FEMALES ARE SCARY, pretty much no matter the species. Even so, there are so many creepy moments in this article about cannibalistic sugar mamas, I don't even know where to begin. Well, I suppose this description of dead suitors leaving behind their leftover genitalia seems a good a place as any:

Scientists have found other species in which males encourage their own cannibalism. One remarkable twist on this strategy is seen in a species of orb-weaving spiders. The males suddenly die as they mate. The male’s death may be a strategy for preventing other males from mating with the female. In death, its sexual organ becomes stuck in the female’s receptacle. Even if she feeds on the rest of his body, the organ remains behind, preventing her from receiving more sperm.

Um. Jeez.

A POX ON THE SOX or some kind of epidemic has surely stricken the hometown team. Not only did Jon Lester get back problems from a fender bender on Storrow, but now he's been diagnosed with lymphona. Plus, apparently Papelpon's arm fell off last night. Tek has a bad knee. Trot has strained biceps. Gonzo has a strained oblique. Papi has heart palpitations. Manny has a bum knee, too. Wily Mo has a messed up wrist. Wakefield has a stress fracture in his rib cage. Schilling's missing his next start with a muscle strain. Beckett just kind of sucks. And then once Wells got healthy and proved to be effective, we dealt him away. It just turned September, but the white flag is already waving over Fenway.

THE PERILS OF CELEBRITY ACTIVISM IN CHINA are revealed in this article about Yao Ming trying to dissuade Chinese from eating shark fin soup. (Apparently, shark fin soup is bad for sharks.) All very noble, indeed. But be careful not to offend Chinese tradition too much or you might end up like this poor girl:

And when Zhao Wei, a popular singer, donned a Japanese military flag for a fashion shoot — disrespecting not just government policy but perhaps the sensibilities of Chinese still angry over the war with Japan — her career began to fizzle. At a concert, she was tackled by a construction worker who said his grandparents had been killed during the war. He smeared her face with feces.

Old grudges are hard to give up, I suppose. Also, more evidence that the Chinese only hurry at change as long as change means more moolah. And more moolah means more shark fin soup, naturally.

NOMAR WILL ALWAYS BE NOMAH even if he is playing in blue instead of red:

One of Garciaparra's ex-teammates in Boston said the Dodgers and Yankees made the same offer, but Garciaparra chose LA because, ''He always considers himself a Red Sox. That's one thing people don't understand about Nomar. He would have never signed with the Yankees because he always thought of himself as a Red Sox player."

It's a character trait that reminds us why we don't miss Johnny D. as much as we thought we would. Then again, who knows what would have happened had the Yanks offered Nomar $14 million more to play in pinstripes, as they did with Damon? (I still like to think Nomie would have done the right thing.)

WHY WE SUCK is well-stated in Robert Wright's review of books on anti-Americanism. This bit pretty much sums up why we can't all get along, whether we're talking about conflicts of nationality, race, class, gender, sexuality, age, weight, baseball teams, or even musical preferences:

In other words: We're not obnoxiously evangelistic, just obnoxiously self-involved. So even if Bush doesn't reflect the real America, and is replaced by someone who does, we'll still be in trouble. At least, we'll be in trouble if much of the problem is indeed, as Sweig argues, the longstanding "near inability of the United States to see its power from the perspective of the powerless." Changing that will require not a leader worthy of the people, but a leader willing to lead the people.

Sweig complains that "Americans think of themselves as kings and queens of the world's prom." But, actually, we can't escape that role, at least for now. In wealth and power we are No. 1. The question is whether we'll be the typical prom king or queen — resented by most at the bottom of the social hierarchy and many in the middle — or instead the rare prom king or queen who manages to be really, truly, you know, popular.

Americans may be bad at doing what Sweig recommends — "seeing ourselves as others see us" — but we're not alone in this. People in general have trouble putting themselves in the shoes of people whose circumstances differ from theirs. That's why the world is such a mess — and why succeeding at this task would qualify as real moral progress.

NATURE'S A MOTHER in this warm and fuzzy New York Times article, which arrives just in time to brighten everyone's Mother's Day:

Researchers long viewed infanticide and similar acts of maternal skulduggery as pathological, a result of the mother's being under extreme stress. A farmer's child pokes around in a rabbit's nest, for example, and the mother rabbit responds by methodically consuming every one of her eight baby bunnies. By standard reckoning, it made little genetic sense for a mother to destroy her young, and maternal nurturing was assumed to be a hard-wired affair.

More recently, scientists have accrued abundant evidence that "bad" mothering is common in nature and that it is often a centerpiece of the reproductive game plan.

Along with a bunch of other fun-filled examples of mothers from hell, the author also sneaks in a reference to birds called "blue-footed boobies". So, basically, the whole article is a non-stop laugh-fest.

WHAT'S GREAT ABOUT AMERICA is that Stephen Colbert wasn't immediately brought outside and shot twice in the head by Secret Service agents for his surreal antics at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Maybe freedom is still alive, after all. (Nah.)

JUDAS COMES BACK TO FENWAY AND IT ISN'T PRETTY. Johnny Damon tipped his hat even as the faithful booed. It probably shows he's a classy guy – which certainly counts for something, but not so much that it could stop the jeering. Joe Torre can't understand it: Johnny gave Boston four great years and a championship title. Are we really so ungrateful? But it's not just because Damon's a traitor or because he chose money over loyalty (five years for $52 million to play for the Yankees, instead of $40 million to spend eternity as a Boston legend). No, I think we boo because if we didn't, then we'd be making a mockery of the rivalry itself. Johnny's defection stings. But his belief that we'd welcome him back to Fenway wearing pinstripes is an even bigger insult. We loved him and we cheered him because he helped us beat the hated Yankees in the greatest comeback ever. If we also cheered him in his return as the enemy, then it's as if we never really loved him in the first place. Or to put it another way: If the rivalry doesn't matter, then why are we even watching?

I QUIT SMOKING FOR THIS? Skimming the online edition of the Los Angeles Times, I clicked on the headline, "State's Air Is Among the Nation's Worst". According to an EPA report, "Californians are breathing some of the most toxic air in the nation, with residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties exposed to a cancer risk about twice the national average." My first thought was, "Whew, I glad I got the heck out of there." Which was soon followed by a haughty, derisive, "Hah, you silly, smoothie-slurping, tracksuit-wearing, image-worshipping, smoking-in-bars-banning exercise freaks! Your precious SUVs spell your doom." Of course, the third paragraph of the article reads, "New York tops the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list" for highest chance of contracting cancer from breathing the air. Curses, foiled again.

THERE'S SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON AT AMAZON.COM and it has to do with the new Iron Maiden concert DVD. Even though I agree with the reviewers who are critical of Steve Harris' atrocious, hyperactive editing, I can't help but be suspicious of the six most recent one-star reviews (dated March 7–8). Or is it perfectly normal for users named Pitchulo Dun Dun, Poverty "Tungan", Kael, Gergellor, Patherson and Carmarthen — who apparently live in places called Filha de Uma Puta, Puta Que O Pariu, Jugland, Supimpalândia and Zunder — to post nearly the exact same review in two days? Even more bizarre, five of the six use the word "edition" when they mean to say "editing". I can't even begin to form a theory, unless some nutso metalhead actually has six different Amazon.com identities and felt compelled to post a negative review under each. But that's just crazy.

THE NEW YORK TIMES SPREADS FEAR AND DESPAIR with this wonderful oddity of an article about "iconic crimes" in today's metro section. I don't know whether they publish this sort of thing to give publicity to the writer's new book or to drive down housing prices, but it's still fun to read this doozy of a closing thought over tea on a lazy Sunday afternoon:

The crimes that become iconic etch themselves into the collective consciousness because they suggest a frightening truth: that the universe does not rely on cause and effect. If that is true, there's no possibility of control, and that thought opens an abyss of despair. People speak of "senseless" killings, but every crime makes sense to the criminal who commits it. Iconic crimes are those that are senseless to the victims, and to the public. They are a reminder that there is no way to guarantee safety. If a police officer mistakes you for someone else, you can be shot 19 times. If you go for a jog, you can be raped, beaten and left for dead. If you send your child to school, he may never come back.

And if you linger over a drink after closing time, your battered, empty body can turn up in a desolate place, under a lone streetlight, far away.

Just the thing to get you fired up for another Monday morning.

LAST NIGHT I HAD FOIE GRAS and it was delicious. This morning I found out how they make it so delicious. Alas, no more foie gras for me. But all is not lost. Because, luckily, animals can be happy and tasty, too.

WEIRD. I THINK I AGREE WITH DAN SHAUGHNESSY. Apparently, New Englanders can no longer watch the Sox once a week for free on UPN. Basically, if you don't pony up for cable, you don't get to watch the Sox. Or more specifically, if you don't pony up for NESN, which the Sox own, you don't get to watch the Sox. Not very neighborly of the hometown team.

By the way, the New York Times owns part of the Red Sox and the Boston Globe. Corporations call this "synergy." Shaughnessy calls it "the cartel." I call it "the suck." Who the heck are you supposed to trust when the newspaper of your hometeam's biggest rival co-owns the hometown newspaper, as well as a significant percentage of the hometeam itself, which also belongs to a group of owners who own the only channel that will broadcast the hometown team's games (except for the handful of Fox broadcasts). Well, at least people who can't afford the ol' cable TV can still listen to the games on WEEI, which ain't entirely a bad thing.

UPDATE: I guess I jumped the gun on WEEI. Apparently, WEEI's contract with the Sox is up for re-negotiation next season.

HOPEFULLY, MANNY BEING MANNY is a phenomenon we get to enjoy close-up for many, many seasons to come. The Sport's Guy's email exchange with Curt Schilling reminds me why idiot savant baseball can be way more fun than regular baseball:

SIMMONS: My favorite "Manny being Manny" moment happened in the final game of the regular season — he had just crushed a home run, the cameras caught you guys sitting next to one another in the dugout, he was talking excitedly about what pitch he had hit, and somewhere along the way, you just started staring at him in disbelief, as though he had just said something like, "I knew it was going to be a slider because I started craving a pork sandwich, and that always means a slider's coming!" And you just kept staring at him, and then he walked away to another part of the dugout, and you started shaking your head in shock like, "Wow, I will never, ever, ever figure that guy out." How many of those Manny encounters happen per season?

SCHILLING: Three to four per day.

SNOW IS ON THE GROUND, but single game tickets for next season went on sale today. And, just like Butch asked Sundance, Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe asks what we're all asking: "Who are these guys?"

So, we ask again: Is this progress? Loretta and Lowell have been productive players, but they're both coming off subpar seasons. The Sox are high on Youkilis, and he should certainly give them more production than Kevin Millar did. If a Tejada deal is a nonstarter, Gonzalez, the free agent shortstop who was not offered arbitration by the Marlins, is a terrific fielder. Marte could be a jewel, a throwback (Lajoie's word) third baseman who might wear out the Wall. The plan is for Marte to move up as the need arises, though some Sox insiders still wonder if the team would be willing to give up Marte for a pitcher such as Javier Vazquez.

Loretta's presence gives top prospect Dustin Pedroia another year to develop, too.

If Damon and Ramírez stay, the offense should still be potent. The pitching will be better with Josh Beckett, and the bullpen is already better with Guillermo Mota.

But what we knew about Kevin Millar and Bill Mueller and Tony Graffanino and John Olerud and Doug Mirabelli and Wells is that they knew how to win.

The new guys from Florida can flash World Series rings, but the imports still have some proving to do here.

IF THIS WAS A POEM

You would say,

Oh, what an interesting poem.
I especially like how he
rhymed crispies del cocoa
with risotto.

But it's not a poem.
So it sucks.

IN A PERFECT WORLD, we'd still be boring and intolerable, because we'd all be running around obnoxiously content and at peace with everything, rubbing it in each other's faces, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong in the world, which would be true, which would make it all that more annoying. On the bright side, the world isn't perfect, and even better, whenever we foolishly begin to think things can't get worse, George Saunders is there to remind us, "Why not?". Exhibit A, an excerpt from his story, "CommComm":

Dad worked thirty years at Gallup Chain, with his dad. Then they discontinued Automotive. Only Bike remained. A week after his layoff, Grandpa died. Day of the wake, Dad got laid off too. Month later, we found out Jean was sick. Jean was my sister, who died at eight. Her last wish was Disneyland. But money was tight. Toward the end, Dad borrowed money from Leo, the brother he hated. But Jean was too sick to travel. So Dad had an Army friend from Barstow film all of Disney on a Super-8. The guy walked the whole place. Jean watched it and watched it. Dad was one of these auto-optimists. To hear him tell it, we’d won an incredible last-minute victory. Hadn’t we? Wasn’t it something, that we could give Jeanie such a wonderful opportunity?

But Jean had been distilled down to like pure honesty.

“I do wish I could have gone, though,” she said.

“Well, we practically did,” Dad said, looking panicked.

“No, but I wish we really did,” she said.

After Jean died, we kept her room intact, did a birthday thing for her every year, started constantly expecting the worst.

Believe it or not, there's a happy ending. But even better, maybe there's such a thing as redemption in real life, too.

PITCHED A NUTTY? In the end, I think I like Piniella. Crazy can be good for baseball if it's the right kind of crazy, I say.

IT'S SUMMER, AND THE SKY SMELLS LIKE TRASH. One of the few downsides of living in New York City is the ubiquity of trash in everyday life. Walking out of work on this warm, moist summer night, the sky smelled like trash. The gentle breeze reeked of refuse. The hot gust from the subway entrance, like urine. The sticky subway car, like an armpit. In February, it's a winter wonderland of garbage bags and beer bottle snow cones. In October, newspapers and used napkins mingle with the drifting brown and yellow leaves. Ah, the changing of the seasons! Still, it's better than the empty, unrelenting prettiness of partly cloudy, bone chilling San Francisco — an experience that a coworker accurately described as, "Like the worst day of Spring every day of the year." I'll take the stink and grime over that, that's for sure.