Dan Gould

Was it just me or did it seem like the home plate umpire was giving about three inches in every direction on the strike zone? I swear, if Dice-K had been pitching he might have ended up with 10 Ks or more with that ump. Very tense game but it really seems as though the Rockie bats went to sleep after the layoff - Helton, Hawpe, Atkins, most of them just aren't hitting a lick. If that doesn't change in Denver, I can't see how this is coming back to Boston. Even with the shorter lineup in the NL park, Fogg and his 5 ERA should get hammered. I am inclined to agree with Marty that Ortiz should sit. Keep the defense strong on the corners, and Papi's knee trouble makes it easier to justify keeping him off the field. I think I'd drop Youkilis into the three spot and move Ellsbury to the two-hole.

The plaintiff has absolutely no compelling argument whatsoever, and the American Bar Association official quoted makes it clear that he wouldn't stand a chance in a US court anyway. He was damn lucky they offered him the maximum payout in the first place.

I don't think there is any question this is a must-win game for the Rockies. With Fogg pitching Game 3 and another mediocrity starting Game 4 in his first start since August, the Rockies have to have their rookie fireballer come up huge while the bats need to knock Schilling around. Not saying its impossible but I'll be mighty impressed if this youngster comes up bigger at Fenway than Sabathia or Carmona did. If the Red Sox bats stay hot, Beckett may not even have to pitch again.

seems to me Aloc is the one who should be living near that one. He'd have figured it out much sooner. In honor of the World Series, I'd rename the street Jim saw "Cup Check".

Even the Rockies are admitting as much. Funny, I think if they hadn't run into a pitcher at least as hot as they "were", they wouldn't be saying the layoff hurt, they'd be saying how hot they still are. If Schilling holds them to five runs or less, it will take a minor miracle for them to get their hoped-for split at Fenway, and that four or five game prediction by It Could Be You will be exactly right, only he got the team wrong. According to what I read, Ubaldo Jiminez can really throw the hard stuff, so I wouldn't be so sure that the Rockies can't win if they score 5 or less tonight. If he can somehow match a Beckett performance, a low scoring win is possible. He also has a nasty curveball he throws in the low 70s. The reason I am only mildly concerned is that his ERA on the road is horrible (5+) and he also has the worst control of any Rocky starter (4+ walks per 9 IP). Anything can happen, and maybe he comes up big, but to me, a rookie going into a WS game 2 on the road with those stats, a Carmona-like implosion has to be more likely than a shut-down type game. We'll see. Marty, I trust you are rooting for the AL team, right?

Even the Rockies are admitting as much. Funny, I think if they hadn't run into a pitcher at least as hot as they "were", they wouldn't be saying the layoff hurt, they'd be saying how hot they still are. If Schilling holds them to five runs or less, it will take a minor miracle for them to get their hoped-for split at Fenway, and that four or five game prediction by It Could Be You will be exactly right, only he got the team wrong.

Its not a question of Gagne vs Tavarez; Gagne was going to be on the roster regardless. Snyder got the spot ahead of Tavarez as long man. Its obvious that Tavarez has fallen precipitously, especially when you consider his ground ball tendencies and their potential value at Coors. Hopefully it won't matter a bit, but I would have preferred Tavarez, not least because of his ability to come out of the pen and give several innings and if necessary, do it again the next day. I don't think Snyder has been called upon to pitch very long or very often.

According to Foxsports.com, Jimenez is starting game 2 at Fenway and Fogg is starting Game 3 at home. If that is true, and the splits hold up, I LOVE IT! Since when did FoxSorts gain any credibility? So you hold court with Tim McCarver now? Oooo. Bad omen, Dan. Tim McCarver has nothing to do with what is reported on the website, and ESPN is reporting the exact same thing. I should have mentioned that I never have the sound on when Fox broadcasts these games, so I was thankfully unaware of McCarver's man-love for Manny Being Manny. If he went that overboard in his praise, that's just one more reason to keep the sound off. Youk's splits by where he bats in the lineup is very telling. Far and away his best "spot" is in the two-hole. Earlier in the season Tito tried to use him elsewhere, particularly when Drew and Varitek were in the depths of their slumps, and also when he was trying to get Lugo and Crisp going at the top of the order. But its clear that Youk feasts on the fastballs that tend to be thrown before Papi and Manny step into the box. Well, as was mentioned above, Wake is out. Not official yet but its believed that Lester gets his start. My best guess is that Tito likes the idea of Beckett, Schilling, Dice, Lester, Beckett, Schilling, Dice. It keeps everyone on regular rest or a day extra; it puts Schilling into the Game 6 spot where, heaven forbid, he might be needed to extend the series to a Game 7, and if it comes down to that, Tito can have Beckett available in the pen for an "all hands on deck" finale.

"Tornado Alley" also has that fault line (Madrid?) that is going to pulverize all of the brick homes in St. Louis one day and is probably more overdue than any of the other fault line areas.

I think the problem here is that you took my statement to be a personal attack or a criticism of your poll. NOT! I said "Good music is beyond category and I think people who close their ears to a broad spectrum of music short-change themselves." You may not agree with that, but you should not twist it into something it never was: an insulting assertion. That, Dan, is an interpretation without "basis in logic." I guess I find the notion of picking first and second favorite genres to be limiting. I didn't take it as a personal attack, and I in fact tend to agree with your assertion. It just isn't related to the poll. Saying that I, for instance, consider blues to be my second favorite genre doesn't imply that I short-change myself by "closing my ears to a broad spectrum of music," for the simple fact that I never said I don't have other genres of interest.

According to Foxsports.com, Jimenez is starting game 2 at Fenway and Fogg is starting Game 3 at home. If that is true, and the splits hold up, I LOVE IT!

The problem is that choosing a second favorite genre does not in anyway imply "closing ears to a broad spectrum of music". Why is that a "problem"? Because it asserts something ("what is your second favorite genre?"="closing your ears to a broad spectrum of music") that has no basis in logic or reality. If I started a poll that asks the question "are there any other genres than jazz you even bother with?" then Chris might assert that good music is beyond category and that people who close their ears to a broad spectrum of music short-change themselves. That's not what I did in this poll.

The problem is that choosing a second favorite genre does not in anyway imply "closing ears to a broad spectrum of music".

For what its worth, the Red Sox supplanted the Yankees this year as the leader in road attendance. So, maybe its not so surprising that a World Series with the Red Sox is giving Fox and the advertisers a stiffie. No offense to Tribe fans but I'm not sure that they'd be quite so excited is the Indians had won on Sunday.

And now it is official: Wakefield is left off the roster due to an injured shoulder. No official word that Lester will start in Colorado, but I think he could do fine as a lefty against that lineup, and it keeps Mirabelli on the bench. I am going to guess that this brings Julian Tavarez onto the roster, which is fine by me. We could use a long reliever at some point and if it happens in Colorado, his sinker could help stop the bleeding.

I'm really not very concerned about this; the fact is that players live at close enough quarters in the clubhouses that throughout the season, one or another suffered "flu symptoms" that would then be suffered by someone else and then someone else. I assume it happens in other clubhouses too, or else I'd be more concerned about just how "close" the Red Sox are. It isn't just Wakefield at Coors where he apparently has trouble with his knuckler knuckling; it is also the concept of Mirabelli in a lineup that will be missing one of Ortiz/Youk/Lowell. Not to mention that Schilling pitching Game 3 puts him in line to pitch Game 7, and we all know what his record is in elimination games. Fenway's positive impact on runs isn't as great as it once was; as you probably know, it plays pretty damn big from RF to CF. Schilling learned three years ago that you can be a fly ball pitcher and succeed there, if the fly balls go to the right part of the park. More importantly, there seems to be some question about Wakefield's availability, which may allow them to start Lester. He's probably as likely as Dice to get pounded, or only give five or six serviceable innings. But then again he might look pretty good against their lefties. His second appearance in the ALCS was quite impressive. Precisely why it would be nice to break that streak without the Yankees being involved. Not to mention my earlier comment that some Yankee fans think it will be another 86 year drought for the Red Sox. Shutting them up, and going up 2-0 in World Championships this decade, will be sweet.

Is that the cube of the three live CDs that were out previously? Because I'd be surprised if you couldn't pick up the original reissues very easily.

I'll be damned - that works for me (tested on the rodcast version). Yep, she went the other way. Yep, works for me to. Well at least I know that I have both sides, FWIW. Does not work for me ... but Catesta's bottle cap keeps doing these weird loop-de-loops.

Patrick, while I agree that Manny is and will always remain a mediocre fielder (and sometimes worse), credit has to be given where it is due. He's had the time to learn the peculiarities of the wall, and his throws to second are strong, accurate, and with a very quick release. Its not that Lofton wouldn't go against a different Sox outfielder, its that Lofton would have reached easily 5 years ago. On the issue of Red Sox fan arrogance, I am afraid that the bandwagon has filled with know-nothing fans who feel entitled to championships, probably because they've never actually experienced the heartbreak and certainly never got conditioned to expect it. Its unfortunately true that the bandwagon will probably fill to over-flowing if they get it done this week, but I'm willing to deal with the jerks anyway. The Rockies have a shot if they are unaffected by the layoff (somewhat unlikely, IMO) and if their pitchers come up big. Otherwise I see it going somewhere in between the Angels series and the Tribe series - 5 games, most likely.

In the past two years or so I have moved strongly away from jazz as my interest in blues has expanded greatly. While I'd never stop listening to jazz, I definitely spend more listening time with blues artists of late and in fact when I went to the new and improved Blue Note Records shop on Saturday, I managed to drop $100 without once looking in the jazz section. So that gets me to wondering, assuming that for the vast majority of us, jazz is our number one musical genre, what is your number two? And as a follow up question, is there any chance that your number two could move up and supplant number one? If you had to live without one of those genres you enjoy, which would it be?

Last week I tried to spark what I thought would be a long-running, really interesting discussion about the music HERE but it didn't go very far. I do have an idea for a poll but it probably won't spark much discussion, its more informational than anything else. No, its not about the World Series, its a musical question.

Seriously, I could only see her going clockwise and could perceive no change or in any way "make it change". Its quite interesting to me in that, going through the list I would easily self-identify as "left brain" but at the same time I've had it drilled into me that the creative/improv/"in the moment" element of Voice Overs required "right brain" activity. In fact, before practice sessions, we would sometimes do improv sessions to sort of prime our right brain into action (such as a round of "Whose Line" games such as "props" or "titles only").

What was the question? I was mesmerized by her rack.

Its not just a question of slumps, its a question of who is hitting well vs who is hitting like a maniac. Here are the stats: If Youk hadn't played in the ALCS, do they win? Can you say the same thing about Lowell? And Youkilis doesn't have a Gold Glove at 3B but he sure as hell knows how to play the position and there wouldn't be little if any drop off between them. My best guess is that Youkilis gets the start twice in Colorado, Lowell once.

Well, having looked at the stats of the Rockies starters, I don't see them having much of a chance. In fact, I see it a lot like the 2004 Series - mediocre pitchers waiting to be slaughtered. None of them have a very high strikeout rate (Francis is best) and they all allow well over a hit per inning (not including the young fireballer). I think the Rockies have to get a big time performance from the two starters that weren't even with the team most of the year, which means they have to handle the post-season, and Fenway park, much better than Sabathia and Carmona did. On the other side of the coin, the Rockies do have a dangerous lineup, so the Sox have to pitch effectively. I have to wonder whether Tito will make the call to use Wakefield in Game 2, on the theory that you can't have Wakefield and Mirabelli in the lineup while Youkilis or Lowell are also on the bench. Or better yet, maybe Wake is still battling his back/shoulder blade issue and will actually miss the Series or not be available to start. I'd be fine with Lester getting a start. Wakefield in Game 2 though sets up Schilling to pitch Game 3 and 7. But I don't think that it will go that far. Sox in five is my prediction.