There are three things that bother me about wine: price, snobbery, and acidity. I was pleasantly surprised with a bottle of Dr. Beckermann Liebfraumilch 2006 that I found at Trader Joes for $4, primarily because it had none of the above. And it went very well with our artichoke risotto!
October 29, 2007
Another one, just like the other one
No, this title isn’t as sweet as 2004, but then again it would be pretty hard to compete with all the angst behind that series. This year’s playoffs played out almost identically to those three years ago (except, perhaps, for the dancing): a tough come-from-behind victory in the ALCS followed by an easy sweep in the World Series. This time we knew how it was going to end, we’d seen this movie before. Curt Schilling, devout Christian, has posted a theological exploration of the events on his blog. Taking a few liberties, I believe the argument boils down to “the Red Sox were a runaway train.” It also sounds like he is seriously considering retiring on a high note.
Back to the 86 years thing. As Parker points out, railing against the “new Sox fan” is the new black, so I’ll throw in my two cents. If there is one thing that I cannot stand in this world it is an overbearing sense of entitlement. Having attended two New England liberal arts colleges, I’ve seen my share. It’s what spawned 80 years of Yankee hating: fans with a reasonable expectation of averaging about 3 championships every decade. The Sox and Patriots have both hit that milestone in this decade, and the Patriots seem to have taken it as far as winning every other year. The Celtics are currently in the midst of a resurrection attempt, and pretty soon the only underdog team from Boston could be the perennially sorry Bruins. Even the Revolution are in the MLS finals every other year. Is a “city of champions” what we really want?
October 21, 2007
All the way back!
Our Sox really know how to make us sweat, but in the end they pulled it off. With Beckett pitching a great Game 5, the much-maligned JD Drew pulling most of the weight in Game 6, and the Japanese contingent pitching a great Game 7, we are going back to the World Series! Word is that it is snowing right now in Denver so this may be a cold finale — although back east we are still squarely in pumpkin season.
October 16, 2007
Down by two
While all of New England has been delighted by the Patriots’ recent success, the Sox are really trying our patience. After winning Game 1 handily and losing Game 2 crushingly, Game 3 slipped away far too easily and a single 7-run inning doomed Game 4. Did you know that tonight is the 4 year anniversary of Aaron Boone’s blast? At least Kevin Youkilis isn’t panicking.
October 14, 2007
Trot’s Revenge
Well, I’m glad I fell asleep before this game played through (it started at about 8:30 and lasted 5:17, through 11 full innings). After a well-pitched 10 innings from both sides (and I don’t always say that about a 6-6 tie), the wheels really came off the bus in the top of the 11th. Gagne got into another jam, and Lopez and Lester couldn’t save his bacon. It’s demoralizing to lose like that, especially because former local hero Trot Nixon drove in the winning run. All said, the Tribe got 6 in the inning and carry quite a bit of momentum into game three on Monday in Cleveland. They say “momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher,” so it’s all up to Dice-K now.
October 12, 2007
Cribbage in the clubhouse
Boston Globe blogger Amalie Benjamin has posted several times now about cribbage in the Red Sox clubhouse — what does this say about the team? Schilling opines that Francona’s win-to-loss ratio is not indicative of his skill at cards, but rather his ability to pick his opponents carefully. This is interesting because most managers never made it past AA due to never having learned how to hit a curveball, but somehow stuck around the game because of a certain set of strategic instincts (Francona was actually a decent major league player and is perhaps an exception to this rule). In this post-Moneyball era, the ability to know your own strengths and the other team’s weaknesses is king.
October 8, 2007
Bring out the brooms
The word of the first round of the MLB playoffs was “sweep,” as three of the four series were finished in the minimum three games. Arizona outscored Chicago by a total of 16-6 in their series, while Colorado outscored Philadelphia 16-8 to set up a matchup of two Western Division teams starting this Thursday. Boston similarly dispatched Anaheim 19-4 (blogged about by both Youkilis and Schilling), and are awaiting the outcome of the ongoing New York vs. Cleveland series, in which the Indians currently hold a 2 games to 1 lead. This unfinished series has not surprisingly been the most interesting, especially the fly-infested second game.
Who benefits the most from the current state of affairs? Colorado has been red hot, and Arizona is certainly hoping they will cool down a bit before Thursday. The Red Sox will be well rested to start their next series, starting Friday, with at least one more off-day than their opponent.
October 6, 2007
No more RSS in China?
Big news yesterday, China has supposedly banned all RSS feeds. The long and short is that they have blocked all urls containing “feed” or “rss” or “blog.” I don’t know how this is going to play out in the long run, but the Chinese government is getting away with some pretty serious brainwashing right now…
In related news, I discovered a neat little tool for checking to see if an url is banned in Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai. I tested one of our new feeds (Recently Added Cookbooks) and it works in all three locations. I guess they don’t view Common Kitchen as a threat (nor should they).
October 5, 2007
Cheating in baseball?
I’m shocked, SHOCKED! There’s a story going around that Colorado reliever Manny Corpas was up to no good during their first playoff game with Philadelphia. While CNN treats it as little more than a rumor, you can clearly see the pitcher pour a cup of water down his shirt before he starts pitching, dab his fingers on his shirt on the mound, then reach down in the dirt. This is what’s known as a mud ball, and it is clearly against the rules. Apparently, if you get a segment of the seams on the ball even a little wet the pitch will sink more dramatically than it will when “dry.”
In other news, Josh Beckett shut down the Angels to give the Sox a 1-0 lead, and the Yankees were absolutely demolished by the Indians (12-3) in the first game of their series. To add injury to insult, a cameraman caused their key defensive substitute, Doug Mientkiewicz, to roll his ankle.
