The subject of the post is, perhaps, obvious: The Boston Red Sox have triumphed again over the New York Yankees, thus forcing a seventh game for the American League Championship Series.

At first, this whole Yankees-Red Sox rivalry had the appeal of watching the People's Liberation Army fight the Red Army across the Sino-Soviet border in the 1960s. One hopes for a mutually disastrous outcome to two hated parties. I despised the City of New York for a variety of reasons, and Boston is the home base for, among others, Tip O'Neill and John Kerry.

Then, the Northeasterners at National Review managed to go and infest The Corner with their peculiar brand of Yankee triumphalism, along with a lot of other self-important tripe about how great Steinbrenner's loathsome creation was.¹ At this point, I figured that it was about time to take sides in the great debate, and I chose oddly. Despite my lack of regard for Massachusetts and its politicians---except for Henry Cabot Lodge, of course; Nixon/Lodge '60 for life, yo---I decided that I might as well choose the team that , when the going got tough, didn't just cut another check.

At any rate, I realized that this decision put me in the ranks along with the noted plagarizer, Doris Kearns Goodwin.² Politics sure make for strange bedfellows, as do the politics of a Southerner choosing sides in a cultural divide. Well, if the supporters of Islamist terror groups can march side by side with militant homosexualists against the United States and get away with it, I suppose I can get away with backing the Red Sox. Fast forward through God only knows how much time and a lot of other crap, to the present day.

Keeping score with Shannen Coffin's conservative Red Sox fans, count me as #23. It is always good to see professional sports teams from the vile City of New York be beaten.³ It was even better for the country to see boorish New Yawkers require a police presence on the field simply to keep the fans from costing their team a game. Admittedly, I don't envy being Joe Torre or anyone in the Yankees organization at that point. What do you do, walk out with a bullhorn and tell people to knock it off?

At any rate, thanks for this victory will be included as a line item in the evening/morning prayer, as will a request for continued Red Sox success. I realize that in the great Manichean struggle between good and evil, the Almighty's got better things to do than pay attention to a baseball series, but at the same time, there might be a "baseball desk" staffed by a bored heavenly bureaucrat who could be influenced by a simple and humble request.

Good luck and Godspeed, Boston.

UPDATE: M.T. Owens has weighed in with his view of the situation, thus hopefully rubbing things in the face of the Lopez-Lowry axis.

UPDATE II: It appears that someone in the National Review office is a good sport. Recently posted is a piece from Shannen Coffin about the heroics of Boston pitcher Curt Schilling. Mr. Schilling, a veteran with some fame to his credit, pitched several innings in last night's game with a dislocated tendon in his leg. Ouch! ¹ That, and hearing John Sterling of WABC make one too many "Yankees win! Yankees win! Aaaaaaaaaaohohohoahaohohaohoa!" calls as reproduced on Imus in the Morning. I'm not even really sure how to type out the curiously glossolaliac sound he makes at that point, other than to say it sounds like he's being strangled, something that I might approve of. Lisa Gerrard might be able to reproduce it, but even that's a bit of conjecture.

² While reading one of the collections of letters by Hunter S. Thompson, I found a picture of Goodwin wearing go-go boots and hanging out with HST and Sandy Berger in the early 1970s. Suffice it to say that this woman has been ugly since before I was born. Doris Kearns Goodwin: Stealing scholarship and searing retinae since the Seventies.

³ I sat down and thought about it, and I couldn't think of many present day good things about the City of New York. USS Intrepid and her associated museum seem to be the sum of it, although Grand Central Terminal is also up there. I'd almost suggest that the things that once made the city grand are gone and done, at least in my book. In the glory days of the White Star Line, the Pennsylvania, New York Central, New Haven, and Penn Central railroads, and perhaps BOAC, Pan Am, and the like at JFK in the late propliner/early jet eras. Oh, and Richard Nixon at Nixon, Rose & Mudge and William F. Buckley for mayor.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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