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And so it begins.

The Red Sox win over the Cardinals, 11-9 in the 9th inning of the highest-scoring Game 1 in World Series history. Three more games to go to win it all. If the Sox can sweep the first four games, it will mean an eight-game winning streak against two of the best teams in baseball.

I had to keep telling myself “This is just game 1, save your enthusiasm…”

Boston Globe coverage MLB coverage

Suture Self

The Boston Globe ran a very interesting article about the medical procedure used to suture in Curt Schilling’s dislocated tendon. The procedure had never been performed, so the team doctor practiced on human cadaver legs before he did the real thing on Curt. More details here.

(Thanks again to Boston Common for this link.)

The Nerd Was Kissing The Homecoming Queen

This New York Times article concludes:

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

This quote exemplifies everything that is good and right about the Sox winning the ALCS.

(Thanks to Boston Common for pointing me to it.)

World Series Here We Come!

Amazing! The Boston Red Sox have defeated the New York Yankees 10-3, to win their first trip to the World Series since 1986!!!

The game was simply amazing, from Johnny Damon’s 2-run homer + grand slam, to Derek Lowe’s nearly perfect pitching. The low point was the excruciating bottom of the seventh inning, where Pedro Martinez was stupidly put in to replace Lowe. Luckily, Embree and Timlin took care of the eighth and ninth innings, and managed to hold the Yankees down to just three runs for the win.

Last, but not least, let’s go over the linkage between dad wearing his Red Sox cap and the Sox record:

2003 ALCS: Dad wears his cap for the first few games, then forgets to wear it. The Sox lose. 2004 ALCS: Dad forgets to wear his cap for the first three games, which the Sox lose. I remind him to wear it for the last four games, which the Sox win.

Coincidence? Dad, keep that hat on during the World Series.

In any case:
GO SOX!

Red Sox (Cyber)Nation Rejoices!

The Red Sox have won the sixth game in the American League Championship Series against the Yankees, beating a statistic that no baseball team, after being down three games in a seven game series, had ever come back to win three more games. Tomorrow they have the chance to knock down the next statistic in line, that no team has gone from three down to winning a series. And, of course, they have a chance at reaching the World Series, and, if we can even think this far ahead, winning the World Series for the first time since 1918.

The win was met with much rejoicing in Red Sox Nation, and in Red Sox CyberNation, as you can see by the following IM conversations that popped up on our laptop:

The game itself was incredible to watch, nail-biting and nerve-racking in its intensity. There were some bizarre moments, particularly Alex Rodriguez’ offensive maneuver while running to first base.

On top of the great win, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has given an incredible Christian testimony on camera twice, once just after the game in a hallway, and once at the official press conference. The 38-year-old Schilling became a Christian seven years ago, and he gave the credit for his ability to get through this game all to God. He didn’t pray for God to help the Red Sox win, or for the Yankees to lose, just for the strength to get through the game. And he didn’t even wear the special shoes that Reebok designed for him… although he did have a surgery on his foot to suture in the tendon, as it keeps popping in and out. Ick.

Amazing: Done. Impossible: Next.

The Sox have just done the Amazing: Pulled together to win Game 5 of the ALCS.

Tuesday and Wednesday, they must do the impossible: Beat the Yankees twice, at Yankee Stadium. The stats tell us that no team in major league baseball has come back from a three game deficit to win a seven game series. The odds insist that Boston doesn’t have a chance.

The Red Sox Faithful will just keep watching.

Sox Draw It Out

I turned off the radio last night after ALCS Game 4 entered extra innings. The Sox and Yanks were tied 4-4, I was tired, and I figured, “Either they’ll win or they’ll lose. I’ll find out tomorrow.”

Much to my surprise this morning, I discovered that they had, in fact, won the game! The winning homer was hit by David Ortiz:

ppp||ppp

He brought in two runs for a 6-4 win over the Yankees. So Red Sox fans everywhere are still clinging to a thread of hope… a thin thread, to be sure. No team in baseball has ever come back to win a seven-game series after a three-game deficit. No team in basketball for that matter. Only in hockey has such a feat occurred. In 1975 with the New York Islanders (who came back against Pittsburgh) and the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs (vs. Detroit).

Not to be superstitious or anything (ok, well, a little), but when I was chatting with my parents on the phone last night, before the game, I discovered that my dad had not been wearing his Red Sox hat during the first three games of the series! Last I made sure he had it on, and guess what? The Sox won! Coincidence? You decide: last year, my dad wore his Red Sox cap throughout the whole series, but in the crucial Game 7, he forgot - and the Sox lost!

Dad: Wear your hat tonight! The numbers say the Sox don’t have much hope, but any little thing helps.

Time to be a baseball fan

It’s that time of year again. The Red Sox are once again in the American League playoffs, and as a loyal New Englander, it’s once again time for me to start paying attention to baseball.

Tonight I’ll be watching Game 1 of the ALCS, and hoping that the Sox don’t win. Why? Well, as my dad says, “We want the Sox to lose tonight because every time the Yankees lose their first game, they win the series.” However, he continues, “But then again the Sox need to start winning from the get go.”

What other sort of voodoo can we perform in order to reverse the curse? Well, legend tells that if my dad can remember to wear his Red Sox baseball cap throughout each game in the ALCS, the Sox could actually make it to the series.

Other folks think that by destroying Babe Ruth artifacts, the curse could be broken - earlier today, the owner of Babe Ruth’s former home in Watertown, Mass had the property buldozed - not just knocked over, but completely pulverized into the ground. Sorry, I can’t find a link to the story on that, so you’ll have to take my word on it.

Also, various restaurants around the Boston area have been selling food items dedicated to reversing the curse - Burrito Max, for example, was selling a Reverse the Curse Burrito. Brigham’s Ice Cream (who is known for their “Big Dig” ice cream flavor) has introduced a special limited time flavor, “Reverse the Curse”. There are other food-based stunts listed in this Herald article.

I’ll be doing my part, such as it is, by permanently setting our website’s banner to show the “Reverse the Curse” sign, until the Sox either win the series or get knocked out.

And by watching the game tonight.

Go Sox!

Photo Marathon

The photos from our trip to see the Boston Marathon are now online! Check them out here.

Congratulations Tom!

We would like to congratulate Thomas Lowe for his completion of the Boston Marathon today! His net time was 4 hours, 8 minutes, 43 seconds, which was excellent considering the humidity, temperatures in the mid-80’s, and the grueling terrain of the 26.2 mile course.

Becky and I had a great time spectating. We got off at the end of the Green Line’s B branch, at the Boston College stop. From there we walked up Commonwealth Ave., to the top of Heartbreak Hill, and then part of the way down the hill. We walked back up to the top of the hill and hung around the “Top of the Hill” line, where all of the news media were parked. It was great fun to cheer on everyone as they reached the top of the last major hill on the course. One guy near us I dubbed “Mister Top-of-the-Hill,” after the creative cheers he came up with for most every runner who went past. For example, to the man with his jersey unzipped all the way down to the waist he called “Come on, Plunging Neckline!” Another runner had an “FBI” t-shirt on, and MTOTH called out “Come on, FBI! Al-Qaeda is just ahead of you!”

We did manage to make visual contact with Tom, after walking back closer to the BC T stop. We saw him just down the hill from the 21 mile marker, gave him some cheers, and got a reaction. Hopefully it helped to motivate him for the five miles he had left to go.

Due to the laboriously slow, error-ridden Green Line (the train we were on was actually “rebooted” once while we were waiting, and before they finally decided to take it out of service), we weren’t able to make it down to the Finish line before Tom arrived. But all in all, it was a very enjoyable experience, and I definitely think it would be fun to attend even if we didn’t know anyone participating.

Just for fun, there is an athlete result search form here. You can type in a city and state, for example, to see if anyone from your home town was participating in the race, and see what their results were. Or you can search by name, age, citizenship, or even their exact ‘Bib Number’ if you have it. Nobody from Mount Vernon, Ohio was participating, but there were two participants from Townsend, Massachusetts. For Jenn, there was one runner from River Vale, NJ. For Michelle, there were 17 runners from Saskatchewan (one from Moose Jaw, which I think is near your seminary). Play along at home - see if you can find a long-lost friend who ran in the marathon!

One last thing - as I have previously mentioned, the digital camera is out of service at the moment. I’ll be sending it in to Canon for repairs, but today we used Becky’s standard 35mm camera to take photos. I hope to have those developed this week, and I should be able to have the photo lab digitize them for me so that they can go up in our online gallery.

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