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.
CBD has some surprisingly nice hiking trails winding around in the wooded area behind it, so today on my lunch break I went for a walk and took some photos of the fall foliage.
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I might make another pass later this month, as the foliage isn’t quite at its peak.
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:
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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.
To one of the few men who is comfortable wearing a paper bowl as a hat.
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Happy Birthday, Dad!
Last night I had the pleasure of driving down to Hyannis to help Jeremy and Angela kick start their website design. I had given them some homework, and they had started to come up with ideas for the site – colors, layout, content, etc. I gave them a few pointers, answered some questions, and gave them more homework. They have registered a really clever domain name which I can’t wait to post on our blog, but their site isn’t quite ready for prime time yet… so it will have to wait.
I spent 2.5 hours driving down to Hyannis, 3 hours there, and another 2 hours driving back – almost the same amount of time as a normal day at work. But you know what? When I’m doing something I love — helping people with technology, and hanging out with good friends — it really doesn’t matter. I’ll drive as far as I have to drive. It helps that the drive down to Cape Cod is actually pretty nice. Except for the part where I sat in traffic underneath the city of Boston for almost 40 minutes. True, I did paint a rosy picture of the tunnel in the driving video… but it isn’t always like that!
I was looking up some information in my Yahoo! address book this morning, when I noticed a little ad to the side of the page – “Enter the Address Book Sweepstakes”. Intrigued, I clicked through. Apparently, Yahoo! is running a contest where if you add at least three new people to your Address Book, you will be entered for a chance to win one of three adventure vacations. So I thought I’d sign up, because hey, who wouldn’t want a free vacation?
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A few interesting tidbits for the day:
Unearthing the origins of Firefox — how Mozilla emerged from Netscape’s closed source world, and how we got to where we are with Firefox.
Virgin Electronics’ “iPod-killer” — functional but uuuuuugly.
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!
Today I picked up a package at the post office from my parents: a birthday gift that they had sent out last week! Here are the contents:
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1 box Ziploc 1-Quart storage bags
1 box Ziploc 1-Gallon storage bags
1 box large drawstring trash bags
1 box kitchen-sized trash bags
4 rolls toilet paper
1 box Earl Grey tea
1 box of Buckeyes from the Squirrel’s Den (recipe/explanation for non-Ohioans)
2 packs of Trail Mix from the Squirrel’s Den
1 box Kudos
1 large bag of peanuts (to be eaten while watching the ALCS)
1 box Bisquick
2 boxes Rice Pilaf mix
1 box Chili Cheese Cheez-its
1 box Double-Stuf Oreos
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Now, this may seem like a strange birthday gift, but it is exactly the sort of thing that Becky and I have recently been requesting. Frankly, in terms of material possessions, we have more than we need, and literally more than can fit into our apartment. So we’re asking for consumables as gifts, for birthdays, Christmas, whatever.
Of course, you are still more than welcome to check out the Stuff Peter Wants page, should you want to buy me something a little less practical. My Amazon wishlist is linked from that page, as well.
