I Do Not Care......

First and foremost, the Mitchell Report doesn't mean much. It really doesn't. Yes a bunch of guys were named, but I am certain that it's only a small percentage of the players who used the so-called performance enhancers during the time that was investigated.

Second, it says nothing about all the rest who used, and still do use , "speed" type drugs, and special vitamins and cans of spinach.

What else is new?

Spring Training is less than couple of months away.

It's almost Christmas.

A Season sort of Like the Past...

This season watching and listening to the Red Sox games has been pretty much like the past. Well, they did win the division, that was different. They didn't totally collapse, that was different too. The team did seem to get hot at the right time for the newish so called post-season. They won four straight games which would have translated to being World Series winners in the good old days when baseball was a game for the summer and winning a pennant was a big deal.

As of now though, they have lost a couple of games. They stopped hitting in bunches and rallying for the past 12 or 14 innings and the starting pitching seems to be very much like the old days, questionable. They may not be able to come back and beat the Indians ( at least they are playing a real old time team and not some sort of strange team from Florida or Arizona or Colorado ) for ignoble opportunity to play some team from the new new days called the Rockies. This isn't all bad.

So anyway, I get to listen to or watch at least two more games this year. Maybe more. So 162 plus 8 makes 170 games. It would be nice if there were a few more, but as of now I am pretty much satisfied with the season regardless.

I know, it didn't make sense when I first used it either. Sue me!!!!

A Season sort of Like the Past...

I Know The Fat Lady has Finished her Warm Up Scales and ....

...is getting ready to bellow it out. It's over. At least the thought of winning a division title that is. Sure, there is still an odds on chance that there will be a post season game or three thanks to the lame wild card baloney fat. But if there was any thought of winning a division title after leading the division for over five months , it went away last night after the Red Sox rolled over.

What's really pitiful is that the other night, after they lost a five run lead over THNYY in the eighth inning I couldn't get to sleep. God in heaven save me insert usual metaphorical disclaimer here) I am seventy two stinking years old and losing sleep over a bunch of millionaires and soon to be millionaires losing a baseball game.

If that didn't tell me something nothing will. What is it that some people say? Something about getting a life.

Well I got the message. Losing two of the last three since that stupid night hasn't caused me to lose anything. In fact, I can simply sit back and enjoy watching the game(s) with out meaningless expectations beyond each pitch, each at bat, each fielding play, and , well, hopefully you get the point. I do again. And thank god---there's that metaphor again--for that.

Two Tacks and One Jibe....

...and two short runs with the engine during a five hour sail down the Thames out of New London into the sound and over to the Dumplings returning back and by the entrance buoys a bit, then finally the jibe to head in and back up the river to Shaws Cove and the berth. Wind never blew very much over 10k and it was just nice and easy all day.

But.....this and this and the Yankees are coming, the Yankees are coming, the Yankees are coming.

So far, the Sox have provided all I need this Spring...

...and that's all there is to it. I didn't say it quite like this, but I should have. Incidentally, if your a Sox fan the link is a daily must.

As for the rest of the spring and the loooong summer to follow, we'll have to just see what there will be to see. So far, without the Sox wow's and the Yankees's woes, I'd be a melancholy basket case. But that is another longer and, sorry to say, tedious story which won't be told here.

Another "New Year" Day.....

...just as I was getting ready to post this comment on the day and the time, I got an email from MLB.com. Of course, I was going to talk a little about watching the first game of the Spring Season last night. OK, the first couple of innings anyway. The Red Sox were going after the Twins. Neither team had to travel far, they both do spring in Fort Myers.

But that's not what I want to talk about. I look at this first game of the season as another way to celebrate New Years Day. I also like Labor Day as a New Years Day along with January second as the opposite, sort of a final day of the year day. Having nothing to do, really nothing to do by choices made a dozen years ago and remade just about every day since, days like the first game of spring are big deals. On a par with the return of The Sopranos which occurs next month I think.

In case you think this is all trivial let me assure you that it is. That's the point.

By the way, that new goofy looking second baseman Pedroia ( or whatever his name is) got a base hit and Lugo, on cue with all the pre-season stories made a throwing error. Ramirez didn't play.

Happy New Year!!!

Valentine Day 2007...no big thing ...

...especially for this geezer. The giant snow storm that so many of the breathless weather newscasters tried to wish for the area hasn't materialized. We have a couple of inches of very tiny snowflakes and sleet mixed in as of the moment, but for crying out loud it's the middle of February isn't it?

The pitchers and catchers have already reported or will report in the next couple of days, but even for me I will have to suspend the reality of the absurd bloated egos and salaries of the players and try to just see them again as the boys of summer if I am to get back that feeling that all is right in the world which usually comes with the start of spring training.

The heart shaped box of Whitman's Samplers that I got for Mrs is still OK. But I bet that sitting here alone with me and her box of chocolates isn't exactly what she would really wish for today. Me either!

addendum added post the time of this story's previous posting an hour or so ago....It's not that she doesn't like me or vice versa. It's just that holidays lately don't mean as much unless one or more of the grandkids and/or kids are either here or at least in touch.

Valentines Day 2007. No big thing.

Take This Test....

I ran across this test today. I took it and the results put me near Gandhi. Believe me, I am not Gandhi. But Gandhi and I probably do share something. We both want things to be a "certain way". He did, or tried to do something about it. I do not. There are doers and there are watchers.

My score: Economic line -7
Social Lib/Authoritarian line -3.85

...take it.