"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
UPDATE: As it happens, I live down the street from the original Mudville. There is no joy here today.
"I don't believe in curses. Wake the damn Bambino up, and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." Pedro Martinez, 2001
The baseball gods will not be mocked.
This from Drudge:"In a historic media moment: Nearly every television in use in Boston was tuned to Game 7 during final innings of American League Baseball Playoffs... Thursday's record in Boston marks high-water mark of audience share in season's sports primetime rampage..BASEBALL BLOWOUT: FOX SCORES 81 SHARE MAX IN BOSTON, 68 SHARE PEAK IN NYC FOR PLAYOFF FINALE"
Also linked is an early New York Post editorial written in anticipation of a Yankee loss – the only thing baseball's version of US Steel could be said to have in common with Harry Truman.
Well, now I know why Ol' Case was smiling: He was looking at Denny Galehouse champion Joe McCarthy and thinking ahead 54 years to Grady Little.
The Washington Post's Thomas Boswell writes in an outstanding post-mortem:
For years, Red Sox fans will have the same bitter thought: "Will somebody please pass the dynamite? Put it under poor Grady. Light the shortest fuse you can find. Please, blow that man out of his seat and send him to the mound to get a new pitcher."
But Little never budged as this game -- and a role as a clear favorite in the World Series over the Marlins -- escaped. Now New England will have another installment of sorrow to regurgitate endlessly. Will this one-night saga be analyzed for another 85 years, the length of time since the last Red Sox world title? Why not? After this defeat, the Curse of the Bambino, or whatever you choose to call the psychological shackles that imprison the Red Sox, has risen in credibility to the level of a Euclidian postulate. If no man can disprove it, and every succeeding piece of evidence supports the theory, then it must be true, right?
It is little consolation, but the Marlins are laden with players from the former Double-A affiliate Portland Sea Dogs, including NLCS pitching star Josh Beckett, whose 2001 no-hitter for Portland is counted among the minor-league team's finest moments. One more reason to pull for the Fish, though I'll be giving this World Series a pass.
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