More old Halloween postcards: 1 * 2 * 3 * 4

Shape-shifters, a dead Minuteman and an Indian curse figure into a Halloween story I wrote a few years back on ghosts in Littleton, Mass.

Turner Classic Movies this week has been spotlighting Lon Chaney: A revelation, and from now on, an October staple.

A tale of a haunted rectory that reads like a ghost story out of J. F. Powers is part of a cavalcade of Halloween coverage at the page of Tom Fitzpatrick, in Salem, who no doubt has been dodging tourist queries all week for directions to that there witch house.

And Dale Price ushers visitors into the paranormal. Keep staring.

Harvard Stadium marks its centennial this Saturday with Harvard-Dartmouth, which used to be a great show: The game was usually played in Cambridge, allowing the Dartmouth students an annual escape from the woods to toss green paint on the John Harvard statue and take over, with little resistance, the bars of Harvard Square. The spirit of the occasion is captured in the archive of past halftime shows by the Dartmouth College Marching Band.

Listen to Tom Lehrer's great "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" and various rousing Dartmouth odes at this site devoted to fight songs. For some reason, however, I can't get the "Maine Stein Song" out of my head; listen to it here and think of Rudy Vallee.

A bit of unauthorized non-political-correctness slips into the pages of the official Dartmouth football site with this photo of former star QB Dave Shula wearing an Indian pullover * The Dartmouth helmet, with its bug-like antennae, is perhaps my favorite in college football * My favorite college football jersey remains the old Princeton model, with its throwback arm stripes * But the old Penn and Brown football jerseys are also outstanding, and available at Stall & Dean

When a Dartmouth Indian tee-shirt buyback was proposed earlier this year by campus sensitivity mavens, the Dartmouth Review took the occasion to flog its line of Indian canes:

So what is this fight for? For one thing, it is for the right to express pride in ways other than those prescribed by the pissed-off, humorless few. It is the few, I believe, who have shamed everybody else into feeling indignant where no insult exists. They have poisoned the well—making Dartmouth a place where people are quicker to feel suspicion and outrage than to stop and think: is this really a big deal? Are these people really wearing these shirts or carrying these canes to express their dislike of Native Americans? Ladies and gentlemen, were that position anything but ludicrous, we would have made President Wright our mascot years ago.

There is another more sobering question in all this, and it has nothing to do with T-shirts, mascots, or Dartmouth College. Should we throw around words like ‘racist’ and ‘bigot’ so casually that they have no meaning left when they’re really needed? These words are regarded today as magic bullets, secret weapons to reach for whenever reason and argument seem too taxing. If one disagrees with my defense of the Indian, he or she should take great pleasure in arguing me into the ground. Instead, as our extensive collection of hate mail demonstrates, most rely on the abuse of words and ideas that should be reserved for more serious use.

We are not, for the millionth time, racists. It’s time to put that tired old song and dance to bed. Nor are we ignorant. We’ve heard the arguments; we’ve considered them; and we’ve made our own in reply. If you’d care to say that we’re contrarian, obsessively devoted to doing the opposite of what we’re told, you’re getting closer to the truth. But for us, that’s fun with a purpose. When we wear an Indian T-shirt, we send a necessary message: try all you like, but we’re not going to kowtow to Dartmouth’s little tyrants.

Vintage-style Dartmouth Indian merchandise is available from the Dartmouth Review, which maintains a blog at Dartlog.net.

Aboard the S. S. America, New York, 1947

Cocktails with a curmudgeon: Evelyn Waugh remembered – not unfavorably – at the National Catholic Reporter * See a trailer for Stephen Fry's new film version of Waugh's Vile Bodies * The Waugh centenary on Oct. 28 observed by W. F. Deedes in The Spectator and in The Telegraph (2nd item) * At Doubting Hall, a guided tour around the works of Evelyn Waugh, with a comprehensive selection of links * An anecdote about Waugh and Kick Kennedy * An Atlantic flashback * The Age * The Scotsman

Harvard Stadium at 100 * Give a listen to the theme song of the old What's Happening program in memory of the late Rerun * Christopher Johnson at MCJ administers a monumental and well-deserved fisking to Joe Sobran, anti-Semite

Elkhornitis, from Winsor McCay's 'Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend'

The Wall Street Journal's Robert Bartley writes on the case of Gerald Amirault:

He will finally go free--17 years too late.

The end of Gerald Amirault's long struggle for freedom is in sight. A Massachusetts parole board saw to that with a unanimous decision on Friday granting his petition for release--officially set to occur at the end of April.

It was a joyous day for this prisoner of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, behind bars since his conviction, in 1986, as a molester of nursery school children in a case based on bogus testimony dragged from browbeaten child witnesses. It was an exultant day too for his family, which has kept its hopes up despite years of having them dashed.

Mr. Amirault's freedom could have been derailed by one factor of consequence to Department of Corrections parole boards--namely the prisoner's refusal to agree that he was guilty. Like his mother and sister, who were also wrongly accused but were released earlier, Mr. Amirault refused to attend sex offender classes despite what it could cost him. They refused to do anything that would suggest there was any merit to the charges against them…

It is newspaper practice to drop the "alleged" when a person has been convicted of a crime. But in the face of so much that says Amirault was wrongly convicted, is it truly "fair" journalism to refer to the man at the center of the Fells Acre case this way or this way, or to continue to refer to the complainants as "victims?"

The state prosecutor who built his career on the Fells Acres case, Luther Scott Harshbarger, liberal do-gooder icon, who went on to become state attorney-general and Democratic candidate for governor, and then to head Common Cause, has been named to lead a review of state prisons. Perhaps on an inspection tour he can stop and say hello to Gerald Amirault, the man he put behind bars all these years.

There is something more than a little appalling about being lecture on ethics and good government by a politician who made his name sending an innocent family to prison – and still, in the face of overwhelming evidence they were unjustly convicted, refuses to admit he made a mistake. Good government, indeed.

Here's a page that was compiled to protest Harshbarger's connection with Common Cause. Another chronicles the Amirault case and draws a comparison to the Salem Witch Trials.

Punch, 1924

Boston fans by the thousand this weekend will gather on bridges for another reason: The Head of the Charles. The Photojournalistas offer an image gallery from last year's regatta.

Meantime, a mad hatter sees the traditional college rowers' graffiti on Charles River bridges as an eyesore that needs to be stopped before the Democratic Convention comes to town.

St Ted, ora pro nobis
St Dom D, ora pro nobis
St Yaz, ora pro nobis
St Pudge, ora pro nobis
St Spaceman, ora pro nobis
St Dewey, ora pro nobis
St Tony C, ora pro nobis
St Tiant, the Forerunner, ora pro nobis
St Freddie, ora pro nobis

(Via the Edge of the Precipice)

Intercessory Hymn

Tessie, you make me feel so badly
Why don’t you turn around
Tessie you know I love you madly
Babe, my heart weighs about a pound
Don’t blame me if I ever doubt you.
You know I couldn’t live without you
Tessie, you are my only, only, only. *

Martinez versus Clemens tonight in New York for all the beans.

A friend e-mails: Go Sox. Go Pedro! F*** the moral high ground; what has it ever done for us?

Think this guy wears a Yankees hat?

Czestochowa, Poland, June 4, 1979

"The Pope's visit in 1979 was like a gift from God." Lech Walesa

The makers of a Frontline documentary on John Paul II write on the Polish pope's role in the fall of the Iron Curtain:

Our images of revolution are filled with blood-stained pictures: French aristocrats lined up against the Bastille wall; the Tsar's family executed in a cellar under cover of night; Mao's victims floating down the Yellow River. The romantic collective Polish psyche brims with images of violent, quixotic rebellions. They range from the futile uprisings of the 19th century to the calvary charging German tanks on horseback at the beginning of World War II. But the revolution launched by John Paul's return to Poland is one that conjures roads lined with weeping pilgrims, meadows of peaceful souls singing hymns, and most of all, of people swaying forward as one--reaching for the extraordinary man in white as he is borne through their midst. "What is the greatest, most unexpected event of the 20th century?" James Carroll asked in his interview with us. "Isn't it that the Soviet Empire was brought down non-violently? Isn't John Paul II's story part of it?"

Again and again, people told us that it was. John Paul II's 1979 trip was the fulcrum of revolution which led to the collapse of Communism. Timothy Garton Ash put it this way, "Without the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without Gorbachev, no fall of Communism." (In fact, Gorbachev himself gave the Kremlin's long-term enemy this due, "It would have been impossible without the Pope.") It was not just the Pope's hagiographers who told us that his first pilgrimage was the turning point. Skeptics who felt Wojtyla was never a part of the resistance said everything changed as John Paul II brought his message across country to the Poles. And revolutionaries, jealous of their own, also look to the trip as the beginning of the end of Soviet rule.

It took time; it took the Pope's support from Rome--some of it financial; it took several more trips in 1983 and 1987. But the flame was lit. It would smolder and flicker before it burned from one end of Poland to the other. Millions of people spread the revolution, but it began with the Pope's trip home in 1979. As General Jaruzelski said, "That was the detonator."

See also: An interview with Observer reporter Neal Ascherson on the Pope's impact on Poland in 1979 * William F. Buckley's profile of JPII as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century.

Pedro faces Roger at the Stadium Thursday night for the AL pennant.

Some in New York were counting their chickens before Game 6 on Wednesday. Maybe the last laugh will be on them.

Chicago fans lament as the Cubs' drought continues.

"OK, let's make that kid famous." One Marlin to another, after a fan's interference cost the Cubs an out, 8th inning, Oct. 14

Poor schmuck. He turns up at Wrigley in his Cubs hat and transistor radio headphones feeling lucky to have a front row seat on history. He leaves a prime candidate for the witness protection program, his mug plastered all over the media and his life story on the Smoking Gun, with thousands of people wanting to run him out of town – or much worse – as the human incarnation of the cursed Billy Goat. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Ferris Bueller from hell, or something out of a Seinfeld episode, only real.

"You could tell we're better than Boston or he'd be dead already," yelled one denizen of the No Longer So Friendly Confines.

Another, quoted in the Sun-Times under the headline "The Spit Hits the Fan:"

Did you see the replay? Did he interfere?'' asked fan Paul Springer, who was sitting two rows behind the unnamed man.

Yes, he deflected the ball, though it was on the fans' side of the railing.

"Then they should kill him.''

The guy's employer told him: Better stay home this morning. Turns out he's a youth baseball coach: Bet his e-mail is getting a workout.

Writes a Trib columnist:

If the Cubs lose game seven tonight, their fans will never forget and never forgive.

It sounds ridiculous and petty, but it's probably true that this young man will almost certainly have to leave town and start again elsewhere if he wants some semblance of a normal life.

And to think I turned to the Cubs game last for a happy respite from the Sox.

To the Chicago fans five outs from a pennant who saw their celebration dissolve into agony, may I say, as a longtime Boston fan, I feel your pain.

ESPN's Eric Neel writes on the Cubs' karma:

Some people talk about a curse. Forget that. Curses are petty and local. The Cub thing is deeper and wider than a curse. It's a responsibility is what it is. The Cubs don't lose, the Cubs are losing itself. We define the concept so that winning has meaning. We are the yard-stick, the baseline. You get me?

And what's more, we occupy the cosmic niche. The Cubs take on frustration, disappointment and longing so that others may know deliverance, jubilation and satisfaction.

We keep things in balance. We fall on our swords. The gods damn us but they love the little children. There is turmoil in our Windy City hearts but détente between the United States and Russia, you know what I'm saying?

Tiant, Fisk reunited at Fenway

Now Playing: "Cuban Pete," by Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra.

The Fox broadcasters the other day were taking a poll: In a playoff game for all the marbles, which pitcher would you want on the mound: Pedro Martinez or Roger Clemens?

My answer: El Tiante.

Any Boston fan who cheered Cuban expatriate Luis Tiant in the '70s would agree he belongs in the Hall. Those so inclined might light one of his signature cigars to the cause.

What a treat he was to watch. The New Yorker's Roger Angell wrote at the time:

His repertoire begins with an exaggerated mid-windup pivot, during which he turns his back on the batter and seems to examine the infield directly behind the mound for signs of crabgrass. With men on bases, his stretch consists of a succession of minute downward waggles and pauses of the glove, and a menacing sidewise, slit-eyed, Valentino-like gaze over his shoulder at the baserunner. The full flower of his art, however, comes during the actual delivery, which is executed with a perfect variety show of accompanying gestures and impersonations.

Marvin Olasky reminisces:

Baseball, like many other good gifts from God, can give us a temporary happiness that points us toward the happiness that lasts. One fine day in 1975, as I was coming out of the seven lean years of my life, I walked the 12 miles from my parents' home (where I was visiting) to the Atlantic Ocean and stared out at it. Then I looped back to Fenway Park, where the Red Sox had an evening game against the dreaded Yankees.

I sat in the right-field bleachers as pitcher Luis Tiant twisted indescribably on the mound. (If you have ever watched his idiosyncratic wind-up, you can picture it in your mind's eye right now.) He pitched brilliantly, the Red Sox had some timely hits, and they led 5-2 after eight innings. That's when I did something exceedingly rare in my life: I left a game early.

The reason was neither rush nor boredom; for some inexplicable reason (because the facts of my life did not warrant joy) I was filled with happiness. I didn't want to lose that moment, so I walked out into the night before anything could go wrong. I walked out thinking, "It doesn't get any better than this."

But of course, through God's grace, it did, because a fine baseball game is just a shadow of what God has in store for us.

Sr Adrienne Schmidt, left, and Sr Thos Eileen at Wrigley (AP)

The tabloids best capture the feel of yesterday's ugly game at the Fens.

Here's today's banner headline at the Daily News, which in print looked like this, front and back.

And here's the New York Post, front and back.

Meantime, Boston.com has fan video of Pedro vs. Zimmer and a Game 3 photo gallery.

Writes Jim Caple at ESPN.com: Festive? The only thing missing was Clemens biting someone's ear off. But you never know. The series isn't over yet. Who knows what will happen Sunday in Game 4?

Newsday's Joe Gergen had out the crystal ball this past Wednesday with a column recalling epic Sox-Yankee dustups of the past.

But they have fought regardless of whether a pennant was at stake. They fought on May 30, 1938, before the largest official crowd in Yankee Stadium history (81,841). In the course of a Memorial Day doubleheader, Jake Powell became enraged at threatening pitches by Boston's Archie McKain and charged the mound. He was intercepted by Joe Cronin, the Red Sox shortstop and manager. The two slugged each other repeatedly, earning ejections from the game. They pledged to meet under the stands where, egged on by teammates, they continued the melee. Each was fined and suspended for 10 days.

Fourteen years later, responding to Jimmy Piersall's insults about the size of his nose, Billy Martin took on the Boston outfielder in a tunnel at Fenway Park. It was only later in the 1952 season, after Piersall was institutionalized, that people realized that the Red Sox outfielder had serious mental problems.

In 1973, catchers Thurman Munson and Carlton Fisk rolled around in the dirt after a collision at home plate in Boston. That set the stage for a wild brawl in 1976 precipitated by Lou Piniella's hard slide into Fisk at Yankee Stadium. Both dugouts and bullpens emptied after the pair exchanged a few harsh words and shoves. In the aftermath, pitcher Bill Lee was pummeled by Mickey Rivers and then Graig Nettles.

After the 1973 skirmish, Lee had goaded the Yankees with the observation that they fought "like a bunch of hookers swinging their purses." Although Nettles denied trying to hurt Lee, he wasn't particularly upset when the pitcher was diagnosed with a torn capsule and ligament in his throwing shoulder. "I'd like to know," the third baseman said, "does he look like he's been hit with a purse?"

Joe Cronin's 1938 sparring partner, Jake Powell of the Yankees, earned another suspension that year for an anti-black slur on radio, and 10 years later killed himself after being caught passing bad checks.

From Eric Wilbur's Sox blog at Boston.com:

Reader Frank Solensky writes in and points out: “Here's an interesting factoid: you've no doubt heard the theory that if the Sox and Cubs ever met in the World Series a meteor would have to hit the earth before one team could win. An asteroid came within 55,000 miles of the earth last week, high and outside.”

The Spaceman himself, Bill Lee, writes colorfully of the Sox-Yanks rivalry:

I love the playoffs! I loved to pitch against the Yankees. I beat them like a redheaded stepchild. By the end of my American League career, someone told me that I was No. 3 in lifetime winning percentage against the Yankees. I asked who was No. 2, the man told me, "Babe Ruth." Go figure. No wonder Mr. Ruppert wanted the Babe in pinstripes.

When the Angels disposed of New York last year, some Red Sox fans were jumping for joy and celebration for the demise of the Yankees. I was ashamed. I take no satisfaction, unless I get to beat them myself.

I remember my first Opening Day appearance in Yankee Stadium in 1970. I came in out of the bullpen in the left-field corner a-whompin' and a-stompin', only to be greeted by an empty liquor bottle that careened off my chest. It was a glancing blow, but it was enough to "pump me up." I had come on in relief of Gary Peters in the sixth inning. Gary was my roommate. He taught me it was OK to drink beer in spring training, but when it comes to Opening Day in the Big Apple, go right for the VO.

Kindred spirit Jim Bouton, the NY pitcher turned Ball Four memoirist, also reminisces:

It was 1963 and the Red Sox had just won the first two games of a weekend series, with Radatz striking out the side in the ninth inning of each game and swaggering off the field with his Monster salute. On Sunday, the place was packed to watch Radatz do it again.

But he never got the chance. Pitching my best game of the year, I beat the Red Sox, 2-0. So far, so good. Then, for reasons it would take a therapist to explain, I got it into my head that I should march off the field with my arms raised over my head, just like Radatz. Boy, wouldn't that be funny?

Some joke. Before I even reached the foul line I had to start dodging things from the stands. Popcorn boxes. Half-eaten hot dogs. Cups of beer. Could bottles be far behind? My triumphal march to the dugout became a broken-field dash. It was lucky I wasn't killed -- depending on your point of view...

I loved pitching in Fenway Park. I loved the challenge, the excitement, the intimacy. (These days I like any ballpark not named after a bank.) I love the passion and the knowledge of the Red Sox fans. Most of all I love their loyalty.

"Why do they keep rooting for them?" my wife asked recently.

"Because it's going to feel so good when they finally win it all," I said. "For those who are still alive."

A precedent has been set for Boston beating New York for the AL pennant – 99 years ago (or two years after the Jules Verne-inspired moon above took a silent-film rocket in the eye). Here's more on the Year the Sox Beat the Yanks.

Elsewhere, the Curse of the Billy Goat is described that haunts the Cubs, as is the storied subterranean tavern whence it came.

Derek Lowe is a god. Sox slideshow

Now Playing: "Love that Dirty Water," by the Standells.

A weekend for the ages at Fenway: The Globe's Red Sox coverage includes this photo gallery from Sunday's nail-biter. Another gallery capturing Saturday's home run Trot is part of the all-around Sox slideshow at Yahoo!

Meantime, how about those Cubbies?

Pedro goes tonight in Oakland. Harpoon Oktoberfest, prescription strength, at the ready.
Intercessory prayers have been said. Cowboy up!


On the Turntable: "Captains of the Clouds," by the Mart Kenney Orchestra, via Dismuke.

And via the Virtual Gramophone, a round of the Royal Rooters' theme song, "Tessie."

Tessie, you make me feel so badly
Why don't you turn around?
Tessie, you know I love you madly,
Babe, my heart weighs about a pound.
Don't blame me if I ever doubt you.
You know I couldn't live without you
Tessie, you are my only, only, only.

The ancient Greeks who told of Achilles' heel foresaw the Red Sox bullpen.

From Peter Schilling Jr. at Mudville Magazine, Oct. 1: Another reason I love baseball: my favorite part of the Fox broadcast was this little number trotted out in the sixth inning. Apparently, Kerry Wood’s two-run double was the first time that a Cubs pitcher drove in a winning run in the postseason since Orval Overall did it in the ’07 Series. I’m not even going to pretend that any other sport cares a whit about ANYTHING in 1907, much less whether a player duplicated a feat some 96 years later. And that name! Basketball can keep its Shaqs, I'll take Orval Overall any day. Hats off to the unheralded, underpaid, and probably underfed minions at the Fox research department for that one.

Much as I appreciate David Ortiz, I must say Kerry Wood's two-run double in support of his own two-hit pitching was as eloquent a statement as any against the abominable DH rule.

And now, everyone join in with Harry: Cubs win! How about them Cubbies? (Via the Harry Caray Tribute Page)

And hey, holy mackerel: Bill White offers a chorus of the '69 Cubs fight song.

Spahn & Sain, 1950

Actually, with all the attention being paid to a possible Sox-Cubs Series, little has been paid to the potential cosmic significance of Sox-Braves: Reparation for 1948?

In the Daytona Beach News-Journal, a member of the old Braves Field Knothole Gang waxes nostalgic for the Boston NL entry.

Meantime, a Sox-Giants series would see a rematch of the 1912 Fall Classic remembered for Snodgrass' Muff.

And the legacy of the Royal Rooters and "Tessie" is highlighted in today's Globe.