Posted Monday, October 29, 2007 by Gene

Boston Red Sox win World Series
In 2004, I watched the entire playoffs from inside a sofa cushion fort. I was terrified. I was Charlie Brown desperate to kick the football. I was the guy who dropped the soap in the prison shower. I didn't want to look and I didn't want to move.

This time my reaction for the entire playoff run could basically have been summed up as follows: "Hey, cool." Especially for the four games of the World Series. I thought the Colorado "wait, that can't be right" Rockies would find a way to pull out one game, but that was about the worst I expected. This is a team with players on it who thought their visit to Fenway in June was a "playoff atmosphere". I was fairly positive they were doomed and it was just a matter of time before it played out that way.

If I was going to be nervous about anything, it would have been the Cleveland series, but my approach to that was, "If they lose, oh well, it was a good year."

I think there might be something wrong with me.

Patriots turn the Redskins into a dirty smudge on the grass
I was watching the pregame show on Fox, and the question, "do the Redskins have a chance against these Patriots?" was posed to Howie Long, and this is why I like Long about ten times more than any other commentator, because his answer was, "I don't see how." He didn't hedge his bets at all, just told the truth as he understood it, and he understood that because he's been watching the Pats.

I imagine there are a lot of people out there who have been looking at the numbers this team has been putting up and not actually watching the games themselves, so they don't completely understand, and I have been unable to put into words exactly what I've seen because it defies description. Howie Long? He came kinda close with "I don't see how."

Commentators this week are going to try and come up with pros and cons for both teams in the upcoming game with the Indianapolis Colts and that's nice because that's what they're paid to do, in the same way a journalist is tasked with finding an opposing opinion for a story even when the only person holding an opposing opinion is a guy who lives in the bus depot and wears tin foil on his head. Here is the truth: The Patriots are the only team that can stop the Patriots, and they haven't shown anything that suggests they intend to do so. They will destroy Indianapolis.

So that's where he's been hiding
Before the start of the Dolphins- Giants game in Wembley Stadium in England, they had someone sing the National Anthem, and then someone else come out to sing God Save The Queen. This second someone was introduced as the winner of some UK version of American Idol, and his name was-- I thought-- Pol Pot. Yes, not just an oppressive Cambodian communist dictator, folks, but a hell of a singer.

The guy's name was actually Paul Potts. Which wasn't nearly as funny. Wasn't Cambodian either.