I happened to catch Shaughnessy on one of the cable news channels last night not long after I arrived home from New York, spinning pretty much the same line. He was on the phone; Red Sox–Yankees highlights were playing on the screen. When he paused for breath, the newscaster asked him what he and Boston baseball fans would talk about vis-à-vis the Red Sox next year if Boston did happen to win the World Series.

Either the query or the concept behind it seemed to catch Shaughnessy by surprise. There was an uncharacteristic pause, and then he said, “You know, that’s an interesting question.” Which to my mind is always aninteresting response, meaning the person to whom the question has been directed has no freakin’ idea. Sure enough, Shaughnessy never did really respond to the newscaster’s question.

Without the curse to fall back on (or the Curse, if you prefer), they might have to actually write about the games? You think? I know some of the Boston sports cannibals would find that a daunting proposition at the outset, but most of them (their taste for the golden flesh of athletes to one side) are pretty damned good writers, and I’m sure they’d rise to the challenge in short order.

Two—During the wee-hours postgame celebration outside Fenway Park, a twenty-one-year-old Emerson College student named Victoria Snelgrove was killed when she was struck by a plastic ball filled with pepper spray. Boston police commissioner Kathleen O’Toole accepted responsibility for the young woman’s death (handsome, and no doubt of great comfort to her family), and in the next breath condemned the “punks” who seized upon the Red Sox victory over the Yankees as “an opportunity for violence and destruction.” Running beside this story is a picture of the late Ms. Snelgrove, looking not like a punk but a Madonna.

Boston mayor Thomas Menino says the city is considering a ban of liquor sales during the World Series (think how proud his Puritan predecessors would be of that), and also of banning live TV coverage of the games in bars and restaurants, because it incites fans.[82] This is causing the predictable howls of outrage from bar and restaurant owners, and they may have a point, especially since Menino failed to mention the sale of beer within Fenway Park itself while the games are going on.

Three—It’s going to be St. Louis rather than Houston when the Series convenes tomorrow for another of those hateful (perhaps even beerless?) night games. The Rocket gave it his best shot last night in Game 7 of the NLCS, and the Astros even led for a while, but in the end the Roger Clemens tradition of just not being able to win the big game again held true.