Speaking of ogly, Orlando wasn’t looking so good himself in that interview, and he seemed uncharacteristically solemn. A Woody Williams pitch hit him on the shoulder in the first inning, then bounced up into his face, leaving him with a bruised chin, a fat lip, and a temporary inability to smile—which, under ordinary circumstances, Mr. Garciaparra’s replacement does often. Pain or no pain, Cabrera must have been at least tempted to test that smile when the Red Sox finally escaped with an ogly but serviceable 11–9 win in spite of four errors (one by Bronson Arroyo—starter Tim Wakefield’s fourth-inning relief—one by Kevin Millar, and two by Manny Ramirez). Every one of those errors led to runs, leading me to wonder if any of the Red Sox players felt tempted to visit the Cardinals’ clubhouse after the game and assure them on behalf of the home team that Boston doesn’t play that way every night.

Cabrera might have been even more tempted to test his swollen lip if informed of this statistic: in World Series history, the team drawing first blood has gone on to win the Fall Classic 60 percent of the time. Still, there’s that other 40 percent…and the fact that the Cards have yet to lose during this postseason on their home field. But—fingers crossed, now—you’ve got to like the Red Sox going into Game 2. They’re nice and loose (what could be looser than four errors and four walks issued by Red Sox pitching?), their demonic archrivals are behind them and they’re riding a nifty five-game winning streak.

Last night’s game began with a moment of silence for Victoria Snelgrove, the young woman killed by a pepper-gas ball during riot-control operations outside Fenway following Boston’s final victory over New York,and while it was both decent and brave of the current ownership to remember her (one is tempted to believe that the previous bunch of caretakers would have swept Ms. Snelgrove under the rug as fast and as far as possible), it was also a reminder of what is truly ogly in our brave new world, where all game bags are searched and the clocks tick on Osama Mean Time.

There were lines of Boston police, looking like puffy Michelin Men in their riot gear, watching impassively as the happy and largely well-behaved crowd left the old green First New England Church of Baseball with the strains of “Dirty Water” still ringing in their ears and the memory of Mark Bellhorn’s game-winning, foul-pole-banging home run still vivid in their minds. To me those dark lines of armed men outside such a place of ancient and innocent pleasure are a lot harder to look at than the mark on Orlando Cabrera’s face, or his swelled lower lip.