With this one utterly unforgivable exception: don’t ever let me hear of an official (or a player) who takes money to tip a game in which millions have invested their hopes and the energy of their collective imagination.

51

The once more hapless Devil Rays, and please God may they (or the troublesome El Birdos) not poke a stick in our spokes as we race down this season’s home stretch.

52

That could change if Oakland loses its hold on first place in Outer Weird Pacifica, but even if the A’s do drop to second, our position vis-à-vis the wild card won’t change much. For the record, I think Oakland will hold on and win the West.

53

Unlike, let us say, the supposed Campbell’s Chunky Soup Curse, where I can only find four football players—Terrell Davis, Kurt Warner, Jerome Bettis and Donovan McNabb—who actually suffered injuries after appearing in the ads, despite all the rumors.

54

Nine is the number that comes to mind, but you know what Ole Case said: “You could look it up.”

55

I am allowed to say stuff like this, because according to John Cheever, the belles lettres version of Ole Case, “all literary men must be Red Sox fans.” My reputation as a literary man is actually in some dispute, but I am a man, a Red Sox fan and a writer, so…fuggit. I think Norman Mailer said that, in The Naked and the Dead.

56

Tanyon Sturtze, for instance, lately miserable in middle relief for the Yankees (he went two-thirds of an inning in his last appearance), was utterly brilliant last night.

57

That would be roughly seventy-five hundred, most of them equipped with Yankee hats, Derek Jeter T-shirts, and upturned middle fingers for people wearing Red Sox gear.

58

Sorry, Blue, but that slo-mo replay has no mercy.

59

Ah, but under the circumstances, the always crafty Joe Torre really had little choice; by then it was a fool’s mate.

60

Three out of five rather than four out of seven.

61

The Indians at Jacobs Field, the Rockies at Coors, and the Giants at Pac Bell.

62

For the record, I think that hitting Millar was an accident. But, accident or on purpose, Kazmir did the Boston batters one hell of a favor by dealing himself out.

63

It would be their fifth win in a row.

64

Loathsome El Birdos.

65

NAH—it’s just a common sports malady: choking disease. SK

66

But of course, as Red Sox fans, we can no more not worry—even with a six- or seven-run lead—than we could not blink if you were suddenly to jab your fingers at our open eyes.

67

For the record, so do I—I grew up watching Bob Gibson pitch in the World Series, and listening to Sandy Koufax on my transistor radio earphone. Those were the days when the games were still played in the afternoon and pitching the batter high and tight was considered standard operating procedure.

68