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October 31, 2005

Leave a Message

When I was growing up, my family went through a period in which we would sing our answering-machine greeting to the tune of well-known songs. My favorite one that I wrote was to the tune of Simon an Garfunkel's Sound of Silence

Hello friend, we are not home
The telephone is all alone
So leave your name, number, and message
Every call we get is precious
When you hang up, your message will be shrouded in darkness
It always was
And the house will be
In silence

I'm partiuclarly fond of the rhyme (sic) between message and precious, as well as the poetic imagery at the end. We had to sing the song doubletime when recording the greeting as the machine limited its length to about fifteen seconds. I think I was the only one in our family who ever liked this greeting—it was gone after less than a week.

October 26, 2005

The World Series

I promised Wing that I would write about the World Series to date. And since I'm about to start playing Civ 4, I better do it now or I'll never do it.

I've watched most of the Series so far and am a bit underwhelemed, though that doesn't take away from the refreshment of watching a championship series between two teams that, all in all, I don't mind one bit. In my mind, the series has been markes so far by poor umpiring benefiting the Sox (what else is new?), meaningless comebacks, one really long game, and home runs by unlikely suspects (Podsednik, Blum). There haven't been any dominating pitching performances; there haven't been any inspiring hitting accomplishments. So it's been enjoyable, but I don't think I'll remember it for years to come.

Another Blown Call

I suppose that I must commit to electronic paper my thoughts on the latest blown call. Given a choice between ruling a foul ball and a hit batsman, the foul ball clearly makes for a more conservative call. Thus an umpire—being only human—must be convinced that a ball hit a btter to call it as such. Home-plate umpire Jeff Nelson just flat out blew it. And once again, the White Sox capitalized on their fortune as Konerko blasted a grand slam on the very next pitch. It's becoming a typical sequence with the White Sox this postseason:

  1. Egregious blown call.
  2. Capitalize.
  3. Win.
  4. Profit.
My natural instinct is to root against the White Sox because of these blown calls. It's not their fault, obviously, and they have done a tremendous job in siezing the opportunities presented to them. But it's just not fair and when all else is (approximately) equal, I tend to prefer the team which is on the short end of the fair scale.

After the game, Jermaine Dye admitted that the ball hit bat rather than body. The stark nature of the admission led me to engage in several conversations about whether the sportsmanlike behavior would have been for Dye to correct the umpire's call when it happened. No one expected Dye to correct the call. Everyone agrees that it's a cold day in hell when a professional athlete corrects a call that went in his or her favor. But I was surprised to find that most people I spoke with thought that it would have been sporting of Dye to correct the call. I thought about this, and though I may be conflating sportsmanship with morality and ethics, I do not think that it would have been right for Dye to correct the umpire? Why? Dye has a whole team relying on him to help them win the World Series, and to aid the opponent—even in the guise of enforcing the rules— would be to momentarily turn his back on his team. (Even if you consider a strict interpretation of sportsmanship's definition as fairness in following the rules of the game, one could argue that just as the rules make clear what happens when the ball hits the bat, the rules charge the umpire with determining what has happened before applying the correct rule.)

More on the Let Down Hit

Now that we've had our primer on let down hits, the World Series has been gracious enough as to show us some subtleties surrounding the let down hit. Consider this Let Down Hits 202. First, in Game 1 we learned an advanced technique for avoiding the let down hit. With the bases loaded and only one out in the bottom of the 5th, Astros pitcher Wandy Rodriguez paced behind the mound, seeking a solution to his dilemma. He knew he could get the batter, AJ Pierzynski, out, but then he would leave himself susceptible to a let down hit. But with the bases loaded, not retiring Pierzynski would score at least one run anyway! What to do? Rodriguez figured out the perfect solution: coax the batter to hit into a double play! So, lesson one from the World Series: a let down hit can be avoided by getting the two or three needed outs all on the same play.

Now, fast forward to the pivotal 14th inning in Game 3. "But wait a minute, Lee," you say. "The White Sox never had MOTLOTT in the 14th inning!" Indeed you are correct, my student, but look cloesly at Geoff Blum's home run. What happened before that fateful blow? Why, Ezequiel Astacio committed the cardinal sin of allowing the leadoff batter to reach base (40-50% chance of that runner scoring), but then negated that entirely when Konerko hit a hard ground ball into a 5–4–3 double play. The Astros and their fans let out a collective sigh of relief, and then—bam!—the biggest of all let down hits followed. Lesson two from the World Series: not all let down hits are linked to MOTLOTT situations.

Professional Hitter

Before Scott Podsednik could both win a game and double his season's home run total with a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth to win Game 2 for the White Sox, the Astros first had to stage an improbable two-run comeback in the top of the ninth against Bobby Jenks. The key, game-tying hit in their rally came as a single by pinch-hitter Jose Vizcaino, whom the broadcasters described as a "professional hitter." Now, last century, Jose Vizcaino spent several years on the Mets, and I despised him. In my casual observations, all he ever did was hit ground balls to the shortstop, often for double plays. My Dad always disagreed, claiming that Vizcaino was a solid hitter. I'd tease him when Vizcaino grounded out (all the time!) and Dad wouldn't let me forget whenever he got a key hit (rarely). So when Vizcaino tied the game in the ninth, I immediately knew that were Dad alive, the phone would soon be ringing with an "I told you he was a great hitter!" waiting on the other end of the line.

As an aside, I just grepped my saved mail for mentions of Vizcaino and came up with this snippet between Dad and me during the 2000 Mets vs. Yankees Subway Series to illustrate my point. Vizcaino had had the game winning hit for the Yankees in Game 1 of that World Series, prompting this exchange after Game 2:

Dad:And we didn't talk about your favorite in game 1---Jose VIZCAINO! > I always told you he was good. Now he comes back to hurt us!
Lee: I was convinced after game 1 that this was the Universe's way of mocking me. Happily, he put up a big 0-for-4 leading off tonight.
It seems little has changed. As I write this entry, Vizcaino pinch hits in a key situation for the Astros in the bottom of the eighth inning, and promptly (and weakly) grounds out to shortstop. Looks like Dad and I were both right.

What's in a Name?

The Astros have Jose Vizcaino while the White Sox have Luis Vizcaino (no relation). The Astros have Adam Everett while the White Sox have Carl Everett (no relation). Just sayin'.

October 25, 2005

The Devil's in the Details

In which Christopher's friend, Casey, muses on the proper spelling of Diabolical Laughter:

Take note: 2 ha = maniacal, 3 ha = diabolical, 4 ha = you are starting to lose credibility. Remember, you are shooting for evil with a tinge of crackpot, not full-on crackpot.

For the record—and as made clear in my second attempt at commenting on Casey's entry—I'm a firm believer in the inclusion of everyone's favorite three-syllable letter in my villainous chortles. Regardless, I agree with Casey's mockery of those who would seek world domination while emitting a bovine laugh (moo-ha-ha).

muwahahaha.

Into the Woods

In which my coworker and good friend Ben Szekeley jumps into the blogging fray.

Spurred on by our resident blogging guru at IBM Elias Torres, and inspired by Lee Feigenbaum, I finally registered a domain, and began a Weblog. I must also admit that I was motivated by the fact that Lauren beat me to the punch with a Weblog. This is slightly embarassing as she is working toward her second masters in Classics at BU and I’m working on a Master’s of Computer Science at Harvard while working at IBM, an industry leader in blogging.

Also, I can't help but think that Ben's blog seems somehow... visually reminiscent of Elias's blog. Must be a coincidence.

October 22, 2005

Easily Confused Video Games?

Conversation in the car yesterday:

Lynn: Which game was Super Metroid?
Lee: It's a screen-based platformer ... what sort of description do you want?
Lynn: Hmm... well which was the game in which you had to roll a marble down a path?
Lee: You mean Marble Madness?
Lynn: Oh, I guess that's not Super Metroid...

October 20, 2005

Broncos vs. Patriots: The 2005 Edition

Couldn't let this one go by without a quick word. The Broncos have made a habit of getting off to great early-seasons starts recently, so I'm not going to get too excited about this season, yet. And they have shown a decided lack of killer instinct leading to an inability to put teams away in the second halves of games. But nevertheless, the two-and-a-half quarters of ass-whupping that the Broncos handed to the Patriots in this past Sunday's game couldn't help but remind me of one of Shannon Sharpe's greatest moments.

When a Nerd Likes Baseball

When a nerd (me) likes baseball as much as I do, these sorts of sites are some of his favorite on the Web (most courtesy of Jeremy):

I'm sorry, Bobby Jenks

Two weeks ago, as the White Sox were thrashing the Red Sox, I twice wrote about how impressed I was with the pitching of White Sox stand-in closer Bobby Jenks. Well, Chicago wrapped up the ALCS with their fourth straight victory over the Angels a few days ago to win the ALCS, but they did it without ever letting Bobby Jenks pitch against his former team. I take full responsibility for this travesty, and I hereby formally apologize to the entire Jenks family.

Wing asked me to write about "post-bad-call meltdowns," and in the process demonstrated that he is a master hyphenator. Well, unfortunately I don't have much to say on the topic. It was a brutally blown call by home-plate-umpire Doug Eddings, and yet a playoff team should score more than a single run in nine innings to legitimately think they should win a game. Bad calls happen; this one just happened to happen at a crucial time and in a mysterious manner. Perhaps the rally monkey was off taking a nap.

So, yes, I was glad to see the White Sox triumphant. In addition to the monkey and nomenclature nonsense which I've already mentioned as factors encouraging me to root against the Angels, the Angels are guilty of the heinous sin of bringing thundersticks to baseball during the 2002 World Series. (OK, I know that link doesn't establish that fact, but: (a) I'm pretty sure it's true and (b) the text at that link is pretty amusing nonetheless.) And, man alive, four consecutive complete games is just out of this world these days.

My lasting memory from the Angels-ChiSox ALCS is apparently an image that does not exist anywhere I've looked on the Web. It is the image of Chicago first baseman Paul Konerko calmly placing his foot against the side of first base to retire Casey Kotchman to end Game 5 and win the pennant. Konerko didn't jump on the bag; he didn't step on it emphatically; heck, he didn't even step on the base at all. It was professional, and—somehow—it was classy. While he didn't hold back from celebrating the ALCS victory with his teammates, he knows that on the field there's still a larger goal not yet accomplished.

Over in the National League, the Astros put away the Cardinals in impressive fashion. You can count me among the millions of sports fans who gave the Cards a significant edge in the series after Albert Puojls shocked Minute Maid (yum) Park into silence with his two-out, three-run, game-winning-but-not-walk-off home run on Monday. And yet the Astros showed tonight why they were able to come back from being 15 games under 0.500 early in the season to win the wild card: dominant pitching. Roy Oswalt was brilliant, and while the Cardinals did get screwed on Adam Everett's phantom tag (ok, it was closer than that picture shows) in the fifth inning, I'm pretty confident that the proper call would not have changed the game's outcome.

Looking back at our scorecard...

  1. St. Louis Cardinals: Won 3–0; Lost 4–2
  2. San Diego Padres: Swept!
  3. Chicago White Sox: Won 3–0; Won 4–1
  4. Houston Astros: Won 3–1; Won 4–1
  5. California Angels: Won 3–2; Lost 4–1
  6. Boston Red Sox: Swept!
  7. Atlanta Braves: Lost 3–1
  8. New York Yankees: Lost 3–2
...you can see that I'll be pulling for the White Sox in the World Series starting on Saturday. Except... except that I won't be. As Houston's been perched on the edge of a National League pennant for the past few days, I've been forced to reconsider whether I really have enough animosity towards Roger Clemens to force me to root for the American League representatives. And, while I'll never be inviting Clemens to any small family functions, I think the answer is "no." Looking at the relevant issues:
  • NL vs. AL. This is muddied by the fact that the White Sox often play like a National League team, sacrificing runners, stealing bases, and manufacturing runs—at least until Konerko steps to the plate. Small edge: Astros
  • The George Steinbrenner Effect. Either Jose Contreras and El Duque will walk away with rings, or else Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte will. John Harper sums this up nicely in the Daily News. It looks like Game 1 will be Clemens (rather than Pettitte) vs. Contreras, but for Mr. Steinbrenner and many Yankees fans, this is a no-win situation. And that's a good thing. Edge: none
  • Announcers. I don't know anything about the Astros TV or radio announcers. But I do know that the White Sox television broadcaster Hawk Harrelson defeated Tim McCarver (!!!) in the finals of a fan-voted contest to determine the worst non-ESPN sports broadcaster. Heck, Hawk even has an entire website devoted to removing him from the broadcast booth! (The contest even included two of my, *cough*, favorites.) Edge: Astros
  • Players, managers, etc.. On the Astros I like, for no particular reason: Roy Oswalt, Biggio & Bagwell, Lance Berkman, Dan Wheeler (ex-Met!), Brad Lidge. On the White Sox I like, for no particular reason: Scott Podsednik, Paul Konerko, A. J. Pier-something-or-other, Freddy Garcia, Bobby Jenks (of course), Ozzie Guillen. On the Astros, I dislike Roger Clemens immensely. On the White Sox, I dislike Carl Everett somewhat. Small edge: White Sox.
So in the end, it is close, but I'll be rooting for the senior circuit. And my prediction? Astros in 6.

It's 2:00 AM and I've got two more (short) sports-related entries to write tonight (catching up a bit), so I'll leave you with this IM exchange between Jeremy and myself from a couple of nights ago:

Jeremy: white sox - houston will be a scrap for a run at any cost kind of series
Lee: the way baseball should be!
Jeremy: but chicks dig the long ball!
Lee: good thing i'm already married.

Good thing, indeed.

October 12, 2005

Baseball Playoffs, Day 7

It's football season on the east coast. Down south the Braves have failed to heed Santayana's advice, while up north the runaway two largest payrolls in baseball have both been granted a few extra weeks' worth of offseason shopping. They might need the extra days, actually, since their professional shoppers might no longer be around.

So, what happened?

Pitching and defense, my friends, are what happened. Or, perhaps more accurately, pitching and defense are what didn't happen. Pitching didn't happen in the 8th and 9th innings of the Sunday Braves vs. Astros game, as Braves' savior closer Kyle Farnsworth relinquished a five-run lead in spectacular fashion. Maybe Farnsworth just wanted to secure his place in baseball lore as the man without whose failing the longest game in playoff history would never have occurred. And so the Astros avoided losing the game by mere inches in the bottom of the 9th and then avoided winning in the 10th by those same few inches. And so I—at Foxwoods for a day of poker—wandered away to play a ten-person poker tournament. I finished (poorly), wandered back to the TVs, and much to my shock arrived to catch the 17th and 18th innings. Home run Chris Burke and once again, it's so long Atlanta, we hardly knew ya.

(My mom once told me that if you don't have something mean to say about Roger Clemens, don't say anything at all, and so I'm not.)

And then the Yankees went and beat the Angels on Sunday, sending their ALDS series to a decisive Game 5. Sure the Red Sox and Braves had been knocked out, but all would be for naught should the Yankees start making deals with the devil once more. But Monday came, and for the Yankees, defense didn't happen. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Our reward? We get to read articles like this:

IN the end, the Mets had a better season than the Yankees. Yes, the Yankees won yet another division championship and the Mets only tied for third place in their division, but the Mets still had a better season.

So, things in the world of Major League Baseball have gone swimmingly in the past week, as is more than evident from my preferences:

  1. St. Louis Cardinals: Won 3–0
  2. San Diego Padres: Swept!
  3. Chicago White Sox: Won 3–0
  4. Houston Astros: Won 3–1
  5. California Angels: Won 3–2
  6. Boston Red Sox: Swept!
  7. Atlanta Braves: Lost 3–1
  8. New York Yankees: Lost 3–2
For a cumulative record of 12 and 3 and my preferred team winning each series. Now my lowly pawns, the Angels and Astros, become my enemies, and I will glad enjoy watching the ChiSox and the Cards stomp all over them. After all, if I can't see the Mets victorious, at least I can (occasionally) assert my view of the proper (baseball) order of things onto the (baseball) world around me.

October 8, 2005

Baseball Playoffs, Day 4

Day 3 quickie summary: Smoltz bests Clemens which I can't say I'm too unhappy about, and St. Louis continues to roll along. Now, onto more interesting matters...

It seems one of the ESPN announcers during todays Sox2 matchup reads my blog! Along comes the pivotal bottom of the sixth inning and the Red Sox are one run down and threatening to score far more as they've loaded the bases with no men out. MOTLOTT! Ozzie Guillen looks to his bullpen for Señor Octubre who immediately coaxes Varitek and Graffanino into harmless popups. And then, one of the commentators—I'm not sure if it was Berman, Sutcliffe, or Piazza—pipes up with his own warning about the Let Down Hit:

You better not relax
Surprisingly, El Duque didn't relax and fanned Johnny Damon on a check swing. Two more stellar innings from El Duque and a flawless ninth from the unflappable Bobby Jenks later and the world champs are history. A quick victory for the White Sox; a decisive victory for the White Sox.

The Angels vs. Yankees nightcap did not showcase great baseball. A steady rain combined with poor pitching performances, 3 errors, and 31 hits in a slugfest which the Angels won by four. Randy Johnson's typical October persona emerged, allowing five runs in three innings before being yanked to the dulcet tones of more than 50,000 booing Yankee fans. After an impressively quick comeback by the Yankees, the mythos of invincible Aaron Small was shattered when the Angels regained the lead in the sixth, never to relinquish it.

The game was ugly, but perhaps ugliest was the blatant Yankeephilia displayed throughout the game by play-by-play man Jon Miller. Now let's not kid ourselves, he's no Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in this respect, but golly was he in rare form tonight. Three notable instances stuck out in my mind.

  1. With the Yankees down 5–1, Miller practically blew out his larynx screaming the play-by-play of Bernie Williams single. As the inning progressed, Miller's excitement at the Yankees comeback was palpable. Two innings later with the Angels trailing, Miller could not have sounded any more bored as he lethargically described Juan Rivera's double to left field followed by Darrin Erstad's RBI single. Apparently, only Yankees comebacks warrant unbridled enthusiasm.
  2. On Jason Giambi's single in the fourth inning, Orlando Cabrera airmailed the relay throw to home plate far over the catcher's head. Jon Miller's completely objective and informative play-by-play call of the action went something like this (paraphrased): "JETER ROUNDS THIRD! HERE'S THE THROW TO THE PLATE! TOUCHDOWN!!!!!!" Um, Jon? Touchdown? What exactly am I listening to here? The following inning Miller was pleased to inform us
    I never thought they'd get him at home plate, anyway.
    Good for you, Jon, good for you.
  3. Finally, we had to endure a two minute speech from Miller about how Alfonso Soriano used to be one of his favorite players, but now Robinson Cano is. Now, Soriano used to be the Yankees second baseman, and Cano now is the Yankees second baseman. Coincidence? Hmmmm.

So where do my preferences stand now?

  1. St. Louis Cardinals: Leading 2–0
  2. San Diego Padres: Trailing 2–0
  3. Chicago White Sox: Won 3–0
  4. Houston Astros: Tied 1–1
  5. California Angels: Leading 2–1
  6. Boston Red Sox: Swept!
  7. Atlanta Braves: Tied 1–1
  8. New York Yankees: Trailing 2–1

All in all, I'm 8 and 2 for a brisk 80% win rate as per my preference list. Not bad so far.

October 6, 2005

Baseball Playoffs, Day 2: Errors and the "Let Down Hit"

An awfully satisfying slate of games today, leaving my preference list and me 5 for 6 so far this October.

Aside from another ho-hum home playoff loss for the Braves, today featured losses by both the Red Sox and the Yankees in strikingly similar forms. In particular, both games featured key errors and key appearances of a let down hit. To wit:

Gets by Graffanino!

As does any error committed by a Boston infielder during October, today's fifth-inning gaffe by Tony Graffanino instantly brought memories of Bill Buckner to anyone with even a modicum of familiarity with baseball history. The error left White Sox on first and third base with only one out. Dad and I always used to refer to such a situation as MOTLOTT: man on third, less outs than two. (This odd wording was chosen because it makes a far more pronounceable acronym than MOTLTOT.) When the offense is in a MOTLOTT situation, almost any reasonable outcome of the next at-bat can score a run. It's a cardinal sin in baseball for the offense to fail to plate the runner on third when they have MOTLOTT.

Yet, the White Sox did exactly this, as leadoff hitter Scott Podsednik—perhaps falsely encouraged by his first home run of the year yesterday—lofted a weak foul popup which was easily caught by Bill Mueller. Now, David Wells and the BoSox had a golden opportunity to nullify Graffanino's error and escape from the inning with a two-run lead. First, though, they needed to avoid an equally deadly yet less well known baseball cardinal sin: the let down hit.

The let down hit occurs after a team in the field manages to harmlessly record the one or two outs necessary to convert MOTLOTT into a more manageable two-out rally. When this happens, the defensive team lets out a collective sigh of relief, a premature reaction so powerful that the next batter often smacks the very next pitch into the outfield for a clean, run-scoring base hit. Today, Wells lasted until his third pitch to Tadahito Iguchi to surrender a let down hit, but when he did, he did it with style. A long fly ball and four bases later, and Iguchi had given the White Sox a 5–4 lead that they would not relinquish. My hat's off also to rookie Bobby Jenks, thrust into the closer's role in lieu of an ailing Dustin Hermanson, who pitched two strong innings to save the game for the good guys.

I still give the Red Sox a 50–60% chance of forcing a deciding game five in this series, but even those odds give the White Sox a good chance of finishing the series off at Fenway over the weekend.

Three hours later, it happens again

The parallels were striking. An early two-run lead for the potent Yankee offense. An error by ARod allows the Angels to tie the game in the sixth inning. And then in the seventh inning, a throwing error by Wang on Steve Finley's sacrifice bunt followed by Adam Kennedy's successful sacrifice gives the Angels runners on second and third with only one out: MOTLOTT! But as seems to be the trend, the Angels don't capitalize, as Ch[Sean]one [1] Figgins's fly ball to centerfield is so shallow that the Angels don't dare challenge the lollipop arm of Bernie Williams. Thankfully, Wang is even more true to the let-down-hit rule than Wells was, as his very first pitch to Orlando Cabrera is lined into centerfield for two RBI. The Angels tack one more run on in the eighth, and KRod escapes in the ninth with the save. The series is tied up heading to the Bronx, where I'm hopeful that maybe the Angels can steal a game.

Tomorrow: two national league games. I'll have more to say about the Braves once they finish losing in the divisional series again, for the umpteenth time.

[1] Thanks to Jeremy for this one.

October 5, 2005

Baseball Playoffs, Day 1

As the 2005 Major League Baseball season ran down, I was forced to face the reality that the Mets, while vastly improved from last year, were not quite yet a playoff-bound team. And while I plan a lengthy exposition, discussion, and defense of my baseball rooting habits in the near future, suffice it to say that my wellspring of fondness for the Braves, Red Sox, and Yankees ran dry many, many moons ago. Thus I devoted my energies for the past couple of weeks to ensuring that one of these three teams would not play playoff baseball this year. But with Cleveland losing six of their final seven, I failed in this goal for the third consecutive year.

So, for the Official Record, I am left with this preference order in the 2005 playoffs:

  1. St. Louis Cardinals: Great ballplayers, classy team. Seems I've forgotten what bitter enemies the Mets and Cards were before divisional realignment. Just as well.
  2. San Diego Padres: I'm a National League fan at heart, and I'd love to see the Padres surprise everyone and win the World Series. The chances of this happening? Slightly less than the chances of Mark Loretta being on my fantasy-baseball team for a third straight year in 2006. (Hint: I've been twice disappointed by Mr. Loretta.)
  3. Chicago White Sox: Sure they almost made a colossal blunder by mailing in the second half of their season, but they pulled things together when it counted and should be a formidable foe to any opponent they face. Plus, Ozzie Guillen amuses me.
There's a big break here separating teams whom I would enjoy seeing win the World Series, , from those whom I have mild grudges against, .
  1. Houston Astros: I like the Astros. I really do. They're pitching is amazing and their hitting is—well, their hitters try very hard, I'm sure. But they have Roger Clemens on their team, which is a big negative.
  2. California Angels: In general, there's nothing to object to about the Angels. But there're no monkeys in baseball. And the whole Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baloney wreaks of an eight-year-old adding his county, country, continent, "Earth", and "Milky Way" to the return-address area of an envelope.
There's an even larger break here separating teams whom I do not seriously object to, , from teams whom I despise, .
  1. Boston Red Sox: Shudder.
  2. Atlanta Braves: Cringe.
  3. New York Yankees: Suck.

So where do I stand after the first day of playoff games? My most preferred team beat team #2, which is expected and just fine. The Red Sox were pounded into submission by the Bleached Sox, which is great. And the Yankees won convincingly in Anaheim, which is worrisome. Oh yes, I am quite worried.

Watch this space for further updates.

Who is Lee Feigenbaum?

Lee Feigenbaum is someone who jumps at the opportunity to spend 30 minutes reading a collection of questions and answers about hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes.

(The opportunity arose while composing another entry and struggling to figure out when I should type "-" vs. "–" vs. "—".)

Aren't you glad you now know that about me?