sometimes you lose all hope...and then what you wished for falls right into your lap

back-to-back wins to start a series. against the Other Sox. just how they did it in Chicago going into the All Star Break...right before it all came falling down. but instead of Lester-Beckett-Schilling...the starters are Tavarez-Gabbard-Snyder. who?? and we got TWO wins?? and the pitcher i would have had the *most* confidence in of the three doesn't take the hill until tonight? hey, if nothing else, these boys have shown that they have heart, even if they don't make it into the post season. and it is *so* good to see familiar faces popping up again. Cap'n & A-Gon & Trot. Manny & Papi. all i need to make it complete is to see Lucky 49 take the field.

the one good thing about feeling as if October has all but slipped from view behind the 2006 horizon is being able to enjoy each victory without that sense of urgency & pending doom. if my boys pull off the impossible & somehow streak their way back in by some miracle, well...i will be elated, overjoyed, euphoric...and (i'll admit it) shocked as hell. and if they don't, then i've at least reveled in each win they achieve in the last 23 games.

oh yeah & the Royals beat the Yankees last night. good times.

a few little things i've found during my blog hiatus that are worthy of mention (in my opinion, which, if you recall, is the only one that matters *here*):

As if there wasn't enough fallout from the whuppin' the Yankees put on the Sox, now we have to deal with this: Yankees fans, silent since October, 2004, are back to being their old obnoxious selves; yup, they've got their self-satisfied swagger back. I can't tell you how many Yankees hats I saw here in the tourist stop known as Wells, Me., in the days after the beat-down, but I can guarantee you it's more than I've seen all summer previously; it took all my willpower not to turn a couple of the Buttafuocos into hood ornaments. And I won't even get into talking about my frontrunning neighbor, who is quick to take down the Yankee flag above her doorstop when things aren't going well for the Bronx Billionaires, yet always seems to have the thing waving proudly milliseconds after a victory over the Sox. One of these nights, I'm going to swipe the flag and replace it with . . . well, I don't know, something tasteless. I'm open to ideas. [Note: I like the pirate flag suggestion. Just bizarre enough to work.] Sports Guy likened this smug-Yankee-fan phenomenon to mosquitoes returning to ruin a pleasant summer. It's a fair analogy, but then again, I've never encountered a single mosquito who has a spotty mustache, accessorizes a knock-off Jeter jersey with knock-off gold chains, and smells like a combination of stale Driven and James Gandolfini's undershirt. But I'm sure they have 'em in droves in Jersey. (Touching All the Bases, Nine Innings: 8.28.06)

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the little excerpt from Touching All the Bases, Nine Innings: 9.4.06, purely for the enjoyment of one half of RSN-West: The Less Famous But Equally Useless Of The Javier Lopezes (can we claim some sort of rights to this, do you think??)

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and this one for the other half of RSN-West, because it so made me think of her & laugh: "I can't wait to start playing, dude," he said before last night's game against the White Sox." (David Ortiz, Extra Bases, "Papi Returning Today")

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this just strikes me as amusing in a way maybe only i can be amused: Gonzalez was wearing his "Got Manny?" T-shirt (Extra Bases)

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and finally Seth Mnookin of Feeding the Monster convinced me that the inexplicably dark month of August truly was caused by something dark & sinister

Introducing the Curse of the Gimpy Crow

Do you remember August 1? I mean, for some other reason than it being the day after the trade deadline. That’s right: that was the night that an injured crow was flitting (never sitting) feebly around the bases at Fenway. And remember how funny it was? Remy and Orsillo spent most of the ninth joking about how said crow was trying to swipe second base. The Globe ran with the same joke the next day. Ha ha.

It doesn’t seem so funny anymore, does it? Since that time, the Sox have been swept by two out of three last-place teams in the league, and two out of three first place ones (they did manage a single win against both Detroit and Tampa Bay). Against Kevin Millar-less clubs, the Sox are 5-21. Even more ominously, the number of players with broken wings, er, serious injuries is growing by the minute. It won’t be long before the Fenway scoreboard installs a (corporate sponsored) injury ticker with up-to-the-minute updates.

From what I understand, this whole made-up curse thing can be pretty lucrative, and as I pondered, weak and weary, the state of the Sox I realized: Boston is currently dealing with the Curse of the Gimpy Crow. (Take that, Chicago: you’re no longer the only city that suffers at the hands of the animal kingdom.) Before you cry shenanigans, let me remind you: Indian tribes from Puget Sound (you know, Mariners country) knew the raven — and really, what’s the difference between a raven and a crow? — as the trickster god, and believed he created the human world after dropping a stone in the ocean. Not a good dude to piss off.

So I am sorry, Mr. Crow, and truly your forgiveness I implore for any offense I might have caused. Now please, let us play the rest of the season in peace. And to this curse I say: Nevermore!