Congrats, Boston! And especially Jonny Gomes, from my town :)
2.
moonbat
Boston may have won the Series, but the real winners are baseball fans everywhere who no longer have to listen to Tim McCarver dredge up meaningless statistics and misremember what just happened on the field!
3.
some guy
awesome win. Papi deserved that MVP
4.
handy
The wife has gotten into this show “Covert Affairs.” Unrealistic doesn’t even begin to describe this gawdawful show.
5.
SFAW
And just think, if Bobby Valentine had this year’s team when he managed, then he would have gone to the World Series.
Or so he says.
Opinions differ on that one.
Congrats to the Sox!
6.
Ash Can
Pitchers and catchers report in 105 days!
7.
Omnes Omnibus
@handy: Piper Perabo is good looking. Focus on that.
8.
hilts
The Red Sox have another magical run under their belt
Some wag talked about his BA as being in Boeing-model-number range, which I thought was a nice touch. Most players don’t have a slugging percentage as high as his Series BA.
Because in America, America is the world. (Though a Canadian team did win it a couple years in a row–don’t worry though, we never let that happen again).
Boston’s baseball team is clearly the world’s favorite. So when Boston wins, the international baseball community goes nuts as well. This Red Sox win is celebrated across China, Japan, Korea, and maybe even Taiwan.
19.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Weird linguistic note. Some people in northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s UP end sentences with “hey.” As in, “That was a tasty beer, hey. Toss me another one once.”
20.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
Malaysian cricket petered out in the 1970s. (We waited until the white people were well and truly gone.) Malaysian softball did exist, but not for very long, and seems to have died out too. Malaysian baseball was never even born.
I once made the mistake of watching Covert Affairs. Calling it a putrid, steaming pile of shit would be an understatement.
22.
handy
Don’t get me wrong I’m all for good ole fashioned popcorn entertainment but this “Covert Affairs” has flown off the rails in a big way. Consider: You’re Dimitri, and you and five of your other hardcore bruising Russian mobster types have closed in on a petite blonde who happens to be a CIA agent. OK, she’s probably skilled in close combat, but there’s five of you, and you all have shoulders out to here, and she’s like 100 lbs maybe soaking wet. But she’s quick, so she gets the drop on Yakov, but it’s still you, Alexei, Sergei, and Vladimir against her. Oh, and you’re armed. Even allowing that she’s now put down the rest of your crew, you still haven’t gone for your weapon and shot her.
Spent a little time in Grand Rapids this summer, noticed some verbal “tics,” but not those. (Yes, I know GR is not UP.) Thanks (I think) for enlightening me.
Although, I tend to prefer some of the Maine Canuck-isms. (Being half Canuck helps, I guess.)
24.
Punchy
@hilts: I think saying “Finland” and “friendly” in the same sentence is repetitious. Similiarly, saying “Mexico” and “playing soccer” –at least recently– may be cosidered contradictory.
25.
Suffern ACE
@handy: it’s that famous Russian mob code of honor? You can’t shoot a lady. Just attempt to attack her A-Team villain style.
“Maybe even Taiwan.” Come now, don’t cut it short! The Sox are of course celebrated all across Taiwan, from Pingtung to Keelung.
27.
FlyingToaster
@Punchy: Dude, the coverage this year is WORSE than the fans. I can’t move in this place without bumping into “Boston Strong” or (yes, I live here) “Watertown Strong”.
Look, just because cricketers (as in, “Those are all cricketers, Bruce!” “Aw, spit” “Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce!”) talk about batsmen, doesn’t mean you can pollute a baseball thread with that kind of talk.
[Now, if you told me that your real name was Garry Sobers, I might change my tune. But I’m guessing you’re a little young to be Sir Garfield.]
@Amir Khalid: isn’t there a fairly cool Malaysian sport like volleyball with a rattan ball that is played with legs? It kind of seems superior to softball or cricket.
Red Sox Nation is making inroads in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
33.
Hill Dweller
There are multiple media outlets straight up lying about Obamacare. They keep printing/airing these sob stories about people losing insurance, but when another journalist follows up with some actual leg work on policy options, the original claims fall apart.
I doubt it’s coordinated, but it sure as hell feels that way.
Realize that it is more often a military term, but how often does one get the chance to link to I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman?
40.
Gian
@handy:
and they MLB recruits players from around the world I suppose.
Cubans, Dominicans, Japanese, Koreans…
41.
Suffern ACE
@SFAW: the problem with goons is the lack of formal professional development options available from their employers. If they’d just give the goons 2 hours a month to watch that famous TED talk on coordinated assault, and develop a way to capture best practices that can be viewed during the on boarding process, performance would improve. Fewer black belts! More six sigma green belts would really move the production of mayhem forward in those enterprises.
42.
FlyingToaster
@handy: Rudy “A Noun, A Verb, 911” Giuliani was tired even before 2001. It just made him seem lame (from up here in Bwahstin).
I always thought the FDNY caps were promos for Dennis Leary’s show. Which would have been a wholesome marketing effort, had it been.
Today, one of the cars in front of me had a sticker with a big red W and a little white “STRONG” underneath. I was taking WarriorGirl to school so I didn’t curse the gods for depriving me of my disintegrator ray.
Monday I heard hate radio on this topic, yesterday we had the TG Chicago troll repeat it ad nausium here and it’s all over the media today.
just like the “not in kansas’ “oz” bullshit they kept shoveling at the HHS secretary, who somehow didn’t lose her cool.
it’s as coordinated as the (pick your favorite college) marching band
Red Sox Nation is making inroads in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Ix-nay with the Echen-chay jokes, Comrade Tsarnaev…
46.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: Proper goons, like Dave Semenko, simply get on the ice once in while to smash anyone who took a cheap shot at one of the stars.
47.
Amir Khalid
@Suffern ACE:
Sepak takraw. Credit for inventing the sport is disputed between Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. I remember some years back there was an attempt to take it worldwide with a name change to “acrovolley”, or something stupid like that.
Meanwhile, cricket’s only fan base here is expatriate labourers from the Indian subcontinent — plantation and factory workers with not much spare cash and no roots here, so not much appeal to TV advertisers.
48.
hitchhiker
Two good things for me tonight.
1. Watching the amazing Somali-American actor Barkhad Abdi outclass Tom Hanks in “Captain Phillips.” And Hanks was very, very good.
2. Hearing Simon Winchester talk for more than an hour . . . a sweet & generous soul who managed to make me see the USA in new ways. It’s just refreshing to hear an un-angry voice once in a while. Call me naive.
49.
FlipYrWhig
@Hill Dweller: my plan where I send this guy Petey $300 a month to sock away for me in case I get sick is going away! The only thing I can buy now is something called in-shirr-ants. Oh sure, they SAY they’ll pay parts of my medical bills, but how can I trust them? I liked it the old way, where I plunked down money and hoped for the best. Stupid Obama.
50.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: Does Petey also think you have a nice house and that it would be would a shame if something happened to it?
51.
Hill Dweller
@FlipYrWhig: The insurance companies are obviously trying to scam people with these letters canceling their existing coverage, blaming it on Obamacare, and then claiming their new plan will skyrocket in price. Upon further inspection, which the MSM isn’t doing, the individual can usually get better insurance for the same price, or even less, as their former plan.
The story should be the insurance companies f’n people over. But the Village’s hate for Obama prevents them from covering it.
52.
hilts
@Anne Laurie
After ESPN dumped Keith Olbermann in 1997, Bob Ley said he felt “unrestrained fucking joy.” That’s what I felt when the final out was made 90 plus minutes ago.
@Amir Khalid: Well, you see, back in 1903 the “world” of Baseball was confined to the two Major Leagues of the United States (which, back then, were entirely separate organizations instead of just two divisions of what’s pretty much one league today).
Back then it made sense: nobody else in the world played baseball. Today, it’s an anachronism.
this is the first year I’ve ever watched the Red Sox since training camp for some reason. Unreal season.
66.
handy
And I’m pretty sure America didn’t export xenophobia and nationalism to Europe.
67.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Well…a lot of that was homegrown anyway. It makes logical sense too since xenophobia and chauvinism tend to rise when the economy isn’t going well. Scapegoating the browns isn’t just an American pastime.
68.
ruemara
Not baseball related but thanks to all the gluten specialists of balloon juice. found sorghum beer and it was so beery I used it for the beer cheese sauce for the regular wheat pizza. And polished off the rest, which I think is why my tum is a bit warm. hopefully, the beer, fries and burger pizza will be tasty. maybe some bbq sauce drizzled on it?
69.
Dream On
Boy, baseball was a hell of a lot more fun when the Red Sox were still cursed. Now they’re just another well-run team with good post-season prospects, like the 1990’s Atlanta Braves.
Curses are good for baseball. Not incompetence – Mariners, Astros, Mets – but curses.
Oh well.
70.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
A very distinct Yooperism is…Well, I can’t think of the term for it, but dropping the words “to be” from sentences. “This wall needs to be painted,” becomes “That wall needs painted.” From what I’ve learned, it’s a Finnish language thing.
Spent a little time in Grand Rapids this summer, noticed some verbal “tics,” but not those. (Yes, I know GR is not UP.)
You’ve piqued this Rapidian’s curiosity. Were you picking up something beyond the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and the dropping of the “g” (fer instance: “Wut are ya doen’?” “Nuthen.”)?
I’m a Tigers’ fan. Fuck both the Yankees and the Sawx, as well as the Jays and O’s.
74.
piratedan
@eemom: methinks it was a way to distinguish between teams, different color socks were easier than hand stitched uniforms, hence redlegs (Cinncinnati) red sox and white sox
75.
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
I’ve always presumed it was because red socks were/are part of the Red Sox team uniform. Fellow Fenway Sports Group property Liverpool FC are called the Reds because of their traditionally all-red home strip — shirts, shorts, and socks. (Also in contrast to Everton’s — the Toffeemen’s — blue shirts and white shorts.)
76.
xenos
@Omnes Omnibus: The Tea Party is just the vanguard of a really pathetic international phenomenon. Basically aywhere you have had some form of welfare state, the elderly get all panicked when the youth start looking and talking differently from them. There is this terrible fear that the government will redirect social benefits from the’ real (insert nationality)ers’ and give all the benefits to those useless sponging mooching blacks/ arabs/ hispanics/ eastern europeans/ former yugoslavians/ turks/ walloons/ ossetians/ ruthenians/ portuguese/ belgian drivers/ ukranians/ russians/ gypsies/ liberals/ romanians/ bulgarians/ polish fucking plumbers/ italians who speak semitic dialects/ neapolitans/ greeks with curly hair/ englishmen running amok in mallorca/ and so on and so forth. There is an endless supply of people to resent and try to shit on in Europe.
Luckinly, the parliamentary system is pretty good at keeping parties based on elderly cranks out of governing coalitions.
77.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
IIRC, the Reds, originally know as the Red Stockings, stood out because they weren’t wearing black hosiery. The Boston club that had a great run in the National League in the 1870s (and which included a lot of former Reds- again, iirc) also wore Red Stockings, so that was applied as their nickname.
The Boston AL club was known as the Americans from 1901-07, and they wore blue stockings. They adopted red socks in ’08 as a tribute to that earlier Boston club, then they became known as the Red Sox (similarly, the Chicago White Sox got their white hose and name from the National League’s Chicago White Stockings, which had adopted blue socks and the nickname “Cubs” before the AL began operating).
78.
piratedan
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): that jives with my understanding of baseball arcana, I thank you for the details/refresher… was just trying to give eemom an overview but tbh, I like the details myself….
In the old days, the teams didn’t really give themselves nicknames. They were just sort of applied by the fans and/or journalists. For instance, the baseball club from Cleveland, now known (officially) as the Indians, was known as the Bluebirds in 1901, the Blues in 1902, and from 1903 thru 1911 as the Naps (after their star, Napoleon Lajoie), as the Molly McGuires from 1912 thru 1914, and, finally, the Indians since 1915.
81.
mdblanche
@xenos: They may be not be in the governing coalitions but the Tea Party only wishes they could move the debate as far right on immigration and diversity issues as the elderly crank parties have shifted it in Europe. And some of those parties are now supporting governing coalitions from the outside. Accepting that support is no longer a taboo for mainstream parties.
82.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
De nada…Pet peeve, though(seriously, I’m not grammar/language troll but for this one thing): The word is “jibes”. “Jives” means almost the exact opposite.
You go find a team that can beat the Red Sox in a 7 game series (a real playoff unlike the one off games of soccer’s world cup). Go ahead, we’ll wait….nobody? We could invite the French to play, but what would be the point. The greatest players from all around the world who play baseball, play in the Majors. If your country doesn’t play baseball (the royal you not “you”) why do you care if the Majors call it the World Series. The Red Sox are the champions of the World that constitutes baseball.
There is a World Champion of skiing. Much snow in Kuala Lumpur? Rio? New Delhi???
The Red Sox didn’t beat the Triple A champion team, either. The didn’t beat the American Legion team champion either. Or any women’s teams at all. Should they play everyone just to make sure? And being in Japan and judging the reaction and joy at Uehara throwing the final pitch, and say with total confidence that baseball fans in Japan consider the Red Sox to be the World Champions.
The winner of the World Series, is the World Champion of Baseball. full stop. no argument possible that isn’t sour grapes or just needling.
or as Chase Utley would say, the “world fucking champions.”
Did the Boston Red Sox beat any teams from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, or the Caribbean?
To be fair, I’ve read a lot of Japanese besubaru players say that the best professioanl Japanese teams just aren’t on the same level as the best American teams. (Of course, they’d say that anyway, being Japanese & polite.) And the Taiwanese and South Korean teams bitch that the Japanese outrank them, because they put so much money & science into a sport that might be more popular in Tokyo than in NYC.
As for the Caribbean players, the money’s in the USA, which means the best players come here, and that means young players who want to be the best have to migrate to the US, or Canada.
It’s like asking why so many of the best soccer football players are in Brazil — the money follows the top players, and future generations of players follow the money.
@Amir Khalid: Because back in 1903, the only people in the world playing major league baseball were in the northeastern U.S.
90.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
Here’s what I have in mind. In football, the club sides that win the top professional league in each country compete the next season in a confederation-wide Champions League to determine the confederation champion. (Europe has a Champions League, Asia has one, Africa has one, etc.) The confederation champions then compete in the World Club Championship, and the club that wins that tournament gets to call itself world champion for a year. Does baseball have something like that?
91.
piratedan
@Amir Khalid: they have something akin to the world cup, where a “national team” is assembled from pros representing their country and they play in a round robin tourney. Happens every three years and with the finals based in the US during spring training (March/April).
92.
magurakurin
No, because there is no other league even close to the level of play of MLB. Baseball is different from soccer in that the Majors is clearly the strongest league. Football has a number of high quality leagues. I’m sure there are many heated discussions about whether English, Spanish or Italian league football is the strongest. No such question exists in baseball. If you are the best you end up in the Majors. That’s why they call it “the show.”
93.
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
Actually, the very best South American football players spend much or even most of their club careers in Europe. That’s where the money is. The players are much sought after by clubs in Spain’s Primera Liga, Italy’s Serie A, and the English Premier League.The South American leagues would like to change this, of course; but while football tradition is big in South America, the continent would basically have to become as affluent as Western Europe.
Never heard of Max McGee before now. The only Packer of old I know of is Johnny “Blood” McNally, and only because he was such an outrageous, colorful character.
So far as football goes, have next to no familiarity with it and care even less.
95.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
The English had precisely that attitude of superiority as the home nation of football, and how many World Cups have England won? Just the one, well over a decade before any current England player was born.
96.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
In football, the club sides that win the top professional league in each country compete the next season in a confederation-wide Champions League to determine the confederation champion.
Yeah, but that isn’t quite true, is it? Were it the case, Chelsea would have never even made the CL in 2011-12, since they were runners up to Man Utd. in 2010-11.
The confederation champions then compete in the World Club Championship, and the club that wins that tournament gets to call itself world champion for a year.
Yeah, but the European clubs never seem to take this tournament very seriously. Since it’s played in the midst of the season in which top clubs are usually competing in at least three other schedules (their leagues, their nations open cup tournament- think F.A. Cup- and the Champions League) in that span, they don’t pull out all the stops. They save players for the competitions which are more lucrative.
In the (US) major leagues, it’s a month-long spring training schedule, with a game nearly every day (and some teams split their squads and play two in a day), a 162-game regular season, then a playoff schedule in which the eventual champion plays up to 20 more games. In the regular season, other than the All Star break- which lasts all of 3 or 4 days, a baseball team rarely gets more than 1 scheduled day off per week from the beginning of April until the end of September. Teams will pull out the stops to make the playoffs, then pull out the stops to win playoff series. By the time the championship is decided, the champions have nothing left in the tank. The trade window opens soon after the WS is finished. A championship team can be fundamentally changed through free agency in no time flat. What I’m saying here, if you aren’t getting it, is that if MLB sends a team to another tournament at the end of the WS, the team is going to be burned out- and if you send the reigning champ to this extr tournament after the roster has changed, you aren’t really sending the championship team, are you?
97.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Max went out drinking the night before Super Bowl I. Sneaked into the hotel at 6 AM. He didn’t think he’d play. Caught two TD passes. Could have been voted the MVP, but was edged out in the voting by his QB, Bart Starr. Then Max became the color commentator on the team’s radio network, where he was both informative and hilarious.
Shorter me: He was a great character. There was a lot of Johnny Blood in Max.
98.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid: It’s not an air of superiority. It’s just the truth. MLB is far and away the highest level of competition of baseball. That really isn’t in dispute by anyone who has any interest in baseball at all. I can see where someone who doesn’t know much about the sport could come away with the idea that it is just arrogance, but really, right now, at this moment the players, coaches and managers that constitute the organization know as the Boston Red Sox is the best baseball team, anywhere, bar none. Whether or not the moniker “world” is appropriate is sort of an aside. What should we call the best team in organized baseball anywhere in the world? Seems like world champion is the right name. There can only be a dispute if one disputes the fact that MLB is in fact the top league. As has been said, that claim really isn’t in dispute in any serious way.
99.
Amir Khalid
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Per UEFA rules, some leagues get to send more than one club to their Champions League. The EPL currently gets to send four. I left this out to simplify my explanation, whose point is that in football the world champion club is determined by a competition that really does include all the national champions. This is true even if the top clubs reckon that winning the Champions League level matters more than winning the World Club Championship.
100.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
The problem I have with that is that a team which is playing like shit in its domestic league can sort of tank it there, rest their best players, play best players in the CL, win the CL and qualify for both the WCC and the CL the following year (and that auto-qualifier for the CL was a gift of a rule for your Scousers after a certain game in Istanbul, was it not?). I mean, for crying out loud, Chelsea won the 2011-12 CL as they were finishing SIXTH in the Prem. Then in 2012, in the midst of a Prem season where they finished third, 14 points behind Man Utd, they were competing for the tile of “World Champion” (ETA: And with a certain Ivorian who sorta won that CL title for ’em playing for another club)?!?! Where’s the friggin’ logic there?
101.
Amir Khalid
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
They way the confederations set up the Champions League, you earn your place in next season’s CL with your performance in this season’s national league. Yes, sometimes it does have the result you find illogical; and yes, players do move around in the close season.
Liverpool were in an unprecedented situation: 2004-2005 CL winners who didn’t qualify on national league position for the 2005-06 CL. For what it’s worth, I reckon they didn’t deserve a spot in 05-06 because the UEFA CL doesn’t ordinarily reserve one for the defending champion.
102.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I reckon they didn’t deserve a spot in 05-06 because the UEFA CL doesn’t ordinarily reserve one for the defending champion.
Well, UEFA didn’t ordinarily reserve that spot, but after Liverpool they changed the rule so that they do now reserve the spot, and they made the rule retroactive. Not sure which Prem team got screwed over because of the change.
Yes, sometimes it does have the result you find illogical; and yes, players do move around in the close season.
And it’s true of every sporting organization that allows runners up to compete for national or world “championships”. There’s no perfectly logical way to decide ’em. They’re all arbitrarily decided. WCC=CL=WS as far as I’m concerned.
ETA: Who seriously considered Corinthians as the best football club in the world last year? Two years ago?
Oh yes, you and I went to the same college all right.
105.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: Why is the US national championship for professional baseball called the “World” Series?
A rhetorical question if ever there was one.
106.
The Frito Pundito
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn – where was Piper? All I saw was an old guy who coudn’t keep up with the pre-recorded song. And how did Diamond get to be a Sox fan? I seem to recall for him “LA’s fine but it ain’t home/New York’s home but it ain’t mine noah moah”
@Amir Khalid: MLB contains the best players from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Japan, Korea, etc. It’s a world league, that is based in the US and Canada.
IIRC — can’t find the reference right now — it’s because the first one in the early 1900s was sponsored/instigated by a newspaper called the New York World.
110.
sherparick
As a sad sack Cubs fan (we are so sad sack we start off insulting ourselves since we might as well join in on the fun), I derive pleasure in the Red Sox winning so I will no have bear all my Cardinal fans friends and relatives honking out about their wonderful Cardinals. They now have to cry in (and thereby infinitely improve) their Budwiesers for a few days until the next time they sweep the Cubs (probably April). Hopefully, the Red Sox can all shave as the beards are definitely getting ratty.
111.
Rorgg
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): The dropping of the “to be” has a technical name I won’t bore you with, but the dialect that’s most associated with it is that centered around Pittsburgh. My wife was born and lived in eastern Ohio until about 13 and she still sometimes says that the clothes need washed, at which point I’ll point and laugh that her Ohio is showing. :)
112.
brantl
Can anybody actually stand Neil Diamond? I sure can’t.
113.
RR Mikey
@Punchy: It’s not so much the fans for me, fans are fans no matter where you go and I’m happy for them. It’s the freaking coverage and the hype. Just crazy, over the top and too friggin’ much. And Bosox, next time, leave the beards to the NHL and try something original…..
@Suffern ACE: Yeah, but Canadian football is only as much like US football as it is because of convergent evolution. It’d still be rather complicated to mix the rules.
Alison
Congrats, Boston! And especially Jonny Gomes, from my town :)
moonbat
Boston may have won the Series, but the real winners are baseball fans everywhere who no longer have to listen to Tim McCarver dredge up meaningless statistics and misremember what just happened on the field!
some guy
awesome win. Papi deserved that MVP
handy
The wife has gotten into this show “Covert Affairs.” Unrealistic doesn’t even begin to describe this gawdawful show.
SFAW
And just think, if Bobby Valentine had this year’s team when he managed, then he would have gone to the World Series.
Or so he says.
Opinions differ on that one.
Congrats to the Sox!
Ash Can
Pitchers and catchers report in 105 days!
Omnes Omnibus
@handy: Piper Perabo is good looking. Focus on that.
hilts
The Red Sox have another magical run under their belt
Tonight’s outcome makes re-watching Four Days in October a little bit sweeter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkblpPxLrcw
Amir Khalid
Why is the US national championship for professional baseball called the “World” Series?
SFAW
@some guy:
Some wag talked about his BA as being in Boeing-model-number range, which I thought was a nice touch. Most players don’t have a slugging percentage as high as his Series BA.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Because Malaysian baseball is closer to single-A?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist, FSM will smite me for being a bad person.)
Punchy
Boston fans and the over-the-top coverage are insufferable. This WS win will force me off ESPN for at least a week.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: There is a team in Canada.
handy
@Amir Khalid:
Because in America, America is the world. (Though a Canadian team did win it a couple years in a row–don’t worry though, we never let that happen again).
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fixed to provide better translation for our Canuckistani neighbors
Fuzzy
@handy: Mine too and add White Collar to that list of of long shows with zero writing or acting talent on the screen. Just like the old “B” movies.
hilts
@Punchy:
ESPN2 is currently airing an international friendly soccer match between Mexico and Finland.
Redshirt
Boston’s baseball team is clearly the world’s favorite. So when Boston wins, the international baseball community goes nuts as well. This Red Sox win is celebrated across China, Japan, Korea, and maybe even Taiwan.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Weird linguistic note. Some people in northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s UP end sentences with “hey.” As in, “That was a tasty beer, hey. Toss me another one once.”
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
Malaysian cricket petered out in the 1970s. (We waited until the white people were well and truly gone.) Malaysian softball did exist, but not for very long, and seems to have died out too. Malaysian baseball was never even born.
hilts
@handy:
I once made the mistake of watching Covert Affairs. Calling it a putrid, steaming pile of shit would be an understatement.
handy
Don’t get me wrong I’m all for good ole fashioned popcorn entertainment but this “Covert Affairs” has flown off the rails in a big way. Consider: You’re Dimitri, and you and five of your other hardcore bruising Russian mobster types have closed in on a petite blonde who happens to be a CIA agent. OK, she’s probably skilled in close combat, but there’s five of you, and you all have shoulders out to here, and she’s like 100 lbs maybe soaking wet. But she’s quick, so she gets the drop on Yakov, but it’s still you, Alexei, Sergei, and Vladimir against her. Oh, and you’re armed. Even allowing that she’s now put down the rest of your crew, you still haven’t gone for your weapon and shot her.
How is a TV show like this even made today?
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Spent a little time in Grand Rapids this summer, noticed some verbal “tics,” but not those. (Yes, I know GR is not UP.) Thanks (I think) for enlightening me.
Although, I tend to prefer some of the Maine Canuck-isms. (Being half Canuck helps, I guess.)
Punchy
@hilts: I think saying “Finland” and “friendly” in the same sentence is repetitious. Similiarly, saying “Mexico” and “playing soccer” –at least recently– may be cosidered contradictory.
Suffern ACE
@handy: it’s that famous Russian mob code of honor? You can’t shoot a lady. Just attempt to attack her A-Team villain style.
handy
@Redshirt:
“Maybe even Taiwan.” Come now, don’t cut it short! The Sox are of course celebrated all across Taiwan, from Pingtung to Keelung.
FlyingToaster
@Punchy: Dude, the coverage this year is WORSE than the fans. I can’t move in this place without bumping into “Boston Strong” or (yes, I live here) “Watertown Strong”.
The fans are not nearly as annoying as that crap.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Look, just because cricketers (as in, “Those are all cricketers, Bruce!” “Aw, spit” “Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce!”) talk about batsmen, doesn’t mean you can pollute a baseball thread with that kind of talk.
[Now, if you told me that your real name was Garry Sobers, I might change my tune. But I’m guessing you’re a little young to be Sir Garfield.]
FlyingToaster
@Amir Khalid: Marketing.
Suffern ACE
@Amir Khalid: isn’t there a fairly cool Malaysian sport like volleyball with a rattan ball that is played with legs? It kind of seems superior to softball or cricket.
NotMax
@handy
Too bad that Mastung is in Pakistan.
It would be kind of neat to be able to say ‘from Mastung to Keelung.’
hilts
@Amir Khalid:
Red Sox Nation is making inroads in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Hill Dweller
There are multiple media outlets straight up lying about Obamacare. They keep printing/airing these sob stories about people losing insurance, but when another journalist follows up with some actual leg work on policy options, the original claims fall apart.
I doubt it’s coordinated, but it sure as hell feels that way.
handy
@FlyingToaster:
I dunno, Giuliani’s grill, “Never Forget” and the “FDNY” ballcaps got old pretty quick in ’01.
Suffern ACE
@FlyingToaster: yeah. If we were honest, Canadian Football would have the world championship. It is after all the older and more established league.
SFAW
@Suffern ACE:
Or that famous kung-fu-movie choreography? Where all 10 opponents attack you …. one at a time.
handsmile
@Punchy:
““Mexico” and “playing soccer” –at least recently– may be cosidered contradictory.”
The Kiwi national team will certainly hope so next month. They are very likely to be disappointed.
SFAW
@handy:
You forgot
PolandTaoyuan!NotMax
SFAW
Realize that it is more often a military term, but how often does one get the chance to link to I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman?
Gian
@handy:
and they MLB recruits players from around the world I suppose.
Cubans, Dominicans, Japanese, Koreans…
Suffern ACE
@SFAW: the problem with goons is the lack of formal professional development options available from their employers. If they’d just give the goons 2 hours a month to watch that famous TED talk on coordinated assault, and develop a way to capture best practices that can be viewed during the on boarding process, performance would improve. Fewer black belts! More six sigma green belts would really move the production of mayhem forward in those enterprises.
FlyingToaster
@handy: Rudy “A Noun, A Verb, 911” Giuliani was tired even before 2001. It just made him seem lame (from up here in Bwahstin).
I always thought the FDNY caps were promos for Dennis Leary’s show. Which would have been a wholesome marketing effort, had it been.
Today, one of the cars in front of me had a sticker with a big red W and a little white “STRONG” underneath. I was taking WarriorGirl to school so I didn’t curse the gods for depriving me of my disintegrator ray.
Gian
@Hill Dweller:
it’s coordinated, they all get on the same page.
Monday I heard hate radio on this topic, yesterday we had the TG Chicago troll repeat it ad nausium here and it’s all over the media today.
just like the “not in kansas’ “oz” bullshit they kept shoveling at the HHS secretary, who somehow didn’t lose her cool.
it’s as coordinated as the (pick your favorite college) marching band
hilts
@FlyingToaster:
NJ has Stronger than the Storm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaHQNSGlfTs
Anne Laurie
@hilts:
Ix-nay with the Echen-chay jokes, Comrade Tsarnaev…
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: Proper goons, like Dave Semenko, simply get on the ice once in while to smash anyone who took a cheap shot at one of the stars.
Amir Khalid
@Suffern ACE:
Sepak takraw. Credit for inventing the sport is disputed between Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. I remember some years back there was an attempt to take it worldwide with a name change to “acrovolley”, or something stupid like that.
Meanwhile, cricket’s only fan base here is expatriate labourers from the Indian subcontinent — plantation and factory workers with not much spare cash and no roots here, so not much appeal to TV advertisers.
hitchhiker
Two good things for me tonight.
1. Watching the amazing Somali-American actor Barkhad Abdi outclass Tom Hanks in “Captain Phillips.” And Hanks was very, very good.
2. Hearing Simon Winchester talk for more than an hour . . . a sweet & generous soul who managed to make me see the USA in new ways. It’s just refreshing to hear an un-angry voice once in a while. Call me naive.
FlipYrWhig
@Hill Dweller: my plan where I send this guy Petey $300 a month to sock away for me in case I get sick is going away! The only thing I can buy now is something called in-shirr-ants. Oh sure, they SAY they’ll pay parts of my medical bills, but how can I trust them? I liked it the old way, where I plunked down money and hoped for the best. Stupid Obama.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: Does Petey also think you have a nice house and that it would be would a shame if something happened to it?
Hill Dweller
@FlipYrWhig: The insurance companies are obviously trying to scam people with these letters canceling their existing coverage, blaming it on Obamacare, and then claiming their new plan will skyrocket in price. Upon further inspection, which the MSM isn’t doing, the individual can usually get better insurance for the same price, or even less, as their former plan.
The story should be the insurance companies f’n people over. But the Village’s hate for Obama prevents them from covering it.
hilts
@Anne Laurie
After ESPN dumped Keith Olbermann in 1997, Bob Ley said he felt “unrestrained fucking joy.” That’s what I felt when the final out was made 90 plus minutes ago.
Here’s to Unrestrained Fucking Joy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlQZyTF_LY
different-church-lady
No, no, wait, seriously… DREW?
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Well, you see, back in 1903 the “world” of Baseball was confined to the two Major Leagues of the United States (which, back then, were entirely separate organizations instead of just two divisions of what’s pretty much one league today).
Back then it made sense: nobody else in the world played baseball. Today, it’s an anachronism.
Omnes Omnibus
‘Nationalism and xenophobia’ on rise ahead of European elections
NotMax
BTW, Happy Halloween.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: See! I told you America would continue to be an export nation!
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin: I don’t think we need to export that.
karen
I’m a Mets fan. I hate the Yankees. The Red Sox hates the Yankees. Therefore I am thrilled that they won! Go Sox!
amk
@Amir Khalid: ‘cos ‘murka is exceptional, that’s why. Pity that even Obama is forced to repeat that inanity.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Of course the US is exceptional. So is France. And Chad. And India. And Argentina. And so on.
fuckwit
@Hill Dweller: Of course it’s fucking coordinated. It’s called PR. It’s a whole industry.
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: we are a “special snowflake” of a country, and don’t you forget it!
handy
@amk:
Forced? Now you’re trolling.
Radio One
this is the first year I’ve ever watched the Red Sox since training camp for some reason. Unreal season.
handy
And I’m pretty sure America didn’t export xenophobia and nationalism to Europe.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Well…a lot of that was homegrown anyway. It makes logical sense too since xenophobia and chauvinism tend to rise when the economy isn’t going well. Scapegoating the browns isn’t just an American pastime.
ruemara
Not baseball related but thanks to all the gluten specialists of balloon juice. found sorghum beer and it was so beery I used it for the beer cheese sauce for the regular wheat pizza. And polished off the rest, which I think is why my tum is a bit warm. hopefully, the beer, fries and burger pizza will be tasty. maybe some bbq sauce drizzled on it?
Dream On
Boy, baseball was a hell of a lot more fun when the Red Sox were still cursed. Now they’re just another well-run team with good post-season prospects, like the 1990’s Atlanta Braves.
Curses are good for baseball. Not incompetence – Mariners, Astros, Mets – but curses.
Oh well.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think it’s more of an “eh”. As the bumper sticker says…
A very distinct Yooperism is…Well, I can’t think of the term for it, but dropping the words “to be” from sentences. “This wall needs to be painted,” becomes “That wall needs painted.” From what I’ve learned, it’s a Finnish language thing.
@SFAW:
You’ve piqued this Rapidian’s curiosity. Were you picking up something beyond the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and the dropping of the “g” (fer instance: “Wut are ya doen’?” “Nuthen.”)?
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
And now for something completely different:
China may know our secrets, but it sure as hell doesn’t know Photoshop.
eemom
Congrats, Sox people.
And I will just ask this one thing cuz it’s late at night: I always hear Sox as Socks, and wonder why baseball teams are named after socks.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@karen:
I’m a Tigers’ fan. Fuck both the Yankees and the Sawx, as well as the Jays and O’s.
piratedan
@eemom: methinks it was a way to distinguish between teams, different color socks were easier than hand stitched uniforms, hence redlegs (Cinncinnati) red sox and white sox
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
I’ve always presumed it was because red socks were/are part of the Red Sox team uniform. Fellow Fenway Sports Group property Liverpool FC are called the Reds because of their traditionally all-red home strip — shirts, shorts, and socks. (Also in contrast to Everton’s — the Toffeemen’s — blue shirts and white shorts.)
xenos
@Omnes Omnibus: The Tea Party is just the vanguard of a really pathetic international phenomenon. Basically aywhere you have had some form of welfare state, the elderly get all panicked when the youth start looking and talking differently from them. There is this terrible fear that the government will redirect social benefits from the’ real (insert nationality)ers’ and give all the benefits to those useless sponging mooching blacks/ arabs/ hispanics/ eastern europeans/ former yugoslavians/ turks/ walloons/ ossetians/ ruthenians/ portuguese/ belgian drivers/ ukranians/ russians/ gypsies/ liberals/ romanians/ bulgarians/ polish fucking plumbers/ italians who speak semitic dialects/ neapolitans/ greeks with curly hair/ englishmen running amok in mallorca/ and so on and so forth. There is an endless supply of people to resent and try to shit on in Europe.
Luckinly, the parliamentary system is pretty good at keeping parties based on elderly cranks out of governing coalitions.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@piratedan:
IIRC, the Reds, originally know as the Red Stockings, stood out because they weren’t wearing black hosiery. The Boston club that had a great run in the National League in the 1870s (and which included a lot of former Reds- again, iirc) also wore Red Stockings, so that was applied as their nickname.
The Boston AL club was known as the Americans from 1901-07, and they wore blue stockings. They adopted red socks in ’08 as a tribute to that earlier Boston club, then they became known as the Red Sox (similarly, the Chicago White Sox got their white hose and name from the National League’s Chicago White Stockings, which had adopted blue socks and the nickname “Cubs” before the AL began operating).
piratedan
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): that jives with my understanding of baseball arcana, I thank you for the details/refresher… was just trying to give eemom an overview but tbh, I like the details myself….
NotMax
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
If the owner of the D.C. football franchise bought them, would he rename them to the Boston Beaners?
(BTW, this word ‘Temporarily’ that you use…)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid:
In the old days, the teams didn’t really give themselves nicknames. They were just sort of applied by the fans and/or journalists. For instance, the baseball club from Cleveland, now known (officially) as the Indians, was known as the Bluebirds in 1901, the Blues in 1902, and from 1903 thru 1911 as the Naps (after their star, Napoleon Lajoie), as the Molly McGuires from 1912 thru 1914, and, finally, the Indians since 1915.
mdblanche
@xenos: They may be not be in the governing coalitions but the Tea Party only wishes they could move the debate as far right on immigration and diversity issues as the elderly crank parties have shifted it in Europe. And some of those parties are now supporting governing coalitions from the outside. Accepting that support is no longer a taboo for mainstream parties.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@piratedan:
De nada…Pet peeve, though(seriously, I’m not grammar/language troll but for this one thing): The word is “jibes”. “Jives” means almost the exact opposite.
@NotMax:
It’s a twofer: You probably get the tip of the hat to Packers’ great Max McGee. The “Temporarily” is a reference to this.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid:
You go find a team that can beat the Red Sox in a 7 game series (a real playoff unlike the one off games of soccer’s world cup). Go ahead, we’ll wait….nobody? We could invite the French to play, but what would be the point. The greatest players from all around the world who play baseball, play in the Majors. If your country doesn’t play baseball (the royal you not “you”) why do you care if the Majors call it the World Series. The Red Sox are the champions of the World that constitutes baseball.
There is a World Champion of skiing. Much snow in Kuala Lumpur? Rio? New Delhi???
and maybe you could help us out with this, Cricket World Cup
http://www.icc-cricket.com/cricket-world-cup
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
Is that so? Did the Boston Red Sox beat any teams from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, or the Caribbean?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid:
All your baseball are belong to us.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid
The Red Sox didn’t beat the Triple A champion team, either. The didn’t beat the American Legion team champion either. Or any women’s teams at all. Should they play everyone just to make sure? And being in Japan and judging the reaction and joy at Uehara throwing the final pitch, and say with total confidence that baseball fans in Japan consider the Red Sox to be the World Champions.
The winner of the World Series, is the World Champion of Baseball. full stop. no argument possible that isn’t sour grapes or just needling.
or as Chase Utley would say, the “world fucking champions.”
Darkrose
@Ash Can: \o/
I’m counting the days.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
To be fair, I’ve read a lot of Japanese besubaru players say that the best professioanl Japanese teams just aren’t on the same level as the best American teams. (Of course, they’d say that anyway, being Japanese & polite.) And the Taiwanese and South Korean teams bitch that the Japanese outrank them, because they put so much money & science into a sport that might be more popular in Tokyo than in NYC.
As for the Caribbean players, the money’s in the USA, which means the best players come here, and that means young players who want to be the best have to migrate to the US, or Canada.
It’s like asking why so many of the best
soccerfootball players are in Brazil — the money follows the top players, and future generations of players follow the money.Darkrose
@Amir Khalid: Because back in 1903, the only people in the world playing major league baseball were in the northeastern U.S.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
Here’s what I have in mind. In football, the club sides that win the top professional league in each country compete the next season in a confederation-wide Champions League to determine the confederation champion. (Europe has a Champions League, Asia has one, Africa has one, etc.) The confederation champions then compete in the World Club Championship, and the club that wins that tournament gets to call itself world champion for a year. Does baseball have something like that?
piratedan
@Amir Khalid: they have something akin to the world cup, where a “national team” is assembled from pros representing their country and they play in a round robin tourney. Happens every three years and with the finals based in the US during spring training (March/April).
magurakurin
No, because there is no other league even close to the level of play of MLB. Baseball is different from soccer in that the Majors is clearly the strongest league. Football has a number of high quality leagues. I’m sure there are many heated discussions about whether English, Spanish or Italian league football is the strongest. No such question exists in baseball. If you are the best you end up in the Majors. That’s why they call it “the show.”
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
Actually, the very best South American football players spend much or even most of their club careers in Europe. That’s where the money is. The players are much sought after by clubs in Spain’s Primera Liga, Italy’s Serie A, and the English Premier League.The South American leagues would like to change this, of course; but while football tradition is big in South America, the continent would basically have to become as affluent as Western Europe.
NotMax
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Never heard of Max McGee before now. The only Packer of old I know of is Johnny “Blood” McNally, and only because he was such an outrageous, colorful character.
So far as football goes, have next to no familiarity with it and care even less.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
The English had precisely that attitude of superiority as the home nation of football, and how many World Cups have England won? Just the one, well over a decade before any current England player was born.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid: @Amir Khalid:
Yeah, but that isn’t quite true, is it? Were it the case, Chelsea would have never even made the CL in 2011-12, since they were runners up to Man Utd. in 2010-11.
Yeah, but the European clubs never seem to take this tournament very seriously. Since it’s played in the midst of the season in which top clubs are usually competing in at least three other schedules (their leagues, their nations open cup tournament- think F.A. Cup- and the Champions League) in that span, they don’t pull out all the stops. They save players for the competitions which are more lucrative.
In the (US) major leagues, it’s a month-long spring training schedule, with a game nearly every day (and some teams split their squads and play two in a day), a 162-game regular season, then a playoff schedule in which the eventual champion plays up to 20 more games. In the regular season, other than the All Star break- which lasts all of 3 or 4 days, a baseball team rarely gets more than 1 scheduled day off per week from the beginning of April until the end of September. Teams will pull out the stops to make the playoffs, then pull out the stops to win playoff series. By the time the championship is decided, the champions have nothing left in the tank. The trade window opens soon after the WS is finished. A championship team can be fundamentally changed through free agency in no time flat. What I’m saying here, if you aren’t getting it, is that if MLB sends a team to another tournament at the end of the WS, the team is going to be burned out- and if you send the reigning champ to this extr tournament after the roster has changed, you aren’t really sending the championship team, are you?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@NotMax:
Max went out drinking the night before Super Bowl I. Sneaked into the hotel at 6 AM. He didn’t think he’d play. Caught two TD passes. Could have been voted the MVP, but was edged out in the voting by his QB, Bart Starr. Then Max became the color commentator on the team’s radio network, where he was both informative and hilarious.
Shorter me: He was a great character. There was a lot of Johnny Blood in Max.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid: It’s not an air of superiority. It’s just the truth. MLB is far and away the highest level of competition of baseball. That really isn’t in dispute by anyone who has any interest in baseball at all. I can see where someone who doesn’t know much about the sport could come away with the idea that it is just arrogance, but really, right now, at this moment the players, coaches and managers that constitute the organization know as the Boston Red Sox is the best baseball team, anywhere, bar none. Whether or not the moniker “world” is appropriate is sort of an aside. What should we call the best team in organized baseball anywhere in the world? Seems like world champion is the right name. There can only be a dispute if one disputes the fact that MLB is in fact the top league. As has been said, that claim really isn’t in dispute in any serious way.
Amir Khalid
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Per UEFA rules, some leagues get to send more than one club to their Champions League. The EPL currently gets to send four. I left this out to simplify my explanation, whose point is that in football the world champion club is determined by a competition that really does include all the national champions. This is true even if the top clubs reckon that winning the Champions League level matters more than winning the World Club Championship.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid:
The problem I have with that is that a team which is playing like shit in its domestic league can sort of tank it there, rest their best players, play best players in the CL, win the CL and qualify for both the WCC and the CL the following year (and that auto-qualifier for the CL was a gift of a rule for your Scousers after a certain game in Istanbul, was it not?). I mean, for crying out loud, Chelsea won the 2011-12 CL as they were finishing SIXTH in the Prem. Then in 2012, in the midst of a Prem season where they finished third, 14 points behind Man Utd, they were competing for the tile of “World Champion” (ETA: And with a certain Ivorian who sorta won that CL title for ’em playing for another club)?!?! Where’s the friggin’ logic there?
Amir Khalid
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
They way the confederations set up the Champions League, you earn your place in next season’s CL with your performance in this season’s national league. Yes, sometimes it does have the result you find illogical; and yes, players do move around in the close season.
Liverpool were in an unprecedented situation: 2004-2005 CL winners who didn’t qualify on national league position for the 2005-06 CL. For what it’s worth, I reckon they didn’t deserve a spot in 05-06 because the UEFA CL doesn’t ordinarily reserve one for the defending champion.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Amir Khalid:
Well, UEFA didn’t ordinarily reserve that spot, but after Liverpool they changed the rule so that they do now reserve the spot, and they made the rule retroactive. Not sure which Prem team got screwed over because of the change.
And it’s true of every sporting organization that allows runners up to compete for national or world “championships”. There’s no perfectly logical way to decide ’em. They’re all arbitrarily decided. WCC=CL=WS as far as I’m concerned.
ETA: Who seriously considered Corinthians as the best football club in the world last year? Two years ago?
PaulW
Go Rays
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh yes, you and I went to the same college all right.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: Why is the US national championship for professional baseball called the “World” Series?
A rhetorical question if ever there was one.
The Frito Pundito
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn – where was Piper? All I saw was an old guy who coudn’t keep up with the pre-recorded song. And how did Diamond get to be a Sox fan? I seem to recall for him “LA’s fine but it ain’t home/New York’s home but it ain’t mine noah moah”
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid:
Why do would they need to when MLB just takes all their best players anyway?
Redshirt
@Amir Khalid: MLB contains the best players from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Japan, Korea, etc. It’s a world league, that is based in the US and Canada.
Anniecat45
@Amir Khalid:
IIRC — can’t find the reference right now — it’s because the first one in the early 1900s was sponsored/instigated by a newspaper called the New York World.
sherparick
As a sad sack Cubs fan (we are so sad sack we start off insulting ourselves since we might as well join in on the fun), I derive pleasure in the Red Sox winning so I will no have bear all my Cardinal fans friends and relatives honking out about their wonderful Cardinals. They now have to cry in (and thereby infinitely improve) their Budwiesers for a few days until the next time they sweep the Cubs (probably April). Hopefully, the Red Sox can all shave as the beards are definitely getting ratty.
Rorgg
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): The dropping of the “to be” has a technical name I won’t bore you with, but the dialect that’s most associated with it is that centered around Pittsburgh. My wife was born and lived in eastern Ohio until about 13 and she still sometimes says that the clothes need washed, at which point I’ll point and laugh that her Ohio is showing. :)
brantl
Can anybody actually stand Neil Diamond? I sure can’t.
RR Mikey
@Punchy: It’s not so much the fans for me, fans are fans no matter where you go and I’m happy for them. It’s the freaking coverage and the hype. Just crazy, over the top and too friggin’ much. And Bosox, next time, leave the beards to the NHL and try something original…..
teiresias
@Suffern ACE: Yeah, but Canadian football is only as much like US football as it is because of convergent evolution. It’d still be rather complicated to mix the rules.
Redshirt
@brantl: I worked with a Chinese guy who hated Chinese people but loved Neil Diamond.