Happy Hallowe'en

I hate this day. Stupid celebration. My eleven-year-olds did not even trick or treat. The eight-year-old did, but the costume was some glitter in her hair and regular clothes. She went as a "model" and begged at about twenty houses.
Gomer mini-vans from the surrounding area descended upon our neighborhood and spewed forth legions of grimy urchins bearing dirty pillowcases, hungry for as many sweets as they could lug in their scuzzy hands. They departed as quickly as they came, locust-like, focused on the next subdivision they would de-nude of all its chocolate and Laffy Taffy. It was a chilling experience, to be sure.

Fox Sports Amateurs

My DW and I had discussions during the recent World Series about how awful the television coverage was. This morning I learned that the ratings were very low and the network was complaining about it.
Fox Sports has no one to blame but themselves for the ratings. If you weren't a fan of one of these teams, how were you supposed to enjoy it? The network took a beautiful, pastoral game with all kinds of human interest and turned it into an extravaganza of advertising wrapped around awful commentary.
I felt that the World Series coverage assaulted my senses at every turn. The broadcasts contained over-long breaks between half-innings filled with loud, obnoxious commercials repeated ad nauseum.
Coverage began at the top of the hour, but with a first pitch a full forty minutes later, even die-hard fans were getting ticked off.
Network television has already ruined American football, and they are trying their damndest to do the same to baseball. I wish the producers of this shit actually had a feel for the game of baseball, because the approach would be 100% different.
Poor performance all the way up and down the line marred the presentation of the drama unfolding on the field. It was like nobody knew anything about baseball, and less about the cities involved, especially Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. The way they talked about Chicago was laughable and they totally ignored Houston as if it were Hoopeston, Illinois or something. Insane approach to the game. Buck added insult to injury with his smirky demeanor and Tim McCarver and his bad dye job had no credibility whatsoever. This is the best Fox could come up with? They were obviously the safe choice of network syncophants more afraid of losing their jobs than presenting a fresh, competent approach to a beloved game.
Layer on top of the poor production the following: The national media foolishly ignore 28 teams in the major leagues because they live in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Therefore the world revolves around the Yankees and Boston. If baseball made them cover all the teams the way football is covered, there would be less crying about ratings.

Is Chicago Burning?

The Chicago White Sox are the Champions of the World!

I thought Sox fans were supposed to destroy the city, if you believed the media elite. They seem pretty well-behaved.

I went to bed last night a happy man, tired but not blotto. I knew I had to get up to send the kids off to school today. My celebration was actually quite subdued. A little mist. A lot of relief. Happiness that years of frustration had vanished.

I am too old to need a lot of validation, but I still need it. The White Sox have justified my life-long interest in them. Cub fans can no longer smirk, other fans can no longer ignore. We are the champions. The only thing sweeter would be to repeat in 2006.

Brandon Backe the Next Victim?

World Series 2005 Game 4 Tonight!
Brandon, we hardly knew ye. The colorful, young, good-looking righthander has the unenviable task of stopping the von Reinsdorf Express tonight in Tricked-Up Park in Houston. One more win for the White Sox and it is curtains for Scrap Iron Garner and his boys. Sox fans everywhere are hoping for the sweep. Their livers can't take much more and they have been staying up late too much. Employers of bleary-eyed fans throughout the Greater Chicagoland Area want this over with almost as much as Cub fans do. Just do it and lets go home!

Roy Oswalt

It is Roy's turn to get the molly-oke laid on him by the WSSK staff. The Astros seem to be so concerned about whether the roof on their tricked-up trailer park is open or not, they may be forgetting they have a baseball game to win tonight. If the White Sox beat the 'Stros tonight, it may be Goodnight Nurse for the men in orange 'n black. Hallowe'en colors, by the way. Bleeaugh!
We are constantly reminded by the national press how unflappable and unhittable Roy is. I gotta think the pucker factor he is experiencing today has to be pretty intense. May the best team win.

Rocket Roger Saturday

White Sox fans get to see their heroes compete against a sure Hall of Famer Saturday when Roger Clemens takes the bump in Game One of the World Series. Here is hoping the 43 year old Clemens can't get and stay loose in the rain and cold of the late October US Cellular Field.

White Sox in World Series

By now everyone in the Americas knows that the Chicago White Sox are in the World Series for the first time since 1959 and will try to win it for the first time since 1917. Success droughts of this magnitude are not all that unusual in sports, but this one is a little different because there are no curses involved, no bad luck, no excuses for failure. Just a whole bunch of inadequately staffed baseball teams trudging through season after season without winning anything.

White Sox fans are a sorry bunch, a minority in their own city. There is no special aura around their team. They go to the park or watch games on TV not because it is the thing to do. They do it because they love their team. White Sox fans are newcomers to hope. Hope was dashed in 1919 and stomped on in 1959, 1983, 1993, 1994 and 2000. Many of us never believed this team would even make the post-season as late as September 25th; such is the lot of the Battered Sox Fan.

Clinching the Central Division gave us hope. "The Pounding of the Darlings of the East" nurtured it. "The Domination of the Thunderstickers of the West" gave it strength.

Now DW and I go to 35th and Shields to see game one of the World Series on Saturday. 46 years ago I was an 8 year old Sox fan, rushing home from school to see the end of the game on the television, knowing that my parents were there in person, lucky enough to have won a lottery for two seats. Saturday, my 8 year old Sox fan daughter will wave to DW and me as we depart for the south side 48 miles away and 46 years later to witness another game one. The Circle of Life is complete. May it keep circling, but hopefully this winning thing will become a regular habit, not a once in a lifetime thrill. A White Sox fan can now dare to hope.

Back From Cali

After a week at a secure, undisclosed location I feel tanned, rested and ready. Ready for what I could tell you on many levels were I inclined to air not only mundane day to day things but my innermost thoughts here in cyber-space. So let's stick with mundane.

We enjoyed Disneyland Resort, as it is now called. We got to see our beloved las Medias Blancas play the Angelos in Anaheim and win. We got a lot of thinking and sorting out done. The number one thing I had to think about and ultimately come to grips with is this: I am an entrepreneur and I need to follow that bliss. I cannot work for the Man unless absolutely forced to, and that would probably lead to obesity, alcoholism and early death. Frank Herbert once coined the phrase "Fear is the Mind-Killer" and that is so true.

So with more guts than money, I stop looking for the traditional "job" tomorrow. Tonight, I hope to see the Sox open a final can of whoop-ass on the reeling Halos.

WHITE SOX SWEEP!

You heard it here first, kids. The Chicago White Sox advance to the American League Championship Series.

Now for a well-deserved vacation
in a secure undisclosed location.
;-)

Feel Good Friday

Lots of excitement this weekend starting with the White Sox/Red Sox tilt at 3 pm Central Time in the old pisspot known as Fenway Park. I get to watch about an hour and a half before I need to cart the dogs off to the kennel for a nine day doggie retreat. The kennel sells extra services for small fees. They will play with your dog daily, take them for walks, give them treats, etc. all for extra dollars. I always wonder if they even bother to do it. You can even call your dog up every day and talk to it if you want. Not me. I am so sick of those two goofs I can't wait to be away from them for a while.

Saturday the family wings its way to sunny Southern California for a week of relaxation. The timing is bad because of the baseball playoffs, but who knew? I get to show the kids where I used to live and hang out back in the day. Other than that, it will be Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure and Knott's Berry Farm.

Let us pray to the baseball gods that the Red Sox are put out of their misery today. If you are from the east coast, you know that the White Sox are not winning this thing, the Red Sox are blowing it, but they will come back to win three in a row.

Iguchi Drives Bosox to Seppuku

In the greatest, most meaningful baseball game I ever saw in person, White Sox second baseman Tadahito Iguchi (pictured in his Japanese uni from last year, left) smashed a David Wells curve ball about 130 meters into the left field stands, causing 40,000 White Sox faithful to erupt in delirious joy. I must have high-fived over 100 people after the game as the crowd rolled down the exit ramps, chanting "Let's Go White Sox" over and over and over. Hopefully our heroes can nail this one down Friday and relax a bit before the next round.

Game One - White Sox! AJ! AJ! AJ!

The Chicago American League franchise beat the crap out of the Carmines of Boston yesterday. I was so nervous about the outcome I hopped on the treadmill at game time to work off the stress. When Pierzynski hit his first of two homers I almost fell off the belt during my jumping up and down and clapping and doing my best Hawk Harrelson imitation. Had I fallen and critically injured myself, I would have died, since I was the only one home.

Forty-six years ago in 1959 I was eight years old the last time the Sox won a home playoff game. Yesterday, my eight year old daughter saw them do it again.

A supposedly washed-up pitcher that that Sox aquired the year before from the contending Cleveland Indians, Early Wynn, won game one. Yesterday, a supposedly washed-up Jose Contreras, aquired last year from the Yankees in an apparent salary dump. won game one.

In 1959 a big bulging polack named Ted Kluszewski hit two home runs in game one to lead the Sox to an 11-0 rout. Yesterday, a big smart-ass polack with a penchant for kicking people in the nuts, AJ Pierzynski, hit two home runs to lead the Sox to a 14-2 rout.

Let us hope the similarities end there, and the 2005 edition of las Medias Blancas has more success than the 1959 squad.

Battle of the Sox!

The American League Division Series (stupid name) begins today and it features my favorite team, the White Sox, against a team I used to tolerate, almost like. Red Sox. I don't like the Red Sox anymore because they have become too Cub-like. You can boil down the similarities easily: "obnoxious long-suffering fans, the Curse and an oldcrumblyShrinelikeballpark that smells of urine."

I will be watching the game from the confines of my basement. In order to keep my sanity and to keep from going into convulsions or vomiting, I will be jogging on the treadmill. This is a new idea I concocted this morning. I will work off the stress as it occurs, banishing unhealthy humours before they can take root.

The ESPN coverage should be a total joke. Chris Berman will mention the 1919 World Series at least twice. Then he will segue into how the White Sox do not draw well, and are the second team in Chicago where everybody loves the long-suffering Cubs. Then he will compare Wrigley Field to US Cellular Field. The Cell will be cast in a dismal light by comparison. Then the camera will focus on the Fisk statue on the beautiful centerfield concourse and Berman will wax poetic on Pudge's career as a Red Sox.

Ex-Cub Rick Sutcliffe will gush all over BoSox pitcher Matt Clement and ignore White Sox pitcher Jose Contreras while Mike Piazza (what the hell is HE doing here?) will try not to sound too homosexual, basically saying nothing except "How about that Manny Ramirez?" or "What can you say about Big Papi?" (David Ortiz) or "That ball went a long way!"

Now that you have listened to my broadcast predictions, here is a baseball one: White Sox sweep in three games and Red Sox Nation is shocked.

New Watch Lost, Found

Dear Wife bought me a Citizen's Stiletto watch for our anniversary. It has the eco drive feature that enables it to run on solar power. I had not worn it much, so DW said: "Leave it out so it charges in the open." I took this to mean that I should put it out on the trunk of my car with the garage door open so it could soak up some sun on Friday.

I couldn't find it this morning. Suddenly it dawned on me with sickening clarity that I left it on the car, which I drove a couple times since Friday afternoon. You guessed it. I found it in about eight gnarled pieces on the street in front of my house. Unrepairable would be an understatement.

In typical sit-com fashion, I hid the pieces, found the watch on the internet and ordered a new one. Hopefully DW will not want me to wear it to my brother's party today, like she would if my life were a sit-com. Well, MORE like a sit-com.

Another Month Past

I have been unemployed for 3 months now. Not really unemployed; I putter around the house and feed the dogs and children. I have some utility. The family keeps me around mostly because I can reach high shelves, lift heavy objects and kill spiders.

It is now October 1st and I am not any closer to being employed than I was July 1st. Potential clients have dragged their feet on making a decision, as they are wont to do. I think it is commonly accepted organizational theory that companies wait until the last possible moment to make the least risky and least disruptive decision based upon personal political considerations rather than facts. Using this decision-making process, the organization is guaranteed spending money to achieve no results, because everyone is afraid of change anyway.

I have an interview Wednesday morning. It is with a healthcare company that is looking for contoller-type help. I am not a controller, but I have done various and sundry accounting related projects over the years. Intellectually, I can do the job standing upon my big fat head, but the grunt work aspect of the position appalls me. Ugh, ugh and ugh. I am going to interview so they can see my smiling face and hear what a brilliant guy I really am in hopes that, when I turn down this position, they realize they need me for something more challenging, although what that may be I haven't a clue.

The White Sox pulled a division title out of what orifice I do not know, but if they can pull 11 wins out of said aperture in the post-season, I will be happy, however I do not want to be privy to what acts of deviltry they may resort to in the locker room to ensure victory.

I am supposed to begin teaching accounting on the college level in 24 days. I am so uninspired by the prospect that I have prepared nothing for the class as of yet. I expended a lot of energy just getting the correct username and password with which to access my "course shell" on the internet. I purused the website for about ten minutes and then logged off, exhausted.

I have been thinking about opening a retail bicycle store in partnership of some kind with a friend of mine. It sounds like heaps of fun, but I need to do my homework to make sure I don't lose several assorted shirts in the pursuit of a fore-doomed dream. This prospect is the best I have.

Last but not least, my workout regimin goes on. I got down to a low of 206 this month, but now hover at 209, plateaued once more. I feel good and people tell me I look good, so that provides impetus for continued sweat production. I am thinking of joining a Sunday night swim club.

But enough about me.