Would the real Red Sox fans please stand up

[Globe photo/Jim Davis]

Yesterday at work, I got into an “argument” with a guy that calls himself a lifelong Red Sox fan. He’s a guy that has followed the Sox through thick and thin. His uncle, a former sportswriter, was a personal friend of Ted Williams (aka, Teddy Ballgame) and he would bring his young nephew to countless games.

Like many fans of Boston’s favorite team, something’s happened to Joe (not his real name, but that name is hot now). After their first World Series win in 2004 (breaking Dan Shaughnessy’s calling card and meal ticket, the Curse of the Bambino), I noticed something changing with Red Sox fans. The fatalism and perpetual despair was gone, now replaced with something else. It got worse after the 2007 Series win. A sense of entitlement settled in. It’s ugly in those operating on the taxpayer’s dime, and also ugly in baseball fans, particularly those that used to root for their team just because the Sox were their team.

Joe was in a funk yesterday afternoon. When I asked him about the game that night, he said, “It’s over.”

“It’s over?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“This year’s team is pathetic,” Joe said.

No amount of fact could talk Joe down from his self-imposed back-turning on his beloved Sox. It didn’t matter that the team was banged up and hindered with injuries. Key members of the club (Mike Lowell) were gone for the season. One of baseball’s top pitchers (Josh Beckett) is missing a yard off his fastball and has valiantly been trying to get by on guile and heart his past two starts. Jon Lester, who has been Mr. Automatic the past two months, had his worst start of the season, and it happened to come in Game 3. Ortiz and Varitek have been automatic outs in the Red Sox lineup.

My point to Joe was that the Sox, if they could win Game 5 and send this thing back to Tampa, would put pressure on a young team that’s never felt late Series postseason pressure. You saw how they reacted to their first exposure to ALCS pressure in Game 1. They were tight. The past few nights, they loosened up and became a free-swinging wrecking crew, making mincemeat of the Red Sox starting pitching.

While I didn’t predict a Sox win in talking with Joe, I did indicate that I thought Dice-K would handcuff the Rays hitters. The scenario didn’t roll forth as I envisioned. By the end of three innings, even I had my doubts about the 2008 season. After three, it was 5-0, and after four, Matzusaka was done.

Two good innings from Okajima stemmed the tide, but Delcarmen yielded two more on an Upton double. Francona had to bring Jonathan Papelbon in early to try to keep the Rays at bay, hoping for a miracle. Ortiz gave those of us stupid enough to still be awake, hope. Drew made it worth it when he singled in Youk with two outs.

It was nice to hear “Dirty Water” one more time, and send the Series back to Tampa Bay, with the Sox alive for yet another day.

Will the Sox win it all? I don't know, but this I do know this. Beckett won't pitch a third "stinker." If it gets to Game 7, all bets are off, and I like Lester in that one, also.

I promise I won't rub Joe's nose in it, this morning when I see him at work.

A MSM voice for third-parties

[Just realized this morning (Sat.) that in my haste to get this post up between gulps of my morning coffee, I neglected to post a title/headline. I've done so ex post facto.--JB]

Kenric Ward, who writes for Scripps News Service has a great column on third-party candidates, and the duopoly maintained by the Democrat/Republican parties.

Scripps Howard News Service is a major U.S. news service (they sponsor the national spelling bee) and columns like Ward's should be in every newspaper, with other journalists jumping on this story, also.

Ward writes,

Be honest. What have you learned from the first two presidential debates?
Do you expect to be any more enlightened by Wednesday night's third and final
showdown between Barack Obama and John McCain?

If you're like my friends and associates outside the newsroom, you're
setting the bar pretty low. If these "debates" have proven anything, they
confirm our two-party choice is dumb and dumber (you pick).

Three months before the current market meltdown, the Wall Street
Journal carried this headline: "The State of the Union? Furious." When the
ever-bullish Bible of U.S. capitalism acknowledges that the natives are
restless, you know things are serious.

You can read the rest here.

One reason that both major parties refuse to let other candidates into the debates, like Nader, or Baldwin, is because if third-party candidates were included, with real ideas and substance, a schmuck like "Crazy Uncle John" McCain, and the empty suit, Obama, would be shown for the frauds that they are.

Sadly, our so-called democracy falls short once again, with Americans being treated to another "parallel interview," instead of a debate.

Headed for hard times

I've had a stack of books waiting to be read, on the Great Depression that I picked up at the Maine State Library. I started reading one of these books, Studs Terkel's, Hard Times: An Oral History of The Great Depression, this past weekend.

If you've never read Terkel (still going strong, btw, at 96), then you've missed one of America's true national treasures. Terkel has a unique ability to capture history, with just his basic tape recorder and a gift for gathering other people's stories, a techniques he's been using for more than half a century.

Today, over 70 years later, we are still debating what caused the Depression. For people my age, this epic event in U.S. history is mostly old news footage, or possibly, John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (based on Steinbeck's book of the same name).

After reading Terkel's book this weekend, a paragraph caught my eye today, while reading Jim Kunstler's weekly download of thoughts and ideas, at Clusterfuck Nation.

Kunstler was ruminating about how the world of G-7 nations were now poorer, as the financial underpinnings of the developed have begun unraveling. Yes, the Dow was up nearly 1,000 points today--it could easily be back down that amount tomorrow, or by the end of the week. The unbelievable volatility of the markets indicate that something's just not right, not to mention Iceland's financial meltdown, the nationalizing of banks in Great Britain, and the over-leveraged nature of the world's economy.

JK mentioned how the U.S. was no longer "...the same nation that crowed around the old radio consoles for Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats. Back then, we (the U.S.) were mostly a highly-disciplined, regimented, industrial society full of citizens who mostly did what they were told to do, and mostly trusted in authority."

That proposition alone probably causes derision and scorn from our nation of "tattoed barbarian consumers" (Kunstler's term). His point however, is validated by Terkel's stories. I was struck by how Americans wandered, dazed for over a decade while FDR tried this, and then that to try to pry American out of its downward economic spiral that took a major world conflict, WWII, to finally end it. Through it all, there was this stoic, almost fatalistic acceptance and trust in the president and his administration that would never happen today. I'm concerned about what might happen if we start to see supply disruptions in gasoline, or groceries, which might happen if the King Henry and his pied pipers of finance continue to mortgage our future with their economic voodoo.

I don't know where we are headed, but if you are paying attention at all, it might be wise to make some preparations, if you know what I mean.

Let's have a real presidential debate

[Visit Green Change and cast your vote for democracy. Green Change's Board of Directors include Matt Gonzalez, Ralph Nader's running mate, and Mainer, John Rensenbrink. BTW, the Democrat Party, Mr. Obama's party, the guy running as the candidate of "change," is one of the biggest proponents of closed debates. How come he doesn't demand that the debates be opened up? Maybe because he's really a phony.--JB]


Dear Commission on Presidential Debates Board Member,

The free exchange of ideas in presidential debates is essential to the proper functioning of American democracy. I strongly urge you to put our country first and open the presidential debates to all ballot-qualified candidates, not just Barack Obama and John McCain.

For your information, the other qualified candidates are, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader.

Thank you in advance for siding with democracy.

Sincerely,


Jim Baumer

A lack of understanding

We come to the end of week in which we’ve seen the stock market drop precipitously. The indicators from Asia and Europe point towards another tough day for equities.

Each morning, I get up and turn on CNBC while I go through my morning exercise routine, then, sit down with a cup of coffee and check out the price of oil, listen to a the tripartite host team on Squawk Box and then, it's time to preen and prep for the day.

Interestingly, other than my sister and my wife, no one I have contact with seems to be aware of the gravity of what’s happening in global capital markets.

What do people do with their nonworking time? What will it take to have people acquire an understanding of events that goes beyond Obama/McCain?

There are a few places where the possibilities are talked about, but it appears that people I rub shoulders with are tuned to a different station.

I’ll spend my day at a conference on sustainable growth. The irony is not lost on me. I’m curious to see if Maine’s supposed leaders have any sense of what’s going on in the world, and recognize that subsistence, rather than growth, might be something Mainers are more focused on in the coming months.

Tonight, I'll engage with the bread and circuses of baseball, becoming one of the sheeple, finding pleasure in a simple game.