Bill's Notes

Jen and I took a trip up to the new place in Parryville. On the way we went through a field and I said, "This is downtown."

Hey, it's the best I can come up with. I should've hired a New York writer to write my material. Oh well.

Anyway, she seemed bored out of her skull tired so we went over to the General Store on 209. There were no fewer than 400,000 people there for a Halloween festival of some sort. Wow. Didn't know there were that many people up there.

Haven't seen any injuns yet. But we've been staying close to the roads.

Patrick the cocker spaniel continues to be upbeat. This is despite some bad news. His tumor has returned, which means the cancer is very aggressive. It was just about a month ago he was operated on to remove a tumor. And now it's back. He's also having spasms in both legs. It is very sad.

Still, he still wags and wiggles a lot. Jumps up on the furniture — though with more care. And he still jumps down occasionally. He pulls a lot on walks, but tires more easily. And he tends to plunk down and stop whatever he's doing periodically. The good thing is there is no obvious pain ... but dogs hold that in well. In fact, I don't know if he's in pain and that's what worries me most.

We've already gotten more time out of him than we expected. He may make it until December or so ... at least he's made the move well and seems upbeat in his new home. So that's good news. And he seems authentically happy by all the love he's been getting (which is a lot).

My heart's really been ripped out by the Cubs, Red Sox, and Anglican Church's great wimp-out. Patrick's courage is a positive sign. We'll continue to make him comfortable during his last days.

Disappointing losses for Cubs and Red Sox fans in the past 24 hours. Worse, both Games 7 seemed fated to go against the snake-bit franchises. Almost makes one believe not only in predestination, but in a fixed universe with no real choices, just apparent ones.

But that's nonsense. It's a trick competition plays on our minds. I've seen it in gambling — wins and losses add up in counterintuitive ways, and can make things that are random seem somehow fixed. It's a mind trick. You just know the Cubs are gonna blow it. You just know bad things will happen to the Red Sox. And when it happens, the whole thing seems fated.

Is it fated or a self-fulfilling prophecy? The latter, I think. And here's how it works. It seems to me, there are five keys to competing successfully:

1. Capacity: You have to able to compete. If you don't have the abilities and talents, you can't play.
2. Preparation. Preparation includes getting the right tools, training, coming up with a strategy (based on experience and research) in order to be ready to compete at your best.
3. Attitude. This is the complex part. During the game, you have to be in a frame of mind conducive to winning. There are many elements of attitude, but I'll only mention the most important here — willingness. You have to be willing to win.
4. Execution. You have to make plays. In baseball, for instance, it's not enough to have a team that hits well, or fields well. You need players who hit during the game and field during the game when the pressure's on.
5. Chance. Overrated by far, lady luck tends to side with the team that's best prepared. Or as they say, fortune favors the brave. What's often most important is the reaction to luck. The breaks even out in the long run, but they tend to bunch up one way or the other during games.

What happens with organizations with a history of terrible things happening is they run into a consistent problem at(3) and sometimes (5). And vice versa. Teams that win a lot expect to win a lot. They get boosts at (3) and sometimes(5).

Now, here's the tautology about the whole thing. A winning attitude is created by winning. You become accustomed to winning and that develops tremendous momentum.

For a team in the opposite problem, they need to squarely address the issue of being accustomed to losing. You have to have better capacities and better preparation than a team accustomed to winning, and then you'll have to win in a way that attitude doesn't start to interfere with execution. And maybe even luck will start going your way, too.

That's why I suggested earlier on this blog that the Cubs, even up three games to one, really needed to win Game 5. The reason was the momentum was their way at the time and finishing off the Marlins would be easiest in a Game 5. But the longer the series went, the more chance the losing attitude would creep up and bite the team.

Same goes with the Red Sox. With their history, the Red Sox needed to beat someone like the Yankees in five or six games. Game 7, particularly in extra innings, was never gonna happen. Too much attitude stuff to interfere.

So Cubs and Red Sox fans, here's your plan for winning.

1. Plan to choke. Yes. Exactly. Prepare for choking. That means you have twice as much manpower as you think you need. As a friend of mine used to say, if 100,000 rounds will do, but you'd like 200,000 rounds, ask for 300,000 rounds. The Yankees pitched Clemens, Mussina, Wells and Rivera today. That's more pitching talent than on any other playoff roster. To overcome the inertia of losing, both teams need to go overboard in what they think they need in resources. Later, with a winning attitude, they can conserve resources.

2. Build a team you think will sweep the playoffs. Both the Red Sox and the Cubs have a tendency to play above their heads, believe it or not. That's why they get their hearts broken. Because they probably didn't believe that far in the playoffs in the first place, and they regressed to the mean at the worst possible moment. For example, the Cubs had a worse record this year against the Marlins.

3. Recognize attitude problems/inertia for the serious issues they are. People think that it's just in your head and thus you can just shake it off. No. Losing attitudes are huge problems to overcome. Don't blow it off or think that you can talk your way to a better attitude. You can't. You can only behave your way to a winning attitude, and you do that by increasing your capacities and preparation, and then developing habits of executing. And then the wins come, and then watch the attitudes change. In the end, if you do this right, it will look like the breaks always go your way.

I'll example you with thievery:
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief.

From Timon of Athens.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

From MacBeth.

Piss on old time hockey. Piss on Eddie Shore.

From Slapshot

It was all predicted here.

Sorry, I'm kind of on to baseball's script writers. Very clever way to have the exact same ending. Kind of like watching Gilligan's Island, though baseball's writing is a little better. A little.

Good for you Yankee fans. Steinbrenner just bought you another pennant.

For the Red Sox part, they played tough. But you have to beat the home team in nine innings.

I know, as a baseball purist, that I should watch tonight's classic match-up of Martinez versus Clemens.

But I won't. I have too much emotion invested in wanting the Yankees to lose to be reasonable.

After this season, I may seek therapy for my Yankee hatred. It's a bit of problem.

My heart is broken over this. Absolutely broken.

A friend of mine who left the Episcopal Church eight years ago says that not only is the Episcopal culture "gone", but that current American culture is shot. He may be right.

The Anglican primates have agreed to do nothing. They released a mealey-mouthed statement indicating they will "study" the problem.

I had hoped that the Primates would stand up for the Gospel of Christ. Instead, they politicked. Pray for the orthodox Episcopalians, who have just been thrown to the wolves of the apostate bishops.

As one priest I know put, they've shown that "to a man, they are hypocrites, frauds and cowards." It was said in the heat of the moment. But there's something to it.

The statement contains a small hope, but it's the same small hope the Cubs had yesterday to win Game 7. It wasn't going to happen. The loss hadn't happened yet. But it was coming.

Well, I needed to find a new church anyway.

Thanks to Chris at Midwestern Conservative Journal for blogging so effectively on this issue.

Bad news for Steve Bartman: You cost the Cubs the pennant. Yes, you.

The good news: You probably could get drinks free in Florida for the rest of your life.

Suggestion: Move to Florida. Like, now. Look on the bright side — you'll have one less Chicago winter to face.

Seriously, Cubs had a hell of a run, but blew it. They had some bad luck and they choked and then the Marlins were able to capitalize on mistakes. And by the way, when you give a major league team six outs in an inning, they can usually put together half a dozen or so runs.

Fightin' Fish win the pennant. For the second time in seven years. (The Marlins-Indians series was seven years ago — yikes! Seems like just yesterday that my friend Pete and I were in New York New York casino in Las Vegas watching Game 7.) Who'd have thunk?

Oh, that's right. I predicted Marlins-Yankees from the beginning. Prepare for the Red Sox heartbreak tomorrow. That's life. It's intentionally cruel, in addition to being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

Others have been kind to the Cubs fan. But I think he's a moron. I think if today's baseball fans are so stupid as to do anything other than let the home team try to make a play, they are unworthy to be called baseball fans.

Update: I have changed my mind entirely on this post and thus removed a lot of it. The fan is not to blame. I am not going to give up liking baseball.

OK, maybe not. But I closed on a piece of land today. Very exciting.

It's one and a half acres overlooking the Mahoning Valley just off the MV Turnpike exit. The property is one of four wooded lots on the edge of a farm

The trees are virtually all hardwoods from the last 20 years. A lot are saplings and there's not a lot of brush. Shouldn't be that hard to clear out, but I'll probably still need to remove 20 or 30 trees before I put in a house and driveway. I'm going to try to keep tree removal to an absolute minimum.

The property is on a hillside, for starters, and don't want to risk a lot of soil erosion. And the woods protect some of the extremes in weather, such as wind that comes up the hill in winter. Today was blustery enough — and after seeing the wind whipping the tree line, I was concerned that during the winter the house would be too exposed on that hillside without the protection of the forest.

Looking at placing the house, I have really three keys.

First is the view, which looks out the back of the property. It's a terrific view of what looks like a Swiss hillside. You can see a mountain, a couple of ridges in the distance, and a couple of rolling hills and a valley of farms.

Second is sunlight. Because the lot is on the west northwest side of the mountain, and has a 15 percent grade (that means for every hundred feet, it drops 15 feet), getting plenty of sunlight is something that will have to be designed for, not a given. The highway is on the east side of the property, and at the highest point on the property. It is also the farthest point from the view, which is on the west part of the lot. I'd like to try to place the house to maximize sunlight exposure.

Third is using the woods for privacy and protection from the elements.

These three keys conflict a bit. If I want the view, I'm better off in the back of the property, requiring 200 feet of driveway and exposure to more severe weather at the treeline. If I want sunlight and protection, I may have to go further into the woods and lose some of the view.

I dunno. I'll probably be fiddling around half the winter with placement.

Say what you want about Yankee fans, but no Yankee fan would be so stupid as to interfere with a ball that could be caught. I just couldn't imagine it. Same goes for just about any other fan. But the Cubs apparently attract the kind of person who would interfere with a ball in play of their own team at a critical moment in a playoff series.

What. A. Friggin. Idiot. There are no words to describe the mind-boggling idiocy of this fan. Now, if it turns out the kid has Down's Syndrome or mentally retarded, then I think we can all understand that whoever took him to the game and let him sit near the field should be drawn and quartered. But if his IQ is above 80, then Cubs fans should tie him to a stake near Wacker and Michigan for a week.

Remember: Five runs scored after two outs. And if Gonzalez had only had to get one out, he probably wouldn't have hurried and made the error. That is, Gonzalez would've known to just catch and throw to second, instead of hurry for a double play. So Cubs would've won 3-1.

Sports fans. Don't intefere with balls in play.

And, no, I don't believe for a second that the Cubs will win tomorrow. I predict a big Marlins blowout.

It's gonna be a Yankees-Marlins series. And it'll have the lowest ratings ever. Next season, baseball will be back to a second-tier sport. The only interest now is because the Yankees didn't win the last two years.

F^&*()&()&(&). I really like baseball, but they really need to do something about parity to make it more competitive. But Bud Selig is too much the wimpy bureaucrat.

Cubs, five outs from pennant...

A fan touches a foul ball that should've been out two. It all went to hell from there. Shortstop Gonzalez made an error on a double-play ball and got none.

Meaning pitcher Mark Prior had already gotten four outs in the inning, except was screwed out of three. By the time it was over, eight runs had gone by.

Biggest. Choke. Ever.

Worse than the 1986 Game Six choke by Boston. Worse than Game Six last year by the Giants. Biggest. Choke. Ever.

The fan who interfered — his name should be on the front page of the Chicago Tribune tomorrow. I imagine he'll have to leave town for his own safety, his children if any will have to be relocated in a witness protection program and his name will be a trivia question forever.

Baseball is a game of rhythms. His interference distracted the Cubs, ruined the second out in the inning, and helped set up the mess that followed.

Can you imagine what he's going to say when he gets home? I imagine he'll be knifed in his own driveway by his own family. Just my guess. If I were he (which I wouldn't, because even I'm not that stupid), I'd leave town immediately and never go back to Chicago.

FWIW.

Daniel Drezner describes the connection between one's selection of a baseball team and politics. I would argue that one makes that selection far too young, and then sticks with it no matter what. That's the way it is.

Here's the comment I left at his site:

I'm with those who say there is no correlation between sports and politics. How else can you explain the conservative Cincinnati Reds organization's popularity and success during the Cold War?

I'm a lifelong Reds fan who briefly began to root for the Yankees in the mid-70s until I witnessed the orgy of self-congratulation Yankees fans bestowed upon themselves following the 1977 World Series. (I was 14 at the times and I had never seen the Yankees be any good before — little did I know how obnoxious the fans were.)

After all, there was not this kind of cheering when they were the 1972-74 Oakland A's, was there? That's when I realized Yankees and Yankee fans are black-hearted, mercenary frauds who ruin God's blessed game with their meretricious antics punctuated only by outright cheating. Do the names Arnold Johnson and Jeffrey Maier ring any bells?

Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the Babylonians in the Bible. The angle is less political (left v. right) than existential (evil v. good).

Not that I'm tendentious about the issue.

Tim Wakefield, knuckleballer, wins a big one, AL Championship Series tied 2-2. Cool!

My prediction: No real threat of knuckleballer Tim Wakefield pitching inside. Just a hunch. In fact, knuckleballs are so goofy they should take the piss out of both sides.

Still, I hope the Red Sox fans rush the field and beat the Yankees all the way to Yonkers.

I was just teaching my first few classes at Universite de Sciences et Techniques a Masuku (USTM) in Franceville, Gabon.

My first class: The grammar point was "subject understood". And the lesson consisted of my singing in front of 200 students. The song contained many examples of "subject understood." And the song itself — there could only be one.

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be

Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for.

But I do know that one and one is two,
And if this one could be with you,
What a wonderful world this would be.

Now i don't claim to be an "A" student,
But I'm trying to be.
For maybe by being an "A" student baby
I can win your love for me.

I actually did the scene from Stripes where I sang part of one line and they sang the rest.

Me: Don't know much about ...
Them: "heee stor eee.
Me: Don't know much about ...
Them: Beee - ah -loooww - gee.
Me: Don't know much about ...
Them: Science booook.
Me: Don't know much about ...
Them: French I toooook.

One student stood up during the class and said that he knew a better tune for the song, and sang the thing a capella, very slowly and emotionally. Everyone applauded. Him. Everyone applauded him.

Why did I do it? Well, it's one of the few songs in a key that I can actually sing the notes. If I could've hit the notes, I'd have gone with Louis Armstrong instead:

I see trees of green........ red roses too
I watch 'em bloom..... for me and for you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....warm sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are there on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin'.. how do you do
They're really sayin'......I love you.

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
They'll learn much more.....than I'll never know
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are there on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin'.. how do you do
They're really sayin'...*SPOKEN*(I ....LOVE....YOU).

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
You know their gonna learn
a whole lot more than I'll never know)
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself .......what a wonderful world.

Of course Louis Armstrong's song didn't fit the grammar lesson, either. Coulda done a different one, I suppose.

Other songs I taught in my two years there that I can still remember:
1. All Along the Watchtower.
2. Friends in Low Places.

Strangely enough, my students in Africa hated country music. Hated it with a passion. It was the only time they hated a song the whole time I was there.

My current job is dull. Not a lot of stress, but there's a fine line between pleasantly unstressful and dull, dull, dull. My job is on this side of the line.

Another thought on this prescription medication addiction of Rush's: Why couldn't he have been a drunk? What happened to the great drunks of our culture? Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year?

The Greeks talk about the tension between the Apollonion and the Dionysian tendencies. Apollo is order, logic, science, warfare, poetry, honor. Dionysius is sex, drugs, rock and roll, booze, fireworks, and dance. The order versus the unrestrained, the superego versus the id.

Now, in our current American culture, we're shaping up to become a nation of busybodies and prigs, insufferable and humorless. Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't get stoned. Put a condom on that thang. Don't stare at her surgically enhanced breasts. And most important: That's not funny. Off to sensitivity training with you.

We should strive for the Apollonian, of course. But there's nothing wrong with a little humor, with a little Dionysian relief valve, a nice robust laughter or the sight of someone righteously drunk off his gourd being cared for by friends.

What is beauty? Is it a line of traffic full of Ford Tauri and FUVs in front of an endless landscape of strip malls and corporate parks. Is beauty a 12-year girl dressed like a stripper?

OK, let me rant. We used to drive real cars. When I was growing up, you used to be able to buy a real car. Made out of steel. Had eight cylinders. Went fast. Looked good. Now cars are either nondescript odious little bubbles or ugly, larger SUVs. I never thought I'd long to see station wagons, but I do. If you're driving a regular car, you can see over a station wagon in traffic. An SUV blocks the view from anyone else not in an SUV. And forget finding your car in a parking lot.

We used to be able to smoke cigarettes and tell dirty jokes in the office. We used to go to happy hour and have a few and didn't have to worry about a .08 BAC. We used to live in neighborhoods and towns, not developments. We used to be able to go for drives in the country ... not spend two hours getting to the country. Our houses used to be made out of real stuff, not press board and stone veneer that's gonna fall off in 20 years. When is the last time anyone built a town in this country?

Zero tolerance laws? That's more crap. You need to understand the specifics of a situation and exercise ... get this ... judgment. And understand that if you do that some people will make judgments you disagreed with.

RICO? No, you couldn't "arrest" property. The government couldn't just steal it.

And we had adults back then. Not a bunch of aging, rusting Baby Boomers pretending to be adults. Thus, corporate governance scandals. Not like now ... and corporate officers didn't get the outrageous pay packages like they do now.

Do you realize that virtually every major brokerage house on Wall Street had to settle a few months ago massive securities fraud charges with the SEC? Do you see the costs of the decline of Christianity? Because without a fear of God, there is nothing to rein in an elite. Nothing but their own sense of restraint. And if they don't believe in judgment, they're gonna have a little trouble.

OK, I just needed to rant. Our country seems to be coarsening rapidly ... and it's a lack of faith and a lack of understanding of beauty that I believe is at the heart of it. People cannot see beauty because they see so much ugliness and the beauty is getting far away. What is beautiful is true, and the truth shall make you free, and all that.

OK, rant over.

So Rush Limbaugh has announced an addiction to prescription medication. Now he's off to rehab for 30 days.

My question is: After Rush's rehab, then what? Public announcements of rehab are a bad idea. I know Rush had no choice — he is a public figure and apparently he's gotten into a bit of trouble. So the news was out and he needed to make his statements.

But recovery is not easy in public. He may be asked about it in interviews — news media will approach him about it. And this is for a very personal process that almost always gets screwed up unless it's totally anonymous.

Recovery is a long shot. There are a lot of rehabs and a huge recovery industry now, but something like 30 percent of people recovery for five years. It might even be half that.

Recovery takes an enormous toll on many people psychologically. Many people who are addicts have been driven insane by addiction. They don't necessarily become normal afterward. Many become insane in more socially acceptable manners.

Thirty percent recovery rate. Add in this public announcement, and Rush's public career, and his decision to resume his career immediately afterward, and I'd peg his odds down to something like one in ten chance. And that's for five years.

Recovery is a weird process. Part of it is miraculous — or at least seems so. If you recover, you are left having to explain things that simply don't make any sense to most people. Did God really set you free from addiction? Do the 12 steps really work? Does God take care of everything — or not?

Answering these questions isn't easy. Can Rush be Rush while he's answering these questions during that critical first year of recovery?

Rush spends a lot of time telling people why other people are wrong. He's built a career on it. Right-wing radio commentator is not a good career for an addict on the best of days. Recovery addicts have to turn critical attention on themselves, not others. And they have to do so in a way that doesn't destroy themselves.

I dunno. Maybe Rush will get it pretty quickly and move on. Maybe he'll have the same show afterward. But I doubt it. Recovery is about change ... and frankly, recovery makes people a little crazy and flighty in the first year. That could make his show a little weird, really. If I were advising him, I'd tell him to take 30 days for rehab, and then do something else — get a job elsewhere, something quiet and low key — for at least a year.

Anyway, my thoughts and prayers will be with him and his family.

Oh well. Cubs are gonna have to use Prior and possibly Wood again. They may still win the pennant, but they're blowing their shot at the series.

Still, let's not despair. Even though we know how it will all turn out; technically there's still hope and someone might beat the Yankees.

Yeah, right.

Jinxed, I tell you. I said no-hitter, now it should go away.

UPDATE: I was wrong, first of all. The first hit was in the 5th inning. And Beckett pitched a two-hitter. He has the Cubs number.

... is a no-hitter by Josh Beckett. This is as of 6:15 p.m.

He's got a no-hitter through five. Tie 0-0 but Zambrano is having more trouble than Beckett. The Marlins pitcher is dominating.

Remember: This is the Cubs. A Game loss will send the series back to Chicago, where the Cubbies will start to get very nervous. This will be even worse if the Marlins pull off a no-hitter today.

1. Don Zimmer deserved what he got. He threw a punch at Pedro Martinez and he's lucky Pedro didn't kill him. 'Tard. And then he laughed in the dugout like he'd won the fight. Schmuck. Still, the Red Sox are rolling over just like I said they would.

2. Episcopal Church USA was asked to choose between sodomy and Scripture and has chosen sodomy. This is not surprising. It sure would be nice if some of this instant gratification stuff weren't sinful, but alas, that's how God made the world. In any case, many of the orthodox Christians left the ECUSA a long time ago. It's encouraging there's that much of a remnant still left to get upset enough to leave now.

3. No one asked my counsel on the upcoming split in the Anglican Communion, but I think the orthodox need to be willing to walk away from everything. Energy and money spent fighting for old churches can more quickly be put into building new congregations — and new churches. And God knows there is no shortage of buildings in this country to hold services, meetings or anything else. A quick, sharp separation will be best — like pulling a band-aid off a scab.

4. The lesson fron California is the Democratic Party needs to run a candidate who's not a hollow, emasculated weiner. Even soldiers like John Kerry and Wesley Clark seem wussified after years in the Democratic Party. The Democrats need to run someone who looks like they can bench their weight.

5. The Yankees were entirely in the wrong during the Game 3 fights. They provoked the great Pedro Martinez into throwing at them, then complained when the provocation was met. Roger Clemens swore like the foul-mouthed pig he is. I've already covered Don Zimmer the bald moron. Finally, two members of the Yankee bullpen of attacked a Red Sox groundskeeper. A Yankee got hurt — wuss.

6. Industrial Blog was deeply moved by Cardinal Ratzinger's letter to the orthodox at Plano. It was like being reminded there are a billion friends behind you that you forgot about. (Hat tip to Midwest Conservative Journal and Virtuosity.) I may go to Rome after all. Particularly, if the rumors are true, that the Vatican is preparing to offer an Anglican rite.

7. I've always liked Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Read an interview, in book form, years ago. I remember agreeing with almost everything except for the stuff he said about Mary — which was the only time he answered in mystical, rather than rational, terms.

8. My own brush with the current Pontiff, who is allegedly ailing: When he came to Giants Stadium in 1996, I was in charge of managing one of two press platforms in front of the stage. This included various security duties like making sure everyone had their press pass. A young Italian guy climbed up on the platform, refused to answer my questions, and had no press pass. He did have an authoritative manner. I proceeded to try to toss him off the platform when other members of the press said, "Uh, he's actually the Pope's personal photographer." Oops. I still say he shoulda had a press pass. I mean, I didn't care if he were God's personal photographer — if he doesn't have a pass, he stays on the ground.

9. Patrick the cancer-stricken cocker spaniel has adjusted to his new home and is fighting the good fight. His three weeks are up, and it looks like he may have a little more time left. His owner has been displaying a bit of gallows humor by calling him "Cancer Boy." Beat his old nickname: "Gas Boy."

10. Cubbies need to win this afternoon. They win this afternoon, and they'll have some rest for the World Series. Mark Prior will be rested and ready for Games 1 and 5; Kerry Wood for 3 and 7. And they can split the rest up. The Cubs, I believe, are the only team of beating the Yankees in this post-season. The Red Sox could do the Cubs a favor by beating the Yankees up a bit before then. Still, I think the Yankees will ultimately beat both the Red Sox and the Cubs, too, and then they and their fans can spend their off-season returning to their normal activities such as stealing money from widows and orphans, and insider trading.