Bill's Notes

BTW, Dodgers: Thanks for winning the last seven games of the series and knocking the Phillies out of the Wild Card race, only to get swept by the Mets. Assholes (Dodgers, that is.)

As for the Mets, I have mixed feelings. My first ball game was when I was aboutsix years old or so and saw the Mets play the Cubs at Shea Stadium. Probably 1970 season, could've been 69. I don't remember the game, except that I couldn't figure out what was going on.

My father took me to the game ... something he rarely did because he hated sports. It's funny. He'd try to take me bird watching, something I find about as exciting as watching paint dry. He'd try to get me interested, and tell me all the different kinds of birds, and then try to quiz me. "What's that?" he'd asked.

I stopped that line of questioning by responding, no matter what the bird, "A glossy ibis." He caught on pretty quick.

What's funny is that his father would take him to lots of baseball games, and he hated it. They lived in New York City, so his father would take him to see the Yankees and Giants mostly, back in the 1930s. He saw Babe Ruth play, Gehrig, that team. Yeah, way back. And my father hated it. He wanted to watch birds.

I used to worry that when I had a son, he'd want to watch birds and I'd disown him and sell him to the Arabs for two belly dancers and a pet goat.

Anyway, I never really caught fire with the Mets. Don't really know why. I liked the Cincinnati Reds from TV ... who knows why you pick a favorite baseball team? I rooted for the Mets, I admit, in the 1973 series because they had the great Willie Mays on the team. I wasn't exactly telling the truth when I told "Jim" in the comments that I wouldn't forgive the Mets for 1973 ...

The team I really hated was the 1986 team. The single most obnoxious team of criminals, coke addicts, drug dealers and cocky morons I'd ever seen. They could play baseball, and I'm glad they self-destructed before winning three or four Series -- and they had the talent. Don't know why they couldn't pull it off.

My resentment against the 2000 team comes from their losing to the loathsome Jankees. They were always one run short against the Yank-Mes, and that was irritating. Fortunately, I only watched a few innings of that series.

Tigers whomp A's two straight. Go Tigers!

Meanwhile, the Mets-Cards series is scheduled to begin one of these days. If you're a Mets fan, don't worry. I promise you the NLCS will start before pitchers and catchers report for the 2007 season.

One last thought: If this delay lasts much longer, the problem isn't so much that the pitchers in the NLCS will get too much rest. It's that they'll get too old.

Whew! I woke up dog tired, and felt better during the day, but now I'm dog tired again.

Just how tired do dogs get, anyway?

I'm just the messenger here. But this lawyer joke apparently has another spin:

During a class in kindergarten, all the little boys and girls are telling what their parents do for a living.
"My mommy's an editor!"
"My father's a fireman."
"My stepmom's a nurse."
But little Johnny Jones says, "My father's a stripper in a gay bath house."

The teacher banishes the student to the corner for lying, where he cries and proclaims his innocence. A few weeks later, during parent-teacher night, the teacher approaches Mr. Jones.

"You have a sweet boy, Mr. and Mrs. Jones," the teacher says. "But I had to punish Johnny for saying you are a stripper in a gay bath house! Where did he get that from?"
"That's what I told him," said Mr. Jones.
"Why?" the teacher sputtered.
"I play third base for the [name a baseball team you hate]," said Mr. Jones. "But how am I supposed to explain that to a five-year-old?"

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 60% Conservative, 40% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Apparently I'm fairly moderate. Except on defense and crime; at which point, I go totally Jacksonian.

Joking aside in the last post, I hope y'all realize that the nuclear genie is out of the bottle. The world as we knew it is gone. God help us.

Okay, they tested a bomb.

Say, "Betcha don't have another one of those things. Why not test another underground?"

Repeat until correct.

Down go the Yankees! Down go the Yankees! Down go the Yankees!

Wasn't that series a thing of beauty. Rogers and Bonderman shut down the evil empire. That means we've been given six years of relief from Yankee dominance ... and Steinbrenner will do something stupid, like fire Joe Torre, one of the best managers in baseball history.

Playing Gary Sheffield at first was stupid.

So, we have Tigers-A's, two storied and historic franchises, battling it out in the ALCS. (For trivia fans, that's a repeat of the 1972 ALCS.)

Meanwhile, we have the St. Louis Cardinals, the most successful National League franchise in history, playing some expansion team from Queens. Or Fairies. Or whatever.

I'd love to see a Cardinals-Tigers series, the "rubber match" of the 1934 and 1968 World Series, the former won by the "Gashouse Gang" and the latter won by Mickey Lolich, whose three victories, including astonishingly games 5 and 7, made that series one of the best ever. Except I was too young to remember it.

Unfortunately, I think it'll be a Mets-A's series. The A's have an extra day's rest on their pitching staff, and the Tigers might be emotionally drained from blowing the division and then beating the crap out of the Yankees.

Still, I'll be rooting for the Tigers and Cardinals.

Meanwhile, over in football, I'm in a "suicide pool" at work. Here's how it works: You pick one team per week for a straight-up win. If the team wins, you continue. If it loses, you're done. But here's the kicker: You can only pick a team once per year.

There are eight people remaining in the pool. Four picked the Colts yesterday. The Colts were 18 point favorites, and squeaked out a 14-13 win. There must've been some nervous Nellies yesterday. Too bad the Colts didn't lose. We'd have eliminated half the field.

I picked New England, and the previous week, the Eagles. I trust New England ... and I didn't trust the Colts. The Colts problem is, as Boomer said last night, they can't stop the run. And if you can't stop the run, anything can happen.

Meanwhile, on the world scene, my friend JH came up with a brilliant solution to the problems in Baghdad: Move the capital. Put it somewhere else, like Brasilia or DC. Why didn't I think of that? It's brilliant, if you think about it.

That's all. Have a good week.