Tonight at 6:55 PM, I was sitting on the couch eating my poor-person's-baked-ziti*, psyched to actually get to see my Sox on ESPN.

But then Dan Patrick (least funny man in sports broadcasting, but funniest in his own mind, just edging out Michael Kay in both categories, if that makes sense) said something about the Kobe Bryant press conference. I figured, okay, they'll talk about this breaking news until 7:05 and then switch over to the game. I was wrong. Patrick was talking to some other dude, live from Colorado, about nothing at all, as they waited for the press conference to start. Meanwhile, I've got to go to the familiar radio to hear the top of the first. After the Angels were retired, ESPN realizes that the press conference is just not starting, and goes to Fenway for the bottom of the first, but says they'll go back to Colorado when this stupid thing gets underway.

Great. Then, while switching back and forth, the yanks go down 1-0 to Cleveland on Yes. I go back to ESPN, and they give a "Priority Score Alert," and proceed to tell the nation that the yankees went up 1-0. Terrible job, ESPN.

Then around 8:00, I missed a Red Sox run because the press conference started. I had the radio back on, with the tv muted, and every time I'd turn the sound up on the tv, the guy talking would say, "And I'd also like to thank..."

He was talking so damn slow. I think Steinbrenner hired this guy so we'd all miss the Red Sox game.

Couldn't ESPN put that crap on ESPN News, or moved our game to ESPN2 while it was on? How come everybody watching the hockey game on the proverbial deuce got to see that uninterrupted? We were on the main network!

Anyway, good game tonight. I think Arroyo was pulled too early, he wasn't really getting bombed. But the pen did a pretty good job. And Fred Lynn was in the booth for an inning! He was an early fave of mine (we both started our careers in '75). He said, about the 22-0 game, "It was nice to see the yankees going into the record books for the wrong reason." What a guy.

I like the thought of our post-season roster. It'll be all dudes who played at one time or another during the year, as opposed to the regular starters plus a bunch of inexperienced minor-leaguers.

Kay has gone from "spontaneous combustion," to "they'll win," to "they'll most likely win" the division, meaning the yanks. All day today he was saying all the stuff I've been saying, even saying that it's ridiculous to point to history as the reason why the yanks will win. It's like this current stretch has knocked some sense in to him. Which never seemed like a possibility.

Check out http://joyofsox.blogspot.com. The dude over there has started a poll based on something I've thought about for years. He's asking if you (as a Sox fan) would rather see the Sox win the east and have the yanks not make the playoffs, or the Sox make the playoffs and play the yanks in the ALCS.

Every year, I think, What if the Sox win the World Series, but the yanks don't make the playoffs? All the yankee fans will say we didn't beat the yanks directly, so it's no big deal!

Isn't that crazy? First of all, it's a thought that right away assumes that the Red Sox have won the World Series. Which pretty much proves my eternal optimism right there. Then there's the issue of worrying that the yankee fans who have ridiculed me all my life would still make fun of me even after the Red Sox win the World Series. I'd like to hear a psychiatrist's take on that one.

But could I really root for the yankees in an ALDS, just so we'd have a chance to beat them? It would be great to beat them in a playoff series, but I just can't root for that if it means rooting for them. If it happens, it happens.

However, lately, yankee fans have gotten it in their heads that the Red Sox have "never beaten the yankees." I've written extensively about this, but I'll sum it all up by saying, Apparently the Red Sox finishing way ahead of the yanks and going to the World Series just doesn't qualify as "beating the yankees." It's like they won't ever admit defeat unless our team is celebrating on their field as their season comes to an end. I used to think that that's how the Sox are really cursed: The year we win would be the year the yanks don't make the playoffs, and the team we play in the WS will forfeit due to some illness. There wouldn't even be a parade. The season would just stop, with the Sox being given the trophy, but having to share it with the families of the dead players from the NL team.
But this is 2004, a very special year. And I'm not letting any of these thoughts get in the way. I'm still rooting for the yanks to lose every game, and us to win every game. I still want that ten-game lead. I want the yanks to lose heartbreakingly. I want them to miss the playoffs on the last day of the season, thanks to some very un-fundamental play by Derek Jeter. And if they make the ALDS, I want them to lose game 5 in the ninth inning. And if they get past all that, oh well, then we get to kick their butts in the ALCS. They're a team I'm very confident we can beat.

And to all you wild card people: We're now closer to to the yanks than the Angels are to us. So let's concentrate on the matter at hand! All together! The magic number is 35, and their lead is just 3.5.

I'm currently doing the same thing with bostondirtdogs.com as I've done with Paris Hilton: That's right, the "Just Don't Look" policy. (The same one that got the Simpsons out of that jam when all the advertisements started coming to life and destroying Springfield.) This is also similar to my friend Brian's idea that if nobody turns on their headlights, it will never get dark.

Anyway, I hadn't gone there in a while. Until today. I heard the ESPN announcers saying how "they're still hung up on Nomar here." I was like, "What? I've kind of been concentrating on this pennant race, as has every other Sox fan I know." So today, I went to dirtdogs, only because I wanted to see a pic of Trot with his mohawk, and I figured they maight have one there. Instead, I got, "Nomar Does Something For The Cubs Which Garcia-Proves My Crazy Conspiracy Theory That No-(Mar)-body Cares About!"

Speaking of that site, notice how nobody--Boston or New York media--has mentioned the "weird hair= clubhouse anarchy" theory, since the team with the weird hair has won 14 of 15?

*Jere's poor-person's baked-ziti recipe: Buy pasta. Buy sauce. By pre-shredded mozzarella cheese. Draw picture of Steinbrenner on top sheet of toilet paper in bathroom. Boil water. Put in pasta. Remove pasta. Put in bowl. Pour sauce on pasta. Spread cheese on top. Put in microwave until cheese melts. Eat. Later, poop out meal. Wipe butt with Steinbrenner's face. Flush him down the toilet with the rest of your excrement.