In the regular season, when you make four errors in a game, and your starter doesn't last four innings, you worry about how that might not fly in the playoffs. In the World Series, a win is a win. One down, et cetera et cetera.

The one part of the NLCS that I watched for more than a few seconds was the part where Tavarez completely lost his head on the mound, and then Kevin Browned the phone in the dugout. So that was the one thing I knew to hope for out of the Cards tonight: That they bring in Tavarez. (Not to be confused with the band Tavares, who scored a 1977 hit with More Than A Woman, off of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.) Well, they did bring in Tavarez, and he gave up the winning home run to Bellhorn, giving Cardinal fans, uh, a "fever" on this, eh, "Saturday Night," and, let's see, causing "more than a woman," in fact many women, as well as many children and men to go crazy all across Red Sox Nation.

Maybe tomorrow night they'll bring in Vicki Sue Robinson.

On Bellhorn's key dong at yankee Stadium, he hit the foul pole, and since Fox has a thousand microphones at each game, we all heard, "Kksshhhhhh!" Which, considering how great I felt at that moment, quickly became my favorite sound in the world. And stupid McCarver said, "What a horrible sound." Tonight, Bellhorn gave me my sound again, only the Pesky Pole sounded more like, "Bwassshhhh!" I hope that demented Cardinal/yankee fan hears that sound in his sleep tonight.

Fox did a *fairly* good job tonight. But they did do something that really showed how either their camera people don't know much about baseball, or there's not too much communication going on in the truck, or wherever the producer is. They had Papa Jack mic'ed, and on Bellhorn's HR, they showed a replay of Papa Jack's reaction, with sound. In the foreground was first base coach Lynn Jones, but you could tell it was Papa Jack yelling and cheering, especially when Jones stepped off the screen, with the camera staying on PJ as he continued to celebrate. Then they cut to a live shot, and who did we see? Lynn Jones. Buck covered it up by saying, "Lynn Jones, the first base coach, Papa Jack is in the dugout." I know they make these mistakes every night, but this one just kind of epitomized what MLB on FOX is all about.

I liked how Dave Roberts got one of the biggest ovations before the game. Well deserved.

This season, Fox 61, the Connecticut Fox station, opted to show the yanks instead of the Sox on the national Saturday games. I wrote them, and they claimed it was due to the yanks' popularity ("lately," they said.) Anyway, tonight, I saw a commercial where they used the Sox' resilience as a comparison to their news team. Their new motto for the News @ Ten is: Right Team, Right Time. So all of a sudden they're Sox fans. As much as I find that hypocritcal, the key is that winning gives you advantages. This season is going a long way toward making CT Red Sox territory. A WS win would seal the deal.

Ortiz after the game, when asked how important winning the first game was: "You get to breathe better." I love that guy, man.

Quote by someone, who I met--electronically--because of this blog, who was able to get obstructed view seats to a WS game at face value:

"I found some place selling similarly obstructed seats for one WS game. Two seats were on sale for $2,600. Woman who lives across the street from me said I should sell: '$2,600? You could do a mortgage payment with that.' Some people just don't get it. Who wants a house with bedrooms and bathrooms and couches and carpeting and central heating when you can have, for one magical night, a pair of hard-backed chairs with an obstructed view?"

A true Sox fan.

One more thing to prove Michael Kay a fool, regarding him saying how it will be SO BAD for Sox fans if our team wins it all: If they do win, I have a feeling scalpers will be getting LOTS of cash for '05 Opening Day tickets. (Not giving them away for free.) See what I mean, Mike?