Gee, this pointy beard thing I've been growing has gotten really long. It's rubbing against my shirt when I look down at my desk at work. I think I'll shave it off. Oh wait, the Red Sox have been doing so good with me having this beard. Maybe I'll just trim it. No, can't do that, what if I trim off too much? Like, if I cut off a little bit, and the Sox lose the next game by one, I'll know that even that little bit mattered! And then what would I do?? Is the fact that I'm thinking about it taking some of the mystical power away from the beard and therefore the team? Maybe a trim would only affect, say, Curtis Leskanic. But then what if he comes in the game, oh god, make it stop!

Okay, you know what, I need to get over this. I'll shave the beard because I want to. What I do has nothing to do with the Red Sox. But let's say I shave it, and as I reach for the shaving cream, a fly flies out from behind it. The fly would have stayed, but since I agitated it, it now decides to start flying around. It flies outside, and ends up finding it's way on to a train. A train headed for...St. Louis! And when the train arrives, the fly flies out, landing on Terry Francona's hand. He kills the fly with his other hand, injuring his writing hand. When he goes to write out the starting lineup, he decides against players with long names, to cut down on excess writing. "Ramirez? Nah...Lowe, you're in left tonight."

There's no WAY I'm shaving.

I get the feeling that yankee fans--even the ones who are superstitious in general--don't worry about this stuff like we do. Granted, this story's an exaggeration (I know the managers write the names of all the available players on the scorecard, jeesh), but still, I think they can just sit back and watch, assuming they've won already. I mean, when they have, say, a three game lead in a playoff series, it must be so easy for them. They just know their team will win, yet again.