Whenever a ball bounces off a fielder and goes over the fence for a home run, I think of the '86 playoffs, when it happened twice to the Red Sox. The first time was in the ALCS, when Dave Henderson almost made an amazing catch, leaping up to squeeze the ball as his momentum took his glove over the wall, where the ball promptly fell out. And in the World Series, Dwight Evans almost robbed Dykstra of a homer, but the ball fell out of his glove and into the bullpen as he banged into the low right field wall.

Tonight, Trot Nixon suffered a similar fate, combining the "wasn't even home run distance" of the Hendu play with the "low right field wall" of the Dewey play.

And that's how the night went for the Sox. The good news is that while I was searching for pictures of the '86 plays, I image-googled "86 World Series," and instead of shots of Buckner plastered on my screen, I was rewarded with magical pictures of men in gray Red Sox uniforms, under bright lights, hugging and smiling, from what seemed like some fantastical future world, but were actually shots from last October. Isn't it great how the number of years we waited doubles as a bad-memory-eraser?

I also was reminded tonight of how excrutiating it is to watch the Orioles play the yankees. I really can't stand that team, and I can't wait til we play them, because they are total crap. Even though they're our closest contender, I have no problem rooting for them against the yanks, because we're more likely to have to worry about the yanks then about them in the long run. (And also because I just wouldn't root for the yanks regardless.) The O-Bags are going nowhere this season. I don't know what was worse tonight, seeing the lolligagging Vazquez miss the easiest grounder of all time, down 7-0 with two outs in the ninth, or seeing Sammy Sosa miss an even slower bouncing ball in the outfield in a one-run game in the ninth, setting the yanks up for an insurance run.

Red Sox bats should wake up from their mini-vacation tomorrow night.