While I was gone, the magic number went from:
to this:
to this:

When thinking about the Red Sox' problems, remember that every other team has them, too. And to this point, only one team in the entire league has played to a better record than ours.

For having a 10-game plan at Fenway, as a bonus I get a shot to buy tickets to an ALDS game. Last year, I had tickets for Game 4, and since it wasn't played, Pat & I got to witness an ALCS game. Woohoo! ALCS! It was the 19-8 game... Today, I ordered this year's ALDS tickets. They choose the game, and the seats are determined based on season ticket tenure. This year, we'll be in the grandstand for "Home Game 2," provided there is one. Fortunately, ALDS ticket prices are the same as regular season prices. Unfortunately, the processing fee goes up by about a thousand percent. Oh well. You know I'll lie, cheat, and/or squeal for that money if I have to. Playoffs, dude.

This weekend I crowningly achieved one of my life's crowning achievements. I was being quizzed on 70s TV stars' bios by a friend of mine. (Endless thanks to them for meeting, and enjoying, my incessant requests to "quiz me.") This friend of mine, who we'll call "F.O.M.," asked, "Okay, where was Fred Berry born?" "Ooh, Rerun!" I said, excited to put my brain to work. "Let's see," I thought out loud, "he's got that dance background....St. Louis?" "Right," shouted ol' F.O.M.my.

Goodnight, everybody.

Note: The line above was to be the final line of this post. When trying to think of a title, I went with "Closer," as in, Me making that incredible prediction about Fred Berry was the "closing joke" of my act. You know the Seinfeld episode. But then I realized that it could also be prounced the other way, and refer to the fact that the Magic Number, discussed above, is getting closer to zero. In fact, I'm guessing that's what you, the human reader, thought, as you started reading the post, assuming you read the title first. So, since that worked out so perfectly, on that note, Goodnight, everybody.