Wow, PawSox skipper Ron Johnson finally got the call!

I worked on racecars--fa 18 yeahz!

Average high temp in Providence since Oct. 1: 60 degrees.

You know what I don't give a shit about this year? Post-season awards. For example, what I am gonna do, celebrate the fact that CC did poorly in the Cy Young voting? Who the hell cares, they won what really counts. And any Red Sox awards? Again, who the hell cares, the Yankees won what really counts. Know what I mean? No award winning/losing is gonna make me feel any better.

Know what I should do? A Smith of the Year Award, as a companion piece to my Smiths of Baseball series, which will continue this offseason. Only four Smiths appeared in MLB games in 2009 (no new ones), and Seth Smith is the only legit one, so he wins. Seth Smith, SotY 2009.

Just kidding. I don't really want to relive this season which started so great and ended so disgustingly. I'd rather just watch the "kick his ask" video over and over and over and over and over again. Usually the "little kid doin' somethin'" videos don't do it for me, but for some reason we always go back to this girl at our house. Actually, we've never left. I feel like we've watched that thing at least once a day for months. We're at the point where we don't even imitate the main lines anymore--when someone says anything to me, I usually say "ohhhhh," and when something requires an affirmative response, I say "yeah, huh. ... huhuh."

Kwiz season to be continuing soon.

And I'm gonna be pushin' my baseball card magnets for a long time, because I love making them. You know where to click.

I recently got a Bibo doll. Then me and my friends started "researching" this phenomenon. It needs no words:

After my bleacher tickets stayed at 26 bucks last year, I've just been hoping they wouldn't hit 30 in 2010. Today it was announced they'll be 28. Fine. I guess I can live with that.

I'll never forget the first day I drove to work in my new car, since it was the day a dude jumped off the overpass into traffic right near where I live. A few hours later and a few feet over, and that guy would've landed on my car.

Kim and I used the Vet's day holiday to take our Hall of Fame trip, as we had to see the plaque and display of one of our favorites, Jim Rice. This was, I think, my fifth trip to Cooperstown. Click all to enlarge. Above, Rice on the banners outside the Hall.

I don't remember this sign being there before. Maybe "no Silly Putty" would be a better rule. Also note Cy Young at right.

We went right to the Rice display. Above, his jersey from '76. Note the Bicentennial Patch and Yawkey armband.

The 14 showing wear/tear.

Boxscore from '83 All-Star Game. They point out how Rice's homer was omitted. His runs, HR, and RBI columns were left blank when they should have been 1s. They also left a few hitters out of the lineup since there wasn't enough room.

Jim's glove.

The full display. You don't need to see my extreme close-ups of the bicentennial patch.

Bat and uniform from Rickey Henderson's display.

Then we went to the gallery to see the plaque. (The normal way to do it is to zigzag through the museum, before finally reaching the displays of the recent inductees, and then the gallery. But we did it backwards because we wanted to get right to the Rice action.)

Jim's face. Pretty accurate. Some of these things look nothing like the actual guy/girl.

Sign in the gallery.

Don't you wish the Red Sox had a guy who looked like this?

Rollie's handlebars.

Ted Williams statue.

We went to a really cool area about broadcasting/journalism which we'd never been to before. I recommend going there. From in there, you can look out a window to these pitcher/catcher statues.

Another new (to us) place: the Baseball in the Movies room! Here are Harvey bars from A League of Their Own.

Bad News Bears stuff, including a shot of Tatum in the jersey I have a replica of.

Bobby Savoy's bat from The Natural!

In the gift shop--Allan Wood in the Hall of Fame! (see bottom right of the Bill Nowlin book. And, yes, that's not only a copy of Cowboy Up!, but it's a VHS copy of Cowboy Up!)

Babe Ruth in his Providence uniform.

A Negro League ball from the new Negro Leagues section of the Hall.

I think this is the piece of equipment in the Hall that I feel the biggest connection to. Four times each night we watched Manny in his dirty helmet. I guess I never thought I'd see it up close. And I didn't realize that all the crud on it was so thick. [Update: a reader asked about the 34 on the side--this was from when Manny had been paying tribute to David Ortiz. I also forgot to mention the crack in the earflap.]

Another view.

Outside the "locker room," which shows a locker for each team, this sign notes that, like, a lot of dudes cheat.

One of the (many, many) reasons I didn't want the Yanks to win it all this year was so I wouldn't have to see their WS display on my trip, which I had to take because of Rice. They did win, but...the display hadn't gone up yet! Niiiiiice. So not only did we get to see a non-Yanks display, but Kim, who has a soft spot for the Phils, got to see their '08 display, above.

Close-up of a Phillies WS ring.

There's also a cool new Hank Aaron display. Here's his crown.

Twenty-five years ago, this boy sat in his room at age 8 listening to Jim Rice hit home runs on the radio. On this day, he admired Jim's equipment in the Hall of Effing Fame. Congratulations once again, Jim Ed. (He's probably not reading this, so if you see him, tell him. Thanks!)

Then we came home, I drove my car that I bought 9 years ago to work on Thursday and Friday, as it shimmied on the highway and made sounds like a dying elephant every time it slowed down...and then I traded it in today for a shiny new car. The old car paid 200 bucks and I paid the rest. Well, I will pay the rest monthly, you know the drill. Below is just about the final mileage of the old Grand Prix: