It's been a pretty good Curb Your Enthusiasm season so far. It was a bit of a slow-ish (for them) start, as I waited and waited for Larry to get to New York. But he finally did, and there have been some great episodes since. Tonight was the much-anticipated Bill Buckner episode. Sox blogger Mighty Quinn wrote about his experience with Buckner during the filming over a year ago. (He dabbles in appearing in things that are filmed.)

After my first viewing, I went back and watched the crowd in the fire scene Quinn wrote about, and....there he was!!! I took a bootleg screenshot...

That's John Quinn, on the left, mouth open, on screen with the great Larry David! And reacting to, of all things, as he told us last August, Bill Buckner catching a baby. Frame that frame, Quinn!

Aside from that whole deal, it was a fun episode, featuring Robert Smigel as an intense softball captain. It's funny--a year or two after the Buckner play, I played in a softball game in Central Park, at age 12. It was my dad's Peace Corps reunion, and we had a huge game on one of those fields on the Great Lawn. In the bottom of the last inning, a ball went through my legs at second base and into right field. The woman in right had it get by her, too. The winning runs came all the way around to score. Game over. Of course I was kinda pissed at the woman for not "picking me up," but without my error, hers would not have been possible. I accept full blame. Okay, near-full. And now, almost a quarter-century later, Larry David, in a park in New York City, has a ball go through his legs to lose the championship and gets called a "Buckner," only to get the chance to meet Bill shortly after.

I had one huge issue with this episode, though. While Larry is hanging out with Buckner, Bill is repeatedly yelled at and mocked by NYC Sox fans, with Larry defending Bill. Obviously Bill has had a rough go over these years, but even the Red Sox fans who were cruel enough to mock him in public stopped in 2004. And I still feel like most Sox fans all along would have only said hi to him and felt sympathy. We all know how well he's been treated at Fenway since '86, both before and after 2004. I would think if Bill walked around NYC, he'd have maybe a few rude Mets fans "thanking" him, plenty of Yankee fans mocking him, and every Sox fan greeting him warmly. None of us need Larry David or anyone else to tell us we've won two championships since then and to lay off Bill. Also, Jeff Greene's character is supposedly a huge Mookie Wilson fan, yet seems only mildly familiar with Buckner, going through the teams he played for and listing the Sox third!

Don't get me wrong here--I love that Larry did any kind of Red Sox-themed show, and used Bill Buckner as a hero. I've been wondering if he's become a closet Sox fan, often going to Fenway games. In an episode earlier this season, I noticed two Fenway pictures in his office. Granted there were other parks on his wall, but the Fenway ones were right by the door and very visible in the scene. I just think he needs to learn a little more about the situation. I mean I know he was going for the "It was all my fault and I wish I had someone to relate to" thing, and who better than Buckner to be that guy--but the theme doesn't work for me in a post-2004 world. Then again, Bill played along with the whole thing.