Called the ticket lines today and they both had busy signals. Which is weird because I'd been calling all week to check on ALCS tix and it was never busy once. Then it hit me: World Series tickets must have just gone on sale. (I knew that was happening soon but I didn't know when since I lost the lottery. Last I heard it was "TBA.")

So I called over and over until I finally got through much later. Tried Game 6, only $250 and up tix available. Basically all I can afford is SRO. Or maybe bleachers. Tried Game 7, and they had SRO! I selected four tix. I waited. The musical in-between cue played. Again and again. For a really long time. Finally it just went dead. By the time I got through again it was only expensive tix left, and even when I chose one ticket, as a test, it told me tix weren't available in that quantity. Oh well. They'll release more.

Still, I was kinda pissed--but, I got home around 9:00 and checked ALCS availability on the schedule page, and they'd suddenly released all kinds of tix for Game 7. Including (relatively) cheap ones. And more for this weekend. So, I'll be going to one or two ALCS games. Pretty sweet.

P.S. At one point while redialing, I thought to myself, "don't do that rookie mistake of hearing the phone ring but being so used to quickly hanging up to redial that you hang up." Ten seconds later, I did that. It was only a few minutes before I got through again, though. Still, terrible job, me.

Meanwhile in the NLCS, the Cards went up 1 game to 0 with a 13-inning win. Guys named Beltran, Van Slyke, and Gordon played. I'll let you decide which of those were dads and which were sons.

The following line leads off this article:

The Red Sox and Tigers, as two of the American League's eight charter franchises, have been facing each other since 1901. Yet the upcoming AL Championship Series, which starts Saturday night at 8 ET on FOX at Fenway Park, will mark the first time the tradition-laden franchises have squared off in the postseason.

What they fail to tell you is that of those 113 years, it would have been impossible for the two teams to meet in the postseason in 94 of them.

The way I figure it (which involves lots of math in my head that could be wrong since I was watching Heat at the time), playing any given team in the 19th season where it's possible is actually closer to normal than abnormal.

But even without that second bootleg statistic, leaving out the whole 94/113ths thing is pretty deceiving.

Funny that Heat would be on TV tonight, since a few hours ago I was thinking of the Cards-Dodgers matchup, and thought of the photo caption "Jack of Cards Turns Dodgers Blue" from the 1985 NLCS. I Googled said caption, and found one match. You guessed it, it was my own blog. From March 2005. And in that post, I talk about...Heat.

And I still remember Sam* linking that post because my Johnny Damon crotch remark. And, ironically enough, Sam was/is a Red Sox and Tigers fan, so I wonder what's going through her head right about now.

You get your ALCS tix yet? I've had a few in my cart but couldn't pull the trigger. I've got some parameters I need to stay within involving money and work and allocating funds and planning ahead and a potential World Series appearance and all that. I'm thinking I'll end up at Game 6 or 7, should they be played. Or maybe Game 2. But I can say that if I were rich I'd already have tix to all four home games** all at face value. It's really not that hard. F the Toe-Stubbers.


*Old-school Red Sox blogger who deserves a lot of credit in terms of who I blatantly ripped off to become what I am today. She is still blogging as Roar of the Tigers.

**And all three road games, as I'd drive my gold-plated Accent out to Detroit and stay in "Grosse Point" because I think that movie made it sound like the "nice" part of America's very own DMZ. Or maybe I'm thinking of "Auburn Hills." But maybe I just think that's nice because I associate it with the word "palace." Ooh, wait, I'll just stay in Windsor. But I don't have a passport. But I could bribe them, as I am rich in this scenario.

On October 3rd at 10:53 a.m., before the ALDS started, I got a comment from, you guessed it, "Anonymous." Here it is, in its entirety:

HAHAH YOU ARE GONNA LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE. No way you guys beat the Rays. Overachievers all season long - mediocre players. Moore and Price will shut you down, you'll win Game 3, and lose Game 4.

My first thought was: You can't laugh at someone before anything bad has happened to them! As for their content, I have to say, they did a pretty incredible job at getting their prediction so perfectly opposite from what ended up happening. Moore and Price will shut us down? They would each give up 7 earned runs and lose. We'll win game 3? Nope, our only loss. We'll lose game 4? Wrong again. That's a world record for wrongest prediction. Congrats.

Right after that big dong in the Dodgers' clinching victory, the next batter popped out. But TBS decided not to show the play. I guess they thought the ball would be out of play, and they were eager to get to replays of the homer. The announcer did tell us an out was made, but they never went back and showed us the play. Then the dude says it may have been "the most forgettable at bat in the history of baseball." Which would have been fine if they followed that up by showing it. Instead, they just make it more forgettable by admitting even the network showing the game forgot it. Terrible job, TBS. NESN would be proud.

That could be the most frustrating game we've ever ended up winning.

Six innings of agony, finding new and exciting ways to leave runners on base. I hurt my hand. Bashing it on the wall. My outburst of choice has always been the open-handed slap of a door jamb, kind of like an angry high five. It always seems "safer" than an actual punch, but you end up with a bruised palm. And poor Peavy, he's pitchin' fine but home plate has a forcefield around it for our baserunners. Finally he gives up a run, but we fortunately break through in the next inning. A wild pitch ties it and a little grounder gives us the lead. What a joy it was watching Shane beat it out. Get out yo' seat and jump around. And finally we could go back to breathing. A little.

But Breslow did "Yo, Man!"'s work tonight. He was the calming influence we needed. Suddenly frustration turned to anti-frust. We tacked on a run on Dustin's sack in the 9th as they gave us the gift of Rodney, and Koji, who'd been in in the 8th, mowed 'em down in the 9th. No sweat. (I like how he accidentally put Longoria on his ass right before ending the series by punching him out.)

And of course I also love how Xander came in and ended up playing a key role. Okay, a role.

I'm glad I'm not sitting here writing about all the things that killed me in those first six. Maddon's pitcher brigade almost worked. Almost.

We're celebrating and moving on.

That A's/Tigers winner should be nice and tired Saturday night.

I just don't like Dave O'Brien. But I especially didn't like him when he said "the Rays are seeing the end of their season" in the fifth inning of a 3-run game. Fortunately I got home right after that and got to see the rest of the game (the final 16 1/2 hours) on TV. Or maybe unfortunately.

That 8th inning was total shit. Morales comes in and walks the leadoff man. Then we have a "nobody's covering" moment at first. Then Salty makes a great catch on a sac bunt attempt. And then there's a possible double play ball, but Drew and Pedroia collide. I'll just assume Drew wasn't yelling loud enough. He also still could have gotten the out at first but he dropped the ball. He also could do something besides strand 5 runners at the plate tonight. He also could be replaced by a guy who CAN hit who's right in the dugout. But enough about my least favorite family in the world. (Sorry, those two or three Hafner/Wells/Overbay-ish short streaks this year didn't do it for me.) Moving on--so then there's a grounder to Napoli in this bases-loaded, tie-game situation. His first thought is to take the out at first. Which is the ONLY WAY THE RUN IS GUARANTEED TO SCORE. Had he (stayed on his feet, first of all, and) wheeled and thrown to second, I believe they get the 3-6-3 double play, inning over, run doesn't score. Or, had he fired home without thinking of anything else, we at least keep the game tied. Going right to first means the run scores whether we end up getting the non-force at second to end the inning or not.

Fortunately they brought in Rodney, and we really should have not only tied it but taken the lead. Had to settle for the tie though, and go for the "Koji hold, we score, Koji save" trick. And it almost worked, but after two quick outs, dong, and it's over. At least Koji being Not Koji happened in a non-save situation. If that makes any sense.

Oh well, can't get mad at these guys. All year they've come back from frustration (which rarely happened anyway) and gotten right back on the manatee. I think we'll put the Rays away tomorrow.

Buchholz against their guy. 6 pm.

Also, I want to do a whole post about the new Stephen Merchant show, Hello Ladies, but I don't have time. So go watch the first two episodes and then meet me back here later.

I wrote to Google recently about how they were using the old Red Sox logo (they did it with some other teams too). As of the other day, all logos have been changed to the current, primary logo for each team. YOu can see it when you Google "MLB standings" or scores or whatever. Of course it's bittersweet, because since they changed form the old version of our former primary logo (Circle Sox) to the current primary logo (Hanging Sox), I never get closure on whether they ever realized that the Circle Sox logo was tweaked. As far as I know, they're keeping the old version of Circle Sox on file for any potential secondary logo usage.

So that's one cheer for Google, but now here's a jeer:

You know that ad where the kid has to give a speech and ends up scoring with his classmate? It starts with him Googling "what is glossophobia"? But that's a huge mistake. The kid obviously suffers from fear of public speaking, and is on the verge of his oral report. So when asking Google (instead of his fucking parents, Jesus) about this, wouldn't he ask "what is the name for fear of public speaking"? Are we to believe this is a huge coincidence, that right at the time he's seeking assistance with his fear of public speaking, someone happens to mention its official name, he looks that up too, and finds that it just happens to be what he's suffering from? Or did his teacher say to him, "son, you've got glossophobia"? At which point the teacher walked away leaving the boy to have to look it up on his own, even though he probably should have figured it out from the context of the discussion, i.e. he was asked to speak to the class and refused? Maybe this was really a lesson in context. But I'm guessing Google just fucked up.

Man, I'd love to see Part 2, where the kid gets slapped after trying to ask a girl out using methods the Internet taught him. I almost feel like this ad could be a prequel to the Jeremy video....

Each series is through two games, and the Red Sox are the only team with a 2-0 lead.

Orsillo, after the A's win tonight: "The last two Oakland playoff victories have been walk-offs, and they've both been here in Oakland." Duh, Don. Duh. (He said this shortly after doing his usual incorrect...you know. Right next to Eckersley who coined....you know.)