Michael Bérubé - American Airspace

Playoff time

My interview with Free Exchange on Campus is now up: part one comes first, and it is followed, as is the night the day, by part two.

Now, on to more important matters: playoffs!

I’ve decided not to do any prognosticatin’ this year, because I’m no good at it except when it comes to Super Bowls (like this one and that one) and the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So I will simply reveal where my sympathies lie.

St. Louis v. San Diego:

Neither team deserves to be here. I like the Cardinals on principle, mainly because of Albert Pujols and his eight-year-old daughter, Isabella, who has Down syndrome. But backing into the playoffs without even making a beeping noise (a lovely image I have stolen from moioci in comment 67 of this thread) is just wrong. I mean, really. Celebrating your “division” “title” while down 5-0 to the Brewers on the last day of the season is kind of pathetic. So I’m rooting for both teams to lose in an unprecedentedly bad series. What will happen then? See Oakland v. Minnesota, below.

New York Mets v. Los Angeles:

Let’s go Mets! The Dodgers only kinda sorta belong in the postseason anyway. But then, that’s what I thought the last time these teams met, back in ‘88. And the result was one of the ugliest game-7 losses I’ve ever seen (though not quite as bad as Royals-Cardinals ‘85). We don’t have Pedro. They have a lion-in-winter Maddux. Weirder things have happened.

Oakland v. Minnesota:

Isn’t there any way for both these clubs to win? They’re so very likable and spunky, and they both have a recent history of lamentably early exits from the AL playoffs. Perhaps when the Cards and Padres both lose, we can dispatch the team that finishes second in this series to go play the Mets in the NLCS. Weirder things have happened, like the Seattle Seahawks representing the NFC in the Super Bowl.

New York Yankees v. Detroit:

At this point I think Yankee fandom deserves a separate 3000-word post of its own. See, I encountered Yankeedom as a preadolescent New Yorker in ‘73, when Steinbrenner was a green young thing and the Yankee faithful were all about Horace Clarke and Bobby Murcer. For the next twenty years or so, I lived in a comprehensible world in which the Yanks were sometimes good and sometimes mediocre, and made the postseason for a nice stretch in 1976-81. Then things started getting strange. I had no problem rooting for the new and improved, nice, neo-Yankees as they took down the Braves and ~~Pretenders~~ Padres in the late 90s, but since then it’s become absolutely obligatory for the Steinbrenners to win every single year or else. At least the blusterin’ Boss hasn’t sacked Joe Torre the way he dumped the fine Dick Howser in 1980. But there’s something else going on here, something that speaks to New York’s self-representations in general. It’s as if we inhabit a foul world in which the most ludicrous, outsize, odious images of New Yorkerdom have carried the day so completely that Rudy Giuliani, George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump can be seriously considered heroes and icons, and the ridiculous lyrics of “New York, New York” can be sung completely without irony (even though those lyrics are themselves artifacts of neo-New Yorkism, and belong up on the wall next to velvet paintings of the Brooklyn Bridge). And yet, and yet, in 2003 and 2004 I found it impossible to want them to lose in the AL playoffs, which is also matter for another post, because it touches on Boston’s self-representations in general.

Oh, is there another team in this series? Almost forgot. Go Tigers. We are all Tigers now.

Newt Gingrich v. Matt Drudge:

In the Battle of the Wingnut Titans, the “blame liberal PC for the Foley scandal” angle will very likely beat out the “these kids are 16 and 17 year old beasts” angle, not least because it has better legs and boasts a deeper pitching staff (Rush Limbaugh, Gary Bauer, the Wall Street Journal, Johan Santana—oops! not Johan Santana. Sorry about that one!) But in the end, this series is probably moot, because none of these guys can hold a candle, or a radioactive reindeer antler, to the Poor Man’s beyond-belief brilliant “IMs-in-context” defense of Rep. Foley. Get out the brooms for the second round, ‘cause it’ll be the Poor Man in four.

Posted by on 10/03 at 07:48 AM

if the reindeer are radioactive, then the brooms will have to specially treated, no? Else you’ll have the parade-workers union on your ass?

Posted by on 10/03 at 09:21 AM
Isn’t there any way for both these clubs to win?

Actually, there was, Michael. But it involved the Tiggers not getting swept by the freakin’ Royals in the last series of the season. In order to do so, Detroit blew a six-run lead in one game of the series, and a five-run lead in the final game of it, a game in which—knowing they had to win the game in order to win the division that they had led all season—they had the bases loaded in a tie game in the bottom of the 11th with one out and still couldn’t seal the deal. Pathetic!

(Can you tell this A’s fan is a bit bitter about this? The A’s match up very well against the Tigers, with the exception of Kenny Rogers, who cannot lose in the Oakland Coliseum. The Twins? Not so much. Especially when we will probably have to face the best pitcher in baseball twice in a five-game series.)

Posted by on 10/03 at 09:33 AM
This one’s for Criswell: What are the odds of a subway series?

Posted by on 10/03 at 09:35 AM
This is one of those times I absolutely hate not having cable. Living less than a mile from Fenway Park, the baseball season here is pretty much over; it’s all Patriots now. I, the Minnesota boy out East, am dying to be able to watch today’s game, but am stuck in bed sick, trying to find an interenet radio station to listen to.

On Sunday, I was on the phone with my mother in rural Minnesota with her giving me a play-by-play of the final outs of the Detroit/KC game. I’m still not quite sure what the final play was. All I heard was a scream of “It’s over!” followed by more joyous shrieks.

Go Twinkies!

Posted by on 10/03 at 09:39 AM
Giants fans aren’t equipped to care if the Oaklands advance, so I don’t. On the other hand, the sooner and more gruesomely the Dodgers are dispatched, the better, forever and ever, world without end, amen.

Posted by on 10/03 at 09:55 AM
My family has been rooting for the Dodgers since the days of Brooklyn and starting in 1941 (when my Dad was 7 years old). Of course, we wish to beat the dreaded Mets, who for most of the season, was the best team in the NL.

As I tell my friends who are BoSox fans, we’re really BoSox West this year, not simply the Dodgers. So, I cordially invite all saddened BoSox fans to join our party and let’s NOT go Mets...if I may paraphrase a great slogan. The Dodgers are, when they decide to show up, a gritty club that may be great in a short series (if they don’t completely embarrass themselves). How’s that for a hard hitting predition?

Oy. The dread, the dreaded Mets...I wish we had drawn St. Louis!

Posted by Mitchell Freedman on 10/03 at 10:19 AM
Michael has done it again! This time, making fun of those who wear “We are all Tigers now” T-shirts, without engaging them on the merits.

Predictions: my incredibly non-applicable mathematics tells me Mets over Yankees in 6. Yuck.

Posted by on 10/03 at 10:50 AM
Rooting for the Dodgers even after they left Brooklyn? That’s very close to sacrilege.

Let’s go Mets.

Posted by on 10/03 at 11:27 AM
"Especially when we will probably have to face the best pitcher in baseball twice in a five-game series.”

No, Verlander is going to pitch against the Yankees . . .

Posted by on 10/03 at 11:41 AM
I’m a Cardinals fan, and I find them more disgusting than Michael does. That said, though, their season wasn’t too bad when you consider that they lost the number two starter on an already thin rotation in June. The Cardinals also lost their second or third best player (Jim Edmonds) and their leadoff hitter/shortstop (David Eckstein) for long periods of the season. Even Pujols and Carpenter (their best pitcher) missed several weeks with injuries this season.

Add to the injuries the fact that the Cardinals were forced to start the league’s worst pitcher (Jason “Gopher Ball” Marquis) in about a fifth of their games, and the Cardinals season looks more like a hearty tale of survival in the midst of torn rotator cuffs, strained obliques, and post-concussion syndrome rather than the tale of baseball losers suggested in this post.

That said, the Cardinals are going to get buried by the Padres. No chance. LaRussa will probably let Marquis start the first game just to drive me to bang my head against my coffee table. I’m starting to think he’s out to get me.

Posted by on 10/03 at 11:43 AM
I like the Dodgers’ chances, since Furcal has been hitting 2.71828 in the lane this season, and they have a strong outfield against lefthanders with shifting strides (any coincidence that they go up against the Mets?) But don’t count Minnesota out, because they can really run in the wet, and I hear they’ve been hitting Liriano’s left elbow with a sledgehammer just to make him look mean.

Sigh. I’ll be so glad when the American sports season is over.

Posted by on 10/03 at 12:01 PM
If I cared about baseball, which I don’t, really, then I would still be a Dodgers fan, as I was when I was just a lad. Still, it does give me great pleasure to know that if the Dodgers win, it will irritate A’s and Giants fans no end.

Posted by on 10/03 at 01:20 PM
The Battle of the Wingnut Titans—the only one of these contests that I’m even remotely interested in—illustrates the problems with relying on wittiness and humor. Sure, the Poor Man is brilliant beyond belief, but that doesn’t *matter*, not when the people who want to believe in the GOP are so stupid. Sure, the Poor Man makes us laugh, but what we really need is someone who can convincingly portray the Republicans as a ring of child molesters. Not in an ironic or isn’t-it-funny-that-there-have-been-so-many-incidents sense, but in a sense that is intended to be literally believed.

Posted by on 10/03 at 01:25 PM
Sure Marquis pitched more innings and it’s fun to belittle him as a “marquee” player, but the worst pitcher in baseball this year had to be Jose Lima, which might be Spanish for “start a fire"--4 starts, 17 innings, 22 runs. And he did that work for the Mets, who tied for the most wins in baseball this season.

No, we don’t miss Pedro.

Plus there has to be some sort of “what did I do to deserve 15 wins?” award for Steve “I Must Be the Pitcher ‘Cause I’m on the Mound” Trachsel. 179 hits in 159 innings, all while taking so much time that Mark Foley could IM ten pages between Trachsel’s pitches. The Dodgers must be quaking in fear.

Of course, pessimist that I am I’m a Mets fan. (You can take the boy out of Jersey....)

Posted by George on 10/03 at 01:31 PM
Look, you’ve had twenty four hours to decide what you mean by “basis”. I want results dammit! Frankly, I’m not convinced the point is all so penetrating (or perhaps it’s more likely that I don’t entirely understand the point - it does prompt me to think in recessive circles).

Why is foundationalism so important?

I’m keen to observe that in practical political terms; even a foundational basis is dependant on some form of consensus - which of course renders it not so self-evident. Or is political foundationalism significantly different than the philosophical?

Posted by Central Content Publisher on 10/03 at 01:36 PM
Geez, where does a guy have to go to find some decent predictions about the upcoming hockey season (the only sport that matters because it doesn’t boil down to what team has the best pharmacist)? I’m going out on a limb this year and predicting the Rangers will take the Cup in a sweep. It will be noted that I say this every year. But this year I have the power of mathematics behind me.

Posted by on 10/03 at 01:39 PM
Oh, baseball! My first thought was..."but the season’s just starting...”

The Globe and Mail says (reporting on the romance between Tie Domi and Belinda Stronach!) “It is part of a Canadian woman’s genetic disposition to be sexually attracted to good skaters and hockey players, part of our Darwinian struggle. Nothing sets my ovaries humming like the spray of ice from a hockey stop. It’s grace, strength, hockey-coach-for-your-kids, the measure of a Canadian man.”

Baseball? meh

Posted by on 10/03 at 01:47 PM
Chris, I wouldn’t go around talking about the power of mathematics in this here comment section. You’ll only get ouyay owknay owhay started again, and we’ll be hearing about alternative elliptical hockey leagues that tend to a maximum of perversity.

And speaking of a maximum of perversity, Rich, you are such a downer. Don’t you know there’s no way we can convincingly portray the Republicans as a ring of child molesters, because within the next 48 hours, someone will produce a page or an intern whose Democratic representative asked him or her whether they’d ever seen Gladiator, and the media will immediately commence reporting this as a “bipartisan” scandal? Better to laugh at the Poor Man for four or five minutes as we watch the country go so completely batshit insane that even Alan Wolfe has begun wondering if It could happen here. (Thanks to the Constructivist for pointing me to that piece in comment 46 of this thread.)

Posted by Michael on 10/03 at 01:57 PM
You’ll only get ouyay owknay owhay started again, and we’ll be hearing about alternative elliptical hockey leagues that tend to a maximum of perversity.

On behalf of M. mathpants and M. h., I must protest this remark. Purely altruistically, of course, since I am off the hook; I don’t like hockey, either.

No, wait! Unsubmit! UNSUBMIT!

Posted by on 10/03 at 02:28 PM
You know what I love? Hockey!

Posted by on 10/03 at 02:30 PM
That’s better.

Posted by Michael on 10/03 at 02:31 PM
Betsy writes:

“Rooting for the Dodgers even after they left Brooklyn? That’s very close to sacrilege.”

Well, Dad kept rooting for the Dodgers because of one person, Sandy Koufax, a god among Jewish households in the US as I’m sure you know!

Also, we moved to the West Coast too by the late 1970s and early 1980s respectively. My sister’s a loyal Mets fan since the 1960s, though.

As for anyone who thinks O’Malley was the devil in moving the Dodgers, a very interesting book by Neil Sullivan, with the non-poetic title, “The Dodgers Move West”, written in the 1980s, shows that O’Malley was as much pushed out by the corrupt Wagner-Bob Moses axis as anything. When you consider the Mets Stadium is called “Shea” and Shea was the name of Moses’ lawyer--and further that Moses was pushing O’Malley to move to Flushing, hmmmm...the world is a complicated place, isn’t it?

Posted by Mitchell Freedman on 10/03 at 02:33 PM
"Better to laugh at the Poor Man for four or five minutes as we watch the country go so completely batshit insane”

Well, I have to admit that, even as I work towards better things, that’s often what I implicitly do. I thought about the fall of the Roman Republic for a while, and the same with the Roman Empire, and asked myself what the traditional role of the secular intellectual was in times when decadence was taking over. And I decided that it would be most fitting if the last thing that I read before catastrophe was something on Fafblog, and the last thing that I wrote was a detailed critical piece about, say, a comic book.

Posted by on 10/03 at 02:40 PM
As a Cubs fan, the best I can do is make a list of Baseball teams I do not want to win:
1. White Sox 2. Cardinals 3. Yankees 4. Mets
5. Astros [...] 31. Pirates.

Hockey? I suppose you mean Ice Hockey ?

(if this doesn’t get me banned, what will?)

Posted by on 10/03 at 02:55 PM
Oh, what a craven bunch of liberals we have here. First it’s Mitchell with his cruise missile liberal talk of a “Wagner-Moses axis” and his oh-so-discerning sneer about the world being a complicated place. The world is most certainly not a complicated place. What part of “we are all Tigers now” doesn’t Mitchell understand?

And then there’s Rich, claiming that he “implicitly” laughs at the Poor Man. No doubt he does so vigorously and passionately as well. But this is not a time for half-measures and Fafbloggy deviationism. It is time, instead, to glorify the revolutionary resistance of the Poor Man Institute for Freedom and Democracy and a Pony.

Posted by Michael on 10/03 at 02:57 PM
(if this doesn’t get me banned, what will?)

Try impersonating the Troll of Sorrow, Christian! That does it every time.

Posted by Michael on 10/03 at 02:58 PM
Well, okay: the all-important Koufax Mensch Clause has been invoked, so I will forgive you, Mitchell.

Posted by on 10/03 at 02:59 PM
As someone who is a semi-fan of Sabermetrics - the proper. mathematical treatment of baseball - I am glad to indulge your indulgence of baseball playoff blogging. Since I have no love or hate relationship with any of this year’s teams (now that the Statute of Limitations has lapsed on the categorical imperative to hate the Dodgers due to the presence of Tommy Lasorda*) - will just indulge a couple of nostalgia trips on items that you mention.

1) Great fondness for the late ‘70s/early 80s Yanks - highlight was the “Graig Nettles Game” in ‘78 over the Dodgers(*see above.) [As an Indians fan that was my post-season fun in those days - cheering on ex-Indian players - Nettles, Chambliss, Tiant etc.]

2) (though not quite as bad as Royals-Cardinals ‘85).
Ah yes, the “Joaquin Andujar Memorial Goodbye, St. Louis Game”. Too bad the scary, psycho Joaquin was what most people remember - while living in Houston, I came to appreciate the endearing, whacky Joaquin.

In the meantime, don’t confuse your SNLVA (Support Neutral Lineup-adjusted Value Added) with your VORP (Value Over Replacement Player).

*I will grant Tommy Lasorda that he did give great rant. If you’ve never heard the Dave Kingman 3-homerun one, it’s an f***ing classic.

Posted by on 10/03 at 03:33 PM
Just root for the team that maximizes virtue; it worked in ‘86.

Mr. Puchalsky, I fervently recommend a viewing of the “Pedophilia” episode of Brasseye. You can probably find it on the freetubes, although I strongly condemn such behavior and question the fitness to rule of those who engage in it.

Posted by on 10/03 at 03:58 PM
LAD over NYM
SD over STL

OAK over MIN
NYY over DET

LAD over SD
OAK over NYY

OAK over LAD

Posted by on 10/03 at 04:22 PM
Curses, foiled again!

Inspector Berube (25) has seen my sneering face from almost 3,000 miles away. I know he watches me through a camera hidden deep inside my computer and installed by the MLA, a far more dangerous organization than the NSA, CIA or even NBA...I will put on sunglasses next time I sit in front of the computer so the Inspector will not recognize me. Yes, yes, that will work...most excellently.

“Go Dodgers,” he whispered to Mets fans wondering about the hobbling Beltran.

Posted by Mitchell Freedman on 10/03 at 04:33 PM
Wow. Except for the OAK part, blah’s predictions are almost pure evil.

Posted by on 10/03 at 04:36 PM
For the third time in four years, the Phillies teased us by staying in the Wild Card race until the last weekend.

In 2003 the Marlins killed us in the last weekend series, then shocked the world by winning the World Series over the Yankees.

Last year the Astros passed us on the last Sunday and went on to lose in the World Series to the White Sox.

This year the Dodgers inched by us on the last Sunday.

Hide the sharp objects in my house, please. It ain’t easy being a baseball fan in Philly.

So once again I could give a rat’s behind who wins the World Series as I wallow in my misery, my cheesteak and Yuengling Lager on the bar in front of me as I watch all those teams I hate in the playoffs…

[Cough, Cough...the Yankees are due.]

Posted by mat on 10/03 at 04:38 PM
If the Yankees don’t win, it will only be due to the negative, liberal New York sportswriters, and the unwillingness of the weak-minded and soft Yankee fans to stay the course throughout the playoffs.

Posted by on 10/03 at 05:05 PM
Well, okay: the all-important Koufax Mensch Clause has been invoked,

I have it on good authority that there is no such thing as the Koufax Mensch Clause.

Captcha: “clear,” as in “Tom Cruise asked me to hold these two soup cans.”

Posted by Chris Clarke on 10/03 at 06:09 PM
Oh, what a craven bunch of liberals we have here.

I suppose if there were conservatives here they would be discoursing on the relative merits of the capital outlay of George S in his Randian selfish quest to achieve total and complete dominance of MLB. Some of them might suggest that the poverty of the upper Midwest teams represents the benefits of too much affirmative action in baseball (TV revenue sharing and such--isn’t the series on Fox afterall?) and that those franchises are undeserving of the special attention. Of course all things CA are to be castigated as liberal, leftwing, commie/pinko insanity (just look at those A’s uniforms and those stupid stripeless Dodgers). The captcha word is “white” as in all that is well and good on Fox and Clear Channel programming when discussing the behaviors of other good white southern boys.

Posted by on 10/03 at 06:26 PM
The Padres took the season series from the Dodgers 13-5! If the Dodgers deseve to be there, so do the Pads.

Posted by on 10/03 at 09:55 PM
The Cardinals are going all the way this year.

Don’t you guys get it? In the last two years the Cardinals won more games than anyone, only to founder in the playoffs. This year La Russa decided his team had to play with the season on the line right until the end, and be everyone’s underdogs. And so he kept sending the hapless Jason Marquis (he with the ERA of over six) out there, left Carpenter in the game when he obviously was out of gas, etc. It’s all the plan.

Who cares if they lost a bunch of games in September and almost blew the title? the postseason is a new season, and the cards are primed. I for one am looking forward to seeing the rookie Wainwright blow the winning fastball past Derek Jeter.

Posted by on 10/04 at 12:04 AM
I grew up in LA and was eight years old when the Dodgers moved there for the 1958 season. I’ve rooted for them since, though since I’ve lived in Seattle for thirty years and have seen my enthusiasm for the Bums wane over the years for my beloved Mariners. Well, the M’s went nowhere this year. I’m left with the Dodgers.

As a lad, I saw the late years of the Boys of Summer: Snider, Hodges, Gilliam, Furillo, even Newcombe as he was collapsing. Fond memories. I went to the third game of the ‘59 series and saw Larry Sherry dominate the White Sox. Ah, memories...excuse for my sentimental feelings!

Posted by SeattleDan on 10/04 at 12:36 AM
SeattleDan, nice to see you here as well as that Felber place! Even better to find you a fellow Dodgers fan! We moved to LA in 1959 and I heard my first baseball games on KFI, in the dulcet tones of the sainted Vin Scully and the sadly-departed Jerry Doggett.

blah wants a rubber match, it appears. The Oaklands beat the Angelenos in 1974, but then the Angelenos beat the Oaklands in 1988 (Ah, blessed Kirk Gibson!).

Posted by Linkmeister on 10/04 at 02:27 AM
From #12- Still, it does give me great pleasure to know that if the Dodgers win, it will irritate A’s and Giants fans no end.

Actually Brian, most A’s fans don’t give a rat’s ass about the Dodgers. Dodger/LA-hatin’ is a Giant Fans’ thing. Hell, I’ve even seen Giants fans at A’s games try to get that “Beat L-A!” chant going in Oakland during interleague, and it’s pretty pathetic. You may personally know a few A’s fans who are still holding some grudge against LA for 1988, but they are a small minority. A’s fans by and large hold their venom for the yankees, and in the NL, for the Giants.

Posted by Oaktown Girl on 10/04 at 05:19 AM
Well, after game one, I think Chris (39) is onto something. Hell, it worked for the White Sox last year—play .300 ball in September, squander a seemingly unsquanderable division lead, then win the World Series. Very shrewd, very shrewd. Keeps everyone on their toes.

Posted by Michael on 10/04 at 10:09 AM
The key to picking the playoffs is, of course, the Ex-Cub factor. Here are the numbers

A’s vs Twins
Twins 2, A’s 0

Cardinals vs. Padres
Padres 3, Cards 1

Tigers vs. Yankees
Yanks 2, Tigers 1

Dodgers vs. Mets
Mets 3 Dodgers 4

So it looks like the Cards falling to the A’s in the series

Posted by on 10/04 at 10:37 AM
"Sure Marquis pitched more innings and it’s fun to belittle him as a “marquee” player, but the worst pitcher in baseball this year had to be Jose Lima, which might be Spanish for “start a fire"--4 starts, 17 innings, 22 runs. And he did that work for the Mets, who tied for the most wins in baseball this season.--George

I have to stick up for Marquis here--he is still the worst pitcher around. Lima’s four starts are akin to a pitcher having a low ERA for four starts and then making a claim for the ERA crown. To be truly terrible, you have to be in it for the long haul, ready to trudge to the mound for three or four innings every five days to serve up batting practice fodder to appreciative batters. Marquis had the worst ERA for a qualifying (enough innings to qualify for the lowest ERA) Cardinals pitcher since 1929. He also, somewhat amazingly, came close to leading the league in wins and also have the highest ERA, thus proving the unimportance of wins as a pitching stat. Marquis is historically bad; Lima just made a few bad starts, nothing that Mark Mulder couldn’t have matched after his rotator cuff shredded.

Posted by on 10/04 at 10:55 AM
So Eric Alterman sends readers over here to Bérubé-land (new theme park as featured in the soon to be published graphix novella: Repeated Transgressions) from Media Matters--
Read this stuff too: Michael Bérubé’s blog, here, is beyond crazy but in a good way. Buy his book, but read it only if you want to.
--, and they find a thread on baseball playoffs intermixed with milder political criticism than normal. I mean, come on, there is not even a Kirby Olson comment in this thread. Crazy is an understatement.

Posted by on 10/04 at 12:59 PM
I am rooting for the Mets myself.

Speaking as a New Englander who went to Columbia around the same time as Michael… I find the Yankees Suck thing a little odd. The Yankees don’t suck (although they did for a few years in the early 1970s and later in the mid 1980s): they’re quite a good ball club, actually

And I don’t even feel comfortable dissing them because they have too much money and are owned by an eccentric billionaire: the Sox have too much money too and they are jointly owned by TWO eccentric billionaires.

Finally, I would like to mention that the only two insurmountable records in baseball are both held by NY Yankees: Jack Chesbro’s record for most games won in a season (41) and even more amazingly, Joe Torre’s record for most seasons as George Steinbrenner’s manager (11 and counting...)

Posted by Timothy Horrigan on 10/04 at 01:02 PM
73. Professor Bérubé justly thunders against those who, by any art, contrive the injury of the traffic in blogs.
74. But much more does he intend to thunder against those who use the pretext of blogs to contrive the injury of holy love and truth.
75. To think Bérubé’s blogs so great that they could absolve a man even if he had committed an impossible sin and violated the Mother of God—this is madness.
76. We say, on the contrary, that Bérubé’s blogs are not able to remove the very least of venial sins, so far as its guilt is concerned.
77. It is said that even St. Peter, if he were now A blogger, could not bestow greater graces; this is blasphemy against St. Peter and against Professor Bérubé.
78. We say, on the contrary, that even the present blogger, and any blogger at all, has greater graces at his disposal; to wit, the Gospel, powers, gifts of healing, etc., as it is written in I. Corinthians xii.
79. To say that the cross, emblazoned with Bérubé’s arms, which is set up [by the preachers of comments], is of equal worth with the Cross of Marx, is blasphemy.
80. The bishops, curates and theologians who allow such talk to be spread among the people, will have an account to render.
81. This unbridled preaching of blogs makes it no easy matter, even for learned men, to rescue the reverence due to Professor Bérubé from slander, or even from the shrewd questionings of the laity.
82. To wit:—“Why does not Professor Bérubé empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a University? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.”
83. Again:—“Why are mortuary and anniversary masses for the dead continued, and why does he not return or permit the withdrawal of the endowments founded on their behalf, since it is wrong to pray for the redeemed?”
84. Again:—“What is this new piety of God and Professor Bérubé, that for money they allow a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God, and do not rather, because of that pious and beloved soul’s own need, free it for pure love’s sake?”
85. Again:—“Why are the penitential canons long since in actual fact and through disuse abrogated and dead, now satisfied by the granting of comments, as though they were still alive and in force?”
86. Again:—“Why does not Professor Bérubé, whose wealth is to-day greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one University of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?”
87. Again:—“What is it that Professor Bérubé remits, and what participation does he grant to those who, by perfect contrition, have a right to full remission and participation?”
88. Again:—“What greater blessing could come to academia than if Professor Bérubé were to do a hundred times a day what he now does once, and bestow on every believer these remissions and participations?”
89. “Since Professor Bérubé, by his blogs, seeks the salvation of souls rather than money, why does he suspend the comments and blogs granted heretofore, since these have equal efficacy?”
90. To repress these arguments and scruples of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose academia and Professor Bérubé to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Marxians unhappy.
91. If, therefore, blogs were preached according to the spirit and mind of Professor Bérubé, all these doubts would be readily resolved; nay, they would not exist.
92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Marx, “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace!
93. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Marx, “Cross, cross,” and there is no cross!
94. Marxians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Marx, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell;
95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace.

Posted by Kirby Olson on 10/04 at 02:08 PM
Now that the Twins are down 2-0 to Oakland I am forced to endorse mathpants’ idea way up there in comment 1. This is looking altogether too much like of a “turning the tables” from 2002, when Oakland burned up the league and the Twins knocked them out of the playoffs. And I loved MAJeff’s story!

Posted by on 10/04 at 06:09 PM
I hope Kirby didn’t nail that one to his monitor.

Posted by on 10/04 at 07:17 PM
(There is, if not joy, then mild pleasure, in Fogville, for the mighty Nomar has struck out)

Posted by on 10/04 at 07:21 PM
Uh, Michael… HOCKEY!!!

Posted by on 10/04 at 09:18 PM
Go Tigers. We are all Tigers now.

And about damn time, I say. Such a relief not to have to make nice with all the A’s and Giants fans herebouts the rest of the season.

Posted by on 10/05 at 01:08 AM
I come late to this discussion, but I must seek advice concerning a baseball-related existential crisis. For thirty-plus years I have had an AL team and an NL team. However, I have recently made the painful decision that I can no longer be a Reds fan because of the owner’s financial support of the “Swift Boat” people. The Marge Schott years were tough, but this was the proverbial final straw. I say a sad goodbye to Junior and the boys.

So I am without an NL team. I’m considering becoming a free agent and auctioning my fandom off to the highest bidder, but I am taking nominations, with the following conditions:

--I’m not really a west-coast guy.
--I’m not willing to put up with Cubs pain (I’ve had enough of that from the Red Sox--my AL team).
--The Braves are boring (though I do like those Joneses).
--I’m somewhat interested in the Mets, the *other* NY team, though memories of ‘86 still haunt me.
--I’m somewhat interested in the Nats, though I have trouble with the idea of wearing a W on my head (hopefully only a temporary problem)

Any nominations? I’m willing to entertain any good arguments and/or offers.

Posted by John on 10/05 at 04:36 PM
For the enjoyment of Motor Citians of a certain age:

We’re all be-hind our base-ball-team /
Go get ‘em, Tigers...

Posted by Nell on 10/05 at 07:16 PM

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