First a few belated comments on the ALCS. I had some mixed emotions on the Sox remarkable comeback. Cleveland has always been my 2nd city of sports. My father grew up there and was a devoted Indians, Browns and Ohio State fan. He loves to recite the entire starting lineup of the 1948 Indians and has told me at least 100 times the story of his going to a double header in 1948 where Bob Feller pitched the first game and his favorite player of all time, Satchel Paige, pitched the second. I have been to games at the now demolished Cleveland Municipal Stadium with my grandfather. Cleveland has very good baseball fans as you can see in the infamous Beer Night of 1974. At the same time I’m still pissed at Ohio for the 2004 Presidential election. Now Cleveland is a very strong union town and I’m sure they went for Kerry but that does little to soften my anger for the entire state. Plus there is the Indians logo issue which just doesn’t play well in 2007. So of course I wanted the Sox to win but certainly bad that the much maligned Cleveland had to face yet another humiliation.

Now for last night's game it is amazing how different my attitude is towards the Sox since 2004. Gone are the days when I would expect a spectacular collapse that would torment me through the winter. I'm by no means overconfident but I no longer expect to lose. Last night with the Sox down 1-0 I was calmly waiting to take the lead. And when Okajima and Papelbon came in to relieve Schilling I would have been much more surprised to see them blow the lead than get the save.

This is obviously a very good Boston team and the series is looking very good. Yet I'm not quite ready to call it over because I really expected the Sox to win the first 2 games with Beckett and Schilling starting. One more win by a pitcher other than Beckett and it is over because the Rockies are not going to beat him. I like our chances tomorrow night because teams tend to not fair well against Matsuzaka when facing him for the first time.

So all in all to this point this is the most enjoyable post season I've ever had even though the Fox network and Taco Bell are trying very hard to destroy it. This 'steal a base and America gets a taco' crap is beyond annoying. The obviously scripted shots of Royce Clayton talking about it in the dugout are a real shame. Not to be a whiny killjoy but does America really need a free taco? Can I send my taco to Sudan where they could actually use it? And one wonders what would happen if Cialis ran the same promotion and if Manny Ramirez hit a homerun, half of America gets a chemically induced boner.