A few impromptu thoughts on the base-ball matches of the past week:

- It goes without saying that Grady Little is a dope. I watched the fateful 8th inning unfold with shocked disbelief, amazed that Little would let Pedro Martinez die on the mound as Yankee after Yankee pounded his movement-less breaking stuff and dying fastballs all over the stadium. This is an old Red Sox tradition of stupid managerial decisions - from starting Denny Galehouse in the 1948 playoff game to Don Zimmer mismanaging the pitching staff in 1978 to John McNamara not putting in a defensive substitute for the immobile Bill Buckner in 1986. That's why I hate this "Red Sox are cursed" business - when you keep bashing your own fingers into a pulp with a hammer, no sensible person blames it on "The Curse of Home Depot."

- The Steve Bartman incident just goes to show you what White Sox fans have been saying for years - Cubs fans, by and large, are more interested in grabbing souvenirs and downing Old Styles than actually following a winning club. Maybe a near miss like this will finally shake Cubdom of that whole goofy "gosh, they're losers, but we love 'em anyway" thing, but I doubt the Tribune Company would want to let go of a marketing technique that has served them well (and allowed them to duck responsibility from fielding a competitive club). And yes, I did indulge in a bit of schadenfreude over the Cub loss. Pathetic, maybe, but when you root for a team that last won a playoff series 61 years before your birth, you have to take your thrills where you find them.

- That "God Bless America/Take Me Out to the Ball Game/Cotton Eye Joe/Oye Como Va/New York, New York/Afternoon Delight/Nights in White Satin" medley they play at the 7th inning stretch of Yankee games - could that be a little more self-indulgent, please? Could we get Rick Wakeman to do a 19 minute keyboard solo? Maybe an interpretative dance salute to Kevin Maas? There's no better way to express your patriotism than by having a huge, expensive masturbation session in front of 57,000 people. It's like measuring someone as a true American based on the size of the novelty hat they buy on July 4th.

- Thanks to the miracle of constant commercial repetition, I now have the following phrases etched into my memory:
"Standing on the corner, watching all the guys go by."
"And now for ze best part, he's reeech!"
"It's OK, I had Subway."
"His father is the DISTRICT ATTORNEY!"
Long after I'm permanently ensconced in some cheap, fly by night nursing home and I've forgotten my name and the names of everything and everyone around me, I'll be muttering those phrases over and over again.