Jenks. Jinxed?

Ah, the boys of October.

I knew the game was gonna be good when I heard Lou Rawls growl out the national anthem in that rough but silky south side baritone. It's the best version I've ever heard, I swear.

The game-winning homer in the bottom of 9th from the guy you least expect to deliver it - that's baseball, my friends, and that's why ya sit through 2-3.5 hours of torture. Just for that. For the thing you are praying for to actually happen right in front of your eyes. And then you scream and jump up and down and throw your cap in the air. And then you yell "Did you see that?" and then you take turns describing to your friends what you all just saw.

And the grand slam in the 7th wasn't too shabby, either.

On the down side: another bad call benefitting the Sox. Dye, who clearly thought the inside pitch hit his bat and was preparing for a foul ball call and other chance to bat, suddenly found himself toddling to first base rubbing his arm in mock pain after the ump ruled the ball had hit his arm. Not the bat. His arm. "Ow," he said, as he was awarded first base, "I guess that hit my arm."

As a tip to other WS fans, I should mention that I did put on my "nurse" rally cap just seconds before both home runs, so you might want to think about doing same if we get into hot water again. Spooney, amazingly, had never seen a rally cap before, so I demonstrated several variations to him. The "shark" was his favorite, although I've always had really good luck with the "nurse," myself.

I gotta say I HATE FOX. If you're going to drag out the game to nearly 4 hours, can you please do us the very small favor of making sure that all those commercials occur when the play has been stopped? Several times we missed plays because they were more concerned with making sure we saw that pickup truck piss itself for the fifteenth million fucking time. Har har. Funny for the first thirteen million times, assholes, and then, not so much.

And can we talk about that WebMD bullshit muscle chart? I'm sitting there looking at a drawing of a guy with his quadricep colored red (although they're calling it a hamstring, because apparently they don't have a drawing of the BACK of a guy...) for 4 minutes instead of watching live video of a manager pulling his pitcher? Why? Now, granted that the video is not that exciting, but it's better THAN LOOKING AT A DRAWING OF A GUY WITH THE WRONG MUSCLE COLORED IN.

And Hizzoner, the Mayor, who barely grunted his support when the Cubs so almost won the pennant, I swear, in 2003, is nearly beside himself with glee as his beloved Sox do his city proud.

Richard Daley, Jr., ever the defensive "white ethnic, " ever the boy who can never fill his father's shoes. Ah, Richie, Bridgeport wants you back, baby. You move to the south loop, you never write, you never call...comes a Saturday night and you don't cruise the streets no more, looking for polacks. You changed, Richie, you've changed. But ya stay true to your team, baby, and I gotta love ya for that.

In other words, it's a north side/south side thing.

Go Sox.