Red Sox

First, the ivy climbing toward the peaks of many of the tall, spindly ash trees that ring our yard has gone scarlet, one of the better years for color.

Secondly, the Boston Red Sox make their way into the American League playoffs once again, making 2009 the sixth out of the last seven years; their two Wold Series wins achieved when they enter the end-of-the-year sweepstakes as the wild card entry, as this year.

That doesn't mean I'm happy, though.

The Boston Red Sox are a much more boring place without Manny. In the past, you could depend on a few goofy Manny shots to relieve the between-pitch boredom of baseball, but now you get the bland, unemotional Jason Bay, instead.

Don't get me wrong... Bay is a decent player, but he never sticks out his tongue at the camera and has yet to take a leak or make a phone call inside the Green Monster.

What else could he say, in all honesty. Was Manny just being too honest?

This is another one of these media fueled controversies. No surprise, Dan Shaughnessy of the Globe--separated at birth from his twin, Bozo the Clown--sticks his pudgy puss smack in the middle of it. Is there anyone out there in Beantown nott sick and tired of Danny-Boy's tirades against minority athletes?

He's as predictable as Rush Limbaugh, and twice as lame.

Oh, Dan can sure write. He puts the words together quite well. Maybe too well... stuck on himself, he can't resist making up stories when there's no story there.

In Dan's defense, every one in the media these days does the same thing... they make up news and then try to put themselves in the middle of it.

My summertime family, the Boston Red Sox, won the big prize for the second time in my lifetime.

The first one was sweet, but this one was even sweeter. I liked this team more... a lot more then the 2004 crew. Perhaps the Nation is now more in concert: team management, the players, the fans and even the media. I was never a fan of that "Cowboy Up" schtick, and just like this team better. I think it was the kids. There were a lot of kids playing well, the hope of the future, and interesting side dramas: John Lester's recovery from lymphoma, Beckett's rise to dominance, Schilling re-inventing himself, and the development of Hideki Okajima as an All-Star and one of the premiere set-up men in the game.