Random Thoughts...

While I was watching the Red Sox-Indians game last night:

· What the hell does Fox’s “Actober” promo mean anyway? They just misspelled October. I’m guessing that www.October.com was taken and some Fox suit had the genius idea to rename the month with an A.

· Did Tim McCarver mispronounce Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro’s name or is that really how you pronounce it? McCarver said, “Sha-pyro.” I thought it was “Sha-peero.” And if he did mispronounce it, can that be considered remotely anti-semitic?

· What and how big are those bumps growing out of Kenny Lofton’s temples.

· 2^nd Kenny Lofton thought. He’s got the number, 7, and now he’s got the odd facial features and creaky body of clutch baseball post-season star Otis Nixon.

· Josh Beckett is a big game pitcher. The Red Sox have the two biggest playoff pitchers on their staff, and they are pitching games 5 and 6 facing elimination. Watch out.

· Best part of the Red Sox win is getting to see Schilling again in game 6.

· This goes back to the game 4, but I was astounded, simply astounded, to see Tim Wakefield’s career rankings with the Red Sox. I mean, #3 in strikeouts? For a knuckleballer? And only three strikeouts away from surpassing Pedro Martinez and becoming #2…all-time?!! Speaking of which, he’s #2 all time in Red Sox wins? (actually 3^rd since, amazing coincidence, Clemens and Cy Young are tied for first at 192 Ws. Wakefield 3^rd all-time in innings pitched and 2^nd in games? How loooong has he been with the Red Sox?

· Forget instant replay, how about in the playoffs the league adds another outfield umpire – to the two that now keep an eye on the foul lines. Put him in deep centerfield and he can correctly call home runs that hit the top of the fence. How many more blown calls like game 5’s or Jeffrey Maier’s do we need before Bud comes to his senses on this sensible umpiring idea.

· Does anyone understand this pitch trax? During the Phillies-Rockies series, there’s the inside box and the outside box, but I don’t know what either of them mean since the announcers are usually saying that wherever the ball winds up is a strike.

· Speaking of which, it’s the 21^st century. Poker has lipstick cameras for card shots. Can’t TV figure out a way to put the centerfield camera directly in line with the pitcher and homeplate? The traditional offset position, just over the pitcher’s right shoulder….(why is it never the left shoulder?), makes it hard for viewers to tell if a pitch was too outside or inside – owing to the angle, wait for the more fancy term, parallax view (btw, a good Warren Beatty movie).

· At this high level and this late date in the season, you would think outfield communication would be handled well. But the Red Sox won in large part cause Grady Sizemore and the rightfielder didn’t communicate about who was catching the fly ball in right center. This happens more than you might think in the playoffs. Off the top of my head, there was a similar Bernie Williams-Bubba Crosby mix up that lead to a loss (against the Red Sox?) in a recent playoff series.

· Teachable moment: My learning to read five year-old was practicing her reading by trying to read the players names when the visuals came up. Only the Latino players and odd spellings of some of the names caused her quite a bit of confusion and I was unable to explain why Jhonny Peralta’s name is spelled so oddly. Or why “Julio Lugo” is pronounced “Hulio” and not “Joo-lio.” Gracias, America’s pastime.

· I have yet to hear a cogent explanation of why the throw that picked Ryan Howard off in game 2 of the Phillies-Rockies series wasn’t a balk.