Sports: October 2007 Archives

In 1986, the Patriots lost in the Super Bowl, the Red Sox lost in the World Series, and the Celtics won the World Championship.

In 2004, the Patriots won the Super Bowl and the Red Sox won the World Series.

In 2007, we very well could see the Patriots and Sox pair up again, and there's a decent chance the Celtics will follow up with another World Championship of their own.

So that leaves my beloved Bruins. It reminds me of a quote from the very first Simpsons episode ever:

"The Patriots are still winning, dominant as ever. The Celtics picked up some major stars, the Red Sox won the World Series, and the Bruins ... well, we love the Bruins."

The Bs have a decent team, but it's hard to see how they could seriously challenge for the Cup without some major improvements. I'll keep watching and hoping, though.

So in 2004 I predicted the Red Sox would win in 2006, using a mathematical formula. I was wrong. So I realized that my formula was off. Because the length of difference between last year won and the pivotal year of beating St. Louis crossed millennia, we had to add an extra year.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
 
# script to predict when the next Boston team championship
# will occur after either:
#
# * winning first championship in team history, against St. Louis
#
# OR
#
# * winning first championship since St. Louis existed as a team
 
my %boston_team = (
    # team        last year won,  year beat St. Louis
    Celtics   => [1957,           1957],
    Bruins      => [1941,           1970],
    Patriots  => [2002,           2002],
    'Red Sox' => [1918,           2004],
);
 
for my $team (sort { $boston_team{$a}[1] <=> $boston_team{$b}[1] } keys %boston_team) {
    printf "%s: %d\n", $team,
        predict_year(@{$boston_team{$team}});
 
}
 
sub predict_year {
    my($last_won, $beat_stl) = @_;
    my $base_year = $beat_stl + 2;
    $base_year += int($beat_stl/1000) - int($last_won/1000); # adjust for difference
    return $base_year;
}
 
__END__

This formula correctly "predicts" the next championship of each team:

Celtics: 1959
Bruins: 1972
Patriots: 2004
Red Sox: 2007

I CALLED IT!!!!!</colbert>

Joe Buck said that tonight's game was the longest ever 9-inning postseason game at 4 hours, 19 minutes.

Well, I happened to remember that Games 3, 4, and 5 of the 2004 ALCS were all about 3/4-hour apart. Game 3 was about 4:15 and was 9 innings, and Game 5 was about 5:00 in extra innings, and Game 6 was about 5:45 in extra innings.

So I looked it up. They were 4:20, 5:02, and 5:49.

So no, in fact, Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS was a longer 9-inning postseason game. Maybe he meant World Series history? Whatever. He's a liar!

Anyway, this should be instructive to the Red Sox, regardless: the last time this happened -- a 4:20-ish 9-inning game on the road for a team to take a 3-0 series lead -- the team down 0-3 eneded up winning the series.

Go Sox!

Tonight Justin Upton clearly violated the rules. It was absolutely interference. The rules call for that play to be ruled, effectively, a double play. The umps did the right thing, no question.

And the fans either don't know the rules or don't care: they proceeded to showe the field with debris.

(Not that I can blame the fans: even D-Backs manager Bob Melvin later said the slide was not illegal, because Upton "could get the base." But that's not what the rule says. Most of the commentators are wrong too, they are saying the slide would have been legal if he didn't raise his arm, but that's not true.)

Some may say, hey Pudge, the Red Sox fans did that in the 1999 ALCS. The difference is that the umps had, in that game -- for the second time that series -- called Jose Offerman out after "Knobby" completely missed the tag. And when Nomar was incorrectly called out at first, the fans lost it.

I am not saying the fans were right to throw stuff on the field. They weren't. I am saying they were right that the umps were wrong (and horribly wrong).

And frankly, what the Sox fans did in the 1999 ALCS (against the Yankees) helped improve officiating in baseball. That was one of the events that forced the MLB to adopt various new procedures, especially the "ump huddle."

Incidentally, A-Rod earlier this year, infamously, did almost the exact same slide against Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox. He was not called for interference. He should have been. But since A-Rod is crying at home now, it's all good.

Please feel free to enjoy my new song, "Tim McCarver Blues."

See http://www.shutuptimmccarver.com/ and http://www.firejoemorgan.com/search/label/tim%20mccarver for more information about the evil that is Tim McCarver, Color Commentator.

I really dislike listening to Tim McCarver, and as a Red Sox fan, I am excited about the ALCS, but also dreading it. AND THAT IS NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE. TIM.

For more information, see http://www.shutuptimmccarver.com and http://www.firejoemorgan.com/search?label=tim%20mccarver

This is the Longest Concert Evar, starring Pudge. Send requests to concertrequest@pudge.net, or post them here.