I am a Yankees fan, a passionate, die-hard Yankees fan.  A Yankees victory can make my day and a Yankees loss can spoil it. As a Yankees fan, I can imagine no greater sports related trauma than watching the Red Sox come back from 3-0 to eliminate the Yankees in 2004.… Read full post »

The Phillies played a gutsy Series, particularly considering that they wound up with only one viable starting pitcher. But the Yankees proved themselves once again the best team in baseball and, with 27 world championships, 3x the number of any other club, they remain the most successful franchise in… Read full post »

It would be easy, and not entirely incorrect, to see Game 3 hinging on the veteran guts, tenacity, and calm of Andy Pettite versus the fragility and nerves of Cole Hamels. Both men feature good, but less than dominating fastballs, curveballs that neither was able to locate for strikes, effective chan… Read full post »

In earlier posts, I have outlined why tonight's game is probably the crucial moment in the series. Now I'd like to outline why it should be such a compelling contest.

1. The Mirror Effect

 Everybody has been pointing to the almost uncanny parallels between these two teams, both in their strength… Read full post »

On paper, the Yankees just secured a significant point of advantage in the Series. The inability of Cliff Lee to pitch on three days reast--noted in my earlier post--has prompted Charlie Manuel to announce that Joe Blanton will be his fourth game starter. Now all of this could work out well,… Read full post »

Going into the Series, A.J. Burnett was perceived as a possible weak point in the Yankees' rotation. Despite his great stuff, he often has meltdowns in the middle innings, during which he gives up lots of walks and allows runners to advance via the wild pitch. No such problems tonight. In… Read full post »

The winner of this year's world series will not only be the official champions of 2009, but the mythical team of the decade. The winning team will have taken two rings this decade, matching the total of the Red Sox. If the Yankees win, however, they will have four pennants to… Read full post »

Papelbon blows up in the ninth and baseball's most overrated team is suddenly exposed. Everything I said about this series in an earlier post, except the performance by Bucholz, proved to be absolutely the case. I can only add that if the Yankees collapsed in this fashion, the ridicule would be… Read full post »

As someone who voted for Obama, I have to say it is disgraceful, almost slanderous, to compare his peace prize to that given the Peace Moms of Northern Ireland. They did not win the award for their charisma, as Joan Walsh rather stupidly claims,  but for their quite strenuous efforts. However… Read full post »

It was the best of times (for the Yankees); it was the worst of times (for the Red Sox). 

For the moment, anyway, the natural order has been restored. New Yorkers can do what they do best: wallow in triumphalism. Bostonians can do what they do best: wallow in ressentiment. … Read full post »

1. Beckett is not that dominant this season. Yes, he has been a great post-season pitcher, but he has always been subject to off-years. In the past, those off-years have meant his team didn't reach the playoffs. Don't expect him to be much better in October than he has been in… Read full post »

Chris Brown received 5 years... probation, that's right probation, for his sickeningly brutal assault on Rhianna.

 In other news, Plaxico Burris shoots himself in the leg and gets two years hard time, while Michael Bloomberg tries to ensure severity by denouncing Mr. Burress in impromp… Read full post »

(Update: Tessa Oberg's family, having read the eulogy, wished to have her real name restored, a request of which I am very proud. ) 

I teach Irish literature for a living. I have taught in the Ivy league and I have taught at an elite private university in the South. I now… Read full post »

There is a saying, "We parents of autistic children want them to have long, fulfilled lives and to die one heartbeat after we do."

As the father of an autistic boy, I have learned that we don't care for people because we love them so much as we love people… Read full post »

I notice that I have an Air France ad plastered in the center of my blog. I'm not sure whether I object to ads per se. I do know that the airline industry is appalling. I do know that since 9/11 airline service personnel seem to be under some collective delusion that… Read full post »

My take on what is at stake in the dust-up of Dennis Loo, otherwise known around these parts as the  scourge of Obama, and Frank Apisa,  proud Obama footsoldier.

During the nomination campaign, the Hillary Clinton supporters, of which I was decidedly not one, regularly complained that all O… Read full post »

Now that Federer has finally won the French Open, many people are ready to pronounce him the greatest male tennis player of all time. They are soooo wrong. Their argument seems mainly based on a comparison with Pete Sampras, with whom Federer shares the record for most grand slams tournaments won.… Read full post »

Submitted for your consideration:

Over the last twenty-five years or so there has been increasing pressure on parents in the US to involve their children in early, earlier, earliest education: to enter them into pre-schools at the earliest possible age, to to acquire and apply early reading programs… Read full post »

Dick Cheney's daughter has recently taken up the cudgels for the old man--that is when he is not busy embarassing himself. This is almost literally a lipstick on a pig strategy.

Today she inadvertently said something interesting--and revealing. In her comments on Obama's Cairo speech, available on p… Read full post »

On Stellaa's provocative blog on Judge Sotomayor and the culture wars, bstrangely asked me to clarify waht I meant when I suggested that the Judge's now notorious line was "racially normative" and should beretracted by her. Respecting bstrangely as I do, and because I am in general a supporter of the… Read full post »

Perhaps we should begin by remembering what America is or was designed to be. The European nation-states from which the US derived were based on organic communities of blood, language and culture--in sum ethnicities. As such, to defend a France or an Austria is to defend its people. Protect the commu… Read full post »

Last time I checked, Christ said "Suffer the Little Children to Come to Me," not Make the Little Children Suffer who Come to Me.  But that's exactly how the Irish Catholic Church, evidently the most benighted major church of the twentieth century, performed their sacred mission. The report… Read full post »

Certain contributors to OS have recently added insult, quite literally, to the injury Mr. Corbett has recently received from the courts for deeming creationism/creation science "superstitious nonsense" in his public school classroom.    http://open.salon.com/blog/corribean/2009/05/09/d… Read full post »

Just following orders. It is perhaps the most famous defense for state sponsored crime in modern political history. It is the cliff notes version of the main defense mounted by the military agents of Germany's racial purification policies. And just as famously, we in America and in the rest of the… Read full post »