So the Red Sox are in the running for the Twins' lefty, Johan Santana, arguably the best pitcher in baseball.
That's good. They're also thinking of giving up Jacoby Ellsbury in exchange. That stinks. Trading away a dynamic young centerfielder with speed to burn, a good bat, and who's already proven himself in October for a 29-year old hurler who may have already peaked is NOT a good trade. Ellsbury is not a could-be, not a prospect; he has arrived. I know what Theo Epstein is thinking, " Well, I've got Beckett and Dice-K and Papelbon, but I've also got three 41-year olds on the staff, plus a lot of little kids. I need to balance it out with a middle-aged (in baseball terms) guy."  The reality is that the best trade would be Coco Crisp, Jon Lester OR Clay Bucholtz (but not both)
and prospects for Santana, with the Sox then giving Santana a contract extension in the $150 million range.

            But Ellsbury?  That's giving away too much, and it's unnecessary since the Yankees and Angels both withdrew their own offers, leaving the Sox as the only suitors for Santana. If the Twins insist on getting Ellsbury in return, Epstein could offer them Crisp instead, the Twins could protest, followed by Theo saying something like, "OK,
and your other options ARE???"  Five years ago, I would have said, " Ok, we haven't won a World Series since 1918, give the Twins what they want, we HAVE to make that trade." But now, after two titles in four years, that urgency just isn't there anymore. Let someone else sell the farm for Santana. 


            By the way, major props to the Detroit Tigers for the Miguel Cabrera-Dontrelle Willis trade. Besides those two, they've now got Edgar Renteria, Sheffield, Bonderman, Leyland, etc, etc. It's an extremely likable
team.

 

            Those of you of a certain age will remember this great ad from Miller High Life. Every year, I seem to have a more difficult time getting into the Christmas spirit for some reason, but this commercial always gets me there. I hope it does the same for you!  Happy Holidays.

Looks like that engine from Rothman Technologies may not be so sucessful after all.  Sorry, my bad.

   

      I found an interesting website called the Spirit of Ma'at.  On it, there's an article detailing the work of Rothman
Technologies, a small Canadian company, in enabling an ordinary combustion engine, just like the one in your car, to run on a mixture of tap water and salt. A cheap metal alloy is thrown into the water, causing the hydrogen to bubble up and feed itself into a tube leading to the engine block. The catalyst in this process, the alloy, is as I said
cheap: an engine could run for 4 hours on a strip of alloy costing one-half of one cent Canadian. Besides ending our dependency on Middle East oil, or any oil, it would cause virtually no pollution. Check out the article here.  And check out the accompanying video here.

    Maybe it will work. Let's hope.

Say, whatever happened to that Yankee dynasty that I've hearing so much about??

Or how about that Steelers dynasty? They basically won the Super Bowl in 2002, you know.
Except that they didn't.

This Red Sox championship is about vindication for me. About proving to all those doubters out there
(you know who you are) that 2004 was no fluke. That these weren't the Tom Yawkey Red Sox. That that racist
Pinky Higgins was not walking through that door.  That a certain notion of Yankee greatness died on October
20, 2004 and has not yet been resurrected. That things truly had changed.


So much for curses. The Sox are now what we fans always wanted them to be: a winning franchise with people in charge who want to field the best possible team every year. We got our wish. All doubt has been removed.

CONGRATULATIONS  TO THE 2007 WORLD CHAMPION RED SOX!


Now if we can only convice Mike Lowell not to sign with the Yankees.

        Well, the Red Sox took a 2-0 lead in the World Series last night, outlasting the Colorado Rockies 2-1. This was right after the Sox demolished the Rocks 13-1 in Game One. It's amazing how many different ways this team can beat you. They can beat you with the home run, with the stolen base, they can beat you with the starting pitching, with the closers, with the singles hitting, and they can win by simply giving the ball to Curt Schilling and asking him to think of something.

        One of the things nowadays that separates the good baseball teams from the great is middle-relief pitching.
For Boston, that means Hideki Okajima. Brought to the Red Sox seemingly as just someone for Dice-K to talk to, Okajima is now arguably the best set-up reliever in the American Laegue. Check out these post-season stats: 9 2/3 innings, 5 hits, zero runs, 9 strikeouts, an ERA  of, as Dean Wormer would say,  zero........point.......zero!!
You can't put a price on the ability to come into a game in the sixth inning, say, when your starter has worn out, with two on or with the bases loaded, and bail everybody else out. And he did it superbly last night in relief of Schilling in the 6th. I figured that someone, and it might as well be me, gave Hideki Okajima his due.