Thank You, Red Sox...

for a fabulous season! Congratulations on winning the 2007 World Series!

I'm thankful the Sox swept the Rockies--I don't think I could have stayed up after midnight one more night!

So, this will be the last baseball blog of the season. I promise not to write anything about baseball until at least March. The funny thing is, I'm not really a baseball fan, it's just that baseball is such a part of our national identity, I can't possibly ignore it!

One thing I noticed about the playoffs, or perhaps it was just the camera work of the Fox network focusing on the faces of the players, there's a whole lotta of spitting goin' on! And gum chewing!
More so than in the population in general. I remember taking the New York subway in my youth and seeing the signs that said, "no spitting." Gross! I'd think. I still think it's gross, but obviously it's acceptable in the world of baseball. No spitting ordinances were an outgrowth of prevalence of tuberculosis in the last century. With drug resistent TB on the rise in the U.S., it might be wise to encourage our model baseball players to restrain from spitting. (Don't know much about TB? Look for this book the next time you visit the library: Tuberculosis by Kim R. Finer [J 616.995 FIN].)

Sorry, guys, I didn't mean to rain on your parade! I did enjoy the bubble gum prank played on Dice-K by Ortiz and Crisp. Did you see it? Someone placed a blown bubble on Dice-K's hat. He didn't notice and was quite surprised when it popped! Dice-K realized he'd been pranked and he loved it! What a fun bunch of guys. I hope the Sox enjoy their break. Come back in March--especially you, Mike Lowell!