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This Red Sox team has been driving me crazy, seesawing between amazing and horrendous. I don't have a lot of optimism right now, especially after our dismal showing against Houston ... the team we meet in the first round of playoffs. Dear Red Sox, Please be amazing. Love always, A fan with no expectations

In between my infrequent posts, the Red Sox's postseason came and went. As Basil Fawlty says, blink and you missed it. It was a strange baseball season for Sox fans. In late June, it looked like another lost cause, and I drifted away, preferring binge-watching on Netflix to sitting through loss after loss. Then suddenly it all looked so possible. Boston got hot, Baltimore faded away. Forget about the wild card, we wrapped up the division with a tidy four-game margin. Then October comes, and the September Red Sox are nowhere to be found, the team back to its anemic June version. sigh The Sox's oh-for-three showing in the American League Division Series had me thinking a lot about the particular joys and heartbreaks of the game itself. Game 2 was a blow-out. Boston didn't show up, and there wasn't much suspense. But Games 1 and 3 were both close, and in baseball close games mean suspense, frustration, and missed opportunities. Game 3 was especially suspenseful, since it w...

Thank you and goodbye.

The Red Sox are cruising into the postseason, something I didn't think I'd see during the dog days of summer. Our beloved Big Papi is saying goodbye with a chart-topping season, fans all over the country enjoying a glut of Ortizmania. But truly, the most momentous baseball story this season is the farewell of Dodgers announcer Vin Scully. The man has been calling Dodgers' games -- solo -- for 67 seasons . And throughout, he's been setting a standard for excellence that no one else approaches. The Dodgers are my nominal "other team," but my love and appreciation of Scully has little to do with the Dodgers. I love baseball on the radio. As far as I'm concerned, it's the only thing radio is good for, but it's a perfect match. When I watch baseball on TV, I like to get the audio from the radio broadcast, and I've done that for as long as I can remember. My truly favourite radio baseball scenario is driving with Allan, preferably on a baseball road ...

Library smackdown ? Toronto Public Library vs. Kansas City Library, via Twitter .

The biggest surprise of the 2014 baseball postseason isn't the absence of both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. It isn't the Kansas City Royals, playing baseball in October for the first time since 1985. The biggest surprise of the 2014 postseason is Major League Baseball's decision to put fans ahead of corporate contracts. After years of ensuring that baseball fans could only watch the playoffs and World Series if they subscribed to certain television providers, MLB has finally reversed course. The 2014 postseason is available to MLBTV subscribers through  a variety of providers and devices . A few days ago, I wrote a long, ranting post (available below!) about how MLB always puts corporate television contracts ahead of fans. When I started collecting links to complete the post, I was amazed to learn that MLB's policies had changed. I don't know if MLB was forced to do this in court , or if some smart young executive finally got them to understand that...

Dog, I am a glad this baseball season is over. And not only because the Red Sox finished in last place.

I recently read The Given Day , Dennis Lehane's novel about 1919 Boston, especially the Boston police strike , and the widescale rioting that followed. The book is an engaging hybrid of historical fiction and noir crime thriller. It deals with labour history, racial bigotry in both Jim Crow states and Boston, radical political organizing, and the United States during World War I and on the eve of Prohibition. It's also full of great characters, plot twists, and suspense. If you enjoy historical fiction, I do recommend this book. However, I'm writing about it to highlight something that bothered me, and to try to analyze why. The Given Day came to my attention through happy circumstance: the author used my partner's book Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox in his research. We were very excited to see Allan's name in the acknowledgments! (And because authors are listed alphabetically, Allan's name is listed right beside Howard Zinn's. Nice!) I edited 1918 , so I ...

Stacey May Fowles has written an incisive, biting, and definitive piece about shaming men who rape. I can scarcely quote from it (although I will), because every word is not only necessary but perfect. Please join me in reading this stellar essay, and in cheering for Fowles and every survivor of sexual assault, and in calling out every Josh Lueke we can find. May I add, too, that this essay explains exactly why I will never stop saying animal torturer and dog murderer every time I hear or read the name Michael Vick. A blog reader recently told me I should give it up because Vick has "done his time" and "expressed regret". To which I politely say: fuck that. Stacy May Fowles, " Josh Lueke Is A Rapist, You Say? Keep Saying It .": I know that a lot of us are well aware of what kind of person Josh Lueke is, and that rape is a very bad thing. We don't need reminders to be secure in that knowledge, nor is it likely we'll forget. But with all due resp...

I've recently returned from a lovely trip to Boston, filled with so many of my favourite things: friends, family, books , and baseball. I love Fenway Park, and I'm always happy to be there. On this trip, we saw three great games, two of them wins, so I was thrilled. The games were marred by only one thing: nearly constant propaganda for the US military. This is not an exaggeration. Throughout Fenway Park, as in many sports venues, monitors show a TV feed of the action on the field. Right now, between innings, the Fenway Park monitors show a continuous feed of advertising for the United States Army. During the game, the ads continue on a sidebar beside the action. Let that sink in a moment. The constant advertising crammed into every moment of the ballgame , and the constant linking of sports and the military , are now joined in this doubly offensive development. There is something particularly Orwellian about watching a baseball game while a constant stream of silent images of ...

Every year I seem to break the holiest commandment of the holiday season: I'm not busy. I always hear how "everyone is so busy this time of year" and "this is such a crazy time of year, you can't get anything done," but that never reflects my experience. We don't travel to see family, we have no extra social events, and we don't do Christmas shopping. Many years ago, we used to send a huge pile of winter-holiday cards, but we've gone digital with that, and we don't do it every year. So Christmas is an extra day off, and here in the Commonwealth, we have Boxing Day, too. Two days off with nothing to do and no obligations. A strange scheduling glitch at the library gave me four days off in a row, which I am thoroughly enjoying. I'm reading, doing things around the house, and we're taking that final move-in step that never got done: hanging pictures. And one more thing! Here's something else I'm doing with my un-Christmas winter...

This was a magical season, and the most exciting postseason I've seen in a very long time. David Ortiz - the only man to play on the 2004, 2007, and 2013 Red Sox teams - will be a hero to the city of Boston and to every Red Sox fan forever and ever, amen. A big man with a huge bat, an enormous heart, and more brains than he gets credit for. In the world of my personal fandom, sometime during the middle of the summer, between the foot and the flood and the move and the new job, I lost touch with the season. Or, more accurately, I began following the season the way most people do, rather than as an obsessive fan who never misses a game. Suddenly, in mid-August, I saw the writing on the wall: this team was going all the way. Rarely do you see a baseball team with  no  weaknesses, and the 2013 Red Sox had it all. After the shock of the 2011 collapse and the abysmal 2012 season, the 2013 team was headed to its third World Series win in ten years. It was time to climb back onboard a...

Sometime late on Thursday night into Friday morning, our internet went down. This is the worst possible time for such an event, as internet is our lifeline to baseball, and the Boston Red Sox are on their way (I hope) (I believe) to winning the World Series. From the sound of things, there were problems at some major internet hubs in the area, with massive outages affecting parts of Mississauga, Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, and so on. What was the problem? When could we expect service to resume? TekSavvy wasn't able to tell me... because Rogers wouldn't tell them. I have been Rogers-free since March of 2012 , and I have been extremely pleased with TekSavvy. TekSavvy's customer service is excellent, their tech support is excellent and local , and they deliver more internet for less money. I pay about 30% less for unlimited service at a higher speed; that is, I paid Rogers 30% more for capped usage at a slower speed. The only sticking point is that TekSavvy is a re-...

The 2013 Boston Red Sox have won the American League Pennant, and the right to play the St. Louis Cardinals in the 110th 109th* Major League Baseball World Series. This makes me incredibly happy. 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, 2004, 2007... 2013? Seven wins down, four to go. That is all. ----- * Oops, forgot about the strike year.

It's strange to be so completely focused on something and not post about it here at all. So... OMG RED SOX That's better! The 2013 Red Sox continue to thrill and amaze us. Last night they pulled off one of the most improbable comebacks in postseason history. (Allan has a  nice look at how it happened .) I expect to be watching baseball deep into October. Or listening to, as the case may be. We're not supposed to see these games at all, because telecom companies rule the world, and postseason baseball is only available via cable TV. And as you are undoubtedly sick of reading about by now, we dumped cable in favour of streaming. We have a workaround, and have been watching games on a computer... but it doesn't always work. Friday and Saturday nights, I watched playoff games online, with perfect streaming that was as good as watching TV. Last night, it didn't work at all, and I only had the radio broadcast. Fortunately I love listening to baseball on the radio, and I c...

My adventures with VPNs, wireless VPNs, and other fun IP-address changes just keep getting better all the time. My new favourite addition is called HideMyAss  - a stupid name, but a terrific service. When I last updated you on our awesome wireless VPN + Roku experience , we were using two separate routers - one for wireless VPN, and one for everything else. This was necessary because MLB.TV - through which we watch baseball on our TV, via Roku - didn't get along with the wireless VPN router. The feed would continually stop for buffering, making it impossible to follow a game. To watch baseball, we would use our regular router, with our normal Canadian IP address. To watch US Netflix, we'd use the router with the non-Canadian IP address. Flipping routers, as we call it, was no big deal. But recently, anytime I was using the wireless VPN router, my internet connection would slow to a crawl. Plus the selection of IP addresses offered by Acevpn was getting less and less reliable. ...

I have written a bit about the use of professional sports as a vehicle for war propaganda and militarism, such as when the Harper Government used the Olympic torch relay  to promote its war in Afghanistan. My partner Allan has covered this ground more consistently, since he writes a sports blog. See, for example, his " Thoughts Prompted By The Red Sox Foundation's Association With "Run To Home Base" " and " The National Anthem And The Idea Of Respect ", among others. These are mostly from a US perspective, since that's mostly where Major League Baseball is played. Whether it's endless rounds of "God Bless America," (nationalism being the first stop on the road to war), the honouring of veterans who are always deemed "heroes," or in one case, a plan to distribute dog-tags to kids attending a game ( dropped after protests ), the continuing militarization of sports is a disturbing - yet largely uncontested - trend. When milit...

It's Opening Day! It's always a long, cold winter for a baseball-only fan, but winters for Red Sox fans have been especially long and cold lately. When was the last time we saw a meaningful game? (Don't answer that.) I lost interest 'round about July last season, unusual for me, but there's something about losing every night that doesn't inspire me to plan my life around the team's schedule. But that's all behind us now. Spring is here, and with it, a fresh start, new hope, and who knows, maybe a half-decent, rebuilding kind of season for the Sox. The 2013 season is also momentous for me personally: it marks my 10th year as a Sox fan. In June 2003, I crossed the great divide, and switched sides in the greatest rivalry in the history of American sports. When it comes to baseball, I'm still monogamous, but I'm on my second marriage. I want to use this lovely Opening Day to celebrate the achievements of two baseball players. As of this season, both ...

As the title says, here are some things I thought about while I was taking a blogging break. ● Marvin Miller died. Miller should be a hero of both the labour movement and baseball history. He should also be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Anyone interested in the intersection of sports and politics should read his terrific book, A Whole New Ball Game . Dave Zirin interviews Miller here ; Joy of Sox muses on his passing here . During the 1994 baseball strike, I wrote to Miller via the players' union. Within two weeks, I received a reply: a typewritten letter, which included his home address. Something to treasure. ● There's really nothing I can say about Rob Ford, former mayor of Toronto, that hasn't already been said. I just wanted wmtc to join the celebration. Marcus Gee: Rob Ford's self-inflicted downfall ; Toronto Media Coop: Rob Ford's litany of misdeeds . ● Photos from the OUR Walmart actions on the day after US Thanksgiving are here.  OUR Walmart write...

You may recall that we switched our internet provider from Rogers to TekSavvy in order to get more bandwidth, then dumped Rogers altogether by switching from cable to streaming. We bought a Roku streaming device. And I fell in love with it. No more paying for dozens of channels that we'll never watch. On-demand viewing without DVR'ing. And no more cable bill! We even upgraded one Roku to the model that has a USB port and a media server, so we can watch our own media directly on our TV. Awesome. There was only one piece missing. If you use a streaming device, and you don't live in the US, your options are very limited. For us, there's Major League Baseball, Netflix Canada, and... that's it. There is a pathetic Netflix wannabe called Crackle, and Roku hosts a zillion little homemade niche channels, but nothing that would cause you to dump cable TV. Netflix Canada has improved a lot, but it's still very limited compared with US Netflix. You also can't get Amazo...