Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

My long drive home from Basking Ridge was made much easier when I learned that Sirius has a channel completely devoted to Bruce Springsteen - Sirius Channel 10... I only ended up seeing the first two innings of last night's Red Sox / Angels game. I timed it to eat dinner when the game started but then I had to continue driving. I missed the end of the game because it was "Know your school night" for my oldest. Just an observation but its easy to pick out the classrooms used for teaching a foreign language because vocabulary words are written in pencil on 1/3 of the desks... Josh Beckett's shutout in last night's playoff game tie him with Whitey Ford and Mordecai Brown for second on the career list with 3, one behind Christy Mathewson. Some people complain that accomplishments like Beckett's are not the same because modern players get the extra games of the Divisional Series to set or tie these postseason records. I call BS on this one. None of the other pitchers I mentioned above had to face a DH and Brown and Mathewson played when it was a Whites only game. That makes Beckett's accomplishment all the more impressive... I was thinking that if I took all the time I spent listening to Springsteen when I was young and instead used that time training for the decathlon - I might have an Olympic medal by now. But then I hear him sing Backstreets and I deem the time listening to him well spent... Walt Jocketty is out in St. Louis. Scott Miller has a good take on the situation. I know Jocketty helped deliver a World Series last year and I'm on his side on this one but when I think of Walt Jocketty I always think of the trade he made that sent Danny Haren to Oakland for Mark Mulder. That trade has always made me question Jocketty's judgment...