[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by ifspuds

Go PALE HOSE!

Originally Posted by CTSoxfan

Awesome to see you back Craig, I've kind of drifted away from the board, but I always check back once and awhile, especially to see if you've re-appeared. I wondered whatever happened in the ALDS against the Mariners. Go Pale Hose, keep the miracle going!

Thanks guys. This really is me who has re appeared, after drifting away for what I thought would be forever. Just being back and writing and enjoying it more than I can really describe is a miracle in itself. As for another miracle...the Pale Hose are in the ALCS, on the biggest stage in the American League, playing the Yankees.

Strangely enough, the NLCS features the National League versions of our clubs, difference being that the other Chicago team is the best in the league, while the Mets are not nearly as good. Well, they're not way over the heads so much, just lacking one big bat. It's a different approach to offense, I guess, with only Jim Edmonds hitting over 20 home runs, and catcher Jason Phillips the only other guy over 15, but the second best team batting average in both leagues. The Cubs hit just .248 as a team, near the bottom few in the majors, and were just middle of the pack in run scoring, but they allowed 55 less runs than any other team. Fifty five. Not eleven or thirteen, not a couple of bad Armando Benitez outings (thank you Cleveland for pitching him in the 13th inning of a seemingly meaningless April game to make this all possible) but fifty five. The team ERA was 3.11, or less than Mark Buehrle's ERA last year. That's as a team. Our staff was solid this year but still only 3.80 overall.

The Yankees probably aren't even the best team in their city, but they terrify me. Their payroll is $134 million, or roughly $80 million more than ours. They have many players you have heard of who play in N.Y. like Jeter, Rodriguez, Matsui (OK guess that's the whole list) and many players who are only still good in this world's 2007, the NL MVP of the last two seasons in B. Giles, his second base playing brother, a fleet of foot, solid in all facets except home run power centerfielder in R. Winn, the AL Cy Young of last season in J. Vazquez, this year's likely Cy Young in J. Schmidt, an ace closer in D. Weathers, a bunch of solid setup men like J(ay) Powell, S. Shields, C. Politte, some dude named Harper. The names aren't really important, also it's too much coloring in to do, and sometimes I get like a 3 year old with a crayon, and I start writing all over the walls. Point is they have lots of good players, and we may really and truly be in the ALCS, but I think we're faking it. We were 3 and 13 in mid April, won 60-some games last year and the year before and 75 before that and my long-term memory is still more than a little sketchy but I'm sure the real-life Pale Hose were pretty awful about four or five or eleven years ago. Time to get creamed, smile and say thank you and ask, hope, pray, beg for another taste, just a nibble, a morsel, a crumb, a drip or a drop, roughly a year from now, when we have an idea what this all tastes like and can maybe swallow it all up.

We're in New York. We're facing an ace pitcher in Jason Schmidt. Mark Buehrle kind of on the same pay scale as him since they both make eight figures a year. His pitching is fantastic but not really in the same stratosphere as Schmidt, who's won 41 games in two years in pinstripes, walks about that many batters annually in what's a half year for Buehrle, and has struck 245 a year for the last two. That's a two in front of that, not a 1. Like I said, prepare for some delicious ass-whoopin' pie, maybe two with one covered in whipped cream so it can get smashed in someone's face, since this is all really some sick joke pushed on us, sick and twisted, meaningless until some future date when the awful, gut wrenching punchline's revealed.

Instead we win.

It's not nearly that simple. Yet...it is.

They strike first on a fourth inning home run by a young left fielder named Bronson Sardinha, who I am sure is not a real person (but, as was discussed years ago in these very forums, search his name and "dynasty reports" forums if you dare, actually is).

But in the top of the fifth we mount a two out rally, or rather the wheels come flying off the most expensive train ever, Titanic style. You couldn't come up with a greater Titanic metaphor than this. After a Yorvit Torrealba single over the head of a lunging Jeter, Jeremy Giambi (the little Giambi, his brother's on the injury list) bobbles a sharp grounder hit by the pitcher Buehrle. Then leadoff man Ramon Vazquez, who reached base at an incredible, ridiculous .400 clip this season, hits one of those mighty swinging bunts, but catcher Trey Lunsford, a career journeyman who's only starting because of the dearth of catchers in the league, tries to throw the baseball before grabbing it and that's all the opening a speedy middle infielder needs to beat a throw. Bases loaded, Scott Podsednik, "LDS Jesus," shows he's no Dexys Midnight runners by battling Schmidt after taking the first pitch for a called strike, taking a fastball out of the zone, fouling off two in a row, taking another pitch out of the zone, just making contact with a nasty slider in on his hands to keep the at bat alive, fouling another pitch off, another, and one more way into the seats down the third base, left field line that I saw and sat near and even in a few times growing up. Finally, maybe out of a sign of surrender, Schmidt falters, missing badly with a fastball and then bouncing a slider in the dirt, one that's smothered by Lunsford but for no real point. It's ball four and with the bags already full the runners are all moving up anyway. That happens again one pitch later, but with A LOT more hurry as Schmidt uncorks one that Lunsford can't handle. Buehrle of all people slides in about a second and a half ahead of a hurried throw to the plate, and we're up a run. Big bopper Magglio Ordonez flies out to center field, but we're up a run in the ALCS, which seems absurd in and of itself.

Buehrle strikes out the side in the bottom half, and I'd love to say that set the tone for the rest of the way, but that would be a lie as the score would be tied again an inning later.

However, I'm sleepy, and even though my mind is going my body is shutting down, and my typing is just getting atrocious. So...

Buehrle strikes out the side in the bottom half, and that set the tone for the rest of the way. Vernon Wells hit an emphatic three-run home run into Monument Park in the eighth inning, a triumphant way to pump the valve of the heart of our order, plating both number three hitter Ordonez and cleanup man Munson who had reached ahead of him. Ed. note: The previous sentence contains many lies and possible mis spellings, and perhaps poor metaphors since I am very sleepy. Also, odd twist but I am my own editor. However Wells really did jack one.

Yorvit Torrealba would bring plate another run in the ninth, bringing his postseason average to .333 and the score to what it would look in the books, 6-3 as Joe Roa would close it out without incident in the bottom half. It's only one game, it's all some kind of dumb luck I think, but look here, this win puts us 3-0 in the playoffs on the road and we find out that this $134 million team has some guys who are not True Yankees like Derek Jeter since they do stupid ****. Those are the guys in previous paragraphs who I did not color in. Little Giambi is OK by proxy since his brother hit lots of home runs in pinstripes. That catcher who made the error and that relief pitcher who gave up a big home run are not. Also of note, Rodriguez went 0 for 3 walking and striking out once after hitting 4 home runs in 3 games in the first round sweep of Cleveland. Jeter whose name starts with J like another J everyone loves went 1 for 3 with two runs scored, and a largely meaningless home run in the eighth, but I'm sure if he was batting eight more times it wouldn't have been meaningless at all.

However enough about them. Like the first three words of this post, GO PALE HOSE! Like the Titanic, just unstoppable. Unstoppable.