White Sox 1, Astros 0

For the second year in a row, a team nicknamed "The Sox" supposedly doomed by past mistakes has broken an 85+ year dry spell to win the World Series. I've never really been much of a White Sox fan, but you can't help but feel happy for them. And they have A.J. Pierzynski behind the plate, a man who takes a lot of flak for having a big mouth, but is a ballplayer after my own heart.

And while I'm happy for the other Sox, I can't help but feel slightly disappointed by a four game sweep. I always want these things to go seven games, because they're my last bit of baseball until next year. That being said, this was actually a more exciting series than last year. Of course, I was more emotionally invested then and the 2004 playoffs provides some great memories of quality time with friends, but let's be honest... the 2004 World Series wasn't all that exciting if you weren't a Red Sox fan. On the other hand, despite being a sweep, the 2005 series contained three intense nail-biters, including the longest game in World Series history. I just wish the series itself had been longer.

But I did learn tonight that Barbara Bush keeps score at ballgames. So a point to Barbara Bush. (You hear me, Rheaume?)

Wolf-O-Lantern

It's not actually Halloween yet, but I did carve my pumpkin tonight. No really, that's my pumpkin (though I played with the color balance and contrast a little bit). For more convincing proof that I actually did carve that, see this picture and this picture.

White Sox 5, Astros 5 (Middle of the 13th)

Normally I'm a night person, but having been up until 5 AM last night without sleeping in today, I don't think I can take this 5+ hour ballgame to the end... I may be mistaken, but I think it's already the longest World Series game by time.

Even if the White Sox win tonight and go up 3-0 in the series, I still say this is a great post-season match-up. But it might be too great for me to watch it, she says as she yawns and her eye-lids droop.

Edit at 1:37 AM: They just announced it -- this is the longest World Series game ever. I'm now officially rooting for the current batter to hit a homerun and end this thing. And if he doesn't, I'll root for the next guy.

Edit at 2:20 AM: Thanks, Geoff Blum. Final score -- White Sox 7, Astros 5. Zzzzzzzz.

White Sox 7, Astros 6

That was some damn good post-season baseball.

It's laundry night, so I was up and down during the game. And it seems that I always left during the exciting parts. With the score tied at 2-2 in the fifth, I went downstairs and came back just in time to see the replay of Berkman's double to bring Houston up 4-2. But that wasn't the play I really kicked myself for missing.

In the bottom of the seventh, I watched the White Sox load the bases when Jermaine Dye got hit by a pitch. (Or did he? It looked like it hit the bat to me.) The Astros went for a pitching change, and so I went for a laundry change. But apparently it take me longer to change my laundry than it takes Houston to change a pitcher. When I got back upstairs, it was the top of the eighth, and the score was 6-4. I quickly reached for my computer to figure out how that happened -- oh, Paul Konerko grand slam. That play I kicked myself for missing. There have only been 18 grand slams in World Series history.* And I just missed one.

As I sat there folding laundry, I figured with two outs in the top of the ninth and the White Sox up by two, I'd be able to go grab my last load out of the dryer very shortly. But the Astros decided to make it interesting and tied it up at 6 going into the bottom of the ninth. I almost went to get my clothes during the mid-inning commercial break, but having learned my lesson in the 7th, I thought better of it. And I'm very glad at that. Because while there have been only 18 grand slams in World Series history, there have been even fewer (14 including tonight) walk-off homeruns.** And while I can't find official statistics, I'm pretty sure that this is the first one hit by a guy who didn't hit any homers in the regular season.

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* Bonus Trivia: Two teams have hit two grand slams in one World Series. The first was the 1956 Yankees. The second? My beloved 1987 Twins, with Kent Hrbek and Dan Gladden both going deep with the bases loaded.

** More trivia: One of those walk-off homeruns was Kirby Puckett's in game 6 of the 1991 World Series. In the right baseball montage, footage of that homerun with the call "... and we'll see you tomorrow night!" can actually bring me to tears. (Shut up -- I know I'm a sucker for that stuff.)

Even more trivia, because I can: Prior to yesterday, the last World Series homerun for Chicago was hit by Ted Kluszewski on October 8, 1959 in an 8-3 loss to the Dodgers, who took the series in that game.

Houston 5, St. Louis 1

Well, there goes my theory about the White Sox beating all red teams in the playoffs in order to recreate their 1917 World Series win against the Cincinnati Reds... which is to say, perhaps it's not their year after all.

Michigan 3, Boston College 2

Tonight at 5:30, my roommate offered me two tickets to tonight's Michigan hockey game, as some friends of her parents had given them to her and she couldn't use them. Unfortunately, at two hour's notice I couldn't find anyone else to join me, so I went alone to my first Michigan sporting event. Now despite having played hockey in college (and those really are my stats), I'm not enough of a hockey aficionado to give you a great retelling of the game. But the short version is something like this:

Michigan struck early in the first period with two goals before Boston College finally got one back. In the second period, each team scored once more putting the score at 3-2. With less than a minute left, a Wolverine in the penalty box, and Boston's goalie pulled, the Eagles appeared to have scored on a power play and tied the game. Moans and groans went up around the crowd until the ref nulled the goal by calling a BC player for charging and putting him in the penalty box. The arena went nuts for the remaining ~30 seconds of the game as Michigan kept their opponents from scoring to earn the win. In general, Boston College was a faster, but smaller team and Michigan just seemed to overpower them, despite looking sloppy on a number of plays.

The actually hockey game aside, the most entertaining part of the evening was listening to the fans. My sister assures me that this is true at the other U of M, Minnesota, as well. (For what it's worth, I couldn't bring myself to sing Hail to the Victors -- I'd still rather sing the Minnesota Rouser.) I wasn't sitting in the student section, so I didn't catch every chant, but I managed to catch enough of them and even figure out when to anticipate some of them. Most of them were variations on "You suck," and directed at anyone on the ice who didn't play for Michigan, but some of them were a little more surreal.

• "Who cares?" (chanted after the introduction of each Boston College player)
• "Ref, you suck, ref, you suck!" (chanted everytime a Michigan player got a penalty)
• "Ugly goalie, ugly goalie!" (chanted everytime the BC goalie removed his mask)
• "Ugly parents, ugly parents!" (chanted everytime the opponent scores)
• A ringing phone sound effect plays "Phone's for you; it's your mom. She says YOU SUCK!" (chanted everytime the ref made a bad call, according to the woman in front of me)
• "You just suck, you just suck!" (chanted whenever it threatened to get quiet, I think)

The most surreal call of the night...

• "Porno mustache, porno mustache" (I think this was directed at the ref, who didn't seem to have a mustache, but I confirmed with the people sitting around me that that indeed was what they were saying.)

And my favorite call of the night...

• "You're not a vaccuum, you're not a black hole, you just suck!" (I'd like to think of this as the lalopez cheer.)

Angels 3, White Sox 2

Well, having been visiting our neighbor to the north last week, I missed most of the ALDS. (In fact, I found out the Red Sox had been swept by loudly asking a room of people if someone with an internet connection would mind looking up the score for me. It was a very anti-climactic end to the Red Sox season.) And now, the AL East is completely out of the ALCS -- the first time since 2002 when the Angels took my Twins in five games and proceeded to make Dusty Baker's son cry by winning the World Series. Honestly, the midwesterner in me is glad to see some variety in the post-season this year. Not that I'm rooting for the midwestern Sox. In fact, I'm rooting for the Angels. So, go Angels. Way to take game 1. (On the other hand, this seems to be the era of ending World Series droughts... so maybe it is Chicago's time. I just wish it was the Cubs.)

And in the National League... I have no strong favorite. I did fly from Houston to Detroit during Sunday's 18 inning game with a bunch of Astros fans, so maybe I'll let their excitement wear off on me. On the other hand, and bear with me because this is a stretch...

When Chicago lost/threw the 1919 World Series (supposedly starting their own curse), it was against the Cincinnati Reds. So wouldn't it be interesting if their next World Series victory came through a playoffs in which they defeated all red teams (Red Sox, Angels, Cardinals)? But that would require me to root for the White Sox... and I'm not sure I can do that.

Vancouver

The view from my hotel

Yesterday was a long day -- I saw the sunrise from an airplane and I saw the sunset from an airplane. I also saw Joe Lieberman in the Houston airport, but that's another story. I spent an extended weekend at the HLT/EMNLP conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. The conference itself was your standard academic conference, and as a result, I spent much of my time in the hotel, listening to talks on natural language processing. In the meantime, I also got a chance to see a little bit of Vancouver. The highlights:

• An amazing view of the harbor from our hotel room. It was raining the first day, so I didn't notice that the view included the Canadian Rockies until Friday.
• The world's first steam powered clock in Gastown (the old neighborhood). It was cold to the touch, but you could feel heat coming from it and see steam rising from the top. Sadly, I didn't get the chance to actually check out how it works.
• The gelato. I went out to dinner Saturday night with a grad student from Columbia University. "When you're in Vancouver, you get gelato," she told me. So, we got gelato -- the chocolate hazelnut was delicious.
• The water planes. Someone else (Dave Zitt?) could probably tell me the actual name of these planes, but we spent our lunch on Saturday watching them take-off and land from the harbor. It was very reminiscent of Northern Exposure.

The remainder of the pictures (which are mostly views from the hotel at various times of the day) are here. There's a lot of Vancouver (and the surrounding areas) that I didn't get to see, but would've liked to -- especially just north of city. One of our complementary travel guides mentioned a suspension foot bridge over a 300 foot canyon in one of the nearby parks. I also missed my opportunity to see a lighthouse when I opted to go out to dinner on Saturday instead. All of this is to say -- I'd really like to go back at some point for an actual vacation. Also, if anyone needs about $4 in Canadian currency, let me know.

Off to Foreign Lands

I have lots to say about yesterday's 14-2 loss to the Bad Sox... but it can generally be summed up in one word:

Blech.

In the meantime, I am off to Vancouver for the HLT/EMNLP conference (Human Language Translation/Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing). I'm fairly certain that I won't be watching much baseball while I'm there (and definitely not today's game, as I'll be in the air for all of it). But there is high-speed internet at my hotel, so I'll be checking the scores whenever I get the chance. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying the cool crisp air of Canadia.