Another Copyright Violation?

From Bill Simmons' game 4 diary here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/071016

If you don't read his column, you're cheating yourself.

My favorite samples:

9:00: Just checked my reader e-mails and here was the latest one, from Mike in Boston: "J.D. Drew has completely ruined my Red Sox experience. I can't believe we have four more years of him. I can honestly say if I had the money, I would give the Red Sox the $60 million they STILL owe Drew, if they, in turn, would drop him. Do you think we could start a fund? You have the means to reach more people. Start it up. I swear I'll send the first $1,000 and $25 per week. The sad part is, I don't think I'm kidding!"

(Let's just say the J.D. Drew signing hasn't gone over too well.)

9:08: You know what I noticed? Fox isn't using its "Fox Trax" feature as much tonight (in which replays a pitch to see if it cracked the strike zone or not). Maybe the umpires threatened to go on strike after what happened Monday night, when Fox Trax made the Game 3 umpire come off like a drunker version of Frank Drebin in "The Naked Gun."

9:56: Shot of Dice-K staring mournfully from the dugout as Wake desperately tries to fend off the Tribe. After six months under the Boston microscope, poor Dice looks like he's constantly filming his own hostage video. But, hey, you can't possibly expect to get a sure thing for $103 million these days.

10:05: I might not be able to describe what McCarver just told us without you thinking I made it up, but let's try: Over the span of 45 seconds, he just explained that a leadoff home run leads to more multirun innings than a leadoff walk, only he made it sound like this was some sort of remarkable revelation or something. Did we just watch a sketch for Joe Buck's late-night show? That just happened, right?

(Rewinding game on TiVo.)

10:06: Yup, it just happened. So if you're keeping track at home, multirun innings happen more often when they're started off by a home run instead of a walk. Thank you, Tim McCarver.

[Me: I'm really glad he wrote that. It sort of hurt my brain trying to follow what he was saying last night. I'm so glad I'm not the only one.]

11:18: Mark from Philly offers an inspiring defense for Manny's home run preening: "When Manny went deep, my first thought was, 'Quit posing, Manny, we're still down 7-3.' Then it dawned on me that Manny probably had no idea what the score was. In fact, he probably isn't aware that baseball games are determined by which team scores more runs. Manny's only point of differentiation comes when, after hitting a home run, he sees his teammates waiting for him at home plate -- it's at that point he knows it's time to go to the strip club."

11:33: Crisp lines out to first. Three outs. Our final score: Cleveland 7, Boston 3.

I'm not willing to wave the white flag yet, but we're damned close. The reason Cleveland deserves to advance to the World Series is the same reason Colorado advanced: The baseball playoffs aren't like the NBA playoffs, in which you can keep advancing with three or four big guns carrying you. For a championship baseball team, everyone chips in from Player No. 1 to Player No. 25. You have three or four heroes per game, everyone seems like they're loose and having fun, and when you're looking back afterward, sometimes you can't even figure out which guy should have been the MVP. That's how the Red Sox won in 2004, and that's how the Indians and Rockies are winning in 2007. There's nothing more to say.

[I am totally in agreement with this one.]