Objects in Mirror may be Closer than they Appear...

Is it just me, or is Francona managing the lead away with the handling of the Red Sox pitching staff?

The Yankees have shaved three games off the Sox lead because -

• Francona brought in Paplebon too early (bullpen error two in that game, by the way)
• Left Schilling in too long
• And expected Gags to hold a one-run lead

In spite of months of evidence that he should do the contrary, Tito did the above and it has cost the Sox three games.

This now makes, I think, four games that Gags has cut off the Sox division lead. Do you suppose he's somehow on the Yankees' payroll? I want that investigated.

Say it ain't so, Rod, say it ain't so...

By now most out there know about the report that has hit about when Rodney Harrison was first doping. I think paraphrasing the final lines from Bernard Malamud's great baseball novel, The Natural is somehow appropriate.

Not necessarily accurate...but appropriate.

For those of you who have never read the book, it is the novel from which the movie was adapted...and it has a decidedly different ending. The character of Roy Hobbs was inspired by Shoeless Joe Jackson, and what happened to him during and after the Black Sox Scandal.

At the end of the novel, after Hobbs has refused to take the Judge's money, he strikes out at the plate anyway. Overcome with emotion over blowing his chance, he falls asleep on a clubhouse bench.

After he comes to early the next morning, he is greeted by a paperboy selling newspapers with the headline that Hobbs was bought off and the paperboy imploring him to, "say it ain't so, Roy."

The fallen hero imagery of the reference spoke to me.

Get well....

Joe Andruzzi. You're fighting your toughest opponent yet.

Get Walking....

Kevin Everett. It's good to hear that you have motion in your hands and legs.

One final comment on Vick until sentencing...

So, as I am sure many that have followed the Vick dogfighting case will recall, a number of athletes such as Deion Sanders and Emmitt Smith gave some form of defense of Vick's dogfighting - based on cultural differences (ie: it should be considered okay because culturally, he grew up around it in the South).

Whoopi Goldberg engaged in the same defense just a couple of weeks ago. She said, "He's from the South, from the Deep South ... This is part of his cultural upbringing. For a lot of people, dogs are sport. Instead of just saying (Vick) is a beast and he's a monster, this is a kid who comes from a culture where this is not questioned."

Boy, that's just lovely. I can't wait for the next Ku Klux Klan member who gets charged with murder and hate crimes to start talking about hating non-whites as part of his/her "cultural upbringing," and warning us to not call him/her a monster because he/she comes from a culture where that just isn't questioned.

If Vick were picked up for snorting or dealing cocaine, would she have claimed the same "cultural" defense because he came from a poor black community where drug dealing and use is part of the "culture"? Of course not. Because it's commonly understood that the act is illegal.

And let's face it - if he didn't know it was illegal, why go through great pains to create a set-up where he can at least try to deny involvement?

Let's face it Whoopi, your "cultural" defense is indefensible.