I've been watching baseball for over forty years, since the late 1960's. Not continuously, of course, although my wife might argue otherwise. I'm a huge sports fan to begin with, but baseball was my first love as a kid and it remains my favorite sport today, barely edging football and anything with cheerleaders for the top spot.
As a long-time Red Sox fan, I've pretty much seen it all: No-hitters and thirty-run games, World Championships and epic collapses, pitchers throwing no-hitters and batters hitting for the cycle, miraculous comeback wins and debilitatingly depressing defeats.

But in all the time I've spent watching professional baseball, I have never seen what I saw during the Red Sox-Texas Rangers game today in the steamy afternoon heat of Arlington, Texas.

In the fifth inning of a game in which the Rangers were leading the Red Sox 3-2, Texas' Josh Hamilton fouled a pitch from Junichi Tazawa in the air down the third base line. The ball ended up in the second deck,where it was caught for a souvenir by a kid who looked like he was maybe ten or twelve years old. Nothing special there; the kid had come prepared, wearing his glove, ready and waiting for the exact opportunity that presented itself.

On the very next pitch from Tazawa, Hamilton again fouled a ball in the air down the third base line, in the exact same spot as the previous ball, where it was caught by the exact same kid!

I'm no mathematician, so I have no idea what the statistical odds against that situation occurring might be. I have seen, on very rare occasions, the same fan get two balls hit to him or her in the same game, but on consecutive pitches? Never. Not even close.

The stadium the Texas Rangers play in holds close to fifty thousand people, although there were not that many people at today's game. So if you can imagine a structure large enough to hold that many people, and then imagine an object the size of a baseball being thrown at around ninety miles an hour to a batter trying to hit it with a stick, and further imagine that ball ending up in the same spot on two consecutive pitches, you don't even have to be a sports fan to appreciate the sheer unlikelihood of that happening.

Not to beat a dead horse (why would you want to do that anyway?), but I just can't wrap my mind around what I saw in that game today. Maybe it's just the oppressive heat getting to me, maybe nobody else cares about two August foul balls in a Major League Baseball game, but that was the sports equivalent of the old theory that if you let a monkey type random letters on a keyboard long enough, eventually you will get Shakespeare.

His work, that is, not the actual guy, who as we all know is long dead. That would just be gross. And boring.

Hey guys, I really enjoyed the three years or so I spent blogging here; I'd still be doing it if I hadn't decided to get serious about writing fiction.

Since I left, I've written three novel manuscripts and a bunch of short stories, having gotten published (or soon to be published) in Crime and Suspense, FlashShot, Black Hound Magazine, Twisted Dreams Magazine, Mysterical-E, and Shroud Magazine. My short fiction has been included in two print anthologies: Ten for Ten (2008) and Northern Haunts (2009)

I tell you all this because I could use your help. I have a manuscript entered in Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest, co-sponsored by Penguin Books and Publishers Weekly. The book's title is PASKAGANKEE, and it is still alive in the contest's quarterfinal round. At stake is a publishing contract with Penguin and valuable exposure.

If you're interested, you can visit the contest site and download a copy of my novel's excerpt - the first 5000 words - FREE at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3BI6. You can also post a review of the excerpt if you like.

I realize this isn't sports related and I apologize, but I got to know a lot of you folks pretty well while I was here and thought you might like to know what I've been up to. Thanks a lot for checking me out if you decide to do so, and we now return you to your local sports programming...

Okay, so you're Sean Avery of the NHL's Dallas Stars, and you've made a career out of being one of the biggest pains in the butt in the entire league. You've played in the NHL on and off since 2001, never scoring more than fifteen goals or 39 points in a season. You have, however, racked up over 1000 penalty minutes, or roughly 16.4 minutes in the penalty box for every goal scored. You're a goon, in other words. A real-life Hanson brother.

So it shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone that you've been suspended - trouble makers get in trouble, right? But here's the problem: Avery hasn't been taken out of action for anything he did on the ice. He's been suspended by the NHL for being a wiseguy, for ridiculing Jarome Iginla and other players for dating his "sloppy seconds," specifically actress Elisha Cuthbert, among other Hollywood hotties.

A couple of thoughts:

1) If Avery thinks he was the first with Cuthbert, he's even more delusional than he is rude, crude and uncouth. If Iginla's getting sloppy anything, Avery probably did, too.

2) It's a source of constant amazement to me that an idiot like Sean Avery can get any woman to date him, much less someone like Elisha Cuthbert, who is young and beautiful and at least as successful in her field as Avery is in his. Even if it's true what they say about women going for the bad boy, doesn't Avery strike you as representing the outer limits of that theory?

Having said that, I believe the NHL is absolutely in the wrong to suspend this joker. Have we really gotten to the point where someone can have his ability to earn a living taken away, even for a few days, because of something he said; something that was completely unrelated to his job?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not in any way defending Avery. In my book he's a hurtful lout who apparently suspended his brain before making those remarks. If Cuthbert were my daughter or sister I would despise Sean Avery with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns.

But still, aren't we supposed to be blessed with free speech around here? Isn't one of our founding principles the right to sound like a total jackass if we're stupid enough to do so? Avery wasn't threatening anyone with physical harm, he wasn't shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre, he simply said something that reflected worse on himself than it ever could on Elisha Cuthbert, or on Jarome Iginla for that matter.

Last time I checked, he shouldn't have his ability to earn a living taken away for that.
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If you love fiction and have a few minutes to spare, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com

Once you move past the obvious glee fans of so many other teams are exhibiting and the obvious dejection of New England Patriots fans regarding the loss of Tom Brady for the remainder of the season, the natural question becomes, "How will the Pats be affected?"

Can they still win the AFC East? Are they even a playoff team? Did Bill Belichick and the rest of the New England brain trust drop the ball, as suggested by more than one national columnist, by not having a more experienced backup than Matt Cassel on the sidelines, ready to take the wheel of what last season was the league's most prolific offense?

To those who are ready to jump off a bridge as well as to those who are hosting victory parties and buying T-shirts commemorating a player's injury (Shame on you), I say this: Slow down and take a breath!

Are the Patriots going to go 16-0? Of course not; they weren't going to do that even with a healthy Tom Brady. Some people - okay, at least one - feel that the mental and physical toll of trying to maintain their perfect record contributed greatly to the stunning upset in the Super Bowl last February anyway. Think about it - The Giants were trying to win a Super Bowl while the Pats were trying to make history.

As far as everything else goes, though, it's a little premature to write off New England - do it at your own risk. They still have Moss and Welker and Gaffney and Maroney and a dominating defensive line. The question mark becomes the ability of the offensive line, exposed in the Super Bowl by the Giants relentless blitzing from anywhere and everywhere, to protect the inexperienced Cassel.

If they can manage that, New England will be fine. Maybe not First Round Bye fine, but they will certainly have enough to make the playoffs and probably to win the division. If the O-line can't stop all the defenders who will most certainly be storming the Cassell, though, it becomes another story entirely.

Just getting to the playoffs - making the tournament, as Bill Parcells used to say - now becomes the focus for the Pats, or at least it should. Never mind perfect records or regular-season winning streaks or consecutive starts streaks for your quarterback; work on winning the division and see what happens once you get to the tournament.

In any event, it makes for fascinating viewing, starting this Sunday in the Meadowlands, where the Patriots take on the revitalized Jets in an early-season showdown. Pass me my chips and dip; this could be good.

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If you love fiction and have a few minutes to spare, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com

Shouldn't it have occurred to someone in the MLB offices when the master schedule for Major League Baseball was made up last winter that, oh yeah, this will be the final season in the long and storied history of Yankee Stadium and maybe it would be a good idea to have the Yankees finish the 2008 regular season at home, so their fans could give the old ballpark a fitting sendoff?

As it is, the final home game for the Yankees takes place Sunday night, September 21, against Baltimore, then the team goes on the road for the last week, finishing up in Boston, of all places, September 28. The schedule gurus, if there are such things, probably assumed New York would be making a postseason appearance, as they have every year since 1994, so what difference would it make whether the Yankees finished the regular season at home or not?

The kick in the teeth, of course, is that barring a miraculous Lazarus impression by the Yankees over the final three weeks, they will miss the postseason this year, so the Stadium will close with a whimper after so many big bangs over so many decades of baseball. I am by no means a New York Yankees follower, but as a lifelong baseball fan it seems to me the building that has played home to Ruth, Dimaggio, Berra, Ford, Mantle, Hunter, Jackson, Williams, Jeter and so many other transcendant stars deserves a more appropriate sendoff, and should have gotten one.

What would have been wrong with the Yankees hosting the final game at the Stadium the day after the regular season ended for everyone else? The attention of the entire baseball world could have been directed at the shrine just before the playoffs started. It seems to me that would have been far preferable to the ignoble finish in store for Yankee Stadium the way it is going down. It would have added one day to the already endless baseball season; big deal.

Instead, even though the final Yankee Stadium game will be televised nationally on ESPN, it will seem as though there is unfinished business when the lights are extinguished for the final time. Maybe that's how it seems to Yankees fans anyway, given the disappointing performance of their team during the 2008 season. They will be opening 2009 with a sparkling, brand-spanking-new ballpark, but things will never be the same.

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If you love fiction and have a few minutes to spare, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com