..when one is making a case against something, one would do well to have their ducks in order, lest their case falls apart.

Item #1: Olrando (sic) Cabrera does not play for the Red Sox. Hasn't for a few years now. He actually plays for the Angels, the team they just annihilated despite being pretty damn good. You also forgot Ortiz in your BS diatribe.

Item #2: The Red Sox have never "bought" a championship, alá the Marlins. They sign most of their free agents to long term (3-5) year contracts and most can get away with bad years (J.D. Drew) without being immediately axed. Funny how when people complain about the guys who work out, no one ever brings up guys like Edgar Renteria, Matt Clement or Eric Gagne. Sometimes big money acquisitions work out. Sometimes they don't. Guess your team will never know...

Item #3: I know its cool now to hate the Red Sox as much as the Yanks, despite the fact that this was the first year since 2004 that they've won a post-season game. As a fan, I'm OK with this. Henry and the owners knew to compete on a regular basis with the Yanks would require a ton of money. Most BoSox fans are happy to compete when faced with the alternative (1987-95). Nobody gave 2 shits about the Sox when they were loveable also-rans, so I'll take a little ribbing if it means more rings. Any fan would.

Item #4: The "Jeter has AIDS" t-shirt, as far as I can tell, is a urban legend. Find me a (non-doctored) photo of said shirt and I'll believe it. That being said, why does everyone assume that the worst fans of ANY team are a true sample of their cumulative fan base? It would be like assuming all White Sox fans are white-trash meth addicts just inches away from beating the hell out of 1st base coaches for fun. Guess what? Not true!

Item #5: I'm convinced at this point that for every column King writes there will be newbies who will complain about the chosen subject. The ones that get me are the posters complaining about King not covering College Football when King HAS NEVER COVERED COLLEGE FOOTBALL in anything other than the most rudimentary sense!!!! I'm also convinced that these posters (always anonymous, too) are plants that King has write in so that us regulars will berate them and fill up the letters section.

Item #6: A jinx is a jinx is a jinx which prevents me from bringing up the regular season record between Boston/Cleveland at this time.

Item #7: GO RED SOX!!

Seriously, are we talking about Red Sox fans or are we talking about ESPN's portrayal of Red Sox fans? How quick we are to turn! Everybody I know was wishing me and the Sox "Good Luck" in the 2004 WS. Now I'm an arrogant, woe-is-me prick by virtue of the team's desire to compete?

I don't know of any "Oh poor-is-me" fans - which, come to think of it, is completely at odds with the "arrogance" we're supposedly embracing. One or the other. Which is it? Or is your perception trying to fit your gut? How G.W. of you...

Little green monsters are starting to dance around your heads, guys. And its not of the Fenway type..

I have gotten HD (and by virtue, HD on TBS) from 2 different providers. I used to have Comcast HD. You have to have the HD receiver, and yes, some areas are not equipped (some HD signals are transmitted through your phone line) to handle an HD broadcast. Generally, unless you live in the boonies, HD should be available through your cable provider, and its usually free or close-to-free. That includes local HD broadcasts.

Your second choice would be satellite HD. Also requires a HD receiver. Also, if you're with DirecTV, the "sports HD" package (all the ESPNs, TNT and TBS) are an extra $6 a month. Lastly, a satellite dish cannot pickup and broadcast a local HD feed, so locally broadcast NFL games in HD would have to be picked up using an antenna (readers under 25 are going, "What's that?"), which is extra, and frankly, works as well as you'd expect a TV antenna to work. Of course if you sign up for any of the major sports packages you will have the option of getting all broadcasts in HD, excepting the increasingly rare instance where the venue is without the proper camera equipment (more prominent in college sports).

Hope that helps. There really is nothing like HD. Sometimes its so bright and clear, it gives me a headache ...

Yea, Comcast sucks. We had absolutely no signal for an entire month last summer and all they could say was that it was "the building wiring". Forget the fact that they could easily overcome any wiring issues by boosting the signal, it was my fault and since they are a monopoly on the south side of Chicago, nothing was ever fixed.

So now I'm with DirecTV. The signal goes out a lot less (despite those stupid commercials to the contrary) than with cable AND I can get the NFL package...

Sorry about the digression..

..the greatest performance enhancer ever.

BHH: RE: Pats; Who's this "we". I can't adequate refute your assertion without knowing which team your talking about. Hopefully its not that Indiana horsey team that doesn't like to play in the cold...

Sorry to all my Cleveland fans. You do know that King picked Angels all the way, right?