Whoops. Not Cleveland hatred -- OK, OK, I hate Cleveland. I admit it -- but just an outrageous brain cramp.

I'd like to say I meant that the Red Sox beat up on Carmona, but I think what happened is I just had a little episode there.

It's been fixed, with my apologies.

Mike_in_NM You are taking the easy way out. I don't buy the "I'm just a sportswriter" excuse. That's lame and you know it.

I'm not "just" a sportswriter. I didn't say "just." I said I write a column about sports. There's nothing lame about that. I don't consider myself incapable of writing about more "serious" subjects. (I put serious in quotes because I don't consider sports unserious.) I've written about a lot of different subjects in my career. At the moment I write about sports. One of the issues in sports these days is offensive logos and mascots. So I write about it.

If you just want to be a sportswriter, stick to writing about sports. Otherwise, there are more important articles to be written about Native Americans.

I'm sorry but this argument of yours is just 16 kinds of absurd. The idea that I (or anyone) am not allowed to write about a subject unless I'm willing to write about nothing but that subject, or to devote my life to working on that subject, is beyond preposterous.

I also write about economics in sports. And yet you don't seem to think I should devote all my energy to economics. There are a lot of poor people out there, Mike, and a lot of economic injustice. What's wrong with you? Why aren't you telling me to stick to sports because there are more important articles to be written about economic issues than public funding of stadiums and whether ticket prices are tied to player salaries?

oxymoron Everyone is telling the Red Sox to do that on the Fox broadcast right now. Does that mean "do what the cowboys did to the indians?"

That's pretty funny.

To be honest, I might have warned the announcers in a production meeting that the Red Sox phrase "cowboy up" could be a little problematic considering they're playing the Indians, but I don't think I'd have told them not to use it. I would do that as an editor. I'd say to a writer: "Some people could read this that way. Do you care?" And if not, fine. That would be a case of what the anti-"p.c." crowd thinks any accusation of racism is: Stretching to find something to be offensive.

In a historical sense, the real problem for the Indians wasn't the cowboys nearly as much as the U.S. government and the Army, wasn't it? But on a more practical level, "cowboy up" has a pretty well-understood meaning in the context of the Red Sox. It means get tough.

OK, Tivo is far enough ahead. Time to watch the game.