It's true that perhaps the Cubs could have scouted better, but King is wrong when he says that it's been clear that the Cubs would play the winner of the NL west. Until the last day of the season, the Cubs could have played either the Mets or the Dodgers, depending on whether the Mets secured the wild card. Most Cubs fans (including me) believe they would have handled the Mets easily, but you never know. In any event, the Cubs had an opportunity to play dead against the Mets while simultaneously scouting them for the NLDS. Instead, they took the series and put Milwaukee in a position to make the playoffs.

TBS may be light years more enjoyable than FOX, but Dick Stockton needs to be escorted away from the microphone. He was full of malapropisms and just-plain-wrong information last night (e.g., referring to Sean Marshall as the Cubs' "bullpen righty"). Put him out to pasture and bring in someone who can call a game.

McClelland doesn't know what the heck he's talking about and I'd venture to guess he's been to only a handful of Cubs games in his life. The vast, vast majority of Cubs fans are not the disinterested frat-boy drunks who, I will admit, pepper the stands every game, but rather the men, women, boys, and girls who live and die by the Cubs. These are the fans you don't notice -- the ones who can afford to go to only one or two games a year, who keep score in the Upper Terrace Reserve, and who come early to watch batting practice. These are the real Cubs fans.

I live less than 500 feet from Wrigley Field's Gate D, and I feel blessed to be a Wrigleyville resident and a Cubs fan. I don't get to go to games as often as I'd like to, but I and my fellow Cubs fans follow the team as passionately as any other fans in the world. Do your homework next time, McClelland.

King,

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fascinating article about this very topic for The New Yorker a few years ago (http://gladwell.com/2004/2004_09_06_a_ketchup.html). I highly recommend it.

Pierce may have been the catalyst that helped the Celtics come back and win this game (his lock-down defense on Bryant and his step-back jumper as the shot clock expired in the fourth quarter come to mind), Ray Allen deserves a lot of credit. He played the entire game, came up with some huge rebounds in traffic (including an offensive rebound in the fourth that he converted into an amazing reverse layup), and made an excellent steal down the stretch.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the judges ultimately penalized Lisa and Richard for relying too much on dishes or food elements they had prepared in the past. For Richard, it was the banana scallops, a dish that was unique and whimsical the first time he used it (during a quickfire challenge that he won), but that lost its charm from overuse. He used it during the steakhouse elimination challenge (I think) and again during this challenge. That's twice in a three-week span and three times total. Too much.

Lisa's problem was the duplication of the hot sauce, which I mentioned before, and also the use of some kind of chip in three of the four courses. The homemade potato chips matched with the prawns was very smart and the judges seemed to enjoy the different textures, but when she used garlic chips in the second course and the unidentified chips in the dessert course, it seemed like she was leaning heavily on one element. I can see how that would turn off the judges.

I was definitely surprised to see how well Lisa performed in the final challenge. She had been woefully underwhelming the entire season and seemed to be in the finals only by consistently being second worst. That she made it this far, though, should tell us that the judges saw at the very least a glimmer of talent just below the surface, and she showed last night what she is capable of doing. I don't mind that she made fairly traditional dishes, since what counts is whether it tastes good, not how difficult it was to make.

I think that Lisa and Stephanie were neck and neck tonight, but the judges did say that they thought Lisa duplicated some of her flavors (the hot sauce on her prawns was used again in her beef dish). Stephanie flunked the dessert portion of the meal, no doubt, but her lamb was widely praised as the best dish of the night and I think that is what carried the day.

Richard choked hard.

Rodian is right. Sprains like the one Pierce suffered tend to get much worse before they get better, and though Pierce was able to play last night I expect the knee swelled up overnight and might have to miss the next game. This is pure speculation based on a lifetime of basketball injuries, but whenever I sprained a knee or ankle I could almost always play again right away; the real trouble didn't come until a few days after the initial injury.

Obama's stance regarding the possibility of diplomacy with so-called "dictators" is hardly a new development. Check out this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/us/politics/02obama.html), published in November 2007.

King,

Did you mean Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"? I haven't noticed any commercials using Beethoven's Ninth, but I have noticed a few using the Moonlight Sonata (most memorably, the Bud Light "dude" commercials). Am I missing something?

Please, oh please, buy the Cubs, Mark Cuban.