Exhibit A: Manny Ramirez standing at home plate for about five minutes admiring his home run, which cut the Indians' lead to four.

Exhibit B: Josh Beckett screaming at Kenny Lofton for committing the sin of dropping his bat upon drawing an apparent walk, then backing down like a pussy when Lofton came towards him.

Exhibit C: David Ortiz wearing his champagne goggles in the dugout before the game was over.

. . . when it's possible that they're not around to defend themselves because they were wiped out by human beings.

A similar dynamic is at work with other terms: animalistic, beastly, inhuman. All of those terms apply most aptly to human beings.

I don't have a problem with the Red Sox as a team or organization, or with their fans. However, it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that some of their key players are complete dicks.

Namely: Beckett, Ortiz, Ramirez, and the WORST of all, Curt Schilling, who unforgivably campaigned for war criminal George W. Bush after the Sox won the 2004 World Series.

These four are great players, no doubt about that, but shitty human beings.

Seriously, if you're getting beat up by your wife or girlfriend, you are a pussy who deserves to be laughed at.

Seriously, could Salon maybe find somebody who's not a complete douchebag?

Someone above wrote:

The rules concerning the use of the Dh are not unfair to either team. They have been in place for almost 30 years now - failure to adjust is evidence of incompetance, not unfairness.

Are you really expecting NL teams to "adjust" every year by allocating budget and roster space for a DH that would be useless for almost all of the 162 regular-season games, in the unlikely event they make the World Series that year? And even if they did, do you not see how that having to do that would itself be an unfair burden? Just because a rule has been around 30 years doesn't mean it doesn't continue to be unfair.

Note also that the first two games featured sponsorship of the National Anthem as well (the new Indiana Jones movie and the new James Taylor album, respectively).

You'd think patriotic types would have their knickers in a twist over that one. But they tend not to mind their jingoism mixed with some crass commercialism, perhaps sensing intuitively the intrinsic appropriateness of it.

... by the fact that the military is hiring sub-literates like Col. Boylan?

Someone above wrote:

"If the Rockies had won the series, we'd all be talking about how well-rested they were."

I hear this kind of thing a lot, and it doesn't make any sense. Proponents of the "layoff" explanation are pointing to a piece of evidence (Rox lose in 4) and arguing that it justifies a certain conclusion (they were rusty). To respond by saying, "Hey if the Rox had won, we'd be talking about how well-rested they were" is essentially the same as saying, "If the evidence were different, you would draw a different conclusion." Well, duh. It's like saying "If OJ had been convicted, we'd all be talking about how smart the jury was."

Make of the layoff argument what you will, but the fact that it could in theory be disproved is not a knock on it, but actually speaks in its favor (it is falsifiable).

My own two cents: it's hard to imagine an eight day layoff NOT having a significant effect. Players make a big deal about getting three days off for the All-Star break, as if that's some huge vacation. Baseball is played every day, every day, every day . . . to shut the whole thing down, only to start it up a week later, is bound to fuck with you.

They should have hired another team to play them all week.

To say otherwise assumes that there is always a clear-cut answer to whether or not something violates the Constitution. Obviously this is not the case. No system of rules can possibly dictate with absolute necessity the answer to any question that might arise under it. In cases where the Constitution does not provide an unambiguous answer, courts might very well look to the consequences of their decision. At some point, constitutional questions become largely normative - answerable not by reference to the text or even structure of the Constitution, but instead a matter of what kind of society we want to have.

To take just one example among many: does anyone actually believe that the Constitution provides a definitive answer to the issue in Lawrence v. Texas (sodomy laws)? The court ruled that sodomy was protected by due process clause of the 14th Amendment. I agree with this decision, but there's no sense in denying that it was a decision, not a finding, motivated in large part by the fact that no decent person wants to live in a society where the government can tell you who you can have sex with.

Seriously, there's nothing to really admire about Ron Paul. Yeah, he's right on the war and a few other issues, but the same could be said for Pat Buchanan. He may be a "straight talker," but if you listen you'll notice that his "talk" is completely insane most of the time.

I really wonder how I am supposed to in any way admire this man. He's not anti-war because he gives two shits about innocent Iraqis - the war just doesn't fit in with his idiosyncratic view of the constitution. He wants to amend that constitution in order to relegate women to the status of second-class citizens. Etc. etc.

Ron Paul is no one to look up to. He's a right-wing extremist who wants to roll back just about every advance that this nation has made over the last century. His views are drenched in misogyny and authoritarianism (he'd just prefer to relocate government power to the states).