Curses!

As a Red Sox fan, I'd like to consider myself a relative expert on curses and jinxes. I'm a strong believer in the superstitious side of sports. By my count, I've broken up at least three no-hitters by simply saying out loud, "Hey, he has a no hitter going." I watched Clay Buchholz's no hitter with my father and the two of us barely made eye contact from the sixth inning on. Later in September, the Red Sox were up 8-3 after 7 to the Yankees when I got a call from my grandfather asking if I was happy with the way this game turned out. I told him, and I quote, "Grandpa, please don't do that. Not for this game." After the inevitable 9-8 Yankee victory, I emailed him to inform him of his injustices. Eventually, he was forgiven, but he knows what he did.

Crystal Springs employee Ryan "Ricky" Ross was in left field for the flukiest no-hitter ever thrown, mine last summer. After every out from about the 4th inning on, Ross proceeded to yell how many outs I had left after every out. It took every ounce of counter-jinxing I had in my body to keep the no-no alive. (The game before, Ben Penn also threw a no-hitter. The rumor that this league was filled with 15 and 16 year olds remains unconfirmed. In other news, Bears baseball improved to 1-9 after a win against perennial cellar-dweller Woodbridge.)

Baseball's longest running cursed team, the Chicago Cubs, won their 10,000th game in franchise history on Wednesday. Win #1? A 47-1 drubbing of the St. Louis Unions in 1870 when the club was known as the Chicago White Stockings. Julio Franco led the way that game, going 12-15 with a pre-modern day record 18 RBI.

On Saturday, the next chapter of one of the most publicized curses around will begin. The Madden Curse is so widely recognized ESPN.com took my idea to write this blog on it by running an article on it on Wednesday. The book closed on 2007 cover boy Shawn Alexander, after he was released by the Seahawks earlier this week. His fate was better than the man who graced the 2004 cover, though, who currently takes up residence in the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.

My unsolicited guess on this year's cover? Let's just say I'd stay away from Adrian Peterson in your fantasy drafts this season.

Addendum: As I was about to put this up, I was informed that Brett Favre would be on this year's cover. As someone whose career has been filled with tragedy after tragedy off the field, here's hoping Favre's first year of retirement will be one where he can stay out of the news.

To Kill a Mock Draft Board
Seriously, dude? ESPN's new draft "expert" Todd McShay, or as I like to call him, Mel Kiper, Jr. Jr, released his final mock draft earlier this week. The difference between this and other mock dratfs I've seen. It contains 252 picks. That's right, McShay's draft covers all 7 rounds. Congratulations to Danny Lansanah (LB, UCONN), this year's mock Mr. Irrelevant. Now, I've been told by many people to get a life. And with good reason. I can tell you that Pierre, South Dakota is the only state capital whose letters are not contained in any of the letters of its state. I can also tell you that there is only one word in the English language that uses all 5 vowels, and the letter y, in order (facetiously). But it is this loser's opinion that Todd McShay could stand to take Mrs. McShay to a movie once in a while.

Does anyone even watch the 7th round of the draft anyway? I love the ads that ESPN is running about late-round draft picks that panned out. Brian Westbrook, Tom Brady, Marion Barber III... all taken on the second day of the draft. Well, I'll tell you what, ESPN. When you start actually showing second day picks as they happen, instead of just looking at them 5 at a time while you talk about the first round for hours, I'll believe you guys take the second day seriously.

Ramblings
Phenom Justin Masterson made his Red Sox debut Thursday afternoon. Because Masterson's name can't cleverly be made into an erection pun like the Sox closer, I'll just say I was very excited. He didn't disappoint, throwing 6 innings of one run baseball. But in pre-reverse the curse fashion, the Red Sox bullpen blew a 2-run lead in the 7th. The Red Sox already have 4 blown saves in the young season, although none of them come from Papelboner... Dustin Pedroia's 1-5 game on Thursday tied my best Beat the Streak run at 5. I haven't yet allowed myself to realize I'm not even 1/10 of the way to a million dollars... One streak that was broken on Wednesday was my 4 day, unleavened bread streak. Although it wasn't bread that did me in (the baked ziti from North Haven's Primo's Pizza is to die for), I'm hoping I'm not struck down before the week is up. I'll have to atone on Yom Kippur.