Off Wing Opinion

Yesterday, I said that Yankees fans were in denial, but something tells me Boston fans are in a whole different kind of trouble too.

From the New York Times, I give you Samantha Power, expert in genocide at the Kennedy School of Government and a Red Sox fan (is Ken Burns lining up the interviews at the NYT these days?):

"A team that loses in some ways is going to be easier to identify with for most Americans than one that wins," Ms. Power said.

Which of course explains why the Yankees are so unpopular, and teams like the Milwaukee Brewers play to overflow crowds.

Maybe not.

How about this explanation: For many years Red Sox fans (but not all) have believed that sticking with their team through heartbreaking losses has conferred some sort of nobility on them (after all, there is something to be said for loyalty). But now that they've won, some of these fans think that rooting for a winner isn't terribly noble.

Hence, the identity crisis.

As for me, screw nobility. I want to win. And if I have to wait another 35 years for the New York Jets to win their next Super Bowl, I still won't posess one more whit of nobility than anybody else.

It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and bash the New York Times, but sometimes they make it too easy. Such as this lede from a story on Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein by Gina Bellafante:

Until Theo Epstein became the general manager of the Boston Red Sox two years ago, at 28 - an age when many young people are still wrestling with decisions over whether to become novelists or prosecutors . . .

Yeah, I remember those days, wrenching as they were.

I'm sure that's a demographic group that totals somewhere around, oh, 150-200 individuals, nationwide.

Hey Gina, get out a little more and try to talk to somebody besides your friends from college.

Skip Sauer on the improbability of the way the Red Sox won:

The odds against LLL-WWWW-WWWW in a sequence of coin flips are 2047 to 1. Yes, Sox fans, deliverance from the curse of 1918 was a near miraculous event.

Actually, as I recall, when we add the Division Series against the Angels, the sequence was actually WWW-LLL-WWWW-WWWW.

Denial: A river in Egypt that runs straight through the collective soul of Yankees Nation.

Folks, I can't say I'm surprised, since as a New York Mets fan, I've put up with nonsense like this for most of my life. As far as I'm concerned, the idea that the greatest choke in the history of Baseball will have to be borne by Yankees fans is one of the most wonderful acts of cosmic justice I can imagine.

Thanks to Baseball Crank for the link.

Thankfully, nobody died in Boston last night as tens of thousands of Red Sox fans flooded the streets after their heroes Series-clinching win in Game Four (to take a look at some of the photos of the revelers, click here). Here's the account from the Boston Herald, which gives a different arrest count (21 instead of 35), but generally conforms with most of the good news from the streets.

As for the victory parade, fans will have to wait until Saturday.

Meanwhile, details surrounding last week's death of Victoria Snelgrove keep trickling out. One Boston Police source told the Boston Herald that cops decided to fire on the crowd only after a one fan stabbed a mounted officer's horse. Elsewhere, the focus of events that evening is shifting to Deputy Superintendent Robert O'Toole, who took a shot or two from another unnamed source inside the department concerning his actions that night:

``By firing, he's taking his eyes off the rest of the scene,'' said a Boston police supervisor who didn't want to be named. ``If you pick up a gun, you're not supervising them anymore. Now you're basically a patrolman yourself.''

Though O'Toole, a 36-year Boston Police Officer has been removed from duty, it's been confirmed that he didn't fire the shot that struck Snelgrove. Meanwhile, a columnist for the Boston Globe took a look at O'Toole's record as an officer, and has found it wanting.

In the wake of the incident, the City of Seattle, which had its own high profile problem with civil unrest in the recent past, has suspended use of the FN 303 rifle that was used that night in Boston.

UPDATE: Closer to home, about 1,000 students got a little out of hand on campus at George Washington University. Thanks to DCist for the link.

Here's a question: As Derek Lowe was rushing to the baseline to tag Scott Rolen, how many of you were thinking about Alex Rodriguez swatting the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove?

1-0 already. Amazing.

ANOTHER SCORELESS INNING IN ST. LOUIS . . . And the boobirds are out in force as the Cards strand another runner.

3 OUTS AWAY . . . From ending all this silly curse talk. But who's MVP?

CONGRATULATIONS RED SOX . . . 2004 World Series Champions. And if anybody in Boston is reading, please, PLEASE, refrain from acting like a bunch of animals on the streets of your city tonight. One tragic death is more than enough.

WAS THAT JIMMY FALLON . . . Laying some Major League liplock on some unidentifed woman on the field in the midst of the postgame celebration? Just checked TiVo, and Jimmy Fallon it is.

MANNY RAMIREZ IS MVP . . . But perhaps it's time to re-think the whole postseason MVP thing. Instead, why not vote for an MVP based on the entire postseason?

AND WHO GETS TO TALK TO LARUSSA? . . . We need to hear from the St. Louis manager sometime. In the meantime, click here for a primer on the postgame loser interview with Bob Cook.

AND AS THE WORLD SERIES TROPHY IS AWARDED . . . I have to wonder what Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane is thinking right now. After all, it was only a few seasons ago that Beane was offered the GM job in Boston, one that he turned down to stay in Oakland.

AND HERE COMES LARUSSA . . . "If the club wasn't ready to play, then I take responsibility." He also said that he thinks missing a chance to steal the first game of the Series, an 11-9 loss, was a real setback.

SCHILLING TAKES THE FIFTH . . . When it comes to whether or not he could have pitched a potential Game Six in Boston. Instead, he's just going to "go drink." Beautiful.

NOTE TO JEFF COOPER: You're not the only sap watching tonight.

BEFORE SAYING GOODNIGHT . . . My heart goes out to Cardinals fans, who have to be in some serious pain right now. I just saw a few seconds of LaRussa in his postgame press conference, and it was difficult to watch, as he was on the fighting back tears as he tried to answer a question.

Back in 1998, I was in the stands at MCI Center when the Caps dropped Game Four of the Stanley Cup Finals, and know something of the feeling of being swept. After fighting through weeks of games with plenty of success, it's over all so suddenly. It was a shock to leave the building that night, and look up around the streets and think that all the playoff decorations were meaningless, and would be coming down before long.

And after the pain of the moment subsides, you want any and all reminders of to be banished from your sight so you can forget about the disappointment (good luck). In the living room of my apatment that season, I'd dressed an inflatable Godzilla (the nickname of Caps goalie Olie Kolzig) with a Caps jersey. When I woke up the next morning, it was all I could do to toss the jersey in the laundry, and deflate Godzilla as quickly as I could.

I'm sure there will come a day when St. Louis fans will celebrate the 2004 season, and applaud as oldtimers like Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen come on the field to take their bows before a cheering crowd filled with more than a few folks who never saw them play. But for those who did, and will cheer as well, the pain will never, ever be far from the surface, no matter how hard they try to forget.

22 years and counting.

Up in Boston, a former U.S. Attorney has been appointed to head an independent probe into the death of Emerson College student Victoria Snelgrove. Snelgrove was killed after being struck by a pepper ball fired by Boston Police in an effort to control unruly crowds outside Fenway Park after the Red Sox's ALCS victory over the New York Yankees last Thursday night.

New details are emerging concerning the riot that night:

As officers attempted to bring an unruly crowd of students on Lansdowne Street under control after the Red Sox won the American League pennant, [Boston Police Deputy Superintendent] O'Toole grabbed a pepper-pellet gun from a police supply vehicle and fired at a group of students who had climbed the girders of the Green Monster, according to accounts from the sources.

O'Toole then handed his gun to Patrolman Richard B. Stanton, who had told the commander he was not trained to use the gun and did not fire it, according to information from the sources.

O'Toole handed another gun to Patrolman Samil Silta, who also had told O'Toole he wasn't trained on the gun. But Silta took the weapon and fired into the surging crowds, the sources said. A fourth officer, Patrolman Rochefort Milien, was trained and also fired at the crowd, the sources said.

This description of the event in the Boston Herald is a little more dramtic. It also happens to come from an identified source, rather than an anonymous one:

``I saw (Deputy Superintendent Robert O'Toole) and the other special operations officers flailing their guns from side to side like machine guns,'' said Giovanni De Francisci, 30, an Emerson College graduate student. ``They were just popping off shots at the crowd.''

O'Toole has been moved to desk duty pending the outcome of the investigation.

Elsewhere in the Globe story, we finally hear from a spokesman for FN Herstal, the Belgian company that manufactures the FN 303 weapon that fired the pepper ball that struck Snelgrove, setting off a chain of event (to this point not fully reported) that ended in her death the following day:

The manufacturer of the guns, FN Herstal, trained 29 Boston police officers to use the weapons, said Bucky Mills, deputy director of law enforcement sales, marketing, and training for the company. Mills said Boston police have not confirmed to the company that its weapons were used in the shootings that night.

''During this training, officers are told never to intentionally target the neck or head, because death or serious injury can occur (emphasis mine, EMc)," Mills said. ''The warnings are repeated several times throughout the training manual we provide while we teach the class and reinforced throughout the class and during the live fire qualifications."

Also in the Herald, that paper reported that before using the FN 303, the police department in Santa Ana, Ca. equipped the weapons with a special sight to help officers better target suspects without causing serious injury. Here's what another anonymous Boston Cop told a Herald about the department's non-lethal weaponry:

``These things were supposed to help us repel the 12 anarchists who never bothered to show for the DNC,'' the cop explained. ``Oh, we were ready for them. We had a hundred guys for every anarchist.

``Terrorists, we can handle,'' he said. ``What we haven't quite figured out is how to deal with 80,000 drunken (expletive). It would be nice if we could just spray them all with some kind of general tranquilizer that would put them to sleep. Next day, they'd wake up, hungover and late for class.''

For more Boston-based discussion, check out Boston Common.

During the ALCS, I noted how the Boston Red Sox seemed to be prone to baserunning mistakes that could cost them a ballgame sometime. Well, tonight in St. Louis, it's the Cardinals who are making the baserunning mistakes that may just cost them the World Series.

In the bottom of the first, with the bases loaded and one out, Jim Edmonds hit a fly ball to shallow left field that Larry Walker tried to score on. He was thrown out easily by Manny Ramirez. And as it turned out, Walker might have tried to score, in part, to distract Ramirez from the fact that Albert Pujols was completely caught off second, and could have been easily doubled up anyway.

And just now, in the bottom of the third, with runners on second and third and none out, Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan failed to run home from third on a routine grounder to second. Instead, Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz caught Suppan lingering in no-man's land between third and home, and threw him out at third easily.

Folks, you cannot throw away scoring opportunities in the post season, never mind tossing them away carelessly with Pedro Martinez on the mound.

Every time I turn on the TV, the breaks go Boston's way. Maybe this is the year.

UPDATE: What in the world is up with Fox running a faux interview with the actor who plays "Leon" in the Budweiser commercials during an at bat in the top of the eighth inning?

For a second I thought I was watching ESPN.

3 OUTS AWAY FROM 3-0: The fans in St. Louis have got that hang dog look in their eye. They just don't know what hit them.

LARRY WALKER HOMERS: But it isn't enough, as Keith Foulke puts down the rest of the order: Red Sox 4 Cardinals 1. And you can hear some boos raining down on the Cardinals as the teams head for their respective clubhouses.

FINAL UPDATE: Just saw the replay of the Ramirez throw to the plate that got Walker, and Bill Mueller just missed cutting off that throw by an inch. Bet he's glad he did.

500 mourners filled St. John's Catholic Church in East Bridgewater, Mass, to remember the life of Victoria Snelgrove, the 20-year old Emerson College student who died last week after being struck in the eye by a pepper-spray pellet during a rolling riot that formed outside Fenway Park in the wake of the Boston Red Sox's victory over the New York Yankees in the ALCS.

Let's cede the floor to Rev. Wally Keymont:

"Why did this have to happen?" he said. "I don't know why. Some people feel it's their God-given right to riot, to destroy property and cause mayhem. ... It is destructive and it is deadly."

Why indeed?

While the exact cause of death has yet to be officially disclosed, CodeBlueBlog has some definite ideas about exactly who knows for sure:

The radiology resident who read her STAT CT of the brain the night she was brought to Brigham.

If Snelgrove died from "cerebral" trauma, as was mentioned in some reports, then the location and type of trauma will tell whether the death was indeed caused by a pepper ball.

Here's some more details from the Boston Globe concerning injuries that were sustained during the riot on Thursday as a result of the use of the compressed air weapons:

Shots from the pepper-pellet guns . . tore a hole in the cheek of 24-year-old Cambridge resident Paul Gately. Pepper pellets fired by officers that night also pierced the skull of 19-year-old Boston University student Kapila Bhamidipati.

As I mentioned yesterday, the manufacturer of the weapon, Belgium's FN Herstal, makes clear on its Web site that the FN 303 rifle is unsafe at short range, and should never be aimed anywhere but the legs and torso.

And for those who might be quick to blame police solely for what happened, you might want to read this unsigned Globe editorial that says, "there appears to be 'no clear and effective strategy' in big city police departments for dealing with the kind of massive disturbance last Thursday that turned a Red Sox victory celebration into a wake."

Then there's this anonymous quote from a member of the Boston Police Department that appeared in today's Boston Herald, warning what rioters might encounter if there's a next time:

``We're not going to stand back this time,'' said one source familiar with the BPD's plan to control crowds during Boston's series with the St. Louis Cardinals. ``Once they start acting up, we're going to go in and take them out. We have a lot of people (from other departments) helping us. We have significant resources and they are going to aid us in quelling disturbances as they arise.''

Stay tuned.