Now that we have a World Series that's dangerously close to going into November for no good reason, can someone consider bringing back the doubleheader? The players won't because they don't want to play two games in a day, and owners won't because they fear that two games on the same day won't perform as well as one game each on two days. And Bud won't because the owners won't. Maybe President Obama can do something about this?

If each team plays one doubleheader a month, that would take a week off of the schedule. This may not help avoid the current problem (it's just as likely to be crappy on October 19 as October 26 in the Northeast), but mentally I think it'd be a nice move.

Now that the baseball season is over for the LA Dodgers, it's time to start wondering where Manny Ramirez will wind up next season. My top five possibilities:

5. Baltimore Orioles - Peter Angelos loves to sign aging sluggers, and in this case he'd actually be signing one who is still hitting (and who is apparently not using any performance-enhancing drugs; we'll leave mood-enhancing drugs out for now). If he heads here, expect him to finish his first season under a five year, $130 million contract with a .211 batting average, 8 home runs and 24 RBI just to fit the pattern.

4. New York Yankees - of course everyone has him going here, as he's from New York and the Steinbrenners are angling to have the first billion-dollar payroll in sports. I'm less convinced that Manny will wind up here, either because A-Rod has some sort of hissy fit over his potential singing or it will finally dawn on Manny that life in the Yankees fishbowl will be even tighter than in the Red Sox fishbowl (I assume the explanation will involve flash cards, a game of charades and the use of Lego figurines).

3. Los Angeles Dodgers - Manny seems to like LA, and the fans have certainly reacted well to him. I don't know if the mutual appreciation would last if he became a regular, either through fans not understanding that he doesn't always hit .400 or Manny finding LA a little too anonymous. But the Dodgers have let the Angels get the upper hand in terms of local baseball supremacy, and signing Manny would be a good way to change that around a bit.

(Of course, Anaheim could make a play here, and by not putting them on the list I'm more or less guaranteeing that Manny will be with the Halos by Thanksgiving.)

2. New York Mets - this is almost the perfect scenario for Manny, as he'd be playing in New York for a team with a strong Latino orientation, but would be under less of a microscope thanks to the attention given to the Yankees. I don't know if Manny would react well to the one time the Mets get attention: their annual swoon from playoff contention. I also don't know if the Mets want to throw the sort of money at Manny that other teams will pony up, but they do have a new stadium to fill (which you may have heard about through all the din surrounding Yankee Stadium), and Manny would help with that.

1. San Francisco Giants - they're a team that has a proven track record for spending money on aging sluggers who may not be the clubhouse fave. They have a dedicated fan base, but one not known for its rabidity. They're rebuilding and can use a marquee name, and playing in the NL West they're never that far out of playoff contention. And what major league city would be more accepting of Manny than this one?

Odd personal fallout from the Manny trade - I've been roped into taking him in a bet with my sister to see if he or Jason Bay will have a more productive rest of the season with their new team. We're basing it on batting average, RBI and home runs, which so far is working out nicely for me.

The odd part of this is that I'm more or less neutral over the whole thing (outside of paying the rest of Manny's salary; McCourt can afford it). I'm not even sure how my reply of "I don't know about that" to my sister's assertion that Bay would out perform Manny got her worked up to the point of betting. I don't think we've bet on anything, ever. Still, if I get dinner out of it I'll play along.

I caught the first couple of innings of today's Sox-A's opener before going to work, and was interested to see that the NESN broadcast of the game opened with a quote from Sun Tzu. Which may have been more appropriate if Sun Tzu weren't actually Chinese.

There were apparently a number of broadcast outages that hampered viewing, which I assume will cause Red Sox Nation to recall their ambassador to DirecTV.

I wound up following most of the game using ESPN's game tracking widget, which was very slow. I didn't get the final score on it until I'd heard it from a co-worker a good 5 to 10 minutes beforehand (he had the final when ESPN was still listing the game as 6-4 Sox). I also didn't like how it listed balls, strikes and outs, using filled circles as a default and then emptying them to denote where the batter or team stood for each. So backwards. Like most ESPN widgety things, there's too much focus on style (graphics actually show pitched and hit balls) and not so much on accuracy (the thing listed Okajima as pitching an inning that Papelbon actually threw).

OK, there's an ad on during the game now that has Curt Schilling endorsing John McCain. Not particularly surprising given Schilling's politics, and I suppose it may help out here given the way the Sox are venerated here, but given Schilling's general reputation as a jackass I don't know if it'll help all that much. It also doesn't help that Schilling's delivery is solid oak levels of wooden.

I'm pretty much unmoved by the Barry Bonds indictment. I tend to feel the one thing he's clearly guilty of is being a jackass, which for better or worse isn't against the law. It'll be interesting to see how the feds put their case together, as given the past leaks you think we'd have heard if they had something new and juicy to use against him.

At the least it means we've seen the last of Bonds as a player - until the lawyers drain him enough so that he has to team up with Jose Canseco for the Long Beach Armada - so it was semi-fitting that A Rod was in the news as well for closing in on a return to the Bronx. I'm less surprised about him going back to the Yanks than I am about Scott Boras getting cut out of the equation. I don't suppose many players have the sort of clout to do that sort of thing, but I'm sure owners will be happy to see this as the start of a trend. I also have no problem with him going back it it means another decade of him being craptastic in the playoffs. That would be just fine, thank you.

For all you New Yorkers feeling a little blue given the way your little brother to the north is pushing you around in athletic pursuits, chin up. You at least get a visit from the Pope. And at 81, he still has a better arm than Damon.

Book Log 2007 #45: The Mind of Bill James by Scott Gray

I'm pretty conflicted about this book, as I liked a fair amount of what it covers about James's life and work, but it doesn't feel particularly whole to me. I can't quite put my finger on why.

I actually went and read some of the Amazon.com customer reviews to try to jog my memory, and I think (for once) they may have something. Each of the three "most helpful" reviews point to a lack of context. James is quoted at length, but there's not much discussion with anyone who isn't connected to James. They also point to a lack of explanation as to what he actually does. For example, Win Shares are mentioned, but not really explained.

So I guess my feeling about this book comes from it not really showing how, or even if, James has changed baseball. There should have been a chance here to give people more of an idea of what James has done and its impact on baseball. Instead, this book is a missed opportunity.

On this day when the Red Sox begin their quest to win another World Series, I've come to a conclusion.

We need a second baseball team in Boston.

My reasons are several:

1. It's become well-nigh impossible to get tickets to home games. With limited supply and huge demand, it's no wonder that there are increasing numbers of fans taking mini (or full) vacations around road trips, and many more who just stay home.

2. This is one of the few areas of the country where baseball is still the dominant sport. I base this off of the Sports Illustrated fan map from a few years back that showed New England as one of the few places where the top fan-supported team was not the local NFL franchise, but the local nine.

3. We used to have a second team, so there's a history there, and even a few scattered fans who never made the jump over from the Braves to the Sox. It's not as common as finding Giants fans, but they are out there.

4. The Red Sox are making a transition from team to brand, between the foray into NASCAR, non-sport TV ventures like Sox Appeal, and the whole Red Sox Nation embarrasment. Being a Sox fan now is like being a Celtics fan in the 1980s. It's more about the scene and the aura of winning than it is about the sport. A second team would give an outlet to people who want to spend an afternoon at the ballpark actually watching baseball, not shooting a reality show or something.

So here's my plan.

I. TEAM

The most obvious choice for getting a second team is moving a currently floundering one. And as we already have an AL team in town, a National League team would work best.

Paging the Florida Marlins.

They're pretty much perfect for this operation. They're in the NL East, so they don't have to move divisions. They've won a couple of World Series, so they have some tradition, but are new enough that they aren't bound to Florida by tradition. They have no current fan base in Miami to speak of, and no real prospect of getting a new stadium. And they have some exciting players - including former Sox prospect Hanley Ramirez - to build upon.

The only negative with this team is their owner, Jeffrey Loria. Given the way he's operated both this team and the Montreal Expos, it'd be best if we could separate him from the team beforehand.

II. NAME

I have a couple of ideas. The first is the Pilgrims, trading off of a name that, despite what people think, was not an old name for the Red Sox. It's not the most hip name, but it's better than some of the other old names (official and otherwise) for Boston baseball teams: Puritans, Beaneaters, Bees, Somersets, etc.

The other name that comes to mind is Shamrocks. It salutes Boston's Irish community (which may be important, as will be discussed later), which the Sox have largely been able to co-opt for themselves. I actually like this quite a bit, as I think about it.

III. STADIUM and LOCATION

I've not been to all of the major league parks, but I can say that I've been most taken with PNC Park in Pittsburgh out of all the new baseball stadia. I liked the way it combines traditional layout and look with modern features, and its skyline views of the river and downtown are tremendous.

In order to capture that here, I'd look to do something along the lines of PNC, but slightly bigger (PNC seats 38,496; I'd look to seat about 43,000). And to get that view, it'd have to be in the Seaport District.

This raises some problems, as the Seaport District is also known as the South Boston Waterfront. As a neighborhood, Southie wasn't exactly amenable to a previous proposal to move the Sox in, and it's likely they'd feel the same way about the Shamrocks (the obvious pandering of the name aside).

However, between the Big Dig making the area more accessible for Route 93 and the Mass Pike and the ongoing development that's seen a convention center, the Institute for Contemporary Art, a major hotel, and several condo complexes go in, there may be reduced resistance to a baseball team.

I wouldn't look for public financing of the stadium, as we pay enough in taxes already. Given the presence of Fidelity Investments in this part of town (they have offices there and own the Seaport Hotel complex), perhaps they'd be just the right people to buy the team and get things moving.

If this doesn't come to pass, my next favored location would be out by Suffolk Downs, one of the proposed casino sites. There's still a chance to get city views, and it is located on the T. The only real road of note in the area is Route 1A, which is problematic, to say the least.

So there it is, embryonic in form but an idea whose time has come.

For the record, I want to note that when pressed for a World Series prediction last week by a co-worker, I went with the Sox and Rockies. It may be a moot point in a few hours, but you know if I didn't mention it that'd be the match-up.

I've been trying not to think too much about the whole Barry Bonds thing, but a thought did occur to me. The three most cherished offensive career records (in my opinion) in baseball are for home runs, hits, and batting average. Which means that Barry Bonds is now in baseball company with Pete Rose and Ty Cobb.

Which, when you think about it, means that Bonds is, in some ways, a more fitting home run king than Hank Aaron.