Saturday morning

SPORTING GOODS

Like most Red Sox fans, I'm as superstitious as can be imagined, so I (almost) purposely changed the channel last night in the third inning with the bases full of Sox and the slumping Papi meandering to the plate. Not surprisingly—I'm certain he would've struck out had I been watching—he hit a grand salami, starting the Sox' rout. May this be the start of something big.

And the absolutely unqualified Isiah (I sure do wish his mother had known how to spell) Thomas was finally fired by the Knicks yesterday. I don't really follow the NBA, but it'd be nice to listen to a game on the radio in the dead of winter, as I'm driving back from a high school gymnasium, where the featured team, you know, has a chance to be in it. For the last four years, that was rarely the case.

Thomas's new job—as yet untitled—will be as adviser to the man who fired him. I can't say that that sounds like an ideal working relationship.