Actober time again

NFL is going country to country, playing games in Japan, Mexico, Canada and the UK, pulling out all the stops to make pigskin a truly international sport. Or at least have a truly international following. Sundays during the NFL season are quite easily enjoyed by fans in Europe with games starting at 6pm, 9pm, and if you have the energy, midnight.

In the mean time, the MLB is scheduling the post season games for the Halos-Sawx series to when?.....that's right, a lovely 3am GMT first pitch on a Wednesday. Even the people on the US East Coast must be going WTF??? Even if it's the best pitcher matchup in post season history and the game is only 3 hours long (they increase the inbetween inning breaks during the post season) it will finish at 1am local time in Boston.

Way to go MLB...

In other news, despite going 0-3 in his final game of the season, Joe Mauer managed to finish on a .328 average to sneak the batting title from Dustin Pedroia who finished with a .326. Still, I'm sure D-Ped is happier to be in the post season with the Sox sans batting title than Joe is, sitting in Minnesota watching the games on TV (if he can stay awake that is).

Also, with Beckett pushed to game 3 of the ALDS, The Kid Lester will take the mound for game 1. Unfortunately the Halos have very few lefty batters, but I still am confident in Lester and his 2.95 post all-star game ERA to give the west coasters a few things to think about when they take the batters box. And not to forget the shellacking the Red Sox gave Lackey in the last post-season game a year ago.

Sadly, the Red Sox are not the team they were a year ago. With lingering injury worries for Lowell and Drew, and a substantially more shaky bullpen, this will not be an easy series.

I just hope I'm able to see any of it...