One Of The Greatest Nights In Baseball Ever

Larry David and Bill Buckner 

Ok so I wasn't there, and it was the middle of the afternoon for me, but I was watching live as the Boston Red Sox managed to pull off the greatest collapse in the history of baseball and the Tampa Bay Rays mounted one of the least likely comebacks. . .I've read a lot of stuff about the amazing turn of events last night as the Red Sox somehow lost a game they were winning 3 to 2 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the Rays won a game they were losing by 7 runs to zero in the eighth. No sport in the world brings out the nerdlingers and historians like baseball so what follows is a digest of the some of the less esoteric stuff: 


First up is Tyler Kepner of The New York Times who explains the whole apocalyptic series of events in language that a non baseball fan can understand.


Next up is the perspective of Michael Newman a self described 'annoying Red Sox fan' who was at the Sox Baltimore game at Camden Yards (sitting directly behind Christopher Hitchens).


I thought I would shift gears here and give you the great Nate Silver's amazing blog post on the statistical improbability of last night events complete with charts and diagrams. Nate claims that the rot set in for the Red Sox when Bill Buckner appeared on a hilarious episode of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm (David is a Yankees fan). 


This link is to the Duk blogger on Yahoo Sports who gives us the exact moment where Dan Shaughnessy jinxed the Red Sox by promising the fans that the Red Sox could not fail to make the post season. They're already calling Shaughnessy the most hated man in Boston this morning. 


Finally I thought I'd link to the always interesting Pete Abraham, late of the Lohud Yankees Blog, who goes against the grain of easy criticism of Carl Crawford by talking about how he at least took responsibility for his actions and answered questions like a man.


Have I been reading baseball stories all day instead of working on my new novel whose deadline is looming ever closer? Uhm...