Friday, September 17, 2004

Swift Boat Veterans for Ruth Barry Bonds' 700th home run puts him only 14 behind Babe Ruth's lifetime mark.  He hit it into the left-center field bleachers at Pacific Bell Park, disappointing the many waterborne fans gathered in McCovey Cove. With no powerboats allowed in the Cove since 2001, most fans now wait in kayaks -- not swift enough to escape enemy fire in the Mekong Delta, but adequate for fetching a home run ball from San Francisco Bay. Meanwhile, on the other coast, the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees, to draw within 2 1/2 games of the American League lead -- while the other pride of Boston, Kerry, seems headed in the opposite direction in his race with Bush. After the game, ESPN ran a show called "Whose Curse is Worse?" -- comparing the Red Sox, who haven't won a World Series since trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1918, with the Chicago Cubs, who haven't won one since 1908. If Kerry loses, the cable news networks can do a similar show on the Democrats' curse, comparing Kerry's electoral performance with that of Gore and Dukakis -- while Democratic voters curse at party leaders who foisted such ineffectual candidates on them. 9:02:50 PM