I wrote this comment at the tail end of a rather bitter post at VeB regarding the Cubs going to the playoffs while the Cards hit the links:

Last October, I was watching game 7 of the NLCS at a bar that was 90% Cub fans—all rooting fanatically for the Mets. After Wagonmaker froze Beltran, there was a split second of pained silence (aside from my celebration) before a chant went up: Lets Go Tigers! *clap* *clap* *clap*clap*clap*

I’d never be so lame as to root for whatever team is playing the Cubs, but as a fan of the Cards, I find it very hard to root for them to win—not for any hatred-fueled rivalry, but for what it would mean going forward.

The Cubs have a small window to win the World Series before all these backloaded contracts they recently signed turn into pumpkins. If they can ride these new horses to a world series, the faithful in the friendly confines would be grateful enough to give Cub management a free pass for whatever they want to do, and if they’re wise, they’d rid themselves of those contracts to some dumb GM who pays more attention to the playoffs than to the likely future performance of players with large contracts and restock their farm system with a supply of top prospects to tap into for years to come.

This would be a very bad thing for the Cardinals, since it would give a division rival in a big market huge payroll flexibility and a stream of talent coming up for years to come just when they were on the brink of being handcuffed through the first half-decade of the second century of their World Series drought.

The Cubs are very hot right now and have a good front three in their rotation, but it’s hard to believe that the worst division in baseball could produce two WS champions in consecutive years.

I’m not rooting against ‘em, but most definitely not rooting for ‘em either.

It was a difficult season, come to a close today in fine fashion on a five game winning streak. Rest up, birds. Be ready to have some real fun again next year.

****

Wasn’t feeling great last night, so I used the evening to read Bing West’s The Village. This morning, I read through this webpage maintained by marines who fought in Combined Action Platoons. Included are West’s Marine Corps Gazette article, Fast Rifles, and scans of his pamphlet Small Unit Action in Vietnam. Incredible stories. I couldn’t stop reading the book until it was finished. Every review mentions that West’s style of writing is emotionally detached and without pretense. It’s a palpable effect—you learn of these amazing men and come to admire and respect them only to have their deaths at Viet Cong hands reported with unceremonious brevity.

It’s a good thing to take from the book—and impossible to miss—these men deserve respect and gratitude for their work. Not just those men in the book, too. At the CAP Veteranas website, there’s an anecdote of digging three VC out of a tunnel and finding them in possession of boxes of clothing donated by Berkeley students. Shameful.

****

I’ve made significant academic progress (finally) over the past few weeks. I wrote my proposal and the first draft was accepted. I’ve scheduled my written Prelim for two weeks from now and the oral defense in a little over three weeks. I’m swamped with non-academic work this week—I’ll be working 8am-7pm the next two days for two very important clients and it only gets slightly better the rest of the week. I’m going to get working on my research project in whatever downtime I have, though. I’m hoping to put myself into a position where I can go into my oral prelim with some proof-of-concept work in my back pocket to address whatever issues my committee identifies as areas of concern.

I’ll be working late in the lab tonight getting things ready for the week, so I don’t expect to sleep much the next three nights.

****

On a monthly good-news note, a new episode of Cautionary Tales of Swords will be out sometime tomorrow. Hopefully it comes back for a fifth episode. Because I laugh hard at it.

****

In non-Cardinal sporting news, the Lambs got their butts handed to them by the Cowboys today in a game I didn’t watch. Fortunately, the Illini beat #21 AP-ranked Penn State (19 in the Coach’s poll) and a promising young Blues team starts the new season on Thursday. In this week’s polls, the University of Illinois football team received 59 votes from the AP, which I guess lands us at #28 in their rankings. Put up a good showing (or even, dare to dream, defeat) #5 Wisconsin this Saturday and we’ll start getting some national recognition. To have a team built on talented freshmen and sophomores having that kind of success would do wonders for Zook’s already exceptional recruiting efforts.

****

Barbarism in Burma: this blog is a good place to start.