The words?

disgruntled.  Sox. fans.

What, you were expecting something a little more…romantic?

See,  Martha Coakley, late of the Massachusetts Senate race crucial to healthcare reform, was busy dissing Scott Brown because Rudy Giuliani was campaigning with and for him.

Right there on the radio she spoke, which everyone in New England knows is like a Wicked Big Deal (since after all, people use it to talk about sports. Which in New England, is sort of like using it to disseminate air, or food, or basic shelter.)

Coakley bemoaned the state of the race, which any politico even as basic as we are can tell you was pretty much hers to lose. She pointed out that Giuliani is clearly bad because he’s a Yankees fan. (Unspoken, but deeply implied, was the conclusion that Scott Brown must thus also be spawn of the Evil Empire, or at least have some subtle pinstripes someplace.)

The radio host to whom she was speaking pointed out that Scott Brown’s also got Curt Schilling on his side, bloody sock and all (and what could be a more appropriate symbol, health-care wise?).

Coakley responded: “And another Yankees fan.”  Nobody knew what she meant. Wait, did she mean Schilling, the host asked?

Yes, she clarified. Yes she did.

Now, Curt is not a man to anger, cause see, there’s this box he has.  It used to hold soap, and he likes to stand on it and Make Pronouncements.

Like this:

“I’ve been called a lot of things…But never, and I mean never, could anyone ever make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan. Well, check that, if you didn’t know what the hell is going on in your own state maybe you could….”

ahem.

We’ll let this post (like Coakley’s campaign) end on that note.

OK, dying industry.  Only Topps remains of the licensed manufacturers, so maybe we’re hopping on this boat kind of late.

But we always wanted to collect baseball cards, and we were inspired by running into a kid the other day who seems to have a college fund in a binder.  Joe Girardi rookie card! Curt Schilling rookie card!  Jerry Remy before he was a broadcaster!

And we started thinking.  The fun of baseball cards, indubitably, is the grab bag aspect: not knowing what you’re going to get, and knowing it could be anything.  And for a rookie collector, the process is probably easier than ever, with the myriad opportunities to acquire old cards on Ebay and similar internet-y haunts.

We went to a game the other day and bought a couple grabbag boxes…and ended up with a 1994 Trot Nixon card (it’s even all foil-y and shiny!) and a Josh Hamilton rookie card.

That’s pretty cool. Not to mention the new found ability to organize things obsessively and also to interest future small children in baseball.  (And these are DEFINITELY a few of our favorite things.)

Anyone have any good baseball card stories? Or, better yet, baseball cards?

Senator Curt Schilling.  Yes, you read that right.  Gov. “The Body” Ventura…”The Governator” Schwarzenegger…and now the potential for a Sen. Schill?

Well, as Theo put it best in his text message to The Boston Globe, “He would be good at filibustering.”

Certainly Curt Schilling will never be what you might call, “a man of few words,” but take a closer look.  Beneath that exhibitionist exterior is…a very patriotic exhibitionist.  However, in a post on his blog from last week, Schill makes a valid point.  In an article about Congresspeople trying (or not trying) to push health care legislation through right before a Congressional break, one prominent member of Congress makes the comment that Speaker Pelosi should have tried to push it through if she was smart.  This Congressman goes on to elaborate that Speaker Pelosi’s “strategic error” was in letting members of Congress go home and hear what the people have to say regarding the health care bill, and how those members of Congress might decide to vote against that bill after hearing the people’s feedback.

Wait–we’re sorry–wasn’t that what we elected our Congresspeople for?

In his blog post, as in many other comments he’s made recently, Schill points to this as yet another reason he thinks…well…to borrow from the Blood-Socked One himself, “we’ve got a political system and a group of people that suck, and that needs to change.”

And why not?  Maybe he’s wrong…and maybe he’s right.  The point is that Schill, as an American, is voicing his dissent and at least considering the idea of taking a more active role in changing what he thinks is wrong.  Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t, but more power to him for putting it out there for discussion and looking at ways to be an active participant, rather than sit back and contribute nothing.

Curt Schilling may be a lot of things to a lot of people, and you are certainly all entitled to think what you want (as you should), but the man has a strong opinion and some intestinal fortitude and his heart seems to be in the right place for the moment.

Seems like this pitcher might just be ahead in the count…

A sports charity story we came across recently is one of a different stripe–not sports-related, like Schilling’s ALS charity, but one that addresses a serious need in a very needy part of the world: Dikembe Mutombo’s hospital located in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Clinton (she, not he) paid a visit to the former Knick, Net, 76er and Rocket, and the amazing work he’s doing and funding.

In Mutombo’s country, hundreds of thousands of civillians are unsafe.  In 2009 thusfar, 600 civilians have been killed and more than half a million have been forced out of their homes.  Mutombo’s hospital is helping those people and his celebrity is bringing attention to the region’s plight.  There’s a use of celebrity we really admire.