The Fenway fans chanting “Roger” are great. Even better: the Sox’ 2-0 lead through one inning. Now it’s just a question of whether the best pitcher in baseball can hold onto that edge. Go Pedro!

UPDATE: Yankees score 1 in the second; Boston leads, 2-1.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yankees now lead, 4-2, and both Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez are assholes. I love the Red Sox, but Jesus Christ!

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, watching the replay, Don Zimmer did seem to be swinging at Pedro. But you don’t just shove a 72-year-old man to the ground with full force when you’re a powerful athlete in your prime. As for Manny Ramirez, he above all should be ejected. The announcers are exactly right — that pitch wasn’t even close, he was just looking for an excuse to start something.

FINAL UPDATE: Even if Pedro was totally justified in the Zimmer incident, his gesture to the Yankees dugout — pointing to the head and saying he’d bean them — was totally uncalled for.

Anyway, I’m ending this post now and continuing my game-blogging above.

Well, I owe y’all an update on the latest goings-on in my life; much has changed in the last few days. But I gotta make it fast — the Roger-vs.-Pedro game is about to begin! So, quickly…

I’m quitting my job. Officially, my last day is Thursday (although I may end up going back for a couple of days the following week). There are various reasons for my decision to leave, but if you want the details, you’ll have to ask me privately — I’m not about to air the dirty laundry of my workplace, nor all the details my personal decision-making processes, on my website. So I’ll just give you the “official” reasons.

First of all, my employer essentially eliminated my position. Instead of a techie, they wanted a new phone sales guy. And with all due respect to people who do sales, that just isn’t me. I’m terrible at it, and I hate it. I know the economy sucks, and finding a new job will be difficult, but I’d rather deal with that hardship than spend my year off being miserable, working as a glorified telemarketer. So that’s Official Reason #1.

Official Reason #2: I’m moving to Phoenix. At least, that’s my tentative plan. There are pros and cons, and I’ve been debating staying vs. going, but the bottom line is, I miss Becky (and her cats), and she misses me (and, uh, so do they). I’m kind of lonely here at times, and I could use a change of scenery. So I’m planning — tentatively, as I said — to leave New York for Phoenix on or about Nov. 6.

Gotta go. The game is starting!

A beautiful view of the NYC skyline as we wait in Queens for our train. My mom and I just visited the Museum of Modern Art and its Ansel Adams exhibit; now heading back to Manhattan to watch the game on TV. :)

The Cubs’ eleventh-inning win last night was something. But today’s Roger vs. Pedro matchup at Fenway should really be something. I, for one, can’t wait.

By the way, I guess my “Marlins in 5″ prediction is dead in the water, eh? Well, good. I didn’t want it to happen. GO CUBS! But more importantly…

GO RED SOX!!!

Over on the SHA girl blog, Becky offers some words of wisdom: “The moral of the story? When life takes a crap on you, grab a video camera and throw a football at someone’s crotch.” :)

“I’m worried about the Red Sox, because they could blow their chance of blowing it,” David Letterman said after Boston’s Game 1 win.

Well, the Sox came back tonight with a loss, so they still have a chance to blow it. :) Yankees win, 6-2, to tie the series at 1-1.

I still like Boston’s chances, though. A 2-0 lead coming out of Yankee Stadium was the impossible dream. In the big picture, 1-1 is fantastic, especially considering Pedro hasn’t pitched yet. A sweep at Fenway would win the series, and even a 2-1 edge at Fenway would send the Sox back to Yankee Stadium with a 3-2 lead — one Pedro Martinez win away from the World Series.

Cubs beat Marlins, 12-3.

Red Sox beat Yankees, 5-2!!!

With Derek Lowe and Pedro Martinez up next, I really like Boston’s chances right now. Woohoo! Go Sox!

With 97.9% of the precincts reporting, Larry Flynt is leading Gary Coleman in a tight battle for seventh place, 14,968 (0.3%) to 12,415 (0.2%). But if you combine Larry Flynt’s vote with Mary Carey’s vote, you get a combined “porn vote” of 24,643 — good enough for sixth place. :)

Interestingly, the total number of votes for Arnold (3,529,388) is just barely ahead of the total number of “No” votes on the recall question, i.e., votes “for” Gray Davis (3,466,233).

Not exactly a fair comparison, nor a relevant one to the actual outcome, of course — but a comparison that the anti-Arnold would no doubt make if the “No” figure came out on top. It will be interesting to see if the final 2.1% of precincts, plus any late absentee returns, change that outcome.

Arnold’s victory speech was good, I thought. He tried to reach across party lines, promote unity, etc. The key line was “For the people to win, politics as usual must lose.” Of course, making a speech is easy; governing is hard. (As InstaPundit says, “Congrats, Arnold. Now all you have to do is govern the most ungovernable state in America!”) But he’s off to a good start, at least.

If Governor Schwarzenegger backs up his bipartisan words with bipartisan actions once in office, it will be interesting to see if California’s liberals — the folks who were booing during Davis’s concession — will take his hand of cooperation, or spurn it because they hate him and consider him illegitimate, just as they do with Bush. (Bush, of course, has not backed up his “uniter, not a divider” rhetoric with actions. Let’s hope Arnold does better. And if he does, let’s hope liberals don’t thwart him out of spite.)

Andrew Sullivan says this is “a potentially excellent development for the state of California, for punishing a certain type of interest-group-beholden Democrat, and really, really good news for the future of the Republican party nationally.”

The Drudge Report, meanwhile, declares simply, “CALEEEEEFORNEEEEA, HERE HE COMES!” Heh.

“Enough about Arnold, Gray, and Cruz!” you say. “How is Gary Coleman doing?” BrendanLoy.com is here to give you the answer!

With 33.5% of the precincts reporting, Coleman is in tenth place with 3,325 votes (0.2%), just ahead of porn star Mary Cook (a.k.a. “Mary Carey”), who has 2,872 (also 0.2%) votes for eleventh place.

Who else is in the Top 10, you ask? Well, after Schwarzenegger (1,330,992 votes, 50.3%), of course there’s the top tier: Bustamante (805,829, 30.5%), conservative Republican Tom McClintock (343,728, 13.0%), Green Party candidate Peter Camejo (58,809, 2.3%), dropped-out independent Arianna Huffington (26,310, 1.0%), and dropped-out Republican Peter Ueberroth (10,204, 0.4%).

Nothing too nutty there. But then in seventh place we have Hustler publisher Larry Flynt (4,913, 0.2%). Woohoo! :) Let’s hear it for California’s porn obsession!

Dropped-out conservative Republican and 2002 gubernatorial loser Bill Simon is eighth (3,842, 0.2%). But then comes my favorite: the ninth-place finisher, George B. Schwartzman, an independent whose 3,701 votes probably came mostly from confused voters who saw “Schwartz…” and thought they were voting for Arnold!!!

Click here for the latest complete results!

Jeez — what’s the matter with these Gray Davis supporters? He’s trying to be gracious in his concession speech, yet they’re vociferously booing Schwarzenegger’s name, booing when he says “in the next few weeks, we will have a new governor,” even crying “NO!” when he says he accepts the result! What do they want Davis to do? Surround himself with National Guard troops in Sacramento and declare himself Governor for Life?

Honestly! Have these people no respect for the concepts of democracy and the rule of law? Have they never heard of graciously accepting defeat, in the interests of a peaceful democratic transition? We can disagree over the result, we can even disagree over the process, but the process is very clear under the law, and unless and until it’s changed, the law is the law — and under the law, the people have spoken clearly, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is clearly the governor-elect. Do they disagree with that somehow?

Marlins 9, Cubs 8, final in 11 innings. :( What a heartbreaker.

SAMMY SOSA HITS A GAME-TYING, TWO-RUN HOMER WITH TWO OUTS IN THE BOTTOM OF THE NINTH! Holy Crap! (Marlins had taken an 8-6 lead.) They must be going NUTS at Wrigley! (I’m following the play-by-play on my cell phone on the bus.)