Jacoby Ellsbury, the Red Sox rookie whose stolen base in Game 2 of the World Series triggered Taco Bell’s "Steal a Base, Steal a Taco" promotion — or, as I like to call it, "Free Tacos for Brendan’s Birthday" — got a free taco himself yesterday, with a side order of fan adoration.

The promotion was such a success in Boston that it snarled traffic in some areas; one Taco Bell drive-thru in Quincy had to be shut down by police because the long line was disrupting traffic on nearby streets. (Heh.) There was also a pretty long line at the Taco Bell that I went to in Denver, and according to the Rocky Mountain News, local Taco Bell locations gave away an average of 200 to 500 tacos.

I’m just glad I was able to take part in this transcendent cultural phenomenon.
Someday, when my daughter asks me, "Daddy, where were you when Taco
Bell gave out free tacos?," I’ll be able to tell her that I was in Denver, at the Taco Bell on the 16th Street Mall, and yes, I got a free taco, and yes, it was yummy. Ah yes, many years from now, we’ll be recalling the events of 10/30/07, and I’ll be able to prove that I was there.   

;)

Actually, though, this article suggests that Free Taco Day wasn’t such a big deal outside of Boston and Denver… which makes sense, as Taco Bell really didn’t promote it very much — there weren’t even signs in front of the restaurants announcing "free tacos today!" — outside of Fox’s on-air shilling during the World Series. And the Series got dismal ratings nationwide… but the ratings were, of course, much higher in Boston and Denver. So I daresay more people in those cities were aware of their opportunity get free tacos.

P.S. On the other hand, Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz said "we have seen a huge response in New York and New Jersey," as well as South Carolina, Oregon and California. "A lot of people are jumping to get their tacos," he asserted. "Who doesn’t like a free taco?" Or free publicity, for that matter, eh Will? Heh.

Here’s what’s going on as of today in baseball.  If you thought that baseball was going away until spring, you were wrong.  :-) 

Have no fear, I’ll be keeping you all updated throughout the "off" season.

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I’ve posted my photos of last night’s Red Sox celebration on Flickr. Some are regular digital photos, some are cell-phone pics, and some are screen grabs from my video of the end of the game. (By the way, I just posted a brighter version of the video. The original version was kinda too dark to see what was going on.)

You can also view the photos in slideshow form if you like. Here’s one of ‘em:

Getting to watch the Red Sox win the World Series in a bar packed wall-to-wall with Boston fans — in the heart of enemy territory, downtown Denver, no less — more than made up for something I’ve always regretted: when the Sox won the 2004 World Series, I was watching in the rather uninteresting environment of my couch at Fischer Grad Residences, with just one other person (a classmate who wasn’t even really a Sox fan), while a bunch of my 1L classmates, who had a paper due the next day and thus had been at the library all evening, were (unbeknownst to me until the next day) gathered in the Law Lounge watching together, and then got to witness Rob from Boston, a lifelong die-hard Sox fan who never thought he’d see them actually win the Series, go completely nuts, jumping up on tables and running out into the night screaming his head off. I always regretted that I missed that. But last night was even better.

GO SAWX!!!

With A-Rod probably leaving the Bronx and Torre already gone, the B*stards have reportedly offered Joe Girardi the job as manager.

So they fired the always-playoff-ready Torre to replace him with a guy whose only job as manager left the Marlins just shy of the Wild Card?  I may not like Torre as a Yankee, but as a manager, he’s solid; I doubt that the Yankees can do much better than him.  I might end up eating my words, but replacing Torre with Girardi doesn’t seem right.

(You know what else doesn’t seem right?  The fact that the guys I grew up watching play the game are now old and are employed as either commentators or coaches!)

Here is the reaction at the Pour House Pub — a well-known Red Sox bar on Denver’s “LoDo” strip, as noted here and here and here — to the final out of the World Series, as the Boston Red Sox won Game 4 over the local Colorado Rockies to win their second world championship in four years, again in a 4-0 sweep:

The first half of the six-minute clip shows the immediate reaction to the end of the game; the second half of the clip shows the crowd, a few minutes later, singing “Sweet Caroline” — and then, at the 5:45 mark, breaking out into the obligatory chant of “Yankees suck!” Heh.

GO SAWX!!!

UPDATE: The video clip above is a brighter version, as the earlier one I uploaded was pretty dark and it was kinda hard to see what was going on. The darker version is after the jump, if anyone prefers it.

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The Red Sox have taken a 3-0 series lead over the Rockies. Kristy was there to see it. I’m so jealous! She got her money’s worth — it was a 4 hour, 19 minute game, the longest in World Series history.

The first pitch of Game 4 is scheduled for 6:29 PM MDT. My flight to Denver is scheduled to land at 7:50 PM MDT. After getting my luggage and such, I anticipate hurrying to a local bar to watch the final innings of — if things continue the way they’re going — a Red Sox sweep.

GO SAWX!!

P.S. I’ll admit, though, sorta kinda hoping the Rockies win Game 4, just so there’ll be a Game 5 while I’m in town (which I would then whole-heartedly root for the Red Sox to win, of course). If that happens, Denver will be the first city ever to host a World Series game and Monday Night Football on the same night. And I’d be there for it. That’d be cool. But again, in the big picture, GO SOX. :)

Thanks to Jacoby Ellsbury’s stolen base tonight, Taco Bell will be giving away free tacos on my birthday. Heh.

Anyway, it’s 2-1 Sox in the sixth.

Meanwhile, Boston College is staging a late rally after trailing Virginia Tech 10-0 for most of the game. It’s 10-7 Hokies with 36 seconds left, and the Eagles are deep in Tech territory.

UPDATE: Touchdown Boston College!! Holy crap!! I think Matt Ryan just won the Heisman… and BC has broken the #2 curse! (Dammit.)

UPDATE 2: …aaaaand Matt Ryan barfs on live TV.

UPDATE 3: “Ryan for Heismann!” Heh.

Okay, back to the World Series…

UPDATE 4: JACK BAUER IS ON HIS OWN!!!!!

UPDATE 5: Sox win!! 2-1, final. It’s a 2-0 series lead for Boston, heading out to Denver.

The Red Sox lead the Rockies 10-1 in the bottom of the fifth. Jeez, couldn’t we have saved Josh Beckett for a night when we weren’t going to score a zillion runs?

Anyway, it looks like Colorado’s incredible 21-of-22 streak is about to end. (Knock on wood.) Now the question will be whether the Rockies can catch their breath and make this a series, or if they’ll become demoralized and fold. Obviously I want the Red Sox to win the series, but I hope the Rockies win at least one game, because I want there to be a Game 5 — Monday is my one full day and night in Denver. (My flight out is scheduled to land during Game 4, probably in the fourth inning or thereabouts.)

UPDATE: Sox 13, Rox 1, final.

Rudy Giuliani, alleged Yankees fan, is rooting for the Red Sox to win the World Series.

P.S. In other Election 2008 news, Stephen Colbert is in a statistical tie for fourth place in the Democratic presidential race:

In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote –
good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent),
Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent)
and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent). Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill
Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former
Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).

The poll has a 5 percent margin of error, so it’s meaningless to talk about Colbert’s 2.3 percent being "behind" Biden’s 2.7 or "ahead" of Richardson’s 2.1. As I said: he’s tied for fourth — with everyone else not named Clinton, Obama or Edwards. (He’s tied with me, at 0.0 percent, for instance.) The headline, really, ought to be simply: Colbert gets measurable support. (Hat tip: E&P, via InstaPundit.)

And in more serious election news, Hillary Clinton says she "would consider giving up some of the executive powers President Bush and Vice President Cheney have assumed since taking office." At least, that’s what the Associated Press says she said — and the AP headline turns that into "Clinton Says She’d Give Up Some Powers," which is clearly quite different than saying she "would consider" doing so. And even "would consider" might not be quite right. From the original Guardian article about their interview with Mrs. Clinton:

Ms Clinton said the accumulation of executive power [under Bush and Cheney] had put America
into "new territory" because Mr Bush and the vice president had taken
the view that what were previously extraordinary powers were now
inherent powers that belonged to the White House.

"I think I’m
going to have to review everything they’ve done, because I’ve been on
the receiving end of that," she said. Ms Clinton stated it was
"absolutely" conceivable that, as president, she would give up
executive powers in the name of constitutional principle.

"That has to be part of the review I undertake when I get to the White House, and I intend to do that," she said.

So, what she actually said was that she’ll "review everything they’ve done," as "part of the review I undertake" (which is functionally equivalent to saying she’ll set up a committee to study the issue), and that it’s "conceivable" that she would give up some executive powers. And somehow the AP headline-writer translated that into "Clinton Says She’d Give Up Some Powers." Hmm. Wishful thinking much? (Hat tip, again: InstaPundit, who declares himself "somewhat skeptical" that Hillary will follow through on her, uh, non-promise.)

By the way, the Guardian article, if you’re wondering, is headlined, "Clinton vows review of executive power." That is actually accurate.

Mulligan!

The Colorado Rockies say tickets for the World Series will again be sold online starting Tuesday at noon after an attack brought down the Web site on Monday.

Rockies Spokesperson Jay Alves said on Monday night that ColoradoRockies.com was the victim of an “external malicious attack” that caused a system-wide outage with Paciolan. …

“We absolutely have backup plans in place that, should something go wrong tomorrow, we will immediately go to those plans,” said Alves.

Alves would not elaborate on what those plans were.

I’m guessing they involve heading for the hills to get away from the angry mob.

Again, check out RoxandSox for the latest.

I’ve just finished watching a live Internet feed of the Colorado Rockies’ “press conference” about today’s World Series ticket fiasco, and I have an announcement to make: ladies and gentlemen, the Rockies organization is — officially — completely and utterly inept.

Technical glitches can happen to anyone. But their response has been absolutely abysmal. This is a group of people with no ability to handle a crisis. None. My analogy to FEMA earlier wasn’t that far off. It’s a total nightmare from a P.R. standpoint. From head-smackingly stupid excuses (they had “no idea that so many people” would want tickets) to an utter failure to keep the public informed in any meaningful way (thus exacerbating a situation that has already caused a huge amount of fan anger), they’ve mismanaged this problem so badly that you’d really think they work for the Bush Administration or something.

But it just got even worse, as the Rockies committed the cardinal sin: pissing off the media. They summoned the entire local press corps to a 5:00 PM MDT press conference (at the top of the local news broadcasts) … then kept the reporters waiting for an hour and 15 minutes with no explanation or information whatsoever (on the live Internet feed, you could hear all the reporters talking via cell phone to their bosses, saying they had no idea what was going on) … and then, when Rockies vice president for communications Jay Alves finally emerged at 6:15 PM, he spoke for less than 90 seconds, provided absolutely no meaningful information, took about a question-and-a-half, snapped at a reporter for no apparent reason, and walked away. Unbelievable.

Here’s an audio clip. Listen to the explosion of barely controlled outrage around the 1:05 mark, when the reporters realize he’s leaving them in the lurch after making them wait for a time period about 50 times longer than the length of the press conference.

source file

Alves’s performance guarantees, if it wasn’t inevitable already, that the Rockies will get absolutely horrible press in every newspaper and on every TV station in Denver tonight and tomorrow. And he’s the P.R. guy.

It was a terrible day for the Rockies already, but that sorry excuse for a press conference just made it far worse, because now it’s personal for the press corps just like it’s personal for the fans. By keeping the reporters waiting that long, without explanation, for a totally pointless non-event, and then refusing to even make a half-assed attempt at answering their questions, he’s made every single one of them feel disrespected and annoyed, and I guarantee you their pique will come across in the stories they write and the reports they file. (I used to be a journalist. Trust me on this.)

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Did the Colorado Rockies put the Notre Dame athletic department in charge of their World Series ticket sales? What a fiasco:

An overwhelming demand for World Series tickets at Coors Field led to an overload of Web site servers Monday, forcing the team to suspend sales just after noon [MDT] and regroup before reopening the sales system.

The Colorado Rockies put as many as 60,000 tickets up for sale, but only online. The company that runs the servers hosting the online ticket sales program reported a problem late Monday morning with the system and said "only a few tickets had been sold."

The company, Paciolan, Inc. which runs evenue.net, said it didn’t know exactly what the problem was and that it was working to fix the issue.

"Several hundred" tickets were sold before the system was shut down, said Rockies spokesman Jay Alves. He added that nearly the entire allotment of tickets for the three possible home games in Denver were still available.

Alves reported that about 8.5 million people tried to access the sales Web servers in the opening 90 minutes.

The team said it would announce when online sales would resume, possibly later Monday afternoon.

At some point, you’d think people would stop being surprised by — and start being prepared for — extremely heavy traffic for web events like this.

UPDATE: According to the Denver Post, Rockies spokesman Jay Alves "said the servers were overwhelemed this morning and officials had no idea that so many people would try the website."

Seriously?!?

Forget the Notre Dame athletic department. With that sort of lack of imagination and inability to anticipate head-smackingly obvious inevitabilities, this Rockies braintrust has a bright future at FEMA!

Alvie, you’re doing a heckuva job!

The Red Sox win the pennant! The Red Sox win the pennant!

It’s Boston against Colorado in the World Series… and I’ll be in Denver — where hopefully it won’t be snowing — the night of Game 4 and (if necessary) Game 5. YES!! GO SAWX!!!

P.S. Make it a Bud Light! Heh.

GO SOX!!!

Liveblog here.

P.S. Some people are watching, and liveblogging, the GOP debate instead. I’ll stick to baseball.

UPDATE: ARRRGH!!! Stupid double plays!!!

UPDATE 2: It’s the bottom of the sixth, and the Red Sox are clinging to a tenuous 3-2 lead. They led 3-0, and it could have been much more than that, but they couldn’t take advantage of all their early hits. I don’t have a terribly good feeling about how this will end, but I’m trying to keep the faith here. So, again I say, GO SOX!!!

… NOTE: I had a bunch of updates here, as the Sox dodged a bullet in the seventh, then took a big lead in the eighth and ninth… but then I accidentally deleted all those updates. D’oh! …

FINAL UPDATE: The Red Sox win the pennant!!!! On a fantastic catch by defensive replacement Coco Crisp!! YEEEEEAAAHHH!!!!!!!!

Dammit, I somehow deleted a bunch of my updates… trying to retrieve them now…

Tomorrow night. Fenway Park. 8:00 PM. Matsuzaka vs. Westbrook. Winner goes to the World Series. Loser goes home.

LET’S GO SOX!!!

(Tonight’s final was 12-2.)