BoSox Do It Again

Class. Attitude. Swagger. All of these words describe the AL Champion Boston Red Sox well, though perhaps not as well as the most important of words: winners. Never before has a team been so prepared to tackle a major deficit in a championship series and yet that takes nothing away from what the New England team has done once again. They have overcome seemingly impossible odds for the second time in four years to make it back to the World Series.

From Theo Epstein on down, this organization represents the pride and class of Major League Baseball. They have youngsters like Pappelbon, they have veterans like Big Poppy. They play quietly like Julio Lugo, they play loudly like Manny Ramirez. They win like...well, like Red Sox.

They even entertain us with their celebration, from Pappelbon's river dancing to the Irish victory music over the P.A. The World Series is coming back to Fenway Park, so get out your bottles of whiskey and your Dropkick Murphy songs. This one is going to be a good one.

Dane Cook = Worst MLB Marketing Ploy Ever

Look, I get it. Dane Cook is a relatively young, good looking guy filling the desperate void of our generation's lack of good stand up artists. So my generation is jumping on the bandwagon and turning this guy into a star? Fine. So he's playing gigs he wouldn't stand a chance of getting if he were up against true legends like Robbin Williams, Dave Chappelle, Dennis Leary, or Richard Prior? Fine. So Major League Baseball sends him into my living room to promote the playoffs? Uh, no.

It's not just that I don't want a metro-sexual talking about baseball on my television, although it makes about as much sense as having a Klan leader promoting tolerance. Frankly, I don't need any celebrity. I'm a baseball fan, I watch the games. I'm not a fan, I don't. Dane Cook offers us no incentive for the casual, or less than casual, fan to tune in. It's not like they're going to torture him live during the 7th inning stretch of each game in the World Series, although it's kind of a nice thought.

Bottom line: not only is he not baseball, he isn't funny, either. You want to be Dane Cook funny? Here's the secret. Over pronounce your syllables like Ron Burgandy, use ridiculously obscure words where simple words would suffice, and punctuate repeated humorless punchlines with curse words that haven't been meaningful since George Carlin broke them in forty years ago. Dane Cook says there is only one October. Thank God.