Second Season :: Round 2 :: Game 1

Welcome to the big time. No more Berman slathering junior high nicknames on the hometown nine from the Olde Town Team. -- Out of the frying pan and into the fire. -- Congratulations Sox fans, your reward for making it to the ALCS: Tim McCarver is calling all of your remaing games. [ShutupTimMcCarver] Not only will you get to listen to 9+ innings of "a walk's as good as a homerun," you can let the soothing sounds of Scooter the gay talking baseball explain the physics of Jose Contreras' forkball.

How about some keys for game 1?

• Contreras -- Keep Figgins off the basepaths. Chone can fly, even moreso than Pods. Jose is notoriously slow to the plate. If you want to control the running game, you have to keep the Halo's sparkplug on the pine.
  
• Contreras -- Don't throw Vlad first pitch fastball. If you're going to let Vlad beat you, make sure it's on a splitter.
  
• Score first -- The USCF crowd is ready to explode. I can feel it all the way from my keyboard here in Schaumburg. The crowd was a huge lift in the ALDS. We need to take advantage of it once again.
  
• Execute -- The winner of this series is going to be the team who executes better; the team who makes the fewest mistakes, the team who goes from first to third on a single, the team who gets the runner in from third with less than two outs. Execute.