A word or two about anonymous posts...

I do publish them. Some people have good reasons why they wish not to share their names with readers. I've gotten into debates on other blogs about the topic of anonymous comments. I have strong feelings about anonymous comments that are mean spirited and/or attack people. That hasn't happened on this blog.

So. The bottom line is: If you wish to remain anonymous, do so. I appreciate your comments. That said.

Thank you so much Anonymous ( You who mentioned Todd ) Welcome aboard and I realy want you to keep those comments coming in.

And Anonymous in Wisconsin. I was a Brewers fans. Sort of. Back when I was a newspaper reporter in Holyoke, Massachusetts, there was this minor league team: The Millers. It was the farm team for The Brewers. They played in Holyoke between 1978 and 1982 I believe. At McKenzie Stadium.

Someone said the wrong thing in 1982 I guess. Go Millers.

And they did. They've been gone for 25 years.

There was talk a few years ago that the Erie ( Pennsylvania ) Seawolves ( I think that's the name ) might relocate to Holyoke. That might happen, but if it does I hope they change the name. To the Canal Rats, or The Paper City Rollers. Something like that.

The monologist Mike Daisey is appearing this week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On his blog, he solicited advice about what he should do while in Cambridge. The following is what I adviced him not to do...

Dear Mike Daisey:

Well, you asked for it. Advice on what to do and what not to do while you're working in the shadows of the Hancock and Prudential towers across the river in Boston.

Here's tip #1: Do not, I repeat. Do. Not...

Get involved with the Red Sox. Don't watch them. Don't listen to them. Don't read about their exploits in The Globe or The Herald. You get invested in these guys and they will break your heart, as they have broken mine over the years. Yesterday was opening day, a day on which a pitcher by the name of Curt Shilling got the nod. ( Forget the name immediately after reading this; send it to the showers. So to speak ) Shilling is the Red Sox " Ace. " The one they called upon to do much damage to the Kansas City team which they played on the first day of this season. Shilling was clobbered, hammered, bludgeoned, " touched " for eight hits and five runs. Ah, those sportswriters. The Eskimos are said to have 100 words for snow. The Beantown scribes have more words than that for losing. Because that's what being a Sox fan is about.

LOSS

So don't follow the team. If you wish to wind down after a performance in Cambridge, turn the TV on. Watch celebrity poker. Watch professional wrestling. Watch Emiril Legasse bake bread. But do not.

Do. Not. Invest your time in the Red Sox. You must think about winning ( over ) the crowd before which you will play there in April. That cruelest of months.

Good luck, Michael Daisey. Good luck and Godspeed. Break a leg and all that ( But don't break it at Fenway )

Terrence McCarthy, somewhere south of Pawtucket, Rhode Island ( Where the Sox minor league team loses its games )

It's two hours into the Red Sox first game of the season. We're in the fifth inning. Shilling, our " Ace, " just got knocked out. He gave up 8 hits and five earned runs. Walked two. The Kansas City Royals lead 6-1.

And that's not all. I've been watching the game on NESN. Just after Shilling was pulled, the screen froze up, like I'd been watching a taped game and I'd accidently hit Pause.

So I turn the radio on. And learn that Jerry Trupiano's contract wasn't renewed last fall. There's some kid whose voice just changed two or three years ago partnering with Joe Castiglione. Joe C. Who's undoubtedly reading the writing on the left field wall. Joe's been doing play by play for the Sox for twenty-five years and is getting long in the tooth.

Opening day. It's 42 degrees here and the wind's blowing over Block Island Sound. Chill factor's down around 38 degrees. It's in the low 80s and sunny in Kansas City.

But I don't wish I were there.

It's opening day of the 2007 major league baseball season. I'm excited. But I have mixed feelings. My father died 21 years ago. We buried him on opening day of the 1986 season. So I'm up and I'm down today.

The Mets are on tonight. The Sox open their season against Kansas City tomorrow afternoon at 4:05 pm.

The calendar shouts, " Spring! " The westerly winds whisper " Not yet. " But it's baseball season, and that can't be bad.

I'll sign off now. I'm listening to the radio. Lucinda Williams Are You Alright? just came on.

Talk about someone you'd want to sing you across that next bridge on the road on which you're motoring south...

The Boston Globe - Mac Daniel- Starts & Stops - Blog

Here's that bridge, the highest bridge in the world...The Boston Globe - Mac Daniel- Starts & Stops - Blog

We just got an email from the gentleman from Jacksonville, Florida. He wanted us to take a look at a bridge. He attached a photo to his message. ( Linked us to the picture. Built a kind of bridge. ) A photo of the new bridge, located between Paris and Barcelona. The bridge is the highest bridge in the world - 280 meters . It's 2..5 kilometers long. Terry wanted to know if we'd want to drive over this bridge. It was a rhetorical question.

He knows I don't like driving over some bridges. Long ones. High ones. It wasn't always that way. Tunnels have always bothered me. I remember the first time I drove south, through that tunnel on I-95 outside of Baltimore. That was 1967. Back then, bridges didn't bother me. Tunnels. That's another story.

In the John Cheever short story The Angel of the Bridge, Cheever wrote, " I felt that my terror of bridges was an expression of my clumsily concealed horror of what was becoming of the world...and it was at the highest point in the arc of the bridge that I became aware suddenly of the depth and the bitterness of my feelings about modern life. "

The Cheever character is rescued one day by a young woman ( The angel ) who drives him over the George Washington Bridge, a bridge that has terrified him for years.

" She sang me across the bridge, " Cheever wrote.

I plan to read more of John Cheever now that I've made that long passage, that bridge that connects one's 50s from one's 60s.

I crossed that bridge Wednesday. My wife Donna sang me across it. My mother sang me across it. My friend, the gentleman from the great state of Florida - I heard him singing his song today. That email. The link to the picture of the bridge between Paris and Barcelona. He's helping me cross the spans, too. And I thank him for that.

March is over, but the madness marches on, into this cruelest of months, April. Tomorrow night, in Atlanta, Florida meets Ohio State in the championship game. Donna's mother Sarah picked Ohio State to go all the way. Who'd she pick to meet them on April 2?

Florida.

Ohio State wins tomorrow night and Sarah just might be getting the call from CBS Sports.

" Hello? "

" Sarah Kanner? "

" This is Sarah Kanner. "

" Mrs. Kanner, we'd like to offer you a job. "

" Oh I don't know about that. Does it involve sewing? "

" No, it doesn't involve sewing, Mrs. Kanner. The job we're offering you is analyst. "

" Analyst? Oh, I don't think I'm qualified. My son, Alan. He's just a psychologist and he took post graduate courses for years before he... "

" No, no Mrs. Kanner. A SPORTS analyst. College basketball. You'd be working with Packer... "

" The Packers? Oy Vey!! I'm a Patriot fan. My son Michael would disown me if I went and worked for the... "

" No, no. BILLY Packer. You'd be working with the legendary Bill Packer... "

" Oh I don't think so. But thank you very much for asking. I have to go now. There's a mah jongg game starting downstairs in the community room. Goodbye. "