Why can''t they just let their townspeople riot like any other city? If they didn''t want riots, they shouldn''t have fielded a winning team.

I know you''re being flippant, but please reconsider that point of view.

It may be fun to think about hundreds of drunken madmen running amok in the heart of town, breaking laws and setting fire to things. But please remember that someone is now dead because a bunch of people got excited about a baseball game. It could have been your girlfriend, your sister or you. Over a baseball game.

Her name was Victoria. She was 21 years old, and I''m sure she had a lot of plans for her life after college. She probably even had plans for later that night. Instead she became a middle-of-the-page headline to be replaced the next day by a story about the MLB logo on the field at Fenway Park.

I know I sound like an old man, but I''m not. I''m 29. I work with college kids every day. I know that they, like most people, are generally fairly decent individuals. But they also (again like most people) tend to forget that there are consequences to one''s actions in this life. On wednesday night in Boston hundreds of stupid, drunk people (most of them college students) were in the wrong place at the wrong time acting thoughtlessly and generally being ignorant louts. Most of them probably had a pretty good time, what they can remember of it. Victoria died. She died, people. There is now a hole in the lives of everyone she knew. They will never get to see her or talk to her ever again. This may not be a big deal to you, but I''m sure that it''s among the most painful things her family and friends have ever experienced.

If cutting down the amount of booze on Yawkee Way could bring her back, I''m sure we''d all agree that it would be the best possible idea. But it won''t. It might, however, keep the rest of us and our friends and loved ones alive through the end of the week. That, I think, is a small price to pay. We can always get drunk next week if have to.

I see your point and I agree that Victoria shouldn''t have been there doing what she was doing. But death is a bit severe as punishments go.

I see limiting the alcohol more as punishing the many for the stupidity of the many. Its the folks who will later be burning cars and threatening police officers who are to be denied the booze, Swamp.

Perhaps its a bit draconian, I don''t know. It is quite easy to err too far on the side of caution when lives are at stake, and perhaps I am a bit overly sensitive to this issue because that girl could very easily have been any number of people I know.

My point is that its just a baseball game for f**k''s sake. People shouldn''t be losing their lives over baseball. Hockey, f**k yeah, but not baseball.

I guess that''s the decision to be made. Do we prop up government as the nanny to those too ignorant to make wise decisions, or do we trust in the individual to keep him/herself safe from harm? Perhaps this is too rich a debate for this forum.

Ah well, time to crack open my shiny new copy of KOTOR. And a beer. Must not forget the beer. But I promise not to start any riots.

I won''t. I loved Mech 3 & 4 for PC.

Hold on. Did I just see that the Sox made the Series?
What is this world coming to?

I don''t know how much booze flowed at Fenway tonight, Gnome. It was Xbox world series for me. I didn''t even watch the game on TV.

Myself, I had two beers and a shot of Bourbon.

You could get hit with an out-of-the-park homer. Or maybe that''s already happened.

Just out of interest .... how many non American teams are in the world series?

Quite a few. Places like Pakistan, India, australia, new zealand and lesser teams such as namibia and they are actually international teams which makes the name of the competition an accurate description of what it is.

Are there any non american teams in the world series at all though? Are they allowed? I''m not Having a go at americanism, I just wanted to know....

From Canada the Toronto Blue Jays and Montreal Expos compete for it. But Montreal is moving to Washington DC next year, so yeah, there is only one left.

The correct question should be:

How many Non British Commonwealth teams play in the World Cricket Championship?

The answer is: None that I can think of.

And MLB has Toronto and Mont.... ok they have Toronto! I wish they would expand into Latin America and get rid of some of the dead weight in the league *cough* KC and Pittsburgh *cough*, but I don''t see that happening in the near future. Wouldn''t it be fun to see a team in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic?? Even though they would never have the financial capability (or population base) to support such a venture it would be great.

I hate to revisit this, but Si.com has a nice story up about the memorial service for the young lady killed by police during last week''s Boston revelries.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/baseball/mlb/specials/postseason/2004/10/26/bc.bba.fandeath.ap/index.html

Someone had made the point that this girl should have realized that she was in a dangerous situation, and therefore is at least partly to blame for her own death. I will not debate the truth of that statement. Blame for an accident of this nature is only relevant to the lawyers who will argue over compensation. Yet, despite who may ultimately be culpable, this girl would not have died had the ''celebration'' not turned violent.

There is a lot of pent-up frustration in Boston regarding the Sox and the ""curse."" So I suppose it is to be expected that some will seek to release that frustration through violence. Still, it saddens me that we live in a society that finds that sort of behavior acceptable, even ideal if the remarks in this forum are to be taken in any way seriously.

I''m writing this on the eve of what may be the greatest day in Boston sports history. Should the Sox win Game Four tomorrow night, this town may well go up in flames, consumed by its own ecstasy. It will not break my heart to hear of drunken revelers being shot by police, or falling under upturned, flaming SUVs. Unfortunately, when police are asked to quiet 80,000 people rioting on the streets of a major metropolitian city, the innocent can get hurt just as easily as anyone else.

In 2003, football fans in Oakland set fire to shops and threw rocks at police cars when the Raiders lost the Super Bowl. Last year Boston was turned into a war zone after the Patriots'' Super Bowl win, and one man drove his SUV into a crowd of people, killing another. This kind of violence surrounding a sporting event brings to mind the games of Ancient Rome, where men and women were thrown (often unarmed) into pits with man-eating beasts for the enjoyment of the masses. If you''re anything like me you probably think that that''s a pretty barbarous way to pass the time, watching people get torn apart and such. Yet given the events of the last few years, how can we honestly claim that that kind of barbarity has faded into the sands of time? We are killing each other on the streets because of the outcome of a game. Here. In America. In the twenty-first century. We put people in space. We have machines capable of making our wildest dreams reality, and yet we are killing each other in the streets because of the outcome of a game. This is the country we live in. It is the greatest, most powerful country in the world. And these people, every car-tipping, fire-starting, crowd-ramming, cop-threatening one of them, are our countrymen and women. They are us.

If you need a reason to start giving a s**t about the democratic process, then consider that these people''s votes count just as much as yours. That guy standing in the booth next to you next Tuesday might have been flipping over SUVs and setting fire to gas stations at the World Series. If you want people like that deciding who your leaders are all you have to do is stay home. If, however, the thought of ignorant, drunken lunatics making decision that will effect your life makes you uneasy then participate. Write letters, send emails. Vote. Doing nothing is easy and fun. Believe me I know this. But sometimes we have to get off the couch and fight.

Wondering how many people will lose their lives should Boston win the World Series keeps me awake. Knowing how few people will vote in the election on Tuesday makes me sick. God bless America.

</soapbox>

Let the persecutions begin! Gee, I never saw this coming.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137018,00.html

God Bless America, the home of people never to be held responsible for what happens to them!