In Birmingham, I once heard tell, they love the governor, while in the South in general, they love their college football. So in deference to Atlanta's most popular team, the Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech, I'm calling an audible.
See, I was just about to write something to the effect of well, it's too bad we lost and the Phillies won and closed the gap between us to four games, but it's nice that if the Phillies had to beat anyone, it was super that it was the Braves because, well, they're the Braves.
Then I checked the ESPN.com scoreboard one more time to see if the Phillies 8 Braves 6 score from the ninth had gone final. It had. Except a Matt Diaz two-out, bases-clearing double off Brett Myers (a lot to choose from there, huh?) made it Braves 9 Phillies 8 [1].
Holy Lemke! Braves help Mets yet again!
So to sum up:
• We took the day off [2] in Cincinnati. Efficient of Willie to get the hung over, post-clinching game out of the way early.
• But we maintain our five-game lead and reduce our, dare I say it, magic number by one to 19.
• Because the Braves who we sw…sw…swept in Atlanta just took two of three from the phetid Phillies.
• And even with the win, the Braves are a hundred miles out.
Or, as Aretha Franklin put it, I don't know what we're doin', but we must be livin' right. (Except for Delgado's hip flexor [3].)
I can't totally dismiss Turner's worms because 7-1/2 back with 22 for them to play isn't totally buriable, not when they have three more chances against us (that's not Braves juju talking, just simple math…and maybe a little Met mojo). But they're pretty darn close to done [4]. Magic number to eliminate Atlanta: 16.
No, Willie Harris [5] does not bother me. Does Mark Teixeira bother you? Tell the truth.
Nothing to do with most of this, but I have to share: College football, of virtually relatively no interest in New York, is huge in the Midwest, too. The Appalachian State upset of Michigan was a major development throughout Big Ten country, which includes Milwaukee where we just spent a few days. The news crawl for the ABC affiliate in town was sure to highlight this result. And they did. According to the station, the Wolverines lost to…Appellation State.
Appellation State: The finest name [6] in college football.
The same station ran this title over the bumper or tease for the story that would be coming up after the next commercial:
BUMP TITLE GOES HERE
WISN, Channel 12, Milwaukee…I don't know what they're doin', but they must not be livin' right.