BC was on the verge of knocking over top-ranked North Carolina tonight. So what does NESN do with one minute left in the game? Go to commercials, Jessica Heslam fumes.

David Scott reviews the big local sports-media news of the past year, including the way NESN quietly dumped Bob Ryan's show this month:

... The move, initiated by NESN's higher-ups and delivered (awkwardly and clumsily, according to multiple sources) by Joel Feld, the network's executive vice president of programming and executive producer, was yet another sign of an eroding relationship between the Red Sox broadcast unit and the New York Times Company (dba here in Boston as the Boston Globe). ...

Red Sock cannot believe the yahoos holding up WEEI-published signs reading "Manny Who?" at yesterday's game:

... Shame on everyone who not only took one of the signs, but was enough of an idiot to actually hold it up during the game. As I have said before (after Keith Foulke was booed in 2005, if I recall), I would love to have the power to erase the memories of these "fans" of everything Red Sox-related after Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, because they do not deserve to remember and forever savour what came afterwards.

Meanwhile, Beth tries to sum up all those years with Manny:

... It was while watching Papelbon that it suddenly felt to me like I was getting acquainted with this team all over again. I might not be glad Manny's bat is gone, but I was, at that point, very glad that the Subject of Manny was gone. The team looked like it had collectively exhaled for the first time in a week. ...

Kristen longs for another trade:

... Now, what can we do about trading Ken Macha to Kansas City? Look, I'm sure Macha's a nice guy, but he is Ambien in a suit. ...

Yay! Now, enough with the puns.

Capn Ho: It was a great (and badly needed) win, and a good way to wash the taste of the events of the last week out of our collective mouths.

But Remy? You're on notice.

And CHB? Stalking does not become you.

Pink Hat Hell considers how Sox management always tries to destroy big-name players right before they get rid of them:

... By the time Derek Lowe was gone, you'd have thought the guy needed an elephant-sized dose of Lithium just to get out of bed in the morning. ...

Redsock explains how Jim Rice is a hypocrite, although one could argue he's only applying that old adage, "it takes one to know one," since he also shoved some guy a lot older than him.

Back to Canada?

That's what Karl already is after watching Sox games - or to be exact, 60 bazillion Bob's commercials and enough Sullivan Tire commercials to last him a lifetime:

... This season's Sullivan Tire meatpuppet is Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, and he somehow manages to make Francona look like Daniel Day-Lewis. Pedrioa displays the onscreen charisma of a cinderblock as he stares down his cue card. ...

Yes, of course there's an entertaining blog whose sole purpose is to slice up the contestants on Sox Appeal.

Via Paul Flannery, who is, apparently, writing a multi-part series on the question of whether Drew Barrymore is the anti-Christ for having appeared in that Jimmy Fallon movie.

Dale Arnold: My side of the story:

... I feel that the advantage of having one of two Bruins' announcers also serve as a talkshow host on the highest rated sportsradio station in America outweighs the perceived advantage of a single play-by-play announcer. NESN disagrees. ...

Yes a shame has occurred, something that questions the esteemed academic abilities this city is self known for. In this place, with forty plus colleges and universities. where engineers and architects out number artists and musicians, depending on the street corner. A city full of educators, including ignoble and noble prize winners, where the only sport enjoyed more than the long running soap opera of the Red Sox, is throwing things at other people.

Could not some one come forward to teach Don Orsillo how to craft and pilot a paper airplane?