"NO": That's what I was thinking of during those extra inning games, that scene in the Matrix where Keanu realizes he doesn't have to take the agents' shit anymore and then he prevents Agent Smith from even landing a punch. THAT'S what I was thinking of; there was this sense that no matter how long those games dragged on and no matter what the Yankees threw at the Red Sox, it didn't matter. Not after the comeback in game four, which I guess was the "No" moment. I was thinking of it then and this whole week, but I didn't want to mention it for fear of unleashing the jinx.

Things that made me think the baseball gods were smiling on the Red Sox:

--The wind in game six. The way it kept out at least one home run--I forget whose.

--That ground rule double that held somebody at second in a key moment.

--Most of all, those reversed calls, the kind of thing that would've gone for the Yankees in previous years. The near-homerun was completely reminescent of the Jeff Maier incident. And every other year Alex Rodriguez gets away with slapping the ball away. There's no replay in the MLB but these ump pow-wows appear to be working.

I mean--I had no opinion of Alex Rodriguez before that moment, other than knowing he was the poster child for being completely overplayed when he was with the Rangers. But apparently he's a bit of a punk as well.

So. We have a sports victory for all time, even if game seven was a bit of an anticlimax. I think game six killed the Yankees, the combination of the Schilling performance and the reversed calls took all the life out of them. But I know I didn't believe it was going to happen until the final out.