Uncle

Uncle, OK? This year has defeated us. I, for one, will be dragged from under my comforter by appointment or divine intervention only until 2009 at the earliest.

How does one react to a year like this?

A year in which our newborn son spent eight days in the neo-natal intensive care unit and had his little life jeopardized when he was inadvertently given another mother's breast milk by a nurse.

A year in which I was laid off from my job of 16 years three weeks after that new son was born.

A year in which I suffered, at age 39, an actual, full-blown heart attack. Five days later, I still can't get my mind around that, by the way. I wonder if I ever will.

Who am I, Job all of a sudden? I'm not going to pull a Job, though. I'm not going to try to find some theocratic reason for all of this apparent misfortune. I'm not going to NOT blame God, or the Fates, or the Furies, or Media General. Even to grant a sanctimonious reprieve to those entities (or non-entities, as the case may be) would give them more credit than they deserve.

After all, what was the lesson of Job (which I re-read today just for the literary fulfillment of it)? As far as I could tell, the long and the short of the Book of Job was that good things happen even to bad people, bad things happen even to good people and no people, bad or good, are smart enough to know why. It just is what it is.

Yet, how does one respond? I'm not entirely sure, actually. I do know what I won't do, and what I won't accept from anyone who knows me or cares to know me. There will be no pity, self- or otherwise. Concern? Sure. I had a 100 percent blockage of my right coronary artery, after all, and I have no idea how I'm going to draw a paycheck in the future. Kind of worrisome, no?

But Chris is 100 percent healthy and the smilingest little 4-month-old you'll ever see. Jay, his big brother, is almost 3 and smarter and more beautiful than anyone I've ever known. Beth and I still have our home. We have our families in Massachusetts, North Carolina and points beyond.

We also carry within us a shared sense of optimism that will not be shattered by even the most daunting challenges life can throw at us.

I guess that's how we respond. We're still alive, OK? What else you got? Bring it on.

Only, please, please, please wait until 2009. After a year like this, we could really use a break.

The Rays' Secret: Fungi-ball

I'm not a "fan" of the Tampa Bay Rays. I spent too many years as a beat writer covering the team to set aside my carefully cultivated sense of objectivity when it comes to wins and losses and that baseball team.

That doesn't mean I'm not excited about the World Series. Nor does it mean I wish them ill against the Phillies. My guess is that the beat writers who cover a team in the Series figure they got this far, so why not win it? That's pretty much how I feel. I can see it as a good story, though, even if they lose.

But on the day of Game One at Tropicana Field, I find myself thinking less about whether they'll win or lose and more about my experiences with some of the folks with a real stake in the outcome. Folks like Andrew Friedman, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, Trever Miller, B.J. Upton, Scott Kazmir. Folks I got to know pretty well in a professional capacity, and folks I would like to see perform well on this largest of stages.

Andrew has already performed well, of course. I think about Friedman as I knew him when he was Stu Sternberg's man in the front office, back in the waning months of the Chuck LaMar Era in 2005. It was pretty obvious from the start that Andrew would be in charge once Sternberg took over from Vince Naimoli. At first, I thought of Andrew as a hyper-Moneyball disciple; someone who had read Michael Lewis' book and believed Billy Beane walked on water. I used to have a pretty long drive home from the Trop after games, and I always knew I could reach Andrew on his Blackberry, just to kill time. The guy never slept. And he always wanted to talk baseball. His conversation was littered with words like "fungible," something I attributed to his background in finance with Bear Stearns. It, "fungible," usually was used to refer to guys like Aubrey Huff and Toby Hall. It meant easy to replace at a better price.

He was right. Andrew was right about a lot of things. He was right to hire an experienced hand in Gerry Hunsicker, a free-thinking manager in Joe Maddon and all those young "numbers" guys he used to populate his inner sanctum: Chaim Bloom, James Click, Dan Feinstein, etc. He was right about Dioner Navarro and, yes, even Edwin Jackson. But he was right not because of a strict adherence to Moneyball principles. He was right because he was flexible enough to use those principles to form his own style. Call it "Fungi-ball." His strategy? Find the under-valued skills (in this case, defense, middle relief pitching and a strong bench) and emphasize them on the roster. Then, lock down the young, talented players they acquired through the draft to reasonable long-term contracts. Finally, he knew enough not to be afraid to take what appeared to be big chances, such as the Delmon Young trade for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett.

I think what Andrew did will be copied for years in MLB. Thing is, if I know Andrew, he's already thinking ahead to the next under-valued quality and how that might be exploited in order to sustain this incredible success. It's been fun and educational to watch.

So, a prediction. Rays win the Series in six. Simply amazing.

Face. Book.

I went ahead and joined Facebook, even though the idea kind of creeped me out at first. There's something impersonal (and a little desperate-seeming) about all these on-line networking sites. But hey, it's happening, right? Might as well be there when it does.

Speaking of which . . .

I still can't get my mind around the Rays. That they are in the World Series and I am not able to cover it is so galling I can barely breathe.

(Edited to conceal the true depth of my angst.)