Today's post has only one purpose. That purpose is to tell a tale about baseball; it is a tale of greed and power, a tale of underdogs and comebacks. The end was only just written, but it needs no editing.

In the spirit of my blog, let me start with the villain, the 2011 Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox are quickly becoming a team as obnoxious and as hated as the New York Yankees. They buy up all the best players and have an air of entitlement about them that can be smelled from the other side of the country (trust me, I know). At the start of September, with less than a month of baseball to play, the Red Sox had a titanic and seemingly impenetrable nine game lead on their closet competitor for a spot into the playoffs, the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays are the first of this story's two heroes, an up-and-coming team whose salary is less than a quarter of Boston's. Beaten down in the AL East (baseball's infamously strongest division) since coming into existence, over the past few years they've begun to thrive on homegrown talent, good pitching and solid, all-around baseball. But nine games was surely far too many for even the scrappiest of teams to make up in the course of one short month, right?

Yet Red Sox somehow began to fade; Tampa was catching up quickly. But analysts were not worried. After all, Boston had six games at the end of the season against the Baltimore Orioles, a team that, at times, can hardly remember what sport it is supposed to be playing.

So it fell to the oft-inept Orioles to be the second heroic group in this magical tale. Perhaps they were sick of being looked down on or maybe it was some kindred spirit they saw in Tampa, but despite being woefully out of contention Baltimore caught fire and played evenly with, nay, outplayed the desperate, title-seeking Red Sox during their many encounters at the season's end. Before you could say "legendary chokers," it was September 28th, last night, the final day of the season. The Red Sox and Rays were tied for the wild card. Whichever team won their last game and saw the other defeated would be headed for the playoffs and a shot at the championship. It was do-or-die; the tension was palpable.

Tampa was matched up against the Yankees, the top team in the American League. Boston was again pitted against the suddenly-ignited Orioles. However, the Red Sox had a literal ace up their sleeves, Jon Lester was on the mound, a man who was a perfect 14-0 against Baltimore in his career. Despite their recent troubles, Boston appeared to be in the superior position.

Indeed, things went quite badly for our heroes at first. Perhaps as bad as can be. After a heart-crippling grand slam from the Yanks and several other miscue-filled innings, Tampa found itself down 7-0 in the eighth, a positively impossible situation. Meanwhile, Baltimore was playing its heart out but losing 2-3 to Boston in the middle of a prolonged rain delay. The weather seemed portentious of something, but at the time it could not be said of what.

It was then that the first miracle happened.

Tampa Bay, having been shut out for seven innings against the Yankees, suddenly tore free and, led by a three run blast by the face of their franchise, Evan Longoria, scored six runs in the eighth inning, leaving them down by a single, oh-so-scorable run heading into the ninth. Yet that final inning, surely the last inning of their season, started with disaster and the Rays saw themselves facing the final out of the game. Tampa Bay's skipper, the savvy Joe Maddon did not despair and pinch hit Dan Johnson, a man hitting .108 and who hadn't hit a home run since April. What did he do? Well, what could he do? He smacked one of the most ludicrous and dramatic home runs I've ever seen and sent the game into extra innings.

Hundreds of miles to the north, the skies cleared over Baltimore.

Play resumed and the Orioles and Red Sox continued their titanic clash even as the Rays and Yankees took their game beyond the ninth in Tampa Bay. The night burned on as the pitchers hurled and the hitters lashed but none of the four teams could make a dent. Yet no such unstable system can long remain in equilibrium, and as the Orioles entered the bottom of the ninth down a run, things appeared grim.

Jonathan Papelbon, the famous Boston closer, took the mound. Adam Jones struck out swinging. Mark Reynolds struck out swinging. Suddenly the Orioles were left with but one out in their season. But then by some great feat of will the next two Orioles hitters, first Chris Davis and second Nolan Reimold, smashed balls all the way to the wall for doubles, bringing the score level and leaving Reimold, the winning run, in scoring position. Camden Yards was going wild, roaring in September night and at once believing in the impossible.

The games had that had begun at 7:00 entered their fifth hours and clocks struck midnight on the East Coast.

Robert Andino, last of the Baltimore Orioles, strode up to the plate. He had slain the Boston closer just recently, but surely he couldn't duplicate the feat. He was quickly down in the count. Papelbon readied and threw his final pitch.

Just before that fateful toss, Gary Thorne, the Orioles play-by-play commentator noted, "the Baseball Gods are laughing now." Oh how right he was. Robert Andino lined the pitch into left field, Noland Reimold crossed the plate and the Orioles, with nothing but pride on the line, had somehow come back and defeated the Boston Red Sox!

But this is not the end of the story. Oh no. The Rays still had to win their game to ensure their victory over Boston. Back in Tampa, even as their own BJ Upton struck out in the bottom of the 12th, the Rays fans were going wild. They had just heard the news: mighty Boston had fallen to the Orioles. It's said that those in attendance could feel that the tides had turned, that their beyond-improbable victory was now a thing of certainty. And who came up the to plate next but Mr. Tampa Bay, Evan Longoria, looking to end things once and for all. And just as reasonably as Chip Hilton scores the winning touchdown or as a baseball team loses a nine game lead in the space of a month, he swung his bat and sent the ball hurtling over the fences, Tampa Bay into the playoffs and the reeling Red Sox into the history books.

* * *

Has all that ludicrousness sunk in yet? Well too bad that's only half the story. The Atlanta Braves were leading the in National League Wild Card by eight and a half games at the beginning of September. Somehow they ALSO managed to be overtaken by the team behind them (the Cardinals) causing a race that ALSO came down to the last game of the season which they ALSO lost by falling in the THIRTEENTH inning. Unbelievable. Marvelous. Baseball.

I have returned. 

The summer was a good one. I spent a good portion of it wandering. In particular I visited Sequoia National Park with my parents, enjoyed an epic trek across the Oregon Dunes with a friend, hung out in New Jersey with some bros and visited the trees and beaches of the California coast with my brother and cousin. I read books, played games and was twice thwarted by a Snowy Plover. Oh, also there was physics; I managed to survive preparing for and taking the Physics Preliminary Test given to all graduate students here after their first year. I'll find out if I passed in the next few days, though I'm not really worried.

Having time to read for pleasure was a strange situation to be in and one that I abused quite  thoroughly. Highlights from the summer include Snow Crash and Neuromancer from the cyber-punk genre,  George R.R. Martin's new tome, Shades of Grey, and the first handful of the Dresden Files.

I played a good amount of Starcraft 2 and more recently Civilization 5. Both involve intricate tactics and the latter is delightfully reminiscent of Settlers of Catan.

Behold the beauty (but only if you really want to)

Speaking of the Civilization series, perhaps the single coolest part of any of its iterations are the absolutely breathtaking wonder videos from the second game (there's too many great ones to link, sorry). The sense of accomplishment and power they instill has yet to be equalled.

Classes have started up here again, but I now find myself solely on the student end of the teacher-student spectrum. I work in the lab in the mornings and attend classes in the afternoons. It's a pleasant sort of situation, especially compared to the hectic madness that best describes my first year graduate student experience.

So yeah, the blog is back in business. You'll notice we have new pictures on the sidebar! I hope to update again before the weekend is over with some thoughts on geometric probability. Yeah. Get excited. For now though it's time to bring back The Blog of Many Thing's time-honored tradition of villainy. I watched the Phantom Tollbooth recently and it reminded me very quickly how much I loved this particular fellow. If you've ever had a professor who required you to agonize over the tiniest minutia or a boss who forced you to sink time into wasteful tasks then you already know the power of today's villain: the Terrible Trivium!

The Phantom Tollbooth is rife with metaphorical characters, but my favorite is the spiffy gentlemen pictured above. The Terrible Trivium is a demon who lives atop the Mountains of Ignorance. He attempts to befriend travelers in that harsh environment and wile them into completing pointless and time-consuming deeds for him. Sound innocent enough? Say that when you're stuck spending eternity factoring 20-digit integers or turning a boulder into sand using only a sewing needle! He has the tongue of Saruman and dresses like a gentlemen. The reason behind his mysterious lack of neck or wrists can only be guessed at; though I'd avoid doing so as it's probably the Trivium's plan to make you waste time in that manner. His parting cry, along with his hilarious annunciation, will always comes to mind when I abandon any particularly menial piece of labor: "Come back, come back! There are so many things to take away, and things to bring back! Come back, there are so many useless things yet to do!"

EDIT: There will be a special baseball edition tomorrow to detail what was the greatest and most unpredictable night in baseball wildcard history!