"It's been a great year for the Red Sox." This guy is walking around and around Fenway Park with a battery-powered bullhorn and three Red Sox banners. "You can't come up with winners all the time...It's been a great year for the Red Sox...It's been a great year for the Red Sox..." And it's been a great year for Anastasio Somoza.

It has been, if nothing else, an unusual year for the Beantown Bombers, with none of the last-minute anguish that made Red Sox fans in 1978 feel like stockbrokers on Black Tuesday. This year the Sox booted it early, and as I watch their last game in Fenway, against the Toronto Blue Jays, they are twelve-and-one-half games out of first place in the American League East. Nobody knew how many games behind the Blue Jays are--nobody has the instruments to measure such distance.

A Big One

Before the game starts, they give an award to Carl Yastrzemski--a big trophy. Carl had his 3000th hit this year. Last November, Carl's boy, Ed "A Man Called Flintstone" King, made Governor. Carl's a winner. He mumbles a few words through incredible static. The crowd cheers. I've heard Carl has to tape up his Achilles tendons so tight that he has no feeling in his feet. I've also heard that Carl voted with his feet. Carl's a winner.

Two down, and Fred Lynn approaches the plate. Lynn has the prettiest swing in baseball and a grace in centerfield that evokes DiMaggio, at least for those who remember that inspired Yankee Centurion. It's hard to capture the feeling of exaltation a player like Lynn can create, how he can--man versus ball--extend the horizons of human potential, at least during the brief span of a game. Lynn spent most of the year in pursuit of the Triple Crown, and he's a fair bet for the Most Valuable Player award, though it might go to either Ken Singleton of the Orioles or Don Baylor of the Angels. Lynn, meanwhile, whiffs--but what a great whiff.

Hail to the Earl

It's unlikely--things being what they are--but the MVP should really go to Earl Weaver, manager of the Baltimore Orioles. Singleton said that without Weaver the Orioles would be playing .500 ball. The biggest cliche of the 1979 season is that the Orioles are a good team having a great season, and the difference is Weaver. After all, the team doesn't have a single .300 hitter, and, for all the talk of great pitching, only one real stopper--Mike Flanagan.

And since my birthday's not too far away, I'd like to blow out all the candles and wish that someone would knock off the Orioles this year--California or maybe the Brobdingnagian Pittsburgh Pirates--with about 16 homeruns in a four-game sweep. The Orioles are the most boring team in baseball, a gaggle of colorless Holy Rollers. Around the league they tell this story about how Tippy Martinez, Baltimore's top bullpen twirler, invited Earl Weaver to a 7:30 a.m. Sunday prayer breakfast.

Weaver: Well, ah, Tippy, I don't think I can make it.

Martinez: But Earl, don't you want to walk with God?

Weaver: I'd rather walk with the bases loaded.

Or so the story goes.

Umm! Cookie

Don Zimmer, on the other hand, would rather walk through Quincy Market. He'd like to start at Regina's and then grab maybe a couple of dozen chocolate chip cookies and some souvlaki, with a big finish at Durgin Park and maybe a half-gallon of beer. Zimmer's face looks like an aging Vegas stripper's silicone-sagging buttocks. He's already cost the club a fortune, what with bolstering the dugout bench and increased drag on the team bus, and he's not exactly defraying the expenses with World Series checks. And look what he's done to the country: House Speaker Tip O'Neill said he was "hahtbroken, just hahtbroken" when the Sox lost against the Yankees last year. No one knows how long O'Neill's funk might last. Don Zimmer may have cost Jimmy Carter the presidency.

In Your Ear