Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw

Had two big horns and a wooly jaw

I can't believe the Orioles even play in the same division. These guys at the top of the American League East, they got a lil' spark under them, huh? Lil' spark. Lil' bit. The "two men enter, one man leaves" kind of spark.

The Orioles haven't had any sensation of the kind since 1998, the year Armando Benitez plugged Tino Martinez and the brawl spilled into the dugouts. ESPN.com named it one of the greatest baseball fights ever (see number three). Because when a fight goes into the dugouts, the only thing beyond the dugouts is the stands. You fight in the stands? You go to jail. A dugout fight is three-quarters of the way there.

But look at what's happened since in Baltimore: a whole lot of nothing. From 1998 until the present, the American League East has finished each year in exactly the same order: Yankees, Red Sox, Toronto, Baltimore, Tampa Bay. Six seasons where you should've bet on the horse that won yesterday.

Who knows why it's happened. Cal Ripken ended his streak in '98, but every team in the division has turned over their roster a few teams since — the Orioles more than most.

And while the division line-up shifted at the beginning of the year, it merely swapped the loser Tigers for the loser Devil Rays. If anything, the Rays have been even bigger doormats and should've evened out the division a little more. But no.

I'd pinpoint the date of stagnation as Dec. 1, 1998. That day the Orioles traded Benitez to the Mets, and the fight vanished from the bottom rungs of the American League East.

Since then, it's been early Gilligan's Island. The Yankees, the Red Sox and the rest. When no one else puts up a fight for those two, it's no wonder yesterday broke out.

Sally is not cool. Ted is not cool. That kid of theirs is definitely not cool. But amazingly, their cartoonist is. Is he just paying the bills or does he really love his work? You make the call with one of the most ridiculous Washingtonpost.com chats ever.

The counter hit 20,000 early this morning. It took a year to reach 10k and just seven months to hit the new mark today. Thanks to everyone for visiting.

Sometime since Saturday morning, the satirical newspaper pulled "Thank You, But That Was Siegfried's Idea" from its Web site. The "By Roy Horn" commentary has been delinked from its front page, and the page itself has been stripped of its content. Is this a first for the paper?

Google's cached version still exists.

Maybe Ellen's voodoo curse did the trick. Or maybe my leaving Atlanta stripped the city of its baseball je ne sais quoi. I imagine everyone who's ever liked Chicago and disliked Atlanta wants a piece of the sweet toppling pie.

In my neighborhood there, an old metal sign hung by one of the stoplights: "ATLANTA STADIUM PARKING." That sign was old school. An Atlanta Stadium last existed in the city in 1976, before becoming Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and finally imploding by timed detonation in August 1997. Satisfying the old metal sign's prediction, the grounds of Atlanta Stadium became parking for corporate-retro Turner Field.

So I wonder if driving past that sign early in the morning and kissing the city goodbye had anything to do with last night's game. Long-awaited emotional release and all that. Because like everyone else rooting for the Cubs, I was sitting in front of the television and wondering what God would do to stop the Cubs from winning.

No reason to get biblical, you say? We're talking baseball here. Consider the numbers. It's been 95 years since the Cubs last World Series title, but a baseball year is much shorter than a regular year. Let's look at how many years of baseball have passed.

TOTAL CUBS GAMES

14,440 regular season games from last World Series through 2001 season (source) + 324 regular-season games in 2002 and 2003 seasons + 50 playoff games since last World Series until this year (source) + 5 playoff games this year = 14,819 Cubs games since winning their last World Series.

TOTAL DAYS

34,689 days between Cubs last World Series win, Oct. 15, 1908, and last night, Oct. 5, 2003 (source).

THE MATH

14,819 games/34,689 days = 0.4272. The Cubs have played baseball on 42.72 percent of the days since their last World Series win.

42.72% of 95 years = 40.58 years.

How 'bout that.

These figures are likely off by a few games and days here and there, but I doubt in any significant fashion. (If anyone wants to do more exacting calculations, I'll be happy to adjust my numbers.)

Even if one calculates to account for days possible through this World Series — 34,706 through game four — or God possibly disliking Wrigley night games — about 255 since 1989 (source) — the number of baseball years is still about 40.

And 40 years, biblically speaking, is huge.

Sophomore Will Adams or Ben Affleck?

Junior Rob Kinzel or Tom Hanks in Castaway?

President Roush or James Brolin?

Centre College addresses celebrity lookalikism on campus.

People often talk the "Sports Illustrated curse," which inflicts bad luck on the cover subject; but the Onion didn't fare much better in the curse category this week. Roy of "Siegfried and Roy" first appeared in an Onion opinion piece on Tuesday night, and then last night — on his 59th birthday — he was attacked by a tiger during a show and critically injured. Most unfortunately Onion article timing ever?

Hobo Spike was crowned Hobo King last month in Britt, Iowa. Unfortunately, there's no picture of Hobo Spike. I wonder if he ever met the St. Louis Hobo.

April 2000: After striking out at three gas stations and a Car Quest, the Northwestern road trippers finally got a leaky van tire patched for $10 at a St. Louis back alley repair shop. There waiting, I met the St. Louis Hobo. He liked to call himself a "train jumper" and liked that I was studying journalism at NU. He had been in a television documentary once.

He didn't look so good — the previous day he'd gotten hit in the face by a two-by-four — but he was in good spirits. He gave a big smile when he heard where I was headed that night. "Bruce Springsteen, huh? He's an all right guy."

Spotted yesterday: "Me Mini."

When the baseball season reaches the playoffs, when the big dogs hop in the cage and face off, fans see the fullest revealing of the teams' true identities. Strengths and weaknesses are all laid bare because at this point that's all they have. There's no regular season grind and few distractions; there's nothing to recover from or hold out for.

Some weak performances can be tied to post-season jitters, but in a team game there's still much left to judge.

In early reviews:

The Yankees had zero spark yesterday despite playing at home. They looked like what they gave us last year in the playoffs and in the early rounds of the year before that.

Cubs and Twins had big wins in tough opposing ballparks, showing themselves to better underdogs than the Marlins. My mom described the leaping catch by the Twins' Shannon Stewart's against the Yankees yesterday, "Sometimes you're robbed. Sometimes you're beaten up and robbed." True, true. And although Chicago had thousands of their own fans in the Atlanta stands, they still had to deal with history. The Braves are used to a half-empty home field and seem to win regardless of crowd support.

The Fish lost yesterday and won today, but I think it says more about the Giants pitching today than anything else. Sir Sidney Ponson was uneven and the relievers seemed off balance before throwing more than a few pitches. If the Marlins are going to take the round, Dontrelle Willis will need to keep up his good work. They can't give up five runs everyday and knock out the Giants.

One of the most interesting but least noted aspects of the wildcard is that the rotations function differently than the league champsionship series and the World Series. Here on the division level, the rotations are still coming around from the regular season's end and preparing to line up for the higher rounds. Today we had Sir Sidney pitching game two for the Giants, and he certainly hasn't settled into their number two role.

But whether your team has pulled it together or not yet, October's a great month for a baseball fan. I love it. The playoffs these years are the real deal, with money and all the extras coming down to pure competition.