Night of the Century in Boston

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox for winning the 2013 World Series in six games, and winning a world title at home for the first time in 95 years.  Especially stunning since I believe the last time was also in Fenway Park.

Now let's hope Boston can celebrate without burning the town down.

It was a series dominated by pitching, bad hitting and bad fielding.  When almost the entire winning team bats around .200 (with several starters even below that) it's not exactly a Series of fireworks.  Only David Ortiz who batted .668 was outstanding, so I assume he's the MVP.  Timely hitting however was the difference.

And yes ESPN they WON the series, they didn't "clinch" it.  Clinch is a perfectly good word that has always meant something other than "win" in baseball.  It meant that a team has mathematically won something even though they are games yet to be played that will be played.  That is, no combination of losses and wins by another team could overcome their lead.  But they would not officially win until the season is done.

However the World Series works like this: the first team to win four games wins the damn thing.  Both teams go home.  They aren't going to go out and play the 7th game tomorrow.

I have to credit ESPN for being the last outpost in the English speaking world to correctly use "fewer," as in "fewer runs", not "less runs."  But I don't understand why they throw away the specific function of "clinch."

So now we have basketball.  Maybe somebody will also explain to me the difference between "shot attempts" and "shots."