Taking it all in

Curt Schilling high-fives Josh Beckett:

... After game 4 it got very easy in the sense that there was zero gray area, it was win or go home. That's not to make it sound trivial but game 5 was truly the first time this entire season when we had our backs to the wall for real, and the team responded as a championship team has to, and will. ...

Pauline: We're going to the world series baby!!!! Bring on the Christians.

Philip McCarthy predicts a Sox victory over Colorado, but worries about the high altitude there:

... [P]laying the Rockies might present an endurance problem to which nobody has given due consideration. The Rockies could potentially start a home run derby at Fenway, while Matt Holliday might turn into Stone Cold Steve Austin, complete with cha-cha-cha sound. Alternately, in Denver, David Ortiz could end up hitting 400-foot singles that he can't outrun to first in Denver's ionosphere. ...

Sassy Sundry: Oh hell yeah!!!

Dan Kennedy congratulates Coco Crisp:

Your blood must run ice-cold if you don't feel for Coco Crisp, losing his job in the middle of the post-season. So of all the many highlights from last night's game, I thought the best - well, OK, tied with Pedroia's home run, and just barely ahead of Papelbon's shutting down the Indians in the eighth - was Crisp's running into the wall to grab the final out. ...

On Surviving Grady, Red agrees:

There's something very beautiful in the fact that Jacoby Ellsbury stepped in for Coco and made some magical sh*t transpire, but Coco still got to come in and say f@#k all to his knees and ankles, catapulting himself into the centerfield corner wall to snare the final out. ...

Red also has the final word on Mark Shapiro and his "apparently Paxil-addicted trophy wife."

Third Decade: Now I'm a believer:

... I haven't been this excited about sports in Boston since the Celtics and the Lakers were enemies back in the 1980s. ...

Out in Seattle, Jennifer Garrett says simply: God, that was sweet.

Brian addresses Cleveland:

I don't believe in curses, but maybe the media can start hyping the "Curse of the Ridiculously Offensive Chief Wahoo" as the cause of all your woes. ...

Capn Ho discovers his instant messages helped the Sox win.

College students complained Boston cops are mean.

Susie: Soo crazy that we are going back to the World Series and didn't even have to wait 86 years.

Driving back to Somerville from away, Parker Morse finds the game on an AM station:

... The announcer was strangely elated about Manny striking out at the bottom of the fifth. Then the ads came on, and I realized: I was listening to a Cleveland station.

So I listened to the sixth inning from Cleveland. I realize I probably could've gone down to 680 and picked up WRKO, but it was almost like listening in another language (except that I could understand everything they were saying.) There was something beautifully unreal about it. ...

Rod Begbie was enjoying the game so much, not even Dane Cook or stupid Fox announcers could ruin it.

Jacqueline C: I love this game.

Amy: Yeeeeeeeeeeeehhaaaaaaawwww!

How is that champagne tasting now, Ryan Garko?

Daryl in Singapore: I don't think an 11-2 game has ever felt so close. Sheer heart attack.

Editrix: Buck and McCarver can suck it:

That, and I'm endlessly impressed by Terry Francona.

Dart Adams: I told you so, motherfuckers. Red Sox Nation Stand Up!

Sara gets annoyed seeing 10-year-old kids in the front rows at Fenway:

... I'm sorry, but there's no way these kids understand the value of what they're seeing! Give these tickets to someone like me who will truly appreciate it! Hell, I'll even buy you beer for the entire evening! Your kids can't do that! They'll just whine about how tired and bored they are. They'll make the game terrible. They'll distract you and ruin the game. ...

Lucky Number 33: All those bloggers who talk about Red Sox fans losing their identity are missing one simple yet apparently elusive fact: this team just kicks too much ass not to love.

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