Wrapping Up Cali

Leaving early tomorrow morning to come back East (sidebar: I love how people on the West Coast refer to the East Coast as "back East", like we're still stuck in some weird manifest destiny romp across the nation). Got to spend the day today in San Francisco with all of the pretty views and ice-cold fog that accompany it. If I lived in San Francisco, besides being driven crazy by how laid back and crazily liberal everyone is, I think I would die within weeks with my arteries clogged by dim sum. It's too easily available from any number of places and it's all right next to the neighborhood with all of the great Italian bakeries.

Didn't get a chance to watch any football, but I did catch all of Game 7 and here are some thoughts on that and some other random things:

• As I watched the Rays celebrate, I realized something else that the 2007 Rockies and 2006 Tigers potentially had in common besides just a long rest. So, either tomorrow or Tuesday, look for my next postseason analysis on the existence/myth of the "Just Happy To Be Here" syndrome.
• I'm putting off my pick for the Series until then, but it should be quite entertaining and a lot of fun to see new teams with a lot of young talent on the national scene.
• One of the trendy baseball topics of the last few years has been the dearth of young African-American talent, as inner city kids focus on basketball or football. In this series, just thinking off-hand, we'll have Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, David Price, and Carl Crawford.
• Speaking of Price, it bodes well for the future that with him and Longoria, the Rays have the most-hyped rookie pitcher and hitter of 2008.
• It's interesting that Tampa took off after dropping "Devil" from their names. I'm looking at you, Buffalo Sabres, N.Y. Islanders, and Pittsburgh Penguins.
• Two hotly contested (not so much swing) states in the World Series! Who will John McCain pick? Obama is already on record as saying he's rooting for the Phillies.
• The one non-baseball note and a good story. We were driving into the city today when we got stopped cold at a toll both. No traffic, just one idiot. The toll was four dollars and the woman in the car in front of us didn't seem to have the money. She fumbled through change for a while. We even saw some pennies as she leaned to the person next to her to scrape together whatever they could. Finally after two or three minutes, she finally reached into her pocket and pulled out a twenty. It reminded me of something: