THE WORLD SERIES BEGINS TOMORROW

Actually, I'm not a big fan of the World Series, and if you're totally out of it, this is the Major League Baseball Championship, the first to win four games.  I don't recall watching an entire game of the World Series in my life.  However, this is the first time players from Hawaii are opposing each other:  Shane Victorino (left) of the Boston Red Sox and Kolten Wong of the St. Louis Cardinals.  The Red Sox are the home team (meaning, if the series goes 7 games, it will be played at Fenway Park--below) because the American League beat the National League in the July All-Star Game.

Game One begins on FOX in Boston at 8:07 PM EDT (5:07 Hawaii time).  All games start at 8:08 EDT, except for Sunday...8:15 PM EDT.  Why?  That's because this is baseball.  Some things cannot be adequately explained.

What to look for?  Cardinal pitching and Red Sox hitting.  

Fenway park only sits 37,400, while Busch Stadium can handle 49,000, including tickets for standing.

I don't tend to agree much with the Wall Street Journal, but I do like their "Ten Things" series.  Here is an offering from Charles Passey (one or both is/are Charles):

• Baseball is losing appeal.  The audience last year for the San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers games averaged only 12.7 million viewers, a modern day low.
• The average resale price for the Super Bowl was $2,479, while both the NBA (basketball) and NHL (hockey) averaged $623.  The World Series last year was $614, which is also out of my range.

• Those 8PM starts had everything to do with accommodating television.
• The fans for the winning team usually show immature post game behavior--last year, 30 were arrested in San Francisco.
• While the 2000 Subway Series between the New York Yankees and New York Mets might have boosted the New York  City economy by a quarter billion dollars, the average is only around $6.8 million/game.
• This Fall Classic will almost surely feel like a Winter Classic.  The final game could occur on October 31 in Boston at 43 F. 
• This is not the WORLD Series, for the USA has never won the World Baseball Classic (best was 4th place in 2009).
• The means of getting to the World Series seems to constantly change.
• Over the past decade, only one game went 7 games, while seven ended up 4-0 or 4-1.
• There is generally some distraction.  There was an earthquake in 1989.  I stayed at a San Francisco Airport hotel the night before this 7.0 shake, which delayed the series.

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Hurricane Raymond, now at 120 MPH, could go anywhere, but computer models generally show movement west, away from Acapulco:

However, cruise ships beware, as things could change.

In the West Pacific, Typhoon Francisco is at 85 MPH, but will weaken and only brush Japan as a tropical storm.  Typhoon Lekima is now at 145 MPH, but will strengthen into a Category 4, becoming  a super typhoon, before also weakening and passing Japan even further east than Francisco:

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