1-0 Means A Little; 2-0 Means A Lot

The Fightin' Phils received a magnificent performance from Cliff Lee, who has been superb throughout these 2009 playoffs, and a "you ARE the man" 2-homerun show from Chase Utley to lead the way to a big 6-1 victory and a one game to none lead in last night's Game One of the World Series.

For the Phillies that means an awful lot. Much has already been written and spoken in other venues this morning relating to the fact that the last 6 teams to win Game One went on to win the World Series.

Some have even pointed out that, even more ominously for that loser of the opener, 11 of the last 12 teams to win that first game have gone on to win the Series.

The one time in the past dozen years that the team winning the opener did not ultimately win was in the epic 2002 all-California World Series between the Barry Bonds-led San Francisco Giants and the Anaheim Angels.

The GMen took the opener that year, lost the next two, then won games four and five to take a 3-2 series lead back to Anaheim.

There they took a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the 8th before the Angels rallied to win, then won the 7th game and the franchise' only-ever World Series.

But tonight when Pedro Martinez takes the mound at the new Yankee Stadium he will be trying to tie an even tighter knot in the collar around the Yankee necks.

The World Series began in 1903 and has been held every year with the exceptions of 1904 and 1994, making this the 104th Fall Classic. Only 11 times has a team fallen behind by 2 games to none and gone on to rally and win the World Series. Do the math - that's an 11% success rate.

So if the Phillies can somehow, in any way, fight their way to another victory tonight in the Bronx and take that 2-0 lead in the series, they odds tilt enormously in their favor with an 89% probability that they will win the World Series.

Those numbers would actually likely be even a bit higher considering that the next three games will move to their home field at Citizens Bank Park.

Three Aces Are Keys to Phils Series Success

Pedro Martinez. Cliff Lee. Cole Hamels. One righthander and a pair of lefties. Three different levels of experience. All have filled the role of a true 'Ace' for their respective baseball organizations in the past.

And now together, these three aces represent the absolute keys to the Phillies repeating as World Series champions.

There is much being said and written about the two team's offenses in this matchup. The top offense in the National League featuring Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino, and Raul Ibanez. The top offense in the American League featuring Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Jorge Posada, and Hideki Matsui.

There is talk about the importance of the bullpens, especially the Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, possibly the best at his craft in baseball history and the Phillies closer Brad Lidge, last year's hero turned this year's goat, but now apparently born again hard. And pitchers such as Phil Hughes and Ryan Madson will certainly play a big role in at least a couple of games.

It says here that no matter who the Yankees run out to their mound, from starters C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Andy Pettitte to Rivera, this Phillies offense will find a way to get to them. The Phils will score enough runs to win four games in this series. The key will be keeping the Yanks' offense from outscoring them. That will fall largely on the shoulders of Martinez, Lee, and Hamels.

Rabbit Ears Have Digital Life

The full digital television revolution officially began a week ago on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 in places like Albuquerque, New Mexico and Biloxi, Mississippi and Charlotte, North Carolina and Eugene, Oregon and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

On that date in these and many other American cities, the transition began from analog to digital television. It begins a revolution that will have spread to every American household with TV reception by no later than June 12th, 2009.

Ever since television sets became commercially available in the late 1930's the signals transmitted to our homes and businesses have come to us in 'analog' form.

Technicality aside, the idea is that a number of images are drawn across the screen of your monitor in rapid succession. You were basically receiving a high-speed version of a flip-picture book, where each page of the book contained a slightly different image from the one on the previous page.

Your TV monitor would flip through the images to create the illusion of movement. Because of this process there were occasional image 'skips' and other distortions.

Then digital television began to be developed, and in 1996 the U.S. Congress ordered all broadcast networks to begin preparations to switch their broadcasts over to digital.

Narrowing the '08 Republican Field

Busy as this particular American's life is, I had to record this week's debate among the current Republican candidates for President in 2008.

After finally getting to watch the debate in it's entirety last night, I can say without any trepidation that it is time to narrow this field.

So having heard their positions and judged the pulse of the party to this point, and with apologies to these men, each of whom would be a better President than either of the Democratic party front-runners, it is time to say goodbye to the campaigns of Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Ron Paul, good men all.

This would leave the field consisting of, in alphabetical order by last name: Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson.

The following is my own brief take on where these candidates currently stand with me, an average Republican, as they move forward looking for my vote: