Stay classy, Boston! -- I think Jonathan Papelbon speaks for us all when he dances around with a cigar and scuba goggles whilst pouring the finest Bud Lite over the American League Championship Series trophy. All that's missing is his victory jig...aha!

Baseball is unique in many ways. It's the only professional sport which requires you to wear a leather belt, openly allows you to use addictive carcinogens during play, and is sometimes so dull (or televised so goddamn late) it puts the most ardent fans to sleep. It's slow and unsexy and numerical, hard to love casually, which makes it practically un-American. Yet it takes so much stamina, pure talent, and blind optimism to play that it could only be American too. Plus, it features knuckleheads like this...what's not to love? GO SOX!!

UPDATE: The Sox did, indeed, go, and all the way, too! :) Here's my brief shining moment of regaling thousands along the victory parade route, as Queen of Red Sox Nation for a day! King Budbox, my consort, also enjoyed adulation...nothing makes professional ballplayers laugh and point like crafty costumes!