It’s been almost three weeks. What gives? Busy at work? Can’t think of anything interesting to write about? Working on something that will amaze and astound you when it is finally released - nay, unleashed upon the world?

We’ll continue to track this story and update you as events warrant.

In the course of asking how everyone’s day went, this is one of the responses I got from Mitch today. We have a cat (my wife Carol’s) that is about 16 years old who has decided over the last few months that the litter box is basically optional. Charming. So anyway, Carol had already told me about the unfortunate scooter incident (we keep Mitch’s scooter in the foyer near the front door for easy access to front yard scootering action) so I couldn’t help but laugh to hear a four-year-old’s righteous indignation summed up in those particular five words.

Mitch didn’t think it was funny at all. And really, why the hell would a cat - or any animal, for that matter - crap on a Batman scooter?! That just ain’t right

My apologies to any Phillie Phans who may have stumbled in here, but I keep going back to that Sept. 7 game and looking at what happened. Once again using the win expectancy finder, I was able to chart the game in terms of each team’s win probability after each discrete event:

Each event is shown in the table below along with the win probability calculated immediately after the event for the given game state (inning, number of outs, baserunners and run differential). The table also includes Win Probability Added (WPA) for each event, representing the relative value of the play from the Phillies’ perspective:

(click to enlarge)

In the space of an inning-and-a-half, the Phillies went from a 14.1% chance to win before Abreu’s home run to a 97.5% chance before the Bell error, which by itself only cost the Phillies a little less than 3% against their chances to win. After the Biggio home run, the Phillies chances dropped almost 80 points to 8.1% before Brad Lidge finished off the game.

Further proof that the 27th out is the hardest one to get. Just ask LaTroy Hawkins. Stuff like this happens all the time in baseball, which is part of what makes it the Great Game. And it’s also what makes it the Cruelest Game.

I rarely watch Leno, but my wife happened to notice that Liz Phair was on tonight, so I went ahead and set the Dish PVR to grab the show since I’d already planned to watch Rushmore - these are the exciting things that go on at our house at night.

So, yeah. Liz Phair is promoting her new album that comes out tomorrow. I’m still hoping to figure out a way to do trick-or-treating with the kids on Halloween and still have time to head down to the Gypsy Tea Room to see her at the end of the month. But just like her transition from indie darling to AAA pop star, we all gotta grow up some time. I’m glad she and Paul Westerberg are kinda pulling me along into middle age (or is the other way round?) Along with my kids and you people on the message boards where I spend too much time, it keeps me feeling young.

Same with Rushmore. I love Max Fischer and Herman Blume. Something about that movie really connects with me in a way that few others do. I guess it’s the fact that I see myself right in between a 15-year-old confused idealist like Max and the jaded, world-weary Herman who has a feeling that there’s still greatness to be had out there if he can just find his Rushmore. And there’s something about the closing scene at Max’s wrap party - the “Heaven and Hell Cotillion” that really gets to me. Part of that I guess is the fact that I saw that movie with two of the best friends I’ll ever have on the weekend of my bachelor party in Indianapolis. They’re divorced now and that makes me sad. But something about the dance scene and The Faces’ “Ooh La La” brings all the good memories flooding back.

Christ, the maudlin birthday introspection is hitting a little early this year. 37. Screw me. Well, at least there’s the Kevin Smith tie-in for comic relief.

I wish that I knew what I know now
when I was younger
I wish that I knew what I know now
when I was stronger

And I wish Liz played guitar more.
[fade to black]

One of the reasons I [heart] baseball is the fact that over a 162-game schedule, you never know when one game is going to make the difference between a post-season berth and just another season. 1993 was one of my favorite seasons when the San Francisco Giants won 103 games and missed the playoffs, losing the National League West title to Atlanta by a single game. I never went back and verified it - and I don’t feel like doing it right now - but I’m sure there was a late-inning melt-down that wound up costing the Giants dearly. Of course, 1993 was also the last year before the introduction of the wild card, a fact I’m sure is lamented among Bay Area baseball fans.

With this year’s playoff matchups set, we now know just how catastrophic the Phillies loss was against Houston on September 7. Holding on to a 6-5 lead gained after taking the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning, Phillies closer and former Astro Billy Wagner came out to put the cap on a Philadelphia win that would have kept them within a game-and-a-half of the wild card lead. With two outs, nobody on and a one-run lead in the top of the ninth, the win expectancy finder rated Houston’s chances of winning as one-in-40 (2.5%). After David Bell booted a potential game-ending grounder at third and Willy Tavares beat out an infield single, Craig Biggio hit a three-run homer, taking the Phillies chances to win from 97.5% to 7.6% in the space of three at bats, two of which came after the two-out error. Brad Lidge came in to pitch a perfect bottom of the ninth for the Astros, making Philadelphia’s chances to win approximately 0.0%.

The mlb.com account of the game noted at the time that “(t)he important thing to remember is that the Phillies weren’t eliminated from the playoff race Wednesday after a back-breaking 8-6 loss to the Astros…” but 3½ weeks later, the Phillies find themselves one win short of forcing a playoff game tomorrow at home against Houston.

And that’s just one reason I [heart] this game.

I’ve always had a bit of a melancholy feeling on the last day of the regular season. The last day of the season is a sure sign that winter is nigh upon us and that another year has come and gone. Yes, we still have the playoffs, but there’s something about the last game of 162 that bears a special kind of finality.

When the late Harry Caray was still doing ballgames for the Cubs on WGN, he’d do a little closing speech - a kind of benediction, really - at the end of the last game of the season that he always concluded with the words “God willing, we’ll see you all on Opening Day.” I still miss him.

Here’s to you, friends. God willing, we’ll be back for Opening Day 2006.