Hangin' on ...

…Yes, I stayed up until 1:45 a.m. Wednesday morning, watching all 14 innings of Game 3 … but what a sad, sad ending. The Astros had PLENTY of chances and should have won that game. No 1 mistake was Phil Garner leaving Roy Oswalt in for the entire fifth inning. C’mon Phil, even my wife was screaming at the TV for you to take Roy Boy out … I mean, I know he’s arguably the greatest pitcher in the league right now, but even a monkey could’ve seen he didn’t have his best stuff. Phil, when Joe Crede hit a homerun to lead off the fifth inning and it became obvious the White Sox were building a big inning, you get the bullpen going and yank Oswalt in hopes of preserving the lead -- not let him give up a four-run lead and THEN call out to the bullpen.

Need more brush for the fire? Here’s what Tom Verducci wrote in the SI Extra newsletter this morning:

At 2:20 AM EST it finally ended, thanks to the unlikeliest of heroes: Geoff Blum. His solo home run in the top of the 14th inning proved to be the difference in the White Sox' 7-5 win over the Astros in Game 3. It was the longest Series game by time (5:41), and gives the White Sox a commanding 3-0 lead. SI's Tom Verducci was at Minute Maid Park and offers these impressions: The Astros played their first home World Series game in their existence, grinded through the most time-consuming game in Series history, exhausted their bullpen, tied the game in the eighth inning when they trailed by a run with nobody on base and were down to their final four outs, used everybody on the bench except their backup catcher, and had their starting pitcher for tonight's game throwing hard in the bullpen at a quarter after one in the morning. And what does their manager, Phil Garner, do in the first moments after the White Sox punched them in the gut by beating them in the 14th inning of Game 3, 7-5? He rips his team. Beautiful. Mind you, the guy says nothing to his team after the game. But he does march into the official interview room and drop these bombs for the media: “Absolute rotten hitting.” “We might have played 40 innings and it didn't look like we were going to get a runner across the bag.” “It’s embarrassing to play like this in front of our hometown.” “I’m really ticked off!” Way to bail on your team, Mr. Manager."

More stuff ...
a Chisox up 3-0 in Series, but need 14 innings to edge Astros
a Guillen 'feels' his way to 14-inning victory
a Blum delivers against former team

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So my guilty pleasure of the week is ‘I Love the ‘80s: 3D ’ … Mo Rocca (wearing his K-State shirt for bonus points), Michael Ian Black, Rachel Harris and the rest of the cast, if you will, are insightful and hilarious. And the nostalgia that triggers their musings never ends -- TV-sized laptops, wood-grained VCRs … it all makes me smile and I LOVE it.

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For all you ‘American Dreams’ lovers (don’t get me started on this and other shows NBC carelessly wasted … ahem, ‘Ed’ …), I caught this news on TV Guide Online’s ‘Ask Ausiello’ today. Apparently, somewhere there’s an alt-ending for ’American Dreams’ because, well, NBC‘s stupid and dropped the show, despite pleas from critics and fans, faster then Patty could spill a secret. So the last image any of us have is of Meg riding off to California on the back of Chris’s moped …

Anyway here’s the low down from TV guide’s Michael Ausiello. It sounds pretty cool, if you don’t mind a little spoiler or two …

“ … Chris is definitely out of Meg's life. And I know this because - brace yourselves, Dreamers, - I've seen the elusive epilogue! Jonathan Prince sent a DVD copy to me via armored vehicle late last week and all I can say is it more than lived up to the hype. Now, before I present you with the highlights, let me assure you that, come hell or high water, you will see the ending, too. Worse case scenario: You’ll have to wait for the Season 2 and 3 boxed DVD set, which will hopefully street sometime in ‘06. “We’re in negotiations now,” Prince says of the DVD. “And the epilogue would absolutely be included.” But there’s a slight chance you won’t have to wait until then. … In the meantime, here are some interesting facts/tidbits/spoilers about the climax to whet your appetite. Stop reading now if you prefer to wait for the real deal.
* The flashback-heavy capper is 10 minutes long, edited down from 20 minutes of raw footage.
* The only Dreams principals appearing in new scenes are Brittany Snow, Gail O'Grady and Tom Verica. * Most of the epilogue takes place on a bus, with Meg - now a junior at Berkeley - heading to New York to visit Sam at Columbia. “This would have been the first time she’s seen Sam in three years,” says Prince.
* Meg meets a friend on the bus, and it’s during their conversation that we learn that Patty went to Radcliffe and Roxanne married Luke and had a son named Woody Allen.
* At the last minute, Meg decides to get off the bus in Philadelphia, where she returns home and reunites with her mom and dad for the first time in three years.
Next week, Jonathan reveals what would have happened had Dreams gone a fourth season. (Hint: It's splitsville for Helen and Jack!)”