I don't know how long it's been, so I'm not going to worry about it.

This entry is starting out about baseball...so if you hate baseball, skip down to the line.

Essentially, the season is over for me. There is one more week, officially, but, officially, the only teams that matter to me are out of the running.

The Red Sox were eliminated from the wild card race last night when they lost to Toronto and the Twins won. This will be the first time in four years that the Sox have not been in the playoffs.

What makes it more painful is that the Yankees have now won the AL east division nine years running.

I watched in pure agony as the Red Sox suffered the most incredible collapse I have ever seen in the second half of the season. They were plagued by injury and sickness, and there was really nothing that could have been done to prevent it. It all started when Tek (Jason Varitek) had to have knee surgery. He is the team captain and, in a lot of ways, the glue that holds the chemistry of the team together. Then Manny had a sore knee, Trot Nixon was out for a while, David Ortiz had heart palpitations, Jonathan Papelbon, one of the best closers in baseball, got an injury, and then, the kicker...Jon Lester, rookie pitcher extraordinaire, was diagnosed with cancer.

Holy CRAP!!!

C'mon! Why did God hate the Red Sox this year???

The Rangers were a different story altogether. They were battling for first place at the all star break. They will finish in third place, over 10 games out. Why?

I'm glad you asked.

Unlike the Red Sox, the Rangers were not plagued with injury and sickness.

Instead they were plagued with management stupidity. I wish Tom Hicks and Jon Daniel would read my diary.

During the all star break, they traded Kevin Mensch, team player and beloved by most fans, to Milwaukee for Carlos Lee and Nelson Cruz. (They also traded Francisco "Choke-oh" Cordero, who needed to be be gone really badly.) The alleged rationalization behind this most stupid trade since the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees was to get a "bat" to help them win the division.

Hmm...

Didn't work, did it?

The chemistry of the team was destroyed and they never recovered. They dropped games right and left while Lee lumbered around in left field letting easy fly balls drop for hits. Buck Showalter kept changing the lineup around, almost never having the same lineup twice in a row, and eventually put Hank Blalock as the DH, and Mark DeRosa on third base, keeping Nelson Cruz (who currently has a whopping .210 batting average) in right field. DeRosa could be playing right field and Blalock could be on third where he belongs. At least Lee should be only a DH, where he can occasionally crush the home run. At last night's game, he popped up, struck out on a pitch in the dirt, and managed one big homer.

Oh, and let's not forget that Lee turned down a $48 million dollar offer from the Brewers and will be a free agent at the end of this season. First of all, there's no way he's worth that much. Second of all, the Rangers can't afford that kind of money, and if they could, and if they did sign Lee, it would be a tremendous slap in the face for their core players, such as Mark Teixeira and Michael Young (who has now hit over 200 hits four season in a row, joining only a handful of players in history who have done that).

Bottom line? The management, from the top down to Buck Showalter (my front door could have managed the Rangers better than he did this year), destroyed our season.

Jon Daniels is a boy trying to do a man's job. Tom Hicks needs to sell the Rangers and go play with his hockey team. Buck Showalter needs to do us all a big favor and retire. Sadly, this isn't going to happen. Daniels has said that Showalter will be back.

The last few teams that Showalter has managed have won World Series championships.

The year after he left.

Why aren't they paying attention???

Enough about baseball.

Stephanie had a major meltdown this past week. It actually started late the week before. And once again, this was related to her period. A few days before it's due, she goes into some kid of banshee mode, refuses to go to school and screams about everything. Major PMS, here.

We finally took her to her doctor and consulted him about this. His wife just happens to be a gynecologist, so he called her, and they decided that Steph needs hormone pills. So, essentially, my 13 year old daughter is now on "the pill." We will see if this helps.

Friday morning, she had a cold. She didn't want to go to school. She had no fever and no visible signs of anything...she just had a little congestion. She has alread missed 6 days of school this year. We made her go. She screamed at me all the way to school. As she got out of the van, she told me she hated me about four times.

I was a nervous wreck when I got home, and basically wanted to just crawl in a hole and cry.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we gave in a couple weeks ago and let her try bread again.

I think it didn't work. We've removed the bread from her diet again. Back to the totally gluten-free/casein-free diet.

We're also looking into a couple of other things.

We finally got the genetic analysis back from Dr. Amy Yasko. I might be able to understand it someday. We gave a copy to the doctor who is doing the chelation therapy on Stephanie. He's made a couple of recommendations, one of which costs about $150. We don't know yet....I need to study the report a little more, to see if I can understand it and see what was suggested.

We're not giving up. That's the most important thing. We will fight this fight to the bitter (or hopefully not-so-bitter) end. I still believe that Stephanie can be helped. We have seen results. We've just suffered a couple of minor setbacks.

I have to go to church now.

TTFN

Missed anything?
The Beatles--Abbey Road/Alice Cooper--Killer - July 04, 2012
The Beatles Eponymous Album - June 26, 2012
Autism's False Prophets - February 12, 2011
Santana--Guitar God? - November 11, 2010
Tribute To the Red Sox - September 29, 2010