Log Rolling In Our Time. In its "Red Sox Blog Mini-Roundup," the Sports Retort blog said some very nice things about yours truly: "The daily Red Sox reports at Joy of Sox have become a must-read for me. The tone and length are great -- it's like reading a daily digest of the various papers' Red Sox notes columns. Allan posts a lot of political commentary, too, which is fine by me. Of course, I tend to share a lot of his opinions, so that probably makes it easier to take."

I don't get to Sports Retort every day, but I really should. He offers a lot of information and thought-provoking analysis in a short amount of space. The six-part season preview was wildly comprehensive. In the comments on last night's game, SR looks at the Sox hitters' VORP and discovers that "Half the order is still playing like a group of castoffs ... The loss of Nomar and Nixon was bound to affect the offense, but not to this degree. ... [A] 15-11 still looks like a decent record to me."