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The New York fans were all over A-Rod after the Division Series, frying him and blaming him for losing to the Angels. The tabloids were blasting him, the WFAN callers were ready to run him out of town, and you couldn't go very long in the city without someone making a denigrating reference to the well-paid superstar.

Right now, Vladimir Guerrero should be very, very happy he plays in Anaheim.

The Angel bats fell silent in about the fourth inning of Game 2 against the White Sox, and when a guy like Guerrero, easily one of the most feared hitters of his time, can't buy a hit or even get good wood on anything heaved in his direction, whatever heat gets heaped on him by the local media and fans is well-deserved. Except that they won't. Sure, T.J. Simers will make jokes about him in the Times (when he's not taking shots at his preferred target Garret Anderson, who at least drove in a run tonight), but that's about it. We don't have tabloids here, the sports radio stations (three in L.A., another pair in San Diego) aren't like WFAN or WIP or WEEI and will forget about the Angels in a day or two (maybe less- on Monday, the USC escape from South Bend will probably be of greater interest to the L.A. stations, and the San Diego stations will be celebrating the Chargers' drubbing of Oakland), and the Register will probably be finished with the post-mortem by Wednesday at the latest. And there won't be a "BAD VLAD" headline in sight, or "ESCOBAR-F," or "CAB-WHERE-A?"

L.A. sports is like Little League. You lose, you go to the Cold Stone Creamery and everyone gets a Like It scoop (one mix-in, kids) and then goes home. In New York, it's like if you didn't get the ice cream but Daddy got his belt out instead. I'd rather play in L.A., but, all things being equal, I'd rather win.

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Charles Rocket died over a week ago, apparently slashing his own throat. He was 56 and it had been a long time since I'd seen him in anything, so like everyone else I looked him up in IMDB and, sure enough, some guest shots here, some destined-for-video-if-they're-lucky movies there, but nothing major for a long time. The obits call him a "comedian," but he appears to have been mostly a comic actor, not a stand-up, and I was never all that impressed with his work.

He was known for one thing. You know what that was.

He never really recovered- he did some small roles and guest shots on some major TV shows and movies, but he never really broke past his legacy. Whatever he did, you thought "hey, isn't that the guy who dropped the f-bomb on 'Saturday Night Live'?" And that he was.

His life was irrevocably altered for the worse for one word.

He said one word.

One mistake.

And he wasn't the last to do it, but the outrage for his transgression- at a time when nobody was actually watching "Saturday Night Live"- was exceedingly harsh. Norm MacDonald didn't take as much abuse, but maybe people expected it of him. Charles Rocket, well, maybe he wasn't talented or likeable enough, or maybe he picked lousy scripts, or maybe he just didn't have it, but when it comes down to it, he got derailed because of one word, a word everyone says, a word everyone understands, a word that's offensive primarily because we say it is.

That's f'ed.

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Didja see Pujols' homer last night? Really something, that was. Great moment in baseball history. Amazing. You'll never forget it.

I, on the other hand, didn't see it. I was working, and a friend called just after it happened to tell me all about it; otherwise, I might have gone to bed without knowing what happened. And this is not the first time I've missed a big event because I was doing something else at the time. Kirk Gibson's legendary World Series homer? Missed it. Fall of the Berlin Wall? Saw it after the fact. I think I saw Neil Armstrong on the moon, but I don't remember it at all, so I might as well have missed it.

The list grows every year: I didn't watch when they revealed who shot J.R., I didn't see Christian Laettner's last-second shot, I wasn't in front of the TV when Nixon resigned. I was watching on a little portable TV when the Challenger launched (while I was sitting in an Albany convention hall waiting to be sworn into the New York bar, of all places), but switched it off, thinking "aah, just another shuttle launch, big deal"- it wasn't until after the ceremony and halfway to Poughkeepsie that I realized something might have happened.

Here are more things I managed to miss:

Gulf War I
Jim McGreevey's farewell speech
Every time someone dropped an f-bomb on "Saturday Night Live"
Johnny Carson's last show
"Titanic"
Janet Jackson at halftime
Ashlee Simpson at halftime
Pretty much every halftime
The play with all the laterals and the band getting run over (1982 Cal-Stanford)

Joe Carter's home run to beat the Phillies in '93? Oh, I saw THAT. I wish I hadn't, but I didn't miss THAT. Of course not.

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Ever just hit the wall and be unable to string together coherent thoughts?

That's me right now.

I'm going to go now. Back later. Thanks.

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I say a variation of this every year on this date, and I hate to be repetitive, but, then again, I want to be honest and tell you what's on my mind every day, so pardon me if you've heard this one before:

On October 20, 1990, I got married. It's been 15 years to the day since then, and every day I feel even more certain that it was the smartest decision I've ever made and the best thing I've ever done.

We've been through a lot in 15 years- bliss and tragedy, several jobs and unemployment, about six or seven different homes- but there has never been a moment of doubt that life is a lot better together than it ever could have been apart. And early this morning, when I heard Fran stirring, I ran out of the office to greet her with the message that gets more joyous with every passing year:

Happy anniversary, Fran.

Sing along with this.

Click here for the lyrics in case you've forgotten.

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Too much to do, brain not functioning properly, so I'm gonna go into light blog mode (as if it hasn't been light enough already) for a few days. I'll post pictures and scans and stuff for your amusement, and at some point I'll get to a State of Talk Radio thing I've been promising. So check in and see if I've gotten myself in gear.

Until then, here's a picture of Hoss Cartwright. Enjoy.

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Had one of these Sirius satellite receivers in the car:

Got this to replace it today:

Now, this is more like it- lots fewer features, a one-line screen, but much, much more practical. The big PnP2 brick I've been using had a nice, big, bright, readable screen, the ability to keep favorite songs in memory to alert the listener when it comes on again, and lots of handy preset buttons. It is also so heavy that short of putting in a thick permanent metal mount that would pretty much preclude anyone from sitting in the passenger seat, it had no practical place to sit. I was using an Ultimount- made for cell phones- and it would sag and droop and eventually slip off.

The new one- the Xact Visor- is tiny, so tiny that it fits in the little empty well behind the change drawer and under the ash tray in the console, no problem, plenty of room. It has that one line, scrolling, and no memory. It can't rewind and record like some of the new ones, and it can't be used as an iPod-equivalent. All it can do is sit in the car (or, with a home kit, in the home) and play Sirius channels and music.

Which is all you need.

And it's $49.99.

And it requires practically no installation. It has an FM transmitter- any frequency- built in. You just throw the antenna in the back, run the wire up front, plug it into the receiver, plug the receiver into the cigarette lighter, that's it.

Forget the "wearables" and color screens and anything other whiz-bang receivers they've been pushing at retail. THIS is all anyone needs. If I had one like this- tiny, easy to install, no special mounting- from the beginning, I'd have been listening to more satellite radio all the while. (And if XM drops the RoadyXT price to $49.99, they'll get me as a customer, too- I do want baseball via satellite radio after all...)

Are you listening, consumer electronics manufacturers? Easy to use, small, cheap. Save the bells and whistles- give me something small that works and I'll get the credit card out.

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