Shots in the Dark

Warning: This post may infuriate Red Sox fans.

I’m fine with that.

So I stayed in my hotel last night and watched the Yanks obliterate the Angels, 10-1, taking a 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series.

The game was dominated—unusual in baseball—by two players, pitcher C.C. Sabathia and Alex Rodgriguez. Just as he did in the first game of the series, Sabathia threw eight innings and gave up just one run—only this time he did it on three days rest. Impressive. In three postseason starts, he’s 3-o with a 1.19 ERA. Ridiculous. In the seven playoff games the Yanks have played, each of their starting pitchers has pitched into the 7th inning. That’s why they’ve won six of those games.

A-Rod, meanwhile, has stuck it to the doubters (including myself) who wondered at his post-season playing level. He’s hitting .407 with five homers and 11 RBIs. The only time I saw him make an out last night was when the ump blew a called third strike. (Clearly outside.) His defense is stellar, and he’s been particularly aggressive on the basepaths. Last night, for example, with an Angel on third, Jorge Posada (whoops) started to walk off the field after a double play, thinking there were three outs. A-Rod quickly noticed the catcher abandoning the plate and sprinted to cover home, saving a run. It could have been a big psychological boost for the Angels. Instead, A-Rod make it look as if the Yankees were just too relaxed.

The guy is in a zone.

What’s the point?

The point is this: Go Yankees! They’ve been deprived of a World Series since 2000, when they beat the Mets, which practically doesn’t count. Though it is satisfying.

(In 2001, following 9/11, the Diamondbacks had a moral obligation to lose to the Yankees , which they violated. I was volunteering down at Ground Zero when the Diamondbacks won the final game, and the emergency workers were not happy about it. Bad karma, Diamondbacks!)

This feels like a World Series-winning team to me…

Last night I went to a benefit for an environmental group called Oceana. It’s a good group, working to save the life in our oceans. You might have seen their ad campaign featuring Mad Men’s January Jones trying to end shark finning.

But it’s also a celebrity-studded organization which, as someone who knows them better than I mentioned to me, does like to throw a party, and it made me wonder if their glitz-to-gravitas ratio hasn’t gotten too high.

Sponsored by Tiffany, the party was held at the East 61st Street (about a block away from Barney’s) duplex (could have been more, I only saw two floors) of Alexander and Brenda von Schweickhardt, who seem to throw a lot of parties. It was quite a place. Entering into an enormous foyer, I walked past Tommy Hilfiger and his blonde wife, who is lovely and about eight feet tall, or about two and a half feet taller than he is. The actor Sam Waterston was in a corner, presumably talking about TD Waterhouse.

I took a royal blue drink from a tuxedo-clad waiter—a “Blue Whale,” he announced—walked up a giant curved staircase, and was so overwhelmed by the apartmental grandeur that I almost failed to notice the two nubile young women coiled languidly on the sill in front of a massive picture window. Dressed like mermaids, they leaned into each other like the stars of some high-concept porn film. Agawp, I asked if I could take a picture. They said nothing, but gave the merest of nods. Diva mermaids!

Times like these, you really wish the iPhone had a better camera.

At the top of the stairs, celebrity photographer Patrick McMullan was snapping shots (quite a nice guy, actually) and waiters carried trays of hors d’oeuvres. The trays featured built-in LED displays showing pictures of fish. I kept trying to see if any of the hors d’oeuvres were fish. And I wandered through the expansive apartment—into the grand study, through the elaborate living room, the elegant dining room, onto the patio (bigger than most Manhattan apartments) looking south to the Empire State building.

As often happens at these things, I found two other journalists who’d come alone, a woman from Fortune Small Business and a woman from the New York Post. We talked happily about the state of print media. (That’s a joke.) The woman from the NY Post had recently written an article about falling in love with a cougar (not the cat).

And we tried to remember if the hosts’ name was Schweickhardt or Von Schweickhardt. The matter was solved when the woman from the Post waved her arm at our surroundings and said, “It’s obviously Von.”

I love the Post.

A good time was had by all, and I’m sure money was raised to save the oceans, which is the most important thing.

Still, I couldn’t help but think that even three months ago, you wouldn’t have held such an event—certainly not with faux-lesbian mermaids—and wonder how decadence could have returned so quickly.

In the Globe, busines columnist Steven Syre wonders, How could Harvard be so dumb?

Harvard University’s money management problems have gone from simply lamentable to something much harder to fathom.

Syre adds an interesting bit of knowledge to what’s known about Harvard’s recent habit of investing its working capital. (Emphasis added.)

In the Times, Stanley Fish blogs about “academics under seige.”

There is a general sense that academics have cushy jobs they don’t even perform, that they inhabit a wonderland of “privileged sleaze” and display an “overweening sense of entitlement” (Victor Edwards). dan1138 speaks for many when he proclaims, “We simply don’t need a cosseted privileged class able to demand lifetime job security in exchange for some hypothetical intellectual function.”

Is he right? Or is he just reflecting the opinions of a vocal minority?

I’m headed to Miami today; will post as I can. Sorry! The paying job has been pretty demanding lately.

Well…even more demanding, let’s say….

Tulum, Mexico

And, as the Globe reports, Harvard shows signs of idiocy.

The university disclosed yesterday that it had lost $1.8 billion in cash - money it relies on for the school’s everyday expenses - by investing it with its endowment fund, instead of keeping it in safe, bank-like accounts. The disclosure was made in the school’s annual report for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

…“I think that was an interesting way to handle the grocery money,’’ said Harry R. Lewis, a former Harvard dean who is now a professor of computer science at the university….

The move raised eyebrows at peer universities.

Balloon boy’s dad is busted.

“Would a DA really spend hours looking into Panamanian sub-corporations when people are getting blown to bits all over Philly? True, most of them are probably Eagles fans, so no great loss…”

The New York Post’s Kyle Smith, in his review of “Law-Abiding Citizen.“

Balloon boy pukes during an interview, and his father claims that the whole thing wasn’t a hoax: “We’re always doing some kind of scientific research…”