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Red Sox had a choke for the ages yesterday. The graph source points out that it wasn't just the month of September-- into the late innings, things were looking "ok"...

• The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.
• The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play.
• The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike.
• The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike.

Such a set of statistical craziness ("Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way.") is making people question ideas that streaks and chokes are semi-mythological. (Personall, I think it started when bad hitting made Tim Wakefield have to play like 8 or 9 games before he got his 200th win. That got the pitching thinking. And choking.

For bitter fun, check out ESPN's picks at the start of the season.

Ah well, it's not losing a series after being ahead 3 games to none or anything, but still.

(And Patriots' last game... and the NBA strike...Bruins anyone?)

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Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.

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Man. Yesterday: Amazon intros cheap tablet, but that "silk" web thing scares me; Microsoft starts getting money from android, and Sox choke

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BoA to charge $5/mo for using debit cards at stores. Might be time to look for alternatives...

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Anything's a toy if you play with it.