Depression in Chapel Hill. Baseball on the Horizon.

Enough of this talk about a mysterious God we can never know; let's turn our attention to the much more easily identified Satan: J.J. Redick. Yes, the Duke sharpshooter (they are the Blue Devils, you understand) did the majority of the work in a crushing loss for the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill last night. I caught the second half at a bar, Joe O's, after attending the Knicks-Clippers game at MSG with three friends. When we entered said bar, not only was a terribly irritating, 50-something guitar player inflicting Billy Joel's "Piano Man" on the patrons, but North Carolina was down 17 just a few minutes into the second half. (I love Billy Joel, so the choice of "inflicting" only has to do with the true awfulness of the one paying the tribute. He was accompanied by a pre-recorded backing track for each song. At one point, after he had tortured us with "Brown Eyed Girl" and a grotesquely sped-up version of "The Boxer," I came up with a name for the evening: "Joe O's presents The Ritualistic Murder of the American Songbook." When we left many, many songs later, my friend suggested we leave him a fifty dollar bill, duct taped to a particularly sensitive region of the body.)

Carolina stormed back to take the lead, but Duke...I can't talk about this. It's too soon. But if you share my love of this rivalry, or if you're just a sports fan, or a fan of great writing (this should cover most of you), I highly recommend this book. I haven't read the entire thing yet, and it's not officially released for another couple of weeks, but it's terrific.

Lastly, while we're on sports, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that pitchers and catchers start reporting to camp in seven days. Starting now, I will be paying frequent visits to Yankees Chick, a blogger in California who brings a love for the Bronx (and a damn fine knowledge of baseball) to the west coast.