There's no accounting for taste

Today a bunch of Canadians will apparently play a professional ice hockey game in Fort Lauderdale, where the weatherman is predicting a high of 88 degrees, with thunderstorms. It's impossible not to know that despite the fact that it's barely Autumn on the calendar, the NFL is playing games. And it's hard to avoid hearing about basketball, if only to hear that there won't be any, come Winter.

But, as it happens, it's baseball season, and the funnest part of the season at that:

Over the decades, teams falling apart during a pennant race have always made for darkly compelling viewing. Yes, watching champions spraying each other with Champagne is nice. But seeing teams — good ones, even great ones, losing night after improbable night when the games matter most — can be ghoulishly riveting.

If the Red Sox and the Braves continue their descents, this September could produce two historic collapses. No team, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, has ever squandered what Boston and Atlanta are close to giving up: leads of eight or more games in the race for a spot in baseball’s postseason in the final month of the season.