Now we have this: An insistence on blogging as part of a campaign for the presidency of Red Sox Nation. I have been across the land this year, standing in the back of halls filled with those thick with fever over the candidacies of people like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Rudy Guiliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney. And, depending on the schedule, I have found myself repeatedly checking my Blackberry for out of town scores, checking the inning by inning progress of the Olde Towne Team.

Yankee scores. Pitching match-ups. Truly important stuff.

Years ago, too many to conjure, I wrote in a small local newspaper now owned by The New York Times, that "baseball is not a matter of life and death. But the Red Sox are." That holds true today, all these summers later. The affection for the club has never been deeper, extending across too many zip codes to be accurately counted. The fear of failure still lingers too despite the ring won in '04 and the misery that was buried then. But only briefly because we are -- The Nation is -- a fandom always on the edge of our seats.

So that is why I have failed to meet all the requirements involved in blogging for this presidency deal. There will be no picture of me wearing a team hat. No biography proclaiming my allegiance or listing the number of games I attend each year. No 'links' to other internet sites to amuse or entertain the occasional reader or itinerant browser.

The leaves are turning. Each day assumes a larger importance that the one just past. There are box scores to be studied. Fingernails to be bitten. Dreams allowed to breathe and nightmares to be stomped, repressed and pushed to the shadows.

There is no time for fluff, for the frivolous, even for a campaign.

There is only time to win because when you are who I am -- or who you might be, too -- the Red Sox are personal, a habit, a whole life of expectation and excitement arriving each day. So you can go blog. I'm going to a ball game.