Because Patricia cut our cable by mistake, and because it's taking Comcast a week to send someone to fix it, and because my baseball-watching friend Tim is in LA and Mike is in the exurbs, and because I don't even know if Jim has a TV, I was forced to watch both Games 4 and 5 of the World Series in sports bars.

Sunday, for Game 4, I walked over to Garage, the hipster, pool/bowling alley/restaurant on Broadway and sat in the bar. They had two TVs there and switched one to the World Series for me. That's where I sat for the game. Occasionally some dude would come up, squint at the score, then walk away even as I tried to engage them. Mostly I watched it with the bartender, Seth, with whom I spoke about life matters mostly. He's out of Arizona, a budding Buddhist. We talked about unhappiness in the U.S. and its relation to the plethora of choices available. We talked about this even as it took a while for me to choose from the plethora of choices on the menu.

Last night I figured Buckley's in lower Queen Anne would be the place, since it's only two blocks from where I work, and it was. I arrived a few minutes before the first pitch and the place was packed. I mean, packed. And on every screen but one they were showing Monday Night Football. Really? Over the World Series? I mean, not to get all Randle Patrick McMurphy about it, but it is the World Series, baseball. C'mon, Chief, put up that hand!

Then the other shoe dropped. Ah. The Seahawks are playing. Fuck.

One woman, waiting for her boyfriend, was nice enough to let me sit with her. We talked about the relative popularity of various sports. She's a big Sounders fan but thinks soccer isn't that big a sport in the U.S. I said, sure, but it's on the rise. Unlike baseball, whose popularity is falling. She wondered about that: Is it falling? I trotted out the various measures. Overall, attendance is up, because each team markets well, and each fan is a fan of that team. They go for the entertainment value. But they're not lovers of baseball as baseball. Once the World Series is on, the biggest games of the year, most people are elsewhere, watching Sunday Night or Monday Night Football. Ratings have been dropping for 30 years.

I was also able to do my napkin bit about every team sport, and why they're all the same, and why baseball is different, and why this difference doesn't suit the television age. I'll do it for you sometime, if you like.

But after one G&T I'd had enough of the crowd and walked toward downtown, then detoured over to ... yeah ... Paddy Coyne's Irish Pub along the waterfront. Why not?

That place was deserted in comparison, although all of the screens were tuned to MNF; but I asked the maitre'd, who looked around and gave me a TV in the corner. So that's where I sat for the remainder of Boston's 3-1 win: in a booth, drinking Carlsberg, eating a grilled cheese sandwich. I tweeted:

New definition of a loner: wanting to watch the World Series in a Seattle sports bar the night the Seahawks are on Monday Night Football.

— Erik Lundegaard (@ErikLundegaard) October 29, 2013

But I wasn't unhappy. I even got to celebrate a bit. On the long walk home, past the various homeless and crazies on Pike Street between 1st and 3rd, I spotted a guy waiting for a bus on 4th. He was wearing a Boston Red Sox cap. I went up to him, fist extended. He smiled, bumped mine. I smiled and walked on.

Game 6 tomorrow night. I might actually get to watch it at home. Of course, if I do, I won't have a story to tell. But I'll probably drink less.

  From David Shoenfield: Big Papi: He went 3-for-4, the one out being a screaming liner to center field that ended a streak of nine straight times reaching base. He's hitting .733/.750/1.267 in this World Series.