As was done last year, Fox Sports is beginning its World Series game broadcasts with a scene of a fighter plane lifting off from an aircraft carrier, with the reminder, "You’re watching Fox Sports!" No other network would make such an unalloyed display of patriotism, let alone make sport of the brave work of our fighting men and women in the same way they often do themselves. (My favorite graffiti written on bombs in the first Gulf War was: "Give war a chance.")

It has been said since September 11 that the wave of patriotism that swept the country would have a half life. Although this is true, one notes from the first two World Series games that the crowd is still deeply serious and moved by the ritual recital of the Star Spangled Banner. It was only a few years ago that some idiot team thought it a good ideas to have Roseanne Barr sing the Star Spangled Banner before a game. It is easy to predict that that sort of frivolity will not soon happen again, if ever.

Go Angels!