A series of snow, socks, stop signs

The November Classic is under the threat of snow and Manny Ramirez.

Both undoubtedly are a sign of global warming, the secular movement that passes as a religion today.

Perhaps the series could use Indians third-base coach Joel Skinner to put up the stop sign around Mother Nature and Ramirez, a pair of immovable forces.

To put it another way, the series could come down to Mother being Mother and Manny being Manny.

Game 1 is tonight in Boston, where Hugo Chavez’s CITGO sign looms above the left-field stands of Fenway Park.

One side sees the CITGO sign as a landmark, the other as a poke in Uncle Sam’s eye.

Forget it, Jake, to paraphrase a line from “Chinatown.” It’s Beantown.

Josh Beckett will be on the mound for Stephen King’s team.

He is the pitcher with the blank look on his face and the aspirin tablets being dispensed out of his right arm.

Not even the sight of his ex singing the national anthem before Game 5 of the ALCS in Cleveland unnerved the pitcher.

Beckett is the arduous assignment before the Rockies, who have been off so long they could be well-rusted.

Or well-rested, depending on your view of an extended layoff.

The Red Sox will hand the Bloody Sock the baseball in Game 2. No name is necessary.

In the annals of famous bloody apparel, the Bloody Sock is in the company of the bloody glove and Jesse Jackson’s bloody shirt.

An asterisk — baseball’s favorite symbol — has been attached to the sock. Ketchup comes in red, too.

At least the sock was not soaked in the clear and the cream, baseball’s most toxic substances next to Barry Bonds.

Beckett and the Bloody Sock will put the Red Sox up 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, and you know what that means.

Only a handful of teams out of 3 zillion ever have come back from a 2-0 deficit and only then under a full moon against left-handed pitchers born under the sign of the Virgo.

That is the conventional wisdom, although subject to change if Ramirez keeps legging out 390-foot singles.

The Rockies enter the World Series as the hottest team in baseball.

That appellation comes with the help of home-plate umpire Tim McClelland, who declared Matt Holliday safe in the 13th inning of the Rockies’ one-game playoff with the Padres.

All of San Diego, wildfires or not, is still waiting on Holliday to touch home plate.

No one can take that lament away from San Diego until Tijuana completes its illegal move into Southern California.

Denver is a fine place to visit if you have your ski gear in tow.

It is that time of the year, for it is one, two, three ski lifts you’re up at the old ski resort.

Denver looks best in snow and with John Elway at quarterback.

The city can be forgiven its close proximity to Ward Churchill in Boulder.

The Rockies did not advance this far on McClelland’s call alone.

There is the managerial fortitude of Clint Hurdle, the one-time cover boy of Sports Illustrated when being on the cover of Sports Illustrated actually meant something, the two-piece bikini edition excluded.

Hurdle was called into the general manager’s office hours before the Rockies opened the season against the Diamondbacks in early April.

Hurdle was carrying a lifetime managerial record of 352-436 at the time and was coming off a 76-86 season.

Managers have been fired for considerably less.

But Hurdle was granted a two-year contract extension and parroted the view of the team’s supporters.

“Believe me, I’m surprised,” he said. “The most. Completely.”

Hurdle did not turn to be the next George Brett as a player.

He was not even the next Bo Jackson.

But here he is managing on the grand stage of the Midnight Classic, as East Coast viewers see it if they have not passed out on the couch by the seventh-inning stretch.