Zeitoper

Sportswriter King Kaufman, in Salon:

The Red Sox win and the continuation of the ALCS should go a long way toward preventing total sports-media saturation coverage of the Joe Torre story in New York, though they'll have their hands full on that score. Torre turned down the Yankees' offer of a one-year contract with a big cut in his base salary but incentives that could have paid him more than he made this year if the 2008 Yankees reached the World Series.

That ends by far the longest, most stable and most successful managerial era of the Steinbrenner era for the Yankees, and it probably would have totally overshadowed the ALCS if the Red Sox hadn't been playing. As it is, ESPN is playing it cool, though it has commissioned Philip Glass to write an opera about Torre's contract negotiation that will debut Sunday afternoon.