Some things are more important than playoff baseball.

For instance: my cousin's wedding.

Fortunately, my relatives are die-hard Red Sox fans, and they weren't about to let a mere wedding interfere with playoff baseball. But it's not like they gave the wedding short shrift, either. They simply found ways to make sure the Red Sox were part of the celebration. So even when they were off dancing to "Brick House" or "Billie Jean," it was impossible to forget that the Red Sox-Tampa Bay game was under way.

"I'd like to pause for the moment," the DJ/emcee said at one point, "to announce that Jason Bay of the Red Sox just hit a home run." Looking at the box score today, I can see that the DJ/emcee was wrong: Jason Bay hit a double, and Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz both scored. But no matter. The cheers that greeted this little bit of erroneous information were among the loudest of the night.

There were other little touches that made it difficult to forget playoff baseball was going on, like my uncle's Red Sox cuff links, or the fact that the bride, groom and parents entered the reception hall to the strains of the Red Sox victory song "Dirty Water" by the Standells. I can't remember if "Sweet Caroline" was also played, but it seems like it was, and if it wasn't featured, well, it should have been. Before the reception, my uncle informed me that the television at the bar would be broadcasting the game, and I swung by a couple times to check the score. As weddings and sports are both things I love, it seemed only natural to combine the two.

The reception ended fairly early, and I was able to turn on the game when I got back to my hotel room. Of course, playoff baseball is nothing if not a test of one's endurance, and around 12:30 a.m., with the game tied 8-8 and no end in sight, I decided it was time to sleep. And I was glad I did, because there's nothing more aggravating than staying up past 1:30 a.m. to watch your team lose in the eleventh inning. When I checked in with various relatives the next day, I learned that none of the die-hards had made it through the entire game, either, and so I assumed nobody did, until I went to a friend's house for dinner on Sunday and she informed me that she had listened to the entire thing after drinking nine million cups of coffee. So apparently some kind of stimulant was in order.

After dinner, we played wiffle ball, and my friend's 8-year-old son took the mound wearing a Red Sox cap, which of course I appreciated. It took him such a long time to get his pitches off that I briefly wondered if he'd been replaced by Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who pitched a gem in game 1 against Tampa Bay but always makes me nervous and always seems to be trying to make the opposing batters die of boredom. I can only play wiffle ball if I'm drinking a beer at the same time, and when I scooped up the ball one-handed while carrying around a bottle of Sam Adams and tossed it to second base for an easy out, I felt pretty pleased with myself. Then we went inside and found the Dodgers-Phillies game on the radio. At this time of year, there's really nothing you can do to avoid playoff baseball. Except go to bed.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about bad music, and one of my friends e-mailed to say to say that he had just heard "Ice Ice Baby" at a wedding. "'Thunderstruck' is not a bad song," he informed me. "'Ice Ice Baby,' on the other hand, is a bad song." He's right. In fact, "Ice Ice Baby" may be one of the worst songs in the history of the world. I came to this conclusion after the DJ played it at my cousin's wedding, which makes me wonder if "Ice Ice Baby" has become the new wedding novelty song. But as bad as it is, I actually enjoyed hearing it, because it gave my cousin Adam the opportunity to show off his crazy break dancing moves. And that's always a sight to behold.