There is a new kid in town.

I bought a new hand-held satellite radio, just in time to document the annual (forget last year) collapse of the Red Sox.

At this point we (they) are up a half-game and it feels like we (they) are 10 games behind.

This new XM system not only allows me Tony Kornheiser in the morning but exceptional music (you name it, from salsa to traditional, old-school jazz) and sports, sports, sports.

The XM purchase became necessary when I was driving through North and South Carolina last year and couldn’t find the NCAA basketball games – in the Carolinas, of all places. Plenty of Bible Belt rants and, of course, Rush Limbaugh on every other station, but no roundball.

If you are an ESPN junkie like I am and do any serious driving, you have to scan for the ESPN outlet every few hundred miles for sports news, once you lose the mighty WFAN-AM in New York City, which will take you clear to Baltimore.

With satellite radio you plug the beast into your tape deck, put an antenna on your roof, turn to station 150 and have ESPN clear as a bell all day and all night long. Heaven. Turn to station 152 and you get Kornheiser, the wittiest sports guy of them all. (Watching PTI at night is simply not enough). Now that Boston College is in the ACC, I get all the Eagles games on my mighty machine. But the best feature is the 14 Major League Baseball games, at the touch of a finger,

Trying to listen to a Red Sox game between Rockland and Camden is an adventure. Everything goes off if you drive behind Mount Battie. Sometimes you can get 850 AM, WEEI, out of Boston. Sometimes sunspots, or atmospheric conditions or witch doctors sabotage the broadcast. Sometimes you get the game on AM, sometimes on FM. Sometimes you can hear it. Sometimes you can’t.

With this machine you get the games all the time, with outstanding clarity. You also get every other game being played that night (or day) but who cares, really? XM has paid Major League Baseball $650 million to broadcast all of the games for the next 11 years. Money well spent, I say.

But it is only the Red Sox who matter.

We have been insulated from our usual hysteria at this time of year. We have some rare success under our belt. The Red Sox won the World Series last year for the first time since 1918 and I have the video to prove it. (I bought the video because I still don’t believe it.)

But September is still a trying month for all Red Sox fans. We have been beaten by that New York team (ptui) as many times as Charlie Brown has missed that damned football. We sort of think that the Red Sox can at least win their division (cross your fingers) but Pedro is gone, Schilling has no blood on his socks this time and can’t pitch to save his (our) life. It looks like the $20 million man, shortstop Edgar Renteria, should go back to Little League for seasoning. It looks like the wheels are coming off and the Yankees will be coming to town for a three-game showdown on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 and 2.

Gulp.

With my trusty XM radio, no matter where I am and what I am doing, no matter what errand Blue Eyes has in store for that final weekend, I shall listen to every pitch, every hit, every Renteria error.

If I dare.

I hate September.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmet

meara@msn.com.