Red Sox v. Yankees

[Jasonik]

http://www.boston.com/sports/redsox/williams/photos/wallpaper/ted_joe_1024x768.jpg

[Kris]

The Red Sox, thanks to their smart costumes.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/10/06/sports/07lowe.l.jpg
Associated Press

The red makes their limbs look superhuman.

[Stern]

Im a Met fan until October, this is the reason Im also a Cardinal fan as they do make it often enough. I am a Yankee hater.

And btw wasnt last-night's game great? Go Boston!

[NYatKNIGHT]

What is this, the Wired Boston Forum? Blasphemy!

http://www.allposters.com/IMAGES/80/031_5172.jpg http://www.wirednewyork.com/landmarks/liberty/images/statue_of_liberty_s.jpg http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/photo/photogallery/anniversary/1954_2003/03.jpg http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/images/ballpark/ballpark_header.jpg

http://galleries.soaringtowers.org/albums/NYatKNIGHT/downtown_3.sized.jpg

The Bambino (post-curse)
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/photo/photogallery/anniversary/greats_ruth/09.jpg

[Jasonik]

http://www.redsoxconnection.com/stories/moneylogo.jpg

[ZippyTheChimp]

http://www.1918redsox.com/images/dugout.jpg+
http://www.prigsbee.com/Musicals/images/nono.gif=
http://www.uncp.edu/library/instruction/images/babe_ruth.jpg

[DominicanoNYC]

I'm going for the BoSox. I voted that I'm a Mets fan and I want to see a Cubbies vs. BoSox World Series. Who will end their curse first? Which curse is the strongest?

[Kris]

October 8, 2003

Dream Teams

The Boston Red Sox' nail-biting victory over the Oakland Athletics on Monday night moves professional baseball one step closer to the Dream Series: the Red Sox versus the Chicago Cubs. With all due respect to our New York readership — Yankee fans among them — to George Steinbrenner and to the Yankees themselves, we find it hard to resist the emotional tug and symmetrical possibilities of a series between teams that seem to have been put on earth to tantalize and then crush their zealous fans. Together they account for 180 years of futility. The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908. The Red Sox have not won one since 1918, a little more than a year before they shipped Babe Ruth to the Yankees, a famously bizarre transaction that ushered in the era of Yankee domination.

For the matchup to occur, each team must jump one more hurdle. For Chicago, it is the Florida Marlins, a team for which it is hard to muster much enthusiasm if you're a baseball traditionalist. The Marlins, a major league team only since 1993, were essentially an artificial construct. The team's original owner, Wayne Huizenga, dismantled it after it won a championship in 1997 because the team was too expensive, then sold it in 1999. Improbably, the team finds itself knocking on the door again with a cast of largely low-paid youngsters.

For the Red Sox, the obstacles are twofold. One is the Yankees, whose lineup and pitching staff are rivaled only by the Cubs'. The other is the Red Sox, plagued by demons that ruin things whenever the team comes close. The Red Sox have reached the playoffs or the Series nine times since that triumph in 1918, and have failed every time. The Yankees tend to close things out, advancing to the World Series five times in the last seven years and winning four of them. Cold reality favors the Yankees; warm sentiment, which is at the heart of baseball and to which we are always susceptible, favors one or the other of baseball's most reliable losers.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

October 8, 2003

Bloomberg Trades His Sox for the Local Pinstripes

By MIKE McINTIRE

He made his first big fielding error during the mayoral campaign two years ago, when he bobbled a tricky one-hopper about whether he liked the Yankees or the Mets.

"I grew up in Boston," Michael R. Bloomberg replied, as his gleeful opponents ran for extra bases.

Then there was the easy pop-up that bounced out of his glove — his mispronunciation of the name of the Yankees' manager, Joe Torre, at a New York University graduation ceremony in May. The tabloids blamed "the Boston-bred" mayor's accent, while noting, suspiciously, that he "grew up a Red Sox fan."

Determined to prevent the ball from rolling through his legs again, à la Bill Buckner, Mr. Bloomberg is taking no chances as he warms up for the American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

"I'm rooting for the Yankees, make no mistake about that," the mayor declared yesterday. "This team's going to go all the way."

In politics, where perception is as important as reality, candidates can be undone over trivial issues that suddenly gain traction in the shifting sands of public opinion. (Hillary Rodham Clinton is still trying to live down a gaffe from her Senate race in 2000, when she suddenly declared her love for the Yankees although she had rooted for her hometown Chicago Cubs all her life.)

During a public appearance in Manhattan, Mr. Bloomberg took up the Louisville Slugger that his predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani seemed to heft so easily, and gamely swung away. "The Yankees are going to win," he asserted, pledging to be at Yankee Stadium tomorrow for the second game of the championship series, though he said he would not be able to attend tonight's opener.

Later, in a prepared statement that referred to Babe Ruth, Mr. Bloomberg laid it on thick.

"I share a bond with Yankees past and present who have left Boston to find success in the greatest city in the world," he said.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR- 278-03
October 7, 2003

MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG AND BOSTON MAYOR THOMAS M. MENINO ANNOUNCE "FRIENDLY WAGER" ON AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino today announced a “friendly wager” on the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox American League Championship Series. The series gets underway at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx at 8:00 pm on Wednesday night.

“I share a bond with Yankees past and present who have left Boston to find success in the greatest city in the world, which will make me especially proud to watch the Bombers send the boys from Beantown home empty-handed,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Because New York’s generosity is matched only by its confidence, I am pleased to offer a veritable feast of New York cuisine that the people of Boston will never get to eat:

A quart of Manhattan clam chowder from Lundy Brothers in Sheepshead Bay;

A large pizza from Denino’s in Port Richmond;

A dozen dumplings from Joe’s Shanghai in Chinatown;

A dozen bagels from Slim’s in Bayside;

An order of Bistec Encebollado (steak with onions) from Jimmy’s Bronx Café.
“And just to remind you of whence your troubles began, a dozen ‘Baby Ruth’ bars to commemorate the curse of the Bambino,” said Mayor Bloomberg.

“This year, and particularly, this past week, the Red Sox have given the fans of Boston and New England hours of excitement and drama,” said Mayor Menino. “Tomorrow, a new day dawns as the likes of Ramirez, Ortiz, Millar, Mueller, and Nomar slug their way to our inevitable victory. If the Super Bowl celebration of 2002 was a tremendous memory, just wait as Martinez, Lowe and Wakefield bring a World Series championship to Boston.

“I'm offering Boston’s best to Mayor Bloomberg in the knowledge that as the victor, we'll take the spoils (what, no brisket?). We're putting a Legal Seafoods clambake for four on the table with lobster, steamers, linguica and REAL clam chowder. And after the Red Sox win it all, Mayor Bloomberg will have a standing invitation to come home to Boston, the Hub of the universe, and enjoy our legendary hospitality,” concluded Mayor Menino.

CONTACT:

Edward Skyler / Jordan Barowitz (212) 788-2958

Seth Gitell (City of Boston) (617) 635-4461

[Kris]

October 8, 2003

Unfinished Business for Yankees and Red Sox

By TYLER KEPNER

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/10/08/sports/08yank650.jpg
Boston sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920, and the rest is history. The Yankees have since won 26 World Series championships and the Red Sox none.

The Boston Red Sox are not used to success, so there was not much sleeping on their red-eye flight from California on Monday night. After holding on for a frantic one-run victory to eliminate the Oakland Athletics from the playoffs, the Red Sox joy ride touched down in Newark at 7:01 a.m. yesterday. The players arrived at their Midtown hotel at 8:30 and took buses to Yankee Stadium at 3 p.m., seeming more buoyant than weary.

"That's the fun thing about this clubhouse," first baseman Kevin Millar said. "We've got a bunch of idiots in here who go out and play baseball. I don't think anything fazes us."

The Red Sox were perceptive enough to acknowledge the magnitude of the American League Championship Series against the Yankees beginning tonight. There is more than a World Series berth at stake. There is the weight of history, which shifted seismically in the Yankees' favor after the Red Sox sold them Babe Ruth in 1920.

For the Yankees and their hard-driving principal owner, George Steinbrenner, losing to the Red Sox would be catastrophic. For the Red Sox and their fatalistic fans, beating the Yankees would be unthinkably delicious. The participants know it.

"Whether they admit it or not, I think everybody in this clubhouse kind of wanted to go through the Yankees if we're going to get to the World Series," Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein said. "It's appropriate. We've battled them in some really tough games all year, and there's some unfinished business. I think both teams probably feel that way.

"If you're going to do it, you might as well do it right. It seemed that we're perhaps destined to face each other here in the A.L.C.S. Let's do it."

The Yankees and the Red Sox have brought out the best in each other for months. Of their 19 regular-season meetings, the Yankees won 10, and they finished six games ahead of Boston in the A.L. East. The Red Sox scored more runs, 109 to 94, and the final game of the series was tied in the seventh inning before the Yankees won.

"If you wanted to come to a postseason game in the middle of June, you came to a Red Sox-Yankees game, whether it's at the Stadium here or at Fenway Park," Mike Mussina, who will start Game 1 for the Yankees, said. "If you wanted to see it without it being October, that's what you did. You just magnify it 10 times, and that's what you're going to have. This is what I think a lot of people wanted to see."

The Red Sox used their two best starting pitchers, Pedro Martínez and Derek Lowe, in Game 5 of their division series in Oakland. They will start the knuckleballer Tim Wakefield tonight, with Lowe pitching Game 2 against Andy Pettitte tomorrow night. Roger Clemens will face Martínez in Game 3 on Saturday at Fenway Park, where Clemens, the former Red Sox ace, has 100 career victories.

Clemens pitched for the Red Sox for 13 years and knows that Boston has not won a championship since 1918. The Yankees have not won since 2000, which is an eternity to Steinbrenner.

"I think our fans are missing it, too," Clemens said. "They have high expectations for our team, how we've spoiled them over the years and spoiled ourselves. I don't think you could ask for anything more."

The winner of this four-of-seven-game series will face the winner of the National League Championship Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins. But there is a sense among some players that the real action is here, that this series will determine the best team in the majors.

"Whoever wins this series is going to win the World Series, there's no doubt about it," Red Sox second baseman Todd Walker said. "We're the two best teams in baseball, I think."

Both teams come into the series with a three-game winning streak. The Yankees lost the first game of their division series against Minnesota before winning three in a row, and Boston lost its first two games against Oakland before coming back. The Red Sox, the team with a history of postseason stumbles, seized on Oakland's base-running blunders to take control of the series.

"Boston should have never really been in it, to be honest," said David Wells, who will start Game 4 against John Burkett of the Red Sox. "But Oakland got a little careless at Fenway, and that's what really fired them up. When you get an opportunity like that, you take advantage of it. To me, if you go out and play good baseball, you're going to win."

The Yankees, who beat the Red Sox in the 1999 A.L.C.S., four games to one, are more likely to play cleaner games than the A's, who have lost in the first round of the playoffs four years in a row. But the Red Sox plan to be similarly opportunistic if the Yankees let them.

"We've always stood toe to toe with them," Boston catcher Jason Varitek said. "A break here or a break there in the last A.L.C.S. could have turned those games completely around. Who gets the breaks and takes advantage of them most is who's going to win."

The Yankees won four games against the Red Sox this season while scoring four or fewer runs. Boston beat the Yankees by scores of 10-3, 10-2, 9-3 and 11-0.

Asked if his team has to outslug the Red Sox to win, Jason Giambi said, "I don't want to try."

The Red Sox set a major league record for slugging percentage, .491, 2 percentage points better than the 1927 Yankees of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. They exceeded the expectations of Epstein, who tried to stock the lineup with hitters who got on base regularly and were threats to hit for extra bases.

"I don't think anyone saw that kind of home run and extra-base pop coming out of this team," Epstein said. "But we wanted tough outs, professional at-bats, one through nine. We were fortunate to stay healthy, and the guys really fed off each other and fed off the strength of the lineup to put up great years. I think when we're having tough, quality at-bats early in the game, that's when we know we're going to put up some runs."

Pettitte beat the Red Sox three times this season, but in his last start against them, he gave up eight runs and did not escape the third inning. He said he would not think much about his good starts or his bad one, focusing more on how the Red Sox have hit recently, and how he has pitched. After the Yankees dominated the Twins in the division series, the pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre said, that is probably wise.

"If they're on their game," Stottlemyre said, referring to the Yankees' starters, "they're basically like any other team that can be held down. But if the pitcher's not on his game, they can destroy you in a short period of time. That's the type of club they have."

That is essentially how the Yankees see it: if they pitch to their abilities, they believe they will win. If they do not, the Red Sox will punish them. Either way, the fans will go wild.

"There's no other opponent for the Red Sox or the Yankees that could take this to a higher level," Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said. "This is the greatest rivalry in sports, period."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Freedom Tower]

GO YANKEES!!! Jasonik do you really wanna bet 31 bucks on the Boston Red Socks? They're cursed, and will forever stay that way, I hope.

[Jasonik]

They're cursed .... I hope.

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."
-Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra

[Freedom Tower]

Wow, now I'm confused. I mean there is a curse, and I just hope the Red Sox don't end the curse by winning this year. Am I missing something? Why don't I know where I'm going? Hey Yogi can you explain? Hehe.

[JMGarcia]

Having grown up in Boston you have to fully understand the curse to properly predict it. The curse is not just that the Sox will lose, it is their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory that counts. Game 6 of the WS against the Mets is the ultimate example.

Therefore I predict they will beat the Yankees sending Boston into a euphoria which will last until game 7 of the WS where they will manage to blow a lead to the Cubs in the 9th through a series of errors, wild pitches, and general gagging. Red Sox fans must be brought to the very brink of victory before having the rug pulled out from under them.

That is the curse.

[NYatKNIGHT]

As a lifelong Yankee fan, it would sting less to lose the World Series to any National League team, than to lose the A.L. pennant to the hated Red Sox.

[Jasonik]

In a pickle between political, home bases
Despite declaration, some doubt mayor's allegiance to Yanks

By Tatsha Robertson, Globe Staff, 10/10/2003

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been on the defensive lately. He has had to prove himself over and over again this week, but not because of fickle polls or rising housing costs in Queens. The issue is far more intense: baseball.

As New York and Boston face off in the American League Championship Series this week, New Yorkers increasingly want to know where the true loyalties of the Medford native lie. Is he a fan of their pinstriped players, or is he really a Red Sox fan, as some suspect?

"He is a Yankees fan," a Bloomberg spokesman said assuredly yesterday. "I don't know why everyone wants to know."

Bloomberg has worked hard to dispel rumors that in his heart he roots for the Red Sox. Earlier this week, he made " a friendly wager" with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

Confident of victory, Menino said win or lose, the Medford boy will have a standing invitation to come home. He will also send the New York mayor a clambake for four.

Bloomberg said in a statement that if the Yankees lose, he will send Menino a quart of Manhattan clam chowder, and dumplings, pizza, and bagels from local eateries.

"And just to remind you of whence your troubles began, a dozen Baby Ruth bars to commemorate the Curse of the Bambino," Bloomberg added. (Actually, the candy was not named after the famous ball player, but after Baby Ruth Cleveland, the first child of President Grover Cleveland.)

As for his migration from the Boston area to New York, the billionaire mayor had this to say: "I share a bond with Yankees past and present who have left Boston to find success in the greatest city of the world, which will make me especially proud to watch the Bombers send the boys from Beantown home empty-handed."

Not one to be outdone, Menino said yesterday during a telephone interview that Bloomberg's own 94-year-old mother, a Medford resident, is a Red Sox fan.

Menino said he would not be surprised if Bloomberg's mother calls her son and says, "Now you be a good boy and root for the hometown boys. "

Bloomberg must have switched his loyalties quite recently. He did not sound like a Yankees fan during his 2001 campaign when a New York Times columnist asked if he were a Yankees or New York Mets fan. "I grew up in Boston. I will leave it that way. I'm a very loyal guy," he said then.

Not everyone is convinced that Bloomberg has shaken his affection for the Red Sox.

"Only Michael knows," said Menino.

And, for all the big talk in New York streets about clobbering the Red Sox, and all the talk about a hex lingering over Fenway Park, New Yorkers admit they are a bit wary of anyone coming from Boston, whether a player or a mayor.

"I don't know. He should be rooting for New York," said Angel Mendez, 28. "He came up through [former mayor Rudolph] Giuliani, and Giuliani was a fan."

Mendez admits that the Red Sox are a good team and that, if not for the supposed curse, maybe he would be worried.

The Red Sox has not won a World Series since 1918, a year before the team's owner sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, who have gone on to win the World Series 26 times since then.

"There is a curse. They always play great, but there is always something off about it. They break down in the end," said Mendez.

JoAnn McCauley of Brooklyn wants to give the city's mayor the benefit of the doubt. "He's a Mets fan," McCauley said.

"The Yankees will win in six. I'm positive," she said. "We hate [the Red Sox]. We don't always beat them, though. I think the rivalry is an East Coast thing. They are really even most of the time, which makes the rivalry so good. The games are always great games, the intensity of the rivalry. But we are better. . . . Our fans are more intense, and you can't surpass the bleacher bums."

Then, she went back to the so-called curse. "Shame on you for selling him."

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

[scott]

The Red Sox have a decent chance of winning but getting by the Yankees will not be easy.

[Freedom Tower]

JMGarcia is that really what the curse is? I could have sworn it was just that the Red Sox would not win the world series again. Oh well, I guess you're right. I didn't know too much about it, only that Babe Ruth stops them from winning.

[Jasonik]

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/AP_Photo/2003/10/12/1065944353_5365

Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez threw Yankees coach Don Zimmer to the ground during an altercation in yesterday's playoff game. Zimmer, who had charged Martinez, was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center after the game for a checkup. (Newsday Photo*/*Paul J. Bereswill)

Zimmer plenty charged-up
By John Powers, Globe Staff, 10/12/2003

After he'd showered yesterday, the Yankees' septuagenarian contendah sat in his briefs in front of his locker, a bit bewildered by the crowd of questioners who were standing between him and his postgame chow.

"I have nothing to say, nothing," Don Zimmer declared, after he'd taken an enraged run at Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez during the fourth-inning fracas between the clubs. "We won the game. That's all that counts."

Though Zimmer's playing days are long behind him, he was as eager to take on Martinez as if the Sox ace had drilled him with the same pitch that buzzed right fielder Karim Garcia. "You know, he's dead serious," said Roger Clemens, before the 72-year-old Zimmer was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to be checked out. "Even though he can't play or get it done, he's serious."

After being badly beaned twice, Zimmer takes head-hunting personally. "The fact that he was hit in the head," mused Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, "he gets pretty upset because he'd been on the other end of that."

In 1953, playing in the minors for St. Paul, Zimmer spent 13 days in a coma after being hit by a fastball. Then, playing for the Dodgers in 1956, Zimmer was drilled in the face by the Cubs' Hal Jeffcoat and suffered a fractured cheekbone and a damaged eye, which required him to wear blindfolds for six weeks and special glasses for six more and spelled the beginning of the end of what had been a promising career. "Yeah, I think I could have been somebody," Zimmer said two decades later.

So Zimmer was furious after Martinez hit Garcia in the top of the fourth, shouting at the righthander from the dugout steps. Then, when the benches emptied in the bottom of the inning after Clemens's high fastball to Manny Ramirez, Zimmer, with his hands raised, made a bull-like charge at the startled Martinez, before the pitcher grabbed him and shoved him to the ground.

Of all the bizarre moments that have happened at the old brick ballyard in the Fens, this was unique -- a former Red Sox manager taking a run at the franchise jewel in what was perhaps the most lopsided mismatch in baseball history. "I wouldn't have hit him," Martinez said later. "I could never do it."

For a moment, the encounter seemed ludicrous, almost humorous. Someone asked Sox general manager Theo Epstein whether he'd considered sending Johnny Pesky, the club's 84-year-old hitting instructor, out to take on Zimmer in a more age-appropriate matchup. "Got to admit, the thought crossed my mind," joked Epstein.

Still, the sight of Zimmer lying stunned on the diamond was sobering to the Yankees, who feared that their beloved Buddha might be badly injured. "I saw a bald head on the ground," said Clemens. "We weren't sure if it was Zimm or Boomer [pitcher David Wells]. I was like, `Oh, my gosh,' and he wasn't getting up."

The tumble seemed to stun Zimmer. "He didn't look too good, to be honest," said Stottlemyre. "I thought maybe he had the wind knocked out of him."

Zimmer stayed on the bench for the remainder of the game, though, with a small adhesive strip across his nose and showed no ill effects later. "Are you OK?" he was asked as he reached for his shoes. "I'm good enough to get dressed," Zimmer replied. "I'm going to eat dinner -- somewhere."

After heading for the trainer's room to finish dressing, Zimmer was accompanied by a cordon of half a dozen security guards and medical attendants as he walked from the visiting clubhouse behind third base to an exit past the home clubhouse on the first base side. There, he was strapped onto a wheeled stretcher and loaded onto an ambulance, but he was expected to be back in uniform for tonight's game.

"That's Zimm," said Clemens. "He's got more fire than half those guys in the dugout, and that's why I love him."

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

*****

By Losing Composure, Red Sox Miss the Point
By MICHAEL HOLLEY
The Boston Globe

LEASE, we don't need any more cowboys. We don't need any 72-year-old vigilantes rushing from the Yankee dugout, trying to sucker-punch Pedro Martínez. We don't need a Fenway Park employee — who also happens to be a New Hampshire schoolteacher, for goodness' sake — getting into a brawl with pitchers in the Yankee bullpen.

We do need some accountability from Tim McClelland, the umpire crew chief, who has already made two controversial judgment calls in the past week.

And, oh by the way, we'd like the four-of-seven American League Championship Series to return, no gloves and canvas necessary.

The Red Sox lost Game 3 yesterday, 4-3. They have now lost the home-field advantage they secured in the Bronx. They trail the Yankees, two games to one.

Unfortunately, the details of the series became an aside after a ridiculous fourth inning. Martínez took the mound with his team tied with the Yankees at 2-2. He gave up a walk, a single and a double. Now trailing, 4-2, he either intentionally hit Karim Garcia with a pitch that was whistling toward his head or he let a fastball slip away from him.

The Red Sox' position was that it slipped. The Yankees' position was that it was intentional. After that, an excess of pride, testosterone, tradition and stupidity took over. Garcia yelled at Martínez and took Todd Walker out hard at second base because that's the way it goes in baseball.

There was some staring and pushing and pointing.

In the bottom of the fourth, Roger Clemens pitched high and inside to Manny Ramirez — the pitch didn't come close to buzzing him — and that's when Don (Dim and Dimmer) Zimmer got his chance at the spotlight.

As the benches and bullpens were emptying, Zimmer decided that he wanted to take out Martínez. He charged him and threw a punch.

Martínez stepped aside like a bullfighter, put two open palms on Zimmer's upper body, and let him tumble to the ground. When the umpires finally got "control" of the game, Zimmer remained in the dugout. He was taken to Beth Israel last night for observation before being released.

•* Watching the entire scene, you had to ask yourself how, time after time, a sport manages to smack itself in the face. A Red Sox player, either Ramirez or Martínez, should have been ejected. Neither was. Zimmer should certainly have been ejected. He wasn't.

Why?

McClelland refused to answer that after the game. A statement revealed that he felt the umpires' actions "spoke for themselves" and he had nothing else to say.

In three games, McClelland has already overruled a member of his crew on a home run and mysteriously decided that no ejections were warranted for an attack on the field.

That the attack came from a bench coach in his 70's who can be alternately charming and fiery is not the point. A message was not sent immediately, although there is a good chance it will come later. From someone else.

Sandy Alderson, baseball's vice president for operations, said he was happy with the umpires' performance. But when asked about suspensions and fines, he said it was not unprecedented for baseball to hand out both even if a game hasn't had any ejections.

In other words, a key member of the Red Sox — either Martínez or Ramirez — could be fined, or even worse, suspended during this series.

Ridiculous.

We no longer have to ask where all the cowboys have gone. There are too many of them. Players and fans have taken the rivalry too far, believing that some kind of war is going on. It isn't. Anti-Yankee emotion is fantastic, but emotion isn't how you're going to beat them. Anaheim didn't do it that way last year and Arizona didn't do it in 2001.

It's hard to criticize fans for aggressive behavior when umpires don't properly handle the aggressiveness on the field, but one uniformed employee went too far in the ninth. A man named Paul Williams from Derry, N.H., was assigned to the Yankee bullpen as a groundskeeper. He wound up tussling with the Yankees and being escorted away by the police, who are looking into accusations, by the Red Sox, that he was beaten by Yankee players.

"I think when this series began," Manager Grady Little said afterward, "everyone knew it was going to be quite a battle. It was going to be very emotional. A lot of intensity. But I think we've upgraded it from a battle to a war."

•* Well, as long as the battle involves playing small ball every once in a while. As long as it involves hit-and-runs to stay out of double plays. The Red Sox are down in this series with John Burkett going against David Wells tonight.

Emotion and bravado and Yankee chants sound and look good for the cameras. But that has nothing to do with the point, which is trying to win three more games.

Copyright 2003*The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

Pedro was overheard saying to his manager, "He scared the hell out of me. I thought it was Babe Ruth."

That pitch to Ramirez was nowhere near him. A few feet down it would have been a strike. He went up there expecting to get buzzed. If they show a replay, look at him in the box - he doesn't dig in. He was ready to bail out.

I watched the game with friends at a bar in Bayside, on Bell Blvd. Before the game, the bartender, a big sports gambler, said there was a line on the probability of a fight during the game (20 to 1 I think), so he put $10 on it. During the melee, I remembered and asked him what defines a fight. He said any agressive contact, so Zim won this guy $200.

Jasonik, instead of wasting time here, you should be out looking for that cursed piano. :D

[Jasonik]

LOL :lol:

Now where did I put my scuba gear...

[Jasonik]

http://members.sparedollar.com/cavaliercards/10-04-200303(4).jpg (http://www.mindspring.com/~modernone/si42098.JPG)

Doesn't the Sports Illustrated cover have a curse? (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/cover/2002/jinx/main/)

Clemens May Join Cy Young
06.26.03 By: Chris Lynch

Roger Clemens wanting to go into the Hall of Fame with a Yankees’ cap may have the support of a group of people you may not expect – the owners of the Boston Red Sox.

When Roger Clemens was close to getting his 300th win and 4,000th strike-out – all the talk around Fenway Park was whether Roger deserved to have his number retired by the ball club. No Red Sox player has worn number 21 since Clemens left town to play for a contender and to be closer to his family by playing in Toronto.

Public sentiment was pretty strong behind the idea of adding number 21 to the retired numbers on the right field façade at Fenway Park. However, there were still a vocal minority who pretty much loathe Clemens who couldn’t care if Roger found the cure for cancer – he’s still a traitor to them.

The owners of the Red Sox were in a no win situation.

Then Roger got his 300th win and his 4,000th strike-out.

Then Roger opened his mouth and complained that he would not go to the Hall of Fame unless his plaque had a Yankee cap.

The owners of the Red Sox heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Currently there are only five numbers retired by the Sox – Joe Cronin’s #4, Ted Williams #9, Bobby Doerr’s #1, Carl Yastrzemski’s #8 and Carlton Fisk’s #27. (Plus Jackie Robinson’s #42 which has been retired by all teams.)

The Red Sox official policy on retiring uniform numbers is based on the following criteria:

· Election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame
· At least 10 years played with the Red Sox and
· Finish his career with the club

Based upon this criteria great players like Cy Young and Smokey Joe Wood don’t qualify to have their numbers retired by the team.

Technically Carlton Fisk didn’t qualify to have his number retired by the team either because he retired as a member of the Chicago White Sox. However, Carlton decided to have a Red Sox cap on his plaque and ownership decided that was his official last act in baseball and he did it as a member of the Red Sox.

Now if Roger decides that his cap must have a big NY on it – then the Boston ownership have their way out. They have their justification for not putting Clemens’ number on that wall.

Hey – they didn’t make an exception for Cy Young.

Roger Clemens probably will not have his number retired by the Yankees because he honestly hasn’t accomplished Hall of Fame numbers in the Bronx.

That means that Clemens will probably go down as the best pitcher in history not to have his number retired by any team he’s played on.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Please send any thoughts or comments to of4dad@hotmail.com[/i]

*****

BTW my 'Yankees Suck' t-shirt has 21 on the back.

[Kris]

October 12, 2003

SPORTS OF THE TIMES

Zimmer Was Provoked by Past and Present

By DAVE ANDERSON

BOSTON

DON ZIMMER'S disgust with Pedro Martínez goes back to July 7, if not before, when the Red Sox right-hander's inside pitches sent both Alfonso Soriano and Derek Jeter to a New York hospital, each with what X-rays showed to be a bruised hand — Soriano's left, Jeter's right.

Fortunately for the Yankees, the X-rays were negative and both Jeter and Soriano soon returned to the lineup, but Zimmer, the Yankees' 72-year-old bench coach, and the other Yankees didn't forget. Neither did Randy Levine, the Yankees' president.

With Martínez starting against Roger Clemens in yesterday's Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, the Yankees knew an incendiary situation could develop. In a conversation with Bob DuPuy of the commissioner's office earlier in the week, Levine discussed the possibility of an incident developing from two fastball pitchers who like to throw inside.

"We went through this," Levine said in the Yankee clubhouse after yesterday's 4-3 victory. "He assured me they were on it. Everybody understood that this was possible."

In the fourth inning, possibility turned into reality. Martínez's fastball buzzed Karim Garcia, the Yankees' right fielder. Garcia shouted at Martínez but soon cooled down. In the bottom of the fourth, Manny Ramirez, apparently expecting Clemens to pitch inside in retaliation, quickly backed away from a fastball that was much more high than inside.

Ramirez, holding his bat, took a few roundabout steps toward Clemens, prompting both dugouts to empty. Martínez was standing by himself on the grass near the Red Sox' dugout when Zimmer, once the Boston manager, approached him and swung his left fist. Turning away, Martínez shoved him to the grass. Seeing Zimmer there, others hurried to help him as Martínez backed away.

Martínez later insisted that he likes and respects Zimmer, but when he saw Zimmer coming at him, he simply reacted.

Zimmer understandably resents a headhunting pitcher. Before batters wore helmets, he was seriously beaned twice, once as a Brooklyn Dodger farmhand, once with the Dodgers. To relieve the pressure on his brain during surgery, two holes were drilled on each side of his skull. He rejoined the Dodgers, but he never quite fulfilled his promise as a can't-miss shortstop.

So when the 72-year-old Zimmer suddenly was sprawled on the grass, his Yankee teammates worried.

"That was way out of line," Jeff Nelson said of Martínez's shove.

"Whether he ran at you or not, you've got to consider the age," said Nelson, who was involved in a ninth-inning scuffle with a member of the Red Sox' grounds crew in the Yankees' bullpen. "You can duck out of the way."

Shortly after returning to the Yankees' dugout, Zimmer was seen on television with a small bandage across the bridge of his nose. Minutes later, he was seen smiling and laughing.

"Andy Pettitte probably calmed him down more than anybody," Manager Joe Torre said. "Andy said, `Put your arm around my shoulder, we'll pick you up.' Zim was very upset."

When Zimmer was surrounded by reporters later in the clubhouse, he hurried away after speaking briefly. "I have nothing to say," he said. "We won; that's all that counts." Asked if he were all right, he said: "I'm good enough to get dressed. I'm going to eat dinner, somewhere." That somewhere may have been Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, where he was later taken for a precautionary examination.

Elsewhere in the clubhouse, Levine, in the absence of the principal owner George Steinbrenner, was complaining about what he termed an "attitude of lawlessness" in Fenway Park.

"If somebody jumped in the bullpen in Yankee Stadium, especially a Yankee employee," he growled, alluding to the Nelson incident, "he would be arrested and prosecuted. Anybody doing that is just not acceptable. It's so far over the line, it's so outrageous, it's beyond belief."

According to a Red Sox spokesman, the grounds crew member, Paul Williams, had cleat marks on his arms and back and had been kicked in the mouth during the incident with Nelson and Garcia, who had jumped over the nearby bullpen fence to join the fray.

The Red Sox spokesman added that Williams, a teacher of mentally disabled children, who was also taken to the hospital, will have the opportunity to file charges against Nelson and Garcia.

In regard to Martínez's buzzing of Garcia and the incident with Zimmer, Levine said, "We were told that the Red Sox and Major League Baseball had their arms around this problem, but there's an attitude of lawlessness that's permeating everything that's going on here."

Minutes later, Levine could be heard in a loud exchange with Sandy Alderson, baseball's dean of discipline, in a nearby room.

When Alderson left, Levine said, "You heard it, we disagreed. He thought it was a good job of security, I didn't. Sandy seems to be in denial. Any employee in Yankee Stadium would not be yelling or physically touching a player. Sandy thinks everything went wonderfully out there today. I didn't."

When approached by reporters later, Alderson seemed more concerned with Zimmer's aggressive behavior in approaching Martínez.

"Coaches are held to a different standard than players in keeping the peace and controlling players," Alderson said. "It's important that coaches act in a supportive way."

But Don Zimmer thought he was acting in a supportive way — supporting his disgust for headhunting pitchers.


Cowboys, Big Boys, Bad Boys

By HARVEY ARATON

BOSTON

THE Red Sox cowboys were fine. The horses they want to ride to the World Series were out of control.

Pedro Martínez threw at Karim Garcia's head. Manny Ramirez went after Roger Clemens after a pitch that wasn't close to hitting him. When a bench-emptying confrontation ensued, an enraged Don Zimmer ran across the field, across the decades, and started to take a swing at the mouthy Martínez.

Martínez tossed Zimmer aside like a big pillow. If the Red Sox somehow rally to beat the Yankees in the American League Championship Series, there will be endless World Series chatter about how the blue-collar Bosox finally stood up to the big, bad Yankees.

If they do not, if the Yankees' 4-3 victory yesterday in Game 3 behind the 41-year-old Roger Clemens was the beginning of the end of championship-less year No. 86, the Red Sox and especially Martínez have bragging rights all winter. They won the fight. They put Zimmer, the Yankees' 72-year-old bench coach, flat on his back.

It was an amazing scene yesterday at Fenway Park, ugly and fascinating at the same time. Friday afternoon, the Red Sox' Kevin Millar said there would be no repeat of the late-inning shenanigans in Game 2 because Game 3 was too grand a stage, too large a moment. It was the game, with Martínez pitching, the Red Sox probably had to win.

Millar was only half-right because the gravity of surrendering an early 2-0 lead and not having his overpowering stuff was maddening for Martínez.

Derek Jeter hit one over the Green Monster. Hideki Matsui hit a run-scoring double. Runners at second and third in the fourth, no one out, the Yankees up by 3-2, first base open. Martínez filled it by hitting Garcia on the back.

"Absolutely," Garcia said when asked if Martínez had deliberately gone headhunting. Any doubts should have been dispelled by the sight of Martínez looking into the Yankees' dugout while pointing an index finger to his temple.

The Yankees were officially sick of the Red Sox and their need to prove themselves worthy. Anger replaced anticipation. Garcia slid hard into Todd Walker at second. Ramirez went for Clemens after a high pitch that Clemens said was actually "over the plate." Apart from the crowd, halfway to the Red Sox' dugout, Jeter said he saw a bald head go flying and understandably thought it was David Wells. Cowboys will be cowboys, even at the age of 72.

Before yesterday, the Cowboy Up material flowing from the Red Sox clubhouse was harmless fun, most of it coming from Millar. The garrulous leader here at the Fenway dude ranch, Millar swings a mean stick and wields a good shtick.

"It's the ultimate saying for this team," Millar said. "If we were a bunch of prima donnas, that would be a tough thing to say. There are certain teams that can use it, certain teams that can't."

"How about the Yankees?" someone said.

"Next question," Millar said.

Laughter followed, but the inference was as clear as the blue western sky. The Yankees are stuffy. The Red Sox are scruffy. The Park Avenue Yankees are business class. The Boston Common Red Sox are working class.

In Boston, you have to be careful, given all the provincial passion and popular charm that can obscure the true picture like the smoke from an Auerbachian cigar. Nobody spends like George Steinbrenner, but the Red Sox are not the Green Bay Packers, not the people's team, any more than the Yankees are up here fighting for the proletarian soul of their city.

Far from being in business to soothe a collective psyche made fragile by 85 years of championship futility, the Red Sox and their $100 million-plus payroll represent a powerful corporate entity in New England whose transfer of ownership in 2002 to the current team headed by John Henry netted the Yawkey Family Trust a whopping $660 million.

Yet the spin persists: Martínez against Clemens was the good son of New England by way of the Dominican Republic against the traitorous Texan who sold himself to the Evil Empire. Never mind how Martínez found his way to Boston in one of those can't-afford-him tradeoffs by Montreal. Never mind that Martínez remains an enigma in his own clubhouse, much like Ramirez and even Nomar Garciaparra, to a certain extent.

Ramirez drove in two first-inning runs off Clemens and set Fenway rocking. Then he overreacted during his second at-bat. Or maybe, as Clemens would suggest, he was trying to get Clemens ejected.

"He would know it if I meant it," Clemens said of the fourth-inning pitch in question, and history sure does support him on that one.

When everyone on the field seemed ready to blow, Jeter, the Yankees' captain, walked calmly toward the mound, right toward Clemens. Jeter turned his back on the mass of bodies, kept his pitcher out of harm's way.

"You don't want him to get thrown out," Jeter said. "We needed him to do what he did."

There are cool hombres and gunslingers who draw too soon, but all cowboy talk aside, stars must carry championship teams in the moments that matter most. Yesterday, Ramirez and Garciaparra were a combined 1 for 8. Martínez couldn't hold the early lead or keep his wits. The Yankees' horses, Clemens and Jeter, led them into the late innings, allowing Mariano Rivera to close the book on Game 3, and maybe on Martínez for the year.

After all was said and done, the filthy rich took a 2-1 lead over the scruffy rich on a day when the short series and a long rivalry got lowdown and dirty.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Freedom Tower]

That game showed the Red Sox to be a disgrace. Having one of their employees cheering in the Yankees bullpen is asking for it. Not only that but it's amazing that Pedro Martinez was not thrown out of the game for that pitch. Then he claims that 72 year old Zimmer posed a threat to him. He's full of it. Not to mention how nuts Ramirez was for thinking that pitch was aimed at him. And after all of that BS the Red Sox still lost. If they are going to try and injure the Yankees team they at least should plan on winning. Even with all of their horsing around the Yankees won. Ha, serves the Red Sox right. And there's another game tonight. GO YANKEES!!

[Jasonik]

http://www.sugarscostumes.com/mascots/wally.gif

[Jasonik]

http://www.foxsports.com/netapp/blobs/active/7/4/1751718_7_2.jpg

Since I can't really say; 'in your face!'

[ZippyTheChimp]

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20031014/capt.bxf12610142255.alcs_yankees_red_sox_bxf126.jp g

[NYatKNIGHT]

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/10/14/sports/mueller_getty.184.jpg http://i.cnn.net/si/2003/baseball/mlb/specials/postseason/2003/10/14/yankees.redsox.game5.ap/p1_wells_ap.jpg http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/baseball/mlb/img6721207.jpg

....and the Series returns to the Bronx.....

[Jasonik]

.............1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.R..H..E
Red Sox 0 0 4 0 0 0 3 0 2 9 16 1
Yankees 1 0 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 6 12 2

Whew!
http://www.foxsports.com/netapp/blobs/active/4/14/1754380_6_4.jpg

[TLOZ Link5]

You may have won this battle, Red Sox, but the war is not yet over.

[Jjrlong254]

I want to see the Red Sox win. The Yankees have won so many World Series and ALCS pennants that I just have to see somebody else win.

However, I wouldn't bet $51 dollars on the Red Sox. The Yankees are almost sure to win Game 7.

This will confirm my worst fears of a Yankees-Marlins World Series.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Most New Yorkers (except irrational people who go to games in Flushing) are comfortable with the situation over the last 85 years.

TV is dreading a Red Sox-Marlin series. The natural for TV would have been Yanks-Cubs, 2 big cities with rivalries beyond baseball.

or

Red Sox- Cubs. 7th game, bottom of the ninth, Cubs up a run, bases loaded, 3-2 count to Nomar. Here's the pitch.....and the universe suddenly implodes.

That goat is pretty tough. We'll see what the Babe can do tonight.

[NYatKNIGHT]

I have to say, this series has me at wits end - the stress! I've bitten my nails to the nub and gone all gray. If I don't have a heart attack before the 9th inning it will be a miracle.

Play ball!

[Jasonik]

http://www.yanks-suck.com/images/stupidclemens.jpghttp://ak-sports.espn.go.com/f/1917/8668/6H/espn.go.com/i/media/mlb/2003/1011/photo/a_martinez_il.jpg

[TLOZ Link5]

Roger, did you do it AGAIN? :shock: :o :shock:

[TLOZ Link5]

I have just one thing to say to you Boston fans:

:P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P

[Kris]

Okay, now on to the southernmost suburb. :wink:

[NYatKNIGHT]

I can't even think of Florida yet while there is still euphoria over last night's game. WHAT A GAME! What a fun night in the city, too, especially after midnight. The streets were empty, the bars - packed and loud. Well, after the 7th inning they were. Like game 7 wasn't enough, extra innings?! Like the stress wasn't enough already? I have to admit, it didn't look good for the Yanks, most of the game was pretty depressing. But once the game was tied, it became a pressure-cooker, (the beer started flowing), and in the end it was one for the ages. Aaron Boone? Go figure. Unbelievable series!
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Okay, now for our southernmost suburb.........

[Jasonik]

Aaron Boone? Go figure. Unbelievable series!

"NEXT YEAR," he declared in self mocking heartbroken irony.

[TLOZ Link5]

My dorm floor went CRAZY when the score tied, and even more so when the Yankees won.

[Jjrlong254]

Ugh...I wanted to see a curse lifted.
Wasn't Aaron Boone formerly on the Cincinnati Reds?

Anyway, it might be good to lock this thread and start a Yanks vs. Marlins thread. In fact, I will make one now.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Of all the postseason games I've been to, this was the most tense. Even with the score 4-0, the atmosphere was that every play was important. When Mussina came in with runners on 1st and third and no out, and struck out Veritek and got Damon to hit into a DP, from the crown reaction you'd think the score was tied. A pressure cooker till the end.
The subway ride home was a blast.

Grady Littlle now takes his place with Johnny Pesky, Mike Torrez, Bill Buckner, et al, as a casualty of The Curse.

Spiritual intervention may have more to do with The Stadium. There's something about the old ballpark - you can feel it.

Right now, I can't give a thought to Tropical Fish.

[Kris]

October 18, 2003

Miracle at the Bambino's House (7 Letters)

To the Editor:

Re "Old Hero, and Newest, Carry New York to the Series" (front page, Oct. 17):

As parents, we face many and often complex challenges in raising our children. The teenage years in particular can confound us and turn our hair gray.

Despite our best efforts at mature guidance, our own teenage daughter strayed onto a path certain to cause her pain and heartbreak. This year, for reasons known only to her, my daughter became a Red Sox fan. Now she suffers with all the others who follow this road.

We do our best as parents, and of course we will be there for her in her time of suffering. Go Yankees!

DON BADGLEY
New Paltz, N.Y., Oct. 17, 2003

•

To the Editor:

The Red Sox loss to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series (front page, Oct. 17) had all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

But for those of us who live in Boston, the advantage of "Oedipus Rex" is that we only have to watch it once.

PETER KUGEL
Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 17, 2003

•

To the Editor:

I know that fans in New York are really excited about the World Series featuring their Yankees (front page, Oct. 17). But those in the hinterlands would have loved a Cubs-Red Sox Series.

I don't think that I'll be watching, even if one of those Series games is Roger Clemens's last start ever. Sorry, the magic is gone.

CARRIE P. SWING
South Charleston, W.Va.
Oct. 17, 2003

•

To the Editor:

Re "Old Hero, and Newest, Carry New York to the Series" (front page, Oct. 17): Ah, sweet victory!

I've been a Yankee fan since seventh grade in Kansas City in the late 40's, when the Kansas City Blues were a farm team for the Bronx Bombers.

I will concede the possibility that someday, Boston might break the curse of the Bambino and go on to the World Series, but never against New York. I hope that the Babe is smiling today.

PAT GOODSON
St. Mary's, Kan., Oct. 17, 2003

•

To the Editor:

Re "Red Sox Come Close Again but Still No Champagne" (column, Sports pages, Oct. 17):

This is an example of the need for a consolation playoff game format, like that used in World Cup soccer.

That way, if the Cubs and the Red Sox had played each other, someone would have to win and help lift the familiar fog of misery that has settled over Chicago and New England.

DIMITRI PRYBYLSKI
Washington, Oct. 17, 2003

•

To the Editor:

Re "Red Sox Come Close Again but Still No Champagne" (column, Sports pages, Oct. 17):

Curses aside, there is a good scientific reason for our history. The Red Sox have the most distinctive ballpark in the major leagues, featuring the Green Monster, the outfield wall that haunts us.

The Red Sox play two different types of baseball: baseball at normal parks and baseball at Fenway, half the time at each. Our situation guarantees that we will have a good record but almost never the best.

There has been a lot of debate and nostalgia for the Green Monster, but maybe it is time to give the dedicated players and fans a chance to play the same sport as everybody else — and level the playing field.

YANEER BAR-YAM
Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 17, 2003

To the Editor:

Re "Old Hero, and Newest, Carry New York to the Series" (front page, Oct. 17): I'd like to congratulate George Steinbrenner for buying yet another championship.

ANDREW TUTTLE
La Habra, Calif., Oct. 17, 2003


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

October 18, 2003

Its High Hopes Dashed, Boston Reels as the Archenemy Triumphs Again

By PAM BELLUCK

BOSTON, Oct. 17 — Could it have been any worse?

Blowing a four-run lead to lose in extra innings in Game 7. Coming so close to winning, only to be flattened, once again, by the archenemy, the New York Yankees.

Red Sox fans seemed in a state of asphyxiated shock on Friday, the wind sucked out of them when the Yankees crushed their World Series ambitions yet again.

John Huyler had come into Boston from his home in Plymouth to watch the game on Thursday night with friends at a downtown bar.

For much of the game, "everyone was on cloud nine," Mr. Huyler, 28, a reactor operator at the Pilgrim Nuclear Station, said. "We were going to the World Series. We were going to play the Marlins, and we knew we had a good chance of beating them. Then someone let the air out of the place. I looked around the bar, and everyone had the same zombie look on their face, like it can't happen again."

When it was over, Mr. Huyler said he could not even cry.

"I was so spent emotionally that I didn't have any emotions left," he said. "At the end, we just kind of sat there with our hands on our hats and looked down at the table."

Sure, Red Sox fans are used to losing. They are even used to late-season roller coasters, the rush of thinking that the team might have a fighting chance, followed by the trough of disappointment when their team falls short.

But this year was different.

"I think there was more optimism about this team among fans than there has been in a long time," said Glenn Stout, a baseball historian who was a co-author of "Red Sox Century" (Houghton Mifflin). "There was new ownership, what a lot of people thought was a new approach. They fell for them, you know."

Mr. Stout said the team this year had enthralled a new generation of fans in a city that had not come so close to the ultimate prize since the calamitous loss of the 1986 World Series. He said he expected that many fans would now distance themselves a little from the team.

"I know people who, after 1986, they still pay attention, but they don't follow, they don't fall in love with the team any more," he said. "They watch them from afar. Many fans will keep some of their emotions in check: `I'm not going to get hurt that bad again.' "

Several fans milled around Fenway Park on Friday, glazed expressions on their faces.

"I needed one more walk around the ballpark," Scott McCauley, 31, of Portsmouth, N.H., said.

Mr. McCauley saw a parallel between the Red Sox and romance.

"It's like the hot chick that dumps you," he said. "It breaks your heart, but it's fun to go out with the hot chick. So you go for as long as you can, but you know you're going to get dumped in the end."

Many fans bemoaned the decision to keep Pedro Martinez on the pitcher's mound too long.

"We're somewhere between sad and mad," said Paula Mullen, 52, principal of Galvin Middle School in Wakefield, who was taking sixth graders on a tour of Fenway Park.

Jay Cabral, who had spent the season working at a Red Sox souvenir store and attended every home game, could barely coax more than a whisper from his voice as he stood at a poster board with pictures of the team that someone had propped in front of Gate B.

"I dedicated the last year of my life to the Red Sox," Mr. Cabral, 26, said as he touched a picture of Mr. Martinez on the poster, as if to steady his nerves. "And this is not the way I wrote it."


Red Sox Cursed Themselves

By HARVEY ARATON

HAWTHORNE, N.Y.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/10/18/sports/18ARAT-lg.jpg
Fans stopped at Babe Ruth's grave to thank him for the Yankees' victory.

JIM DIODATI, 23, drove up from Yonkers to hang his red college baseball socks on an overhanging bush. John Traynor, 31, jumped out of bed on a few hours' sleep, on the morning before his bachelor party, to lay a bouquet of flowers with a card that said, "Dear Babe, thanks again."

Someone left the stub of a ticket from Game 7 on Thursday night. A ball with the inscription, "Let the curse live on," nestled by the base of the headstone. The New York City tabloids, with their caustic and celebratory headlines, were spread about. The Westchester County Fife and Drum Corps came to play "God Bless America."

Gratitude flowed like Champagne in a pennant winner's clubhouse yesterday at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery, where Babe Ruth shed about as much light on the latest crushing Red Sox defeat as Manager Grady Little did after his team was confirmed dead early yesterday. By daybreak, Yankees fans were streaming off the parkways in quiet northern Westchester to pay their respects to the man they were more convinced than ever had catered another funeral postgame spread for Boston from his final resting place.

On those familiar Ruthian subjects of consumption and curses, all we really knew was that the piping hot pizza delivered to the gravesite the previous afternoon went uneaten and turned colder than Boston Common on the cruel morning after, before being carted away. "Someone actually sent him a pie," Bill Lane, the cemetery's assistant superintendent, said while on the lookout for those who might view this shrine the way Pedro Martínez eyed Karim Garcia, as a convenient and juicy target.

People wouldn't carry this silly curse thing that far, you say? Andrew Nagle, the director of the sprawling cemetery, told me that security personnel recently had to eject some who had shown up to get drunk and messy. Put it this way: If a live man can be under siege for allegedly interfering with the outcome of a ballgame in Chicago, why not a dead one in the New York suburbs?

Though Babe's ghost wasn't giving interviews, brushing me off like a spoiled Red Sox star, I have my doubts he intervened in the game that sent the Yankees to another World Series starting tonight against the Florida Marlins, and sent the Red Sox home to lick their wounds and scrape the Series insignia off the Fenway Park grass.

I don't believe Ruth ever put a curse on the Red Sox, or even carried a grudge. Harry Frazee did Ruth a huge favor when he sold him and sent him from provincial Boston to a grander and more ambitious stage. Frazee, Lane said, happens to be buried in a cemetery near the Gate of Heaven, meaning Frazee and the Babe are spiritually coexisting in the same county. They might have even watched Game 7 together, for all we know rooting for the Red Sox.

Remember this: It wasn't the Red Sox who squeezed the life out of Ruth's career, rejected his overtures to manage and then cast him off, a dispirited Bambino.

In an altogether different world, the Yankees of then apparently had the same unsentimental operating mentality as their owner does now: We pay, you produce. As difficult as George Steinbrenner can be to stomach, what his organization does have, unlike Boston's, is an orderly chain of command. His stars don't make out the lineup card or call the managerial moves. They don't run the asylum.

In his make-or-break game, Joe Torre could drop his $120 million slugger, Jason Giambi, four spots in the lineup and, far from sulking, get two solo home runs. He could bench Aaron Boone, the organization's major in-season acquisition, and still have Boone thrilled with the opportunity to take one heroic swing. Torre could tell Mariano Rivera that he had gone far enough, no matter what Rivera wanted, and take responsibility if that strategy failed.

Grady Little, conversely, surrendered the most important decision of his managerial career to Martínez, his overworked ace who was in the midst of the most emotional and controversial week of his professional life.

Little should have removed Martínez, saved him from his own competitive conceit. That's what he did in Game 5 of the division series in Oakland. Little's bullpen pulled him through, all the way to Game 7 Thursday night.

Don't blame Little, though. He didn't put himself in the low-leveraged position of working without a job guarantee for next season. How prudent is it for an organization to spend in excess of $100 million for talent and put it in the hands of a man reportedly working for a half-million, paltry by today's standards? What does that communicate to the players and particularly the stars, who in Boston have historically been coddled and have done as they pleased?

Was Game 7 the continuation of a curse, an outright choke or a result brought about by contrasting cultures? My guess is that Little was influenced by the burden of past blowups from Boston bullpens, after Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams, ringleaders representing four championship Yankee teams, signaled the eighth-inning charge.

Call it what you wish, but whatever haunts the Red Sox, it is, by now, largely self-imposed.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Freedom Tower]

HAHAHA THE CURSE WILL LAST FOREVER. I'm glad the Red Sox lost, especially after that game their whole team took it upon themselves to assault the Yankees. They even got their grounds crew to pitch in. That's pathetic and it isn't real baseball. What was their plan? To injure the Yankees so they cannot play? Like I said... pathetic. GO YANKEES!

[Kris]

October 31, 2003

BASEBALL ANALYSIS

Red Sox Offer Bait, but Yanks Don't Bite

By JACK CURRY

You compete with your neighbor, relentlessly. You want a greener lawn, a bigger pool, even a snazzier mailbox. It is how George Steinbrenner treats his contentious relationship with the Boston Red Sox.

So when the Red Sox put Manny Ramirez on irrevocable waivers Wednesday, they were essentially dangling the Bentley that is in their garage and tempting Steinbrenner, letting him know he could have the fancier car, too, for nothing. Well, technically, that is. The Red Sox did not want any players in return. All the Yankees had to do was pick up the payments of $104 million over the next five years.

There has not been a transaction of this magnitude between these fierce rivals since the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920. Anyone with a pulse from New York to New Zealand knows how that exchange worked out for both. The Yankees have piled up 26 titles since Babe bolted to the Bronx, while the Red Sox are idling on zero.

The Red Sox are obviously willing to experience life without a pure hitter who can be a pure headache and they must feel that relocating Ramirez might help them finally reverse the curse. But we will probably never know how Ramirez would have looked in baggy pinstripes. A person who spoke to Steinbrenner yesterday said he had told team officials not to put a claim in on Ramirez.

Two baseball executives said the Yankees made a savvy decision by not claiming Ramirez. One executive said the Red Sox undoubtedly put Ramirez on waivers to try to entice the Yankees to take his albatross of a contract, knowing the Yankees are one of the only teams that could afford him and also realizing that in Steinbrenner they have an owner who is impulsive enough to do it. Again, here is a dazzling addition to your already expensive fleet, George. Just grab the payment book as well.

Boston's attempt to goad Steinbrenner into taking one of the most devastating hitters in the major leagues and a player who grew up near Yankee Stadium was fascinating. The Yankees spent a few hours discussing the issue on Wednesday, but had decided by yesterday morning that the positives of adding Ramirez (lots of offense) did not outweigh the negatives (lots of unpredictability from a moody 31-year-old and lots of unexpected money funneling back to a chief competitor).

Theo Epstein, the 29-year-old general manager of the Red Sox, could work for them for three decades and he would never call the Yankees and offer a high-profile player like Ramirez in a trade, because teams that are essentially enemies do not directly deal with each other with so much at stake.

But if Steinbrenner claimed Ramirez, took his bloated contract and suddenly gave the Red Sox increased financial flexibility, Boston officials would have viewed that transaction differently, as a clever maneuver they controlled from the outset, and they would have been exchanging high-fives on Yawkey Way for days.

As much as Ramirez contributed to a record-setting 2003 lineup with a .325 average, 37 homers and 104 runs batted in, the Red Sox feel their offense will be formidable without him and are weary of Ramirez's often selfish behavior. Ramirez was benched for a game this season when he acted petulantly and, like Pedro Martínez and Nomar Garciaparra, he operates on his own island. And remember, Ramirez was signed by the previous ownership group in Boston.

Without Ramirez's contract, the infusion of $21 million a year would allow the Red Sox to aggressively address their pitching concerns. Whether they pursue the free-agent starters Bartolo Colón or Kevin Millwood or try to acquire a closer like Houston's Billy Wagner, lopping off one-fifth of their payroll through waivers was something the Red Sox are ready and willing to do. But the Red Sox need an enabler to finish the deal, and with Steinbrenner just saying no, the strategy appears to have stalled. Look for Boston to continue trying to unload Ramirez in a trade.

The off-season is less than one week old, but already the Red Sox and the Yankees, who gave us a dramatic American League Championship Series, are feverishly competing again. They spent the last off-season squabbling over pitcher José Contreras, who ultimately signed with the Yankees, and skirmishing over Colón, who wound up going to the Chicago White Sox, and they then spent all of the 2003 season fighting each other.

Now the Red Sox have taken the first step toward challenging the Yankees in 2004, although it was an unusual step because it involved some unexpected, and deceptive, generosity. The Red Sox wanted the Yankees to take Ramirez no questions asked. But the sticker shock and the potential ramifications in acquiring this particular player were too much for Steinbrenner. Manny might be a Bentley, but he is definitely not the Babe.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

I never thought that the Yankees would go after Ramirez, even if it wasn't the Red Sox who were trying to unload his contract. The problems he would create go beyond his stats. Mondesi wasn't traded because he was in a slump, but because of his clubhouse behavior.

Years ago, the Yankees avoided Albert Bell, who had superior stats to Bernie Williams (who was also a free agent), and signed Williams to a long-term contract. That proved to be the right choice.

It isn't how much is spent, but how wisely - the Mets were #2 in payroll.

I think they'll go after Gary Sheffield, but look for Atlanta to put up a big fight. They may experiment with switching Williams and Matsui in the outfield.

There is always pressure on the Yankees to get to the World Series, but the pressure to preserve the curse is greater. :D

[Jasonik]

Boston is looking to aquire Joe Torre.

[Freedom Tower]

You're kidding me?! Next year is the last year of his contract...

[Kris]

December 19, 2003

2 Yankees and Worker Are Charged in Fight

By KATIE ZEZIMA

BOSTON, Dec. 18 — Jeff Nelson, Karim Garcia and a Fenway Park groundskeeper were charged Thursday with assault and battery for their roles in a bullpen fight during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Clerk Magistrate Michael Neighbors of Roxbury District Court issued the charges less than a week after a hearing to determine whether there was probable cause. The police sought the charges against the two Yankees players in the days after the Oct. 11 fight. Nelson's lawyer filed a cross-complaint against the groundskeeper, Paul Williams, earlier this month. None of them were present Thursday. They will be arraigned Jan. 7.

Neighbors said the police and the Suffolk County district attorney's office presented a weak case by not having the responding officers or witnesses to the fight testify at the hearing and by failing to adequately complete the investigation. But Neighbors said the police report, which said Nelson, a pitcher, instigated the fight, and Garcia, the right fielder, jumped over the outfield fence and started hitting Williams "clearly establishes that probable cause was met."

Neighbors issued the complaint against Williams, saying there was no evidence directly refuting Nelson's claim and Williams's lack of defensive wounds could "suggest the possibility of aggression."

Nelson, a free agent, testified last week that he asked Williams, who was cheering for the Red Sox in the Yankees' bullpen, to move. Nelson said Williams charged at him, bumped his chest and nose and spit on his face.

Williams said he was engaging the crowd when Nelson came up behind him, touched the bill of his cap against his forehead and grabbed him by the shirt. Williams said Nelson then grabbed him by the back of the head, at which point he fell to the ground.

Garcia, who is eligible for arbitration with the Yankees, did not attend the hearing on the advice of his lawyer, Gerard Malone, who said Neighbors's assessment of the investigation is significant.

"It's telling to some degree that the clerk magistrate indicated that the testimony was minimal and weak in many instances and we'll proceed from there," Malone said.

James Merberg, Nelson's lawyer, said Nelson would now have the opportunity for a "full and fair hearing on these allegations."

Patrick Jones, Williams's lawyer, said he was not surprised that all the charges were issued, because of the low standard of proof required, but added that he and his client were disappointed.

Jones said he planned to file civil suits against the players in the coming months, and had not decided if he would take legal action against the Yankees or any other organization. Jones said the fight left Williams, 24, a special education teacher from Derry, N.H., with a severely deviated septum and severe cervical injuries. Jones said Williams's sense of smell was severely damaged.

A Yankees spokesman had no comment. A message left for Williams was not returned.

The maximum penalty for assault and battery, a misdemeanor in Massachusetts, is two and a half years in jail, a $500 fine, or both. There is no minimum mandatory sentence, giving judges flexibility in ruling.

Jeff Baskies, the president of Lawyers Weekly USA, said the case would now proceed to trial. He said the charges against Williams could potentially harm his civil cases, because potential jurors could be aware that Williams was indicted for possibly causing the fight.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

Red Sox Nation look to your wallets

By JIM LITKE, AP Sports Columnist
December 19, 2003

When baseball's players' union stepped in and put the kibosh on the deal that would have sent Alex Rodriguez from Texas to Boston, this is what A-Rod said: ``I recognize the principle involved, and fully support the need to protect the interests of my fellow players.''

This is what he should have said: ``Owners of the Rangers and Red Sox, you've been 'Punk'd.'''

As fans of the MTV show that ended its two-season run just last Sunday know, getting ``Punk'd'' means winding up as the butt of an always-elaborate, usually very expensive practical joke. Which, from the look of things, is exactly what happened to Texas owner Tom Hicks and his counterpart in Boston, John Henry.

Three years after handing Rodriguez $252 million and winding up with the kind of buyer's remorse that often afflicts ``Hair Club for Men'' customers, Hicks thought he'd finally found a sucker to help him get out from under a disastrous deal. Ditto for Henry, who inherited malcontent Manny Ramirez and his $160 million deal and couldn't wait to foist him off on somebody, too.

And they thought they'd found each other Wednesday, when Rodriguez agreed to restructure his contract to make the swap work.

But that was before Gene Orza, the union's No. 2 man, rejected the proposed trade, saying it violated terms of the collective bargaining agreement by reducing the value of A-Rod's contract.

Loyal union man that he is, Rodriguez reversed course and agreed that principle was too important to sacrifice, not just for him, but for all of the working stiffs in baseball. So he and agent Scott Boras went back to the bargaining table and told Hicks and Henry to find a way to ensure that every penny of the $179 million he is still owed finds its way back into his pocket.

Saps that they are, that's exactly what the gazillionaire owners set out to do. But just as they were closing in on a new deal, commissioner Bud Selig stepped in Thursday and ordered a halt to any further trade talks, saying they missed the 5 p.m. EST deadline.

``I have terminated my permission for Boston and Alex Rodriguez to continue pursuing this transaction at this time,'' Selig said.

Though Red Sox president Larry Lucchino called the deal ``dead,'' his Rangers counterpart, John Hart, took a different tack. He said the glass was still half full, and there was still an ``opportunity.''

If and when the swap does occur, it will come as no surprise to Selig. Note the last three words of his declaration -- ``at this time.''

So what was all the fuss about?

The same thing it's always about in baseball: money.

Only the most cynical people would suggest A-Rod made an army of accountants and lawyers jump through hoops to restructure a deal that big and then signed off on the final product knowing the union would kick it back. But if you look up ``cynic'' in a dictionary, don't be surprised to find a picture of Boras, the most rapacious agent in the business, smiling back.

By the same token, even an opportunist needs an opportunity, and no two owners in baseball were begging to be ``Punk'd'' more than Hicks and Henry.

The former was tired of being baseball's doormat, perennially mocked for making the single dumbest signing in the history of pro sports. That didn't occur to him until he stood, with a grin as wide as Texas, alongside Boras and behind Rodriguez at a news conference to show off his purchase to the locals. Then someone asked A-Rod how he managed to wrangle a contract more than twice as big as the previous benchmark.

``I hired an attorney,'' Rodriguez said. And in the next moment, Hicks' smile narrowed and Boras was left beaming for both of them.

Chances are that he'll still get to lavish that same grin with Henry standing by his side. Henry and the rest of Boston's new ownership believe so strongly that the Yankees really are the ``Evil Empire'' that they're willing to do almost anything to knock the pinstripes off New York.

Never mind that this fascination with A-Rod threatens to break what had been a string of clever, cost-effective acquisitions -- shoring up their pitching with starter Curt Schilling and closer Keith Foulke. Never mind that ownership is willing to deal Nomar Garciaparra, whose done nothing but provide years of loyal and productive service at shortstop.

Somebody is going to pay for all this foolishness, and here's the first clue:

When A-Rod showed up in Texas, Lucchino was president of the San Diego Padres and this is what he said: ``Make no mistake, these obscene salaries are paid for by taxing the fans.''

This is what he should say now: ``Red Sox Nation, get ready to reach foryour wallets.''

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write tohim at: jlitke@ap.org


Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[NYatKNIGHT]

HERE WE GO AGAIN!


October 11, 2004

Beer for the Babe, and a Frenzy for a Red Sox-Yankees Rematch

By PATRICK HEALY


The signs are everywhere. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are squaring off for the American League championship for the second year in a row, and a frenzy is following them.

The ticket scalpers outside Yankee Stadium have already raised their prices to as high as $300 per ticket. Bouncers at sports bars are getting ready for unruly crowds.

In Westchester County, the man who tends Babe Ruth's grave is bracing for an onslaught of fans bearing gifts of beer and prayers of victory. And throughout New York, wary Red Sox fans are searching for safe havens to watch the game and cheer.

Fans in both cities are dusting off the old totems and clichés of the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry: the Curse of the Bambino; 1918, the last year Boston won the World Series; pinstripes versus flaming red; Beantown versus the Big Apple.

"I dream always of a Boston-Yankees series," said Jose Maldonado, a baseball coach whose youth league team, the Royals, played yesterday afternoon in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. "It brings the fans of baseball back. All the fans in the country want to see that matchup."

But Yankees fans around the city said that this year's series, which begins tomorrow at Yankee Stadium, is not merely baseball repeating itself, but a torqued-up rematch that has been a year in the making. The New York Post dubbed this year's contest "Ultimate Baseball Armageddon," and few fans would disagree.

The Yankees beat the Red Sox in a seven-game series to win last year's American League title, and fans say the rivalry has only intensified.

The Red Sox traded for Curt Schilling, the All-Star pitcher. Then the Yankees signed the slugger Alex Rodriguez, which some figured gave the team another edge over Boston. During spring training this year, some fans spent $500 just to see the two teams play an exhibition game.

The owners of the two teams sniped during the season, and in July, the teams brawled on the field.

"So much had built up last year after the series," said Frederic Frommer, who, with his father, wrote a history of the teams' animus. "As much animosity as there was last year, it's been fueled even more."

During last year's championship series, fans from Boston and New York visited the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, where Babe Ruth is buried, Mr. Frommer said. They left sacrifices of hot dogs and beer and team souvenirs. Some asked him to help end Boston's long losing streak, and others urged Mr. Ruth to hold it intact.

"One man was there in a 1920's Boston uniform, cap and all, doing his own incantations," said the cemetery's manager, Andrew Nagle.

Mr. Nagle said he was hoping for a lighter flock of pilgrims this year. "We can't let things get out of hand," he said. "We have to keep the decorum as best we can."

At the Ballpark Sports Bar and Grill, across the street from Yankee Stadium, the plans were exactly the opposite. Though metal gates covered the windows yesterday, the staff inside was eagerly preparing for another crush of fans of both teams.

"They stand around and look at each other and say, 'You want some of me?' " said the bar's bouncer, Bruce Wilson. "I tell them, you got to take that outside."

Last year, fans piled into the restaurant to watch the games on big-screen televisions at the bar and eat hamburgers and cheesesteaks cheaper than the ones sold inside the stadium. The capacity of the restaurant is about 200, but Mr. Wilson said the place fills up until the only open space is on the ceiling.

The restaurant was full of customers hours before the games last year. Boston fans jostled with New York fans, and any time a piece of Red Sox paraphernalia - a pennant, a hat - was dropped, Yankees fans stomped it as if they were crushing a bug.

"It's going to be more tense this year," said Joey Gutierrez, who manages the snack bar.

But Mr. Wilson said he had learned something about crowd control. When a group of rowdy Boston fans walked in, he isolated them in a corner and penned them in behind five barstools. Mr. Wilson said he had kept the group under control, and they were grateful because he acted as if he had set aside a special place for them.

Outside the restaurant, scalpers roamed the sidewalks cooing, "Tickets, tickets," to anyone walking by. A ticket can sell for as little as $50 on a slow summer day, but yesterday afternoon scalpers like Jay Thomas were selling tickets for Tuesday's playoff opener for $250 to $300.

By tomorrow, Mr. Thomas said, he will be asking $400.

"It's in demand," he said. "Everyone wants to buy them. You gotta get them now while they're going for a cheap price."


Like Autumn's Leaves, the Red Sox Will Fall (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/sports/baseball/11chass.html)

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

Late 1970s, when it was much easier to get good tickets.
Red Sox were in for 4 weekday night games. We got a dozen field box seats behind the plate, about 10 rows back, for all 4 games.

Friends were visiting from Kansas City, and we took them to one of the games. From the seats, if you looked up to the left or right, the edge of the upper deck was backlighted by the glow of the stadium lights.

During the game, my friend kept looking up, then asked me, "What's that bright gold flash upstairs?"

I said, "Beer fight. I hope they don't fall."

[NYatKNIGHT]

Ah, those were the days - when they sold beer the whole game. Not too many people pay $300-$400 to get kicked out for fighting anymore.

Get ready for another nail-biting week staying up late drinking beer and waking up with a scratchy voice. It's become a ritual as customary as decorating the Christmas tree.

[Jasonik]

My dear girlfriend of two weeks short of a year is a diehard Yankee fan. This will be an intense series to say the least. :shock:

[Jasonik]

----NY@N: It was actually Friday Oct. 24th (http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/schedule/ps_03.jsp) 8)
V

[NYatKNIGHT]

So just a week following the Red Sox crushing defeat last year, you went and hooked up with a Yankee fan.
:lol:

[ZippyTheChimp]

Jasonik: By any chance, were you and your girlfriend at the Sat Sept 18 game at the Stadium?

It was the game after the Rivera blown save. big game for both teams. I think Tim McCarver and Fox were doing the broadcast. Early in the game, the camera zeroed in on a guy in a Red Sox cap sitting next to a woman in a Yankees cap. They were chatting, and the broadcasters assumed there was a relationship between them.

As the score got progressively more lopsided, 5-0, 9-0, the camera kept going back and comments were made about their relative demeanor. By the time the score was 13-0, he was staring toward the outfield with his hand under his chin, while she was munching on a hot dog, talking to everyone else around them, and generally having a great time.

At this point, McCarver wondered if they were actually together, and he rationalized that at least the guy got to sit next to a pretty woman - even if she was a Yankee fan.

They did leave together.

[Jasonik]

Not us. We haven't even watched a Sox-Yanks matchup together yet, tonight will be the first.

She just told me she'll work the first aid station at Fenway for Friday's game, (she's a Medical Resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center). I'm insanely jealous, but am reminded that she has to wear a bright red shirt with the Red Sox logo on it. :lol:

What I'm worried about is going to visit her parents with her this weekend. Her Mom is an uber-fan, and she has no sense of humor that I can detect about the rivalry. I'm probably going to be told I can't wear my Red Sox hat in the house.

Just for the sake of my relationship I'd be willing to concede Saturday's game, god forbid I have an uncontrollable urge to celebrate. It'd never be able to live that down.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Curt Schilling: "I'm not sure I can think of any scenario more enjoyable than making 55,000 people from New York shut up."

Sorry to disappoint you, Curt. :P

[Jasonik]

Hopefully I'll be eating the proverbial hotdog tonight. *crosses fingers*

[ZippyTheChimp]

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com

Nation mourns its Red Sox

Friday, October 15th, 2004

BOSTON - Well, at least they still have that nice little football team to temper the winter gloom.
The wicked buzz generated by the current batch of idiots in red stockings lasted about as long as Johnny Pesky held the ball. The players might not have succumbed to the mass moroseness that descended upon New England early yesterday morning, but the salsa music blaring from the Fenway clubhouse barely buffers the truth.

This is one bummed out Olde Towne. A Nation mourns, and there are still 18 innings in which to hide under the couch.

The Red Sox are down 0-2 to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series, Curt Schilling likely won't pitch again until the snow thaws, Johnny Damon swings like Delilah and the Patriots don't play again until Sunday. Once again, it appears Boston fans must find consolation not in achievement, but in Yankee failure.

The hottest selling T-shirt in Kenmore Square still pays homage to Derek Jeter's mother - don't you just adore a series with family values? - but the most telling garment is this: a shirt with the words "Red Sox' Fans Favorite Moments" on front, and on back, a list. "Yankees lose to Marlins. Yankees lose to Diamondbacks. Yankees lose to Reds." Vendors are leaving room for one last line: "Yankees lose to Cardinals."

And so it goes, for the 86th year and counting. The Red Sox fans who bothered to crawl out of bed on this dreary afternoon admitted to looking forward to a few bright spots tonight, when Bronson Arroyo starts against Kevin Brown at Fenway. Arroyo could go inside again on the precious Alex Rodriguez, which would turn the little bandbox on its side. Brown's back could crimp, and surely he would hear a few special chants about parasites and punches. The skies could also open up, flooding the Back Bay with frogs and locusts, and that might be the best harbinger of all because it would mean Derek Lowe wouldn't have to start Game 5, in Schilling's place.

If there is a Game 5. What once had the look and smell of a series going to the ultimate zenith now feels as if it's been slapped into its rightful place. "If he can't go for the rest of the series," Arroyo was saying yesterday of his buddy Schilling, "I definitely think it's hurting us."

Unless this is the ultimate cat-and-mouse game, unless the Red Sox doctors can rig a space-age contraption that will keep Schilling's ankle tendon sheath from completely snapping while still affording him mobility, Boston has little hope of returning to the Bronx. Baseball fans, whatever their stripes, will be the poorer for it.

This year's Aaron Boone moment occurred subtly, unaccompanied by flair or drama. What if Mark Bellhorn clung to Jason Varitek's throw from the plate, and Jeter was tagged out at second base in the first inning of Game 2, before Pedro Martinez threw a zillion pitches? Or this: What if Schilling had bowed out of that Game 1 start after his ankle began barking in an awful bullpen warmup? Remember, if David Wells hadn't lied about his back in Game 5 of the World Series last year, Red Sox fans might have one less line on those Yankee-hating T-shirts.

A series bursting with such drama and macho posturing now seems so deflated. Not so long ago, everything appeared to be lined perfectly for the Red Sox: the planets, their rotation, Schilling's off-the-cuff script. He's always been mouthy, and when he upped the noise level to another extreme with that preseries comment about making "55,000 people from New York shut up," a Nation nodded in brazen harmony. Cockiness does not come naturally to Red Sox fans; they are having a bad century and don't mind moaning about it every single second of every single day.

But then, literally while Brian Cashman was sleeping, Boston general manager Theo Epstein swooped in, and over Thanksgiving dinner, signed Schilling, the stud pitcher who would slay the Evil Empire. It might not be a curse, but it definitely is cruel irony to hear Schilling say his ankle injury occurred not in a playoff game against the Angels, but in his final regular-season start against the Yankees.

It gets worse - around here, it always does. Millions of mouths dropped simultaneously late Wednesday night, when Pedro reflected in a strange glow of those "Who's your Daddy?" chants at the Stadium. The more he spoke about mango trees and grabbing the attention of all of New York, the more he sounded as if he were auditioning for a role with Steinbrenner, Inc. At least that's the lasting impression for a Nation raised to expect the worst.

So they pray to their deities, to Stephen King's ghosts and Ted Williams' legacy. Let the storm clouds roll through, let Pedro have the ball one more time. And don't forget, the Patriots go Sunday, and the Yankees haven't won a World Series in four long years.



Another good idea for a Red Sox T-shirt:

HAIRBALL

[ZippyTheChimp]

The Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/

Naturally, it's a disaster

By Eric Wilbur, Boston.com Staff | October 16, 2004

Oh, so NOW you want the Twins. Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.

This series is over. Baseball in Boston is over for another season. If you headed to the game this evening, you’re forgiven for leaving in the seventh. Not to avoid traffic. To avoid watching the Yankees celebrate on your team’s home turf.

Last night the bats finally came alive. Too little to late in what was an all-time ugly 19-8 win. This time it was that vaunted Red Sox pitching staff that fell apart. You remember, the one that had Boston “favored” in this ALCS. I suppose the Yankees winning is an “upset” then.

This wasn’t a baseball game. It was a deflating pinball wizard of an all too common disaster in these parts. When the game was more than three hours old, it was in the seventh inning, running at an excruciating pace. Even worse for Sox fans who had longer to watch their team fall into a 3-0 hole. Stay away from Manhattan for some time. The nausea is going to be overwhelming. Doubly so if you try one of those hot dog vendors.

There will be plenty of eulogies over the next couple days, so we’ll spare you one here now. But know this. This Red Sox team, the vanilla Red Sox for nearly half a season, choked at the wrong moment. The Yankees are their Daddy for reasons unknown. As one New York fan on the Manhattan subway following Boston’s loss in Game 2 put it, “You take those players, put pinstripes on them, and they win the World Series.”

And he’s right. We don’t know why he’s right, but he is.

It could be a nuclear winter for the Boston Red Sox roster. But we’ll discuss that at some other time. For now enjoy your last chance this year to watch what was admittedly a fun Boston team. Then prepare to assume your normal position for the winter, wondering where the hell it all went wrong.

Seeing as we’re sure after the National Anthem most of you ran out and picked up the Cowsills’ greatest hits and were forced to miss the game, here’s a recap…

First Inning: After spending nine hours over the past two days at a Fenway Park with less action than my post-prom party experience, and more than 68 hours after the last pitch was thrown in this series, Bronson Arroyo unleashes a first-pitch strike to Derek Jeter. Jeter backs away from the plate like it’s far too inside because, well, that’s what Jeter does on EVERY PITCH.

Following a Jeter walk, Alex Rodriguez drives him in with a double down the left field line. The only chance Manny Ramirez has at throwing Jeter out at home is that he’s not Johnny Damon. It’s not enough.

Hideki Matsui plants a 1-2 pitch into the bullpens in right field, and it’s 3-0 Yankees less than 10 minutes into the game. Arroyo is not confusing anyone, as the Yankee bats are swatting his pitches around Fenway. In fact, the only person he’s confused in the whole park is Tim McCarver, who still can’t figure out his name.

I’m seated in the makeshift right field press section the Sox trot out come ALCS time. In Section 3. Should this concern me, particularly after Dan Shaughnessy rode back from New York Thursday on Flight 1918? Maybe this is all a ruse and there’s really no coincidence to it at all. Yeah, that’s it. A ruse.

Following a Ramirez infield base hit, which must have erroneously put it into his head that he is indeed, fast, David Ortiz singles to right, and Manny makes like the Energizer bunny for third. No contest. It may have been the first time Dale Sveum tried to stop a runner all year.

Second Inning: The temptation of free cornrows, as one barber salon was dishing out early yesterday morning on Lansdowne Street, really had the gerbil working overtime on my way into the office. Then I remembered the whole balding thing and decided against, thinking I might look like something out of “Hellraiser.”

Trot Nixon puts the first jolt of caffeine into the sold out crowd with a two-run bomb to right that cuts New York’s lead to one. The first “Yankees Suck” chant also breaks out. The highly offended among us try to explain that it’s not true. Yeah, neither is McDonald’s, “I’m lovin’ it.” So what?

The crowd really lets Kevin Brown have it, chanting his name. I wonder if Brown likes being the center of attention of the city of Boston. After all, just last year he was in Los Angeles, sitting under a palm tree with barely enough money to rent a yacht to Catalina.

RIGHT NOW! Kevin Brown is getting hammered.

Jeter bobbles a ball, and it’s 4-3 Sox. Questions begin to arise about the man’s deity.

Third Inning: Back to the Cowsills, who in addition to the Anthem, sang their hit, “Hair,” which I guess is apropos with this band of free-flowing locks Red Sox. But who exactly is lining up the singers for these ALCS games? Last year, Joey McIntyre and Michael Bolton were roundly booed during their renditions, and the ‘Sills (the inspiration for the Patridge Family!) didn’t exactly receive an outpouring of acknowledgement from the Fenway fans.

Then again, I guess it’s one less day that the Dropkick Murphys perform.

Which brings to mind a suggestions reader Steve Sylven submitted: “Hey Eric- Now that the Sox have proclaimed themselves "idiots" do you think we can implement a new theme song? I'm thinking we go with Jane's Addiction's "Idiots Rule" and finally dropkick the Murphy's over the Green Monster? I can't stand the thought of winning it all this year and having to hear Tessie for the rest of my lifetime.”

I like it. Although I’m sure when Charles Steinberg hears the lyrics, it won’t fly. Where’s Dickie Barrett when you need him most?

A-Rod plants one over the left field wall and ties the game back up. A couple more hits later, Terry Francona makes his way to yank Arroyo, who obviously doesn’t have it. Ramiro Mendoza makes his way to the mound, and actually receives applause from eight fans down the first base line.

In the ALDS, Arroyo threw the best start of all Boston starters. This series, by far the worst with two-plus innings, allowing six runs. As Chris Berman would call a strikeout, “Ughagh.”

Torre lifts Brown after just two innings, in favor of Javier Vazquez. We can only assume this is because Ja-Ve-Air is tougher to chant.

Fourth Inning: It is 10 p.m. and I did just write fourth inning correct? At the rate this one is going, it’ll be a nice little three hour nap before we’re all back here again tomorrow.

Which reminds me…must tape “Desperate Housewives.”

They ran out of Swiss Miss up here and I thought more than a few of the New York media guys were going to lose it. Like BA Baracus before he flies.

Sheffield. Bomb. 9-6. It is THE FOURTH INNING.

Triple. 11-6. FOURTH INNING. This game in the end is going to have more runs than your average day at Taco Bell.

Fifth Inning: Before the game, Howie Long, in town for Sunday’s Patriots-Seahawks game, and the rest of the FOX NFL crew were hanging out down by the Red Sox dugout. Long was giving Mets pitcher Al Leiter, who by all accounts has been great in the booth, some advice about the broadcasting business. Hopefully he passed some on to McCarver.

They should have Francona miked for this game. I can only imagine the Boston manager. “Get an out. Please, can’t someone get a &^%$#@& out?” 13-6 Yankees. The 19 runs combined thus far set an ALCS record for most runs in a game. Can we mention it is the FIFTH INNING?

Sixth Inning: Fans in right field start to chant, “We want Tanyon,” as in Worcester’s own Tanyon Sturtze. Speaking of the Sturtzes, The Newark Ledger had a piece Friday about how they were forced to convert to the dark side after their son was traded by Tampa Bay to New York. There is good news for Tanyon’s family though. His performance this season for the Yankees pretty much assures them they can go back to rooting for the Sox once the season is over.

By golly, we’ve had our first inning last less than 45 minutes. Now we’re cooking.

Seventh Inning: Mark Bellhorn picked a fine time for one of his worst games of the season. A strikeout hat trick, and now he can’t squeeze a pop fly in the top of the inning. Time for Lobel to whip out those “Pokey would have had it” bumper stickers again.

As the Yankees run it to 16-6, fans start cheering, “Let’s go Patriots.” Thousands start to file out toward the exit.

Seventh inning stretch at 11:32. This is ridiculous.

Jason Varitek homers to make it 17-8. Not exactly the moment that makes the columnists here start to re-write their pieces to alter the outcome.

Eighth inning: It’s the eighth. One more inning to go. That’s really all the commentary I have left at this point.

Sweet Caroline is a heck of a lot less peppy tonight for some reason.

Ninth Inning: Hooray!!!!!

By the time this game ends, there are going to be about 17 people left here at the rate folks are rushing to the gates, unable to take the pain anymore.

Matsui homers for two more. Don’t these guys want to go to their hotel already?

Twenty-one hits by New York tie record for an ALCS game. Boston had 21 against Roger Clemens and New York in 1999.

Twenty-two hits by New York are a new record for hits in an ALCS game.

It was the longest game in ALCS history. And quite possibly the worst.

Apparently this won't be the year the Sox enjoy a pregame ceremony at Foxborough. How many times are they going to have to invite those guys here without a return trip?


Seeing as we’re sure after the National Anthem most of you ran out and picked up the Cowsills’ greatest hits and were forced to miss the game, here’s a recap…

Like I said...HAIRBALL

[NYguy]

The Red Sox make the perfect adversary for the YANKEES and Yankee fans. What other team hates them more? What fans hate the Yankees more? (sorry METS fans). What fans have a better reason to hate them? It makes for the perfect rivalry, even if this series is somewhat of a letdown. At least we got some fun t-shirts out of it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The BOSTON GLOBE's take on the fans/series...


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Jon Remy ("S" - no relation to RemDawg), Max Schonberger ("O"), and Lee Smith ("X" - no relation to the former Sox closer) want the Yankees to win, but can't bring themselves to root for them against Minnesota.


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Diehard fans Jim Moonan and Joe Bennett from Milton say they definitely want New York next so they can beat them on the way to a World Series.


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Jenna Medeiros and Meaghan Connolly from Framingham State college want vindication for what the Yankees did to the Sox last year... but they won't root for them to beat the Twins.


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Scott Argir (L) and Steve Vafides from Framingham said "bring on the Yankees because it's payback time." They also said it doesn't matter. File under: flip-flop.


GAME 1

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Ralph Bracco of North Babylon, New York, responds to Curt Schilling’s hope to shut up 55,000 New York fans at Yankee Stadium by inquiring about the rest of the yard’s capacity. Schilling was rocked for six runs over three innings, doing anything but shutting Yankee fans down.


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John Palmieri of Yonkers, asks, “What rivalry?”


GAME 2

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Rich Tershuny, of Manhattan, proudly displays the MLB-licensed t-shirt that caused the ire of Red Sox Nation. The t-shirt was pulled from shelves following complaints.


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Although there were still plenty of makeshift “Daddy” t-shirts as this Yankee fan demonstrates. There are sure to be plenty more on the mound tonight when Pedro Martinez takes the hill in Game 2.


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Dave McDonald of Spring Lake, NJ proudly displays the very close knockoff of the original and controversial Major League Baseball t-shirt . The shirts were being handed out prior to the game by a New Jersey radio station to anyone who would jump up and down and repeat, “Who’s Your Daddy?”


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Yes, Darth Vader has been at Yankee Stadium before rooting on the Evil Empire, but with Pedro Martinez calling the Yankees his “Daddy,” his presence has taken on a whole new meaning.


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Vinny Milano of Queens hawks “Pedro’s Daddy” t-shirts outside of Yankee Stadium with, who else, but The Babe playing the part.


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Food vendors set up outside the park got into the act as well.


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As poorly as Pedro pitched against the Yankees in back-to-back outings last month, we highly doubt Carlos Acevedo of Hartford, Conn., is in fact Martinez’s father.


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As do we doubt Lenny Lipschitz of the Bronx is of any relation.


GAME 3

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The Lighter Side took a stroll down Lansdowne Street early this morning in search of a little Red Sox fever. What did we find?

For starters, there was a Newbury Street salon that had set up shop in front of Gate C to offer free cornrows to fans who wanted to emulate tonight's ALCS Game 3 starter Bronson Arroyo. And we also stumbled into what could very well be the epicenter of Red Sox Nation.


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First, a quick look at the die-hards getting cornrows put in their hair. Here, stylists from Salon Marc Harris transform Leominster resident Michael Paul's 'do from caveman to cornrows. Erin Connors (also from Leominster) gets into the spirit as well


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How do you pass 22 hours in a tent on Lansdowne Street? Playing some Texas Hold 'Em, that's how.

Meet the self-proclaimed original Yankee Hater from Mattapan (left), Bernie Tulip from Saugus (center), and Tom Demetron from Kenmore Square. Tulip and Demetron claim to have a little more at stake than most of those in the Lansdowne Village.

"We're definitely losing our jobs today," said Demetron. "We work right there (points to a nearby Best Buy store). We work there just to be close to Fenway. Today, we're not going in, and they know where we are."

Unbelievable.


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The Prudential building displayed its traditional "Go Sox" message for Saturday night’s Game 3 at Fenway Park, which would turn out to be one of the most disappointing losses in Sox postseason history.


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Damon Disciples Branden Hutchinson and Matt Anders predicted before the game that “tonight’s the night” for their man Johnny to break out of his ALCS slump. Maybe next time, fellas.


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Brad Howe and Matt Thibeault led the cheers for section 26 during Boston’s second-inning rally.


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Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez encourage Fenway partisans to “Keep the Faith” as they file out of Fenway after Saturday’s loss. Facing a 3-0 deficit, faith may be hard to come by Sunday morning in Red Sox Nation.

***************

Hate the Red Sox or hate the Yankees, you have to love this rivalry.... :lol:

[NYatKNIGHT]

Great photos!

Anyway, the sweep would have been humiliating, but it's almost better to let them win one - it's more painful when they think they actually have a chance.

[Jasonik]

October 17, 2004
NYTIMES

Maybe Red Sox Fans Enjoy Their Pain
By BENEDICT CAREY

HERE'S a soothing thought, Red Sox fans: Losing isn't everything.

True, social scientists who study sports have found plenty of reasons for fans to root for a winner, like basking in the reflected glory of the team, finding a community of friends, even buffering oneself against feelings of despair. The sudden pleasure of watching a walk-off home run or overtime goal can touch the deepest emotional centers of the brain, research suggests, and even make some supporters feel more socially confident and attractive.

But those who are repeatedly denied the pleasures of winning find other compensations, which psychologists say go beyond the shallow charms of being simply a lovable underdog. "Long-suffering is not quite the right phrase, because at some level, I think, we do like it," said Christopher Peterson, a psychologist at the University of Michigan who is a Red Sox and Cubs fan. "So much of the human condition is about striving."

Make no mistake: the Red Sox nation wants nothing more than to win it all, shake off the team's history and throw a party to transcend all hangovers. And a defeat of the New York Yankees might be even sweeter.

But years of futility forces fans to express their identification in ways that go beyond merely celebrating wins and mourning losses. Loyalty to the club at all costs, an interest in the history of the team and emotional resilience often count more to supporters of cursed teams than victorious ones, said Dr. Christian End, a psychologist at Xavier University in Cincinnati who studies the relation between sports affiliation and self-presentation.

And these fans can be very appealing. In one study among 87 college students, Dr. End found that supporters of losing squads are if anything viewed more positively by their peers than fans of successful teams.

"No one can accuse you of being a lightweight fan," Dr. End said. "You've creatively changed the dimensions of comparison to include not just the outcome, the score, but measures of character."

People who root for losers also quickly