Red Sox v. Yankees

[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]

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.

[Jasonik]

LOL :lol:

Now where did I put my scuba gear...

[Jasonik]

Doesn't the Sports Illustrated cover have a curse?

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]

[Jasonik]

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

[ZippyTheChimp]

[NYatKNIGHT]

....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!