Just to expand on my accusation of bostondirtdogs.com driving Nomar out of town...

First of all, I'd like to revisit my theory that dirtdog is really Steinbrenner.
OR just someone working in conjunction with the yankees.

Let's look at the facts:
Dirt dog (who took his name from a nickname for certain Sox players coined by--Paul Quantrill) was the "leader" of the whole A-Rod to the Sox thing. This led to everyone to assume it was a done deal, including Kevin Millar, who publicly said he'd rather have A-Rod on his team than Nomar. Note that this whole thing, with Manny being put on waivers, also gave Steinbrenner a chance to make Manny look bad, as we know that Big Stein wants Nomar, not Manny. All the other teams couldn't afford Manny, but the yanks could have. (Again, if George is such a "great businessman," why didn't he grab Manny--how many games up would they be now with him in the lineup?)

And all of this led to Nomar being pissed, and, the yanks getting A-Rod, after Aaron Boone (coincidence?) has a mysteeerious basketball injury. So Stein--I mean dirtdog, continues to make Nomar feel like crap, while becoming part of boston.com, therefore making it certain that Nomar can have access to everything he writes. And sends Nomar a check, signed by George, and a note telling Nomar to kneel (oooh) in the yankee Stadium dugout instead of standing, to make everyone (dirtdogs.com) even more pissed at him, even though he played his ass off in every other game, and was hitting well over .300.

And George told Jeter to run into the crowd--you know, or somethin' like that--just to show how much more the lesser-quality yankee shortstop gives his team. But the plan almost backfired as Jeter had to choose the closest popup to the stands, but misjudged the ball and had to take THREE FULL STEPS before diving into the crowd. The blood diverted everyone's attention to the fact that the dive was completely unnecessary. (Pokey's catch from the same game was much more impressive).

And then there's dirtdogs getting these "yankee hater" hats--claims they're "from some other guy," gives them to Schilling, and they become popular to Sox fans, who are dying to show their hatred of the yanks while not seeming to notice that the hats look JUST LIKE yankee hats! And then when it gets out of control, the yankee-loving dirtdog can't face the reality that Sox fans really friggin' hate the yankees, says, "Hold Everything! Real Red Sox fans don't hate the yanks, stop wearing those STUPID hats (that I endorsed)."

And now, Nomar's gone, and at the end of the season, who will just happen to sign him? What team, with an all-star at every position except second base, will sign him to fill that hole? The dirtdogs, I mean yankees. Watch how happy he'll be when it happens.

Funny, I never did see a replay of Pokey's catch, apparently that footage was burned to make room for the statue being built to honor Jeter's catch that really symbolizes the yanks catching Nomar.

But conspiracies aside, I think it's just an easy excuse to say that Nomar wasn't happy about the A-Rod thing, so he was showing that he didn't want to be where he supposedly wasn't wanted. There was speculation of that all along. And even dirtdog's boy Schilling said that that didn't affect him or the team.

And East Coast Agony points out that Manny has been in the same boat all year, and all he's done is become a new man and media darling, while continuing to put up amazing numbers.

I just wished things had worked out differently with Nomar. No matter what dirtdog says, he's a good guy, and even if he did swing at the first pitch all the time, he's gonna end up hitting .300 for his career, while battling injuries.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be rooting for these new guys as hard as I did for Nomar.

From tonight's yankee broadcast, hilarious moment: Kay says that the point of Joe Torre's charity is to "stop abusive children within the home." And just when he finishes the line, Adam "Everything's Comin' Up" Melhuse hits a mega-dong for the A's, making it 10-4 Oakland.

With our win and the yanks' loss (they're down 13-4 in the eighth, I'm the one to kill if they come back and win), the magic number is now 66.