Okay, it's about midnight, a few hours since game two ended. I've calmed down just enough to not mention Thurman Munson, in hopes that yankee fans might come across this site. Whoops. I said it. Thurman Munson. I said it again. Okay, so I couldn't resist mentioning the burning catcher. You know, burning with desire, that's how he played. 'Til the very end. Of his life. There I go again, sorry.

I think tonight's debacle would've been a good test for people new to the planet. Like you arrive on earth, you're explained the basics: look both ways before you cross, floss, pee downstream from the village, three strikes and you're out, and then you watch a showing of tonight's baseball game (the YES feed).

You can choose to root for:

A. The team who: Won't move out of the way of a very slow pitch (twice), walks ass-backwards in to runs, never earning any of them, but then cheering as if they did, acting as if THEY somehow made the opponent's glove fall apart on a key ground ball, has fans who cheer so much, not to root on their team, but to make the umpires feel obliged to repeatedly make calls in their favor, has announcers who will constantly show the opposing team in a negative light, even though they are a bunch of fun-loving guys, while they make their own team's players out to be gods, even though they are steroid-taking, shit-talking, soulless motherfuckers bought off by a convicted felon owner, who is also made out to look not only like a saint, but "just a great businessman."

or B. Well, B is us, the Red Sox. I know Terry shouldn't have taken out Wake, and sure we make errors, too many errors, but the point of all this is, how can any decent human being (or alien) root for the New York yankees? Tonight wasn't an anomaly, it was what I've been watching my whole life. My dad coined the term "TYR"--Typical yankee Rally, a long time ago. Walks (usually obtained by trickery, or bad calls), hit batsmen (the kind where you don't move out of the way), errors, bloop hits, home runs that bounce off the top of the wall. It never ends. Tonight was just like a reminder of what the yankees are all about. And to top it all off, I have to hear their announcers bad-mouthing the Red Sox, and just generally acting proud of a team who's done nothing but let the other team beat themselves.

I'm not panicked by any means. I think Pedro is gonna win tomorrow. But that doesn't mean I'm not pissed now.

And where were the mad bombers last night? You've got A-Rod, Jeter, Cheney, Posada, Pataki, Giambi, and Giuliani in one room. You can't let that kind of oppurtunity slip away! You know what, though? If all the yankee players died, and the Red Sox went on to win the World Series, yankee fans would say, "The yankees would've won." Which reminds me, right before the top of the ninth tonight, HELL, NO Network showed a commercial for a show about the '01 World Series. They mentioned how "a mourning town was helped by two magical victories" They forgot to mention that the yankees actually lost the Series.

And finally, what the hell is Michael Kay's problem? Is he really that ignorant about Pedro Martinez, to the point where Pedro does something completely consistent with his non-pitching-day personality, and Kay acts like he's never seen anything like it in his life? I don't know, I think he's just puttin' thoughts into everyone's heads. "Pedro's craaaaazy." And today on his radio show he continued his usual rant about how the Red Sox "griity" image is just made up and makes no sense. He had a caller who said, "Their image is so contrived," and Kay responded, "Great word," just ecstatic that someone called up spewing Kay's own rhetoric right back at him. It's like I witnessed it come full circle. Kay lies and says to New York that the Red Sox "image" is made up, a guy hears it, thinks it's his own idea, (also, he's probably never seen the Red Sox play other than on Yes or Fox), CALLS Kay to tell him, and Kay just sits back, the ultimate megalomaniac masturbating over the airwaves. Talk about contrived.

And of course, there's Kay's take on the Sox' hairstyles: you know what, I don't even need to go into detail here, but the point is, if the yankees looked--physically--like the Sox (if they were allowed), Kay would be lovin' it, saying how it's the key to their chemistry, blah blah blah.

Alright, so when you see a yankee fan tomorrow, don't punch them in the face, as much as I know you want to, just ask 'em who played shortstop before Derek Jeter.

On second thought, just punch 'em in the face.

Tell 'em it's from Thurman.

Today I continued to punish myself by again turning on the Michael Kay radio show. Here's what I heard:

Kay (to co-host): Do you think the Red Sox can make up 5 1/2 games and win the division?

Co-host: I think there's a chance.

Kay: There's also a chance that we both spontaneously combust.

A Red Sox fan called up and pointed out that Kay said there was no chance the Sox would beat Oakland last post-season, after they were down 2-0. Kay laughed it off, saying he didn't need to be reminded of when he was wrong.

So as I signed on to AOL to write about this Kay travesty, I saw a "headline" on their welcome screen that read, "Red Sox In A Race They Can't Win." Great, I thought. Can't wait to read this one. It was a New York Times article my Murray Chass. He immediately refers to the "big, bad Red Sox", and then goes on to say the following, which made me want to strangle the man. (At the very least):

"Too many games remain to be played to claim a division title for anyone, even the Yankees. But unlike the situations in the other five divisions, the Yankees are being pursued by the Red Sox, in the same old scenario. Like it or not, Red Sox fans, no matter what changes the Red Sox have made, no matter the team's ingredients, the uniform shirts the players wear at Yankee Stadium the next three nights will still say "Boston." Nothing more need be said, no further explanation needed."

What a wonderful, intelligent human being. This is one of those guys that should be strapped to a chair in the middle of the Rose Bowl and executed in front of a live, national audience. And when he asks for the reason he's being executed, we'd just tell him, "No explanation needed."

I hope the Sox players read and hear this stuff and get as angry as I am and kick the crap out of those yankees.

Disclaimer: Jere is a non-violent person and doesn't really approve of the killing of anyone. Except for Steinbrenner. Alright, maybe not. But I'm allowed to not mourn when he dies of natural causes.

Today on the FAN, Mike Francesa said that Nomar Garciaparra is not a good fielding shortstop. When a guy called up and tried to defend Nomar, Francesa said, "Wait a minute, you wanna tell me Nomar Garciaparra's a good defensive shortstop?" in the "you have to be stupid/how dare you waste my time saying such things" tone of voice. Then he basically used his talk show host skills to trap the guy and make him seem dumb, which I could tell he wasn't. So now the whole New York area can say with confidence that Nomar's not a good fielder.

I'm not calling Nomar the best fielder in the league, but he does some amazing things. And even calling him simply "good" would be doing him an injustice.

The funny thing is, they were talking about this because they were doing a top ten of best current overall players, and five minutes earlier, Francesa put Derek Jeter on his list. Mad Dog, the yankee hater, of course said that he can't agree with that, and Francesa's reply was "[Jeter] has an intrinsic value..."

And in that pause, I swear Francesa himself was about to bust out laughing at what he'd just said, but he didn't. (Unfortunately, Mad Dog held back, too.) That logic has just become so stale. I expect the rookie talk show hosts to still say it, but at this point I've even heard FAN mid-morning host Sid Rosenberg say something like, "Well, Jeter's got the intangibles, that's what they always say." But to hear Francesa say it like he was the first one to think of it, as late as 2004, was just ridiculous. And it made me that much angrier when he then completely and ignorantly shot down Nomar.

I wish one of these New York guys would just once say, "Now, mind you, I only watch the Red Sox when they're playing the yankees, but..." before they go telling all of New York something about a Red Sox player.

Later, about Manny, they were saying how he's basically a first ballot hall-of-famer, but he might not be because, "you know, he's flawed." What? Why, because you don't like him?

And while I'm talking about Francesa, let me get this off my chest about Mariano Rivera. Okay, Rivera's obviously a really good pitcher. And there's always a lot of debate about who's the best reliever. There are the people who say that Mariano's the best, and they bring up the post-season to prove their point. And there are people who say the post-season doesn't count when comparing Rivera to others who've never been there. Here's where Francesa turns into a nutjob. Somebody called using the latter argument, saying how Gagne has never pitched in the post-season, and that's not his fault, and we don't know how good he'd be given the same chance as Rivera. (I agree with this. If Rivera just happened to be on a team who never went to the playoffs instead of going every year, none of those post-season stats would even exist. You could say he makes a team that much better, but think about it, if the yanks had never had him, how many years would they have missed out on the playoffs because of it? I think none, but that's my opinion.) Which brings me to my point about Francesa. Where I admit that my opinion is just that, he states his as if it were fact. His answer to the guy was: "You can't tell me Gagne would be as good as Rivera in the post-season, because you COULDN'T do better than Rivera's done in the post-season."

Actually, you could, Mike. That's a fact, not an opinion.

So the way I look at it is, Mike Francesa thinks Mariano is the best reliever of all time, because he feels his opinion is fact.

I also thought it odd that on a Fox game two weekends ago, they put up the stats of Gagne and Rivera, only they showed Rivera's post-season stats next to Gagne's regular season stats, and then had people vote on who they'd rather have, and thanks to this biased stat, Rivera won almost three to one.

Anyway, I'm off to see Fahrenheit 911 on this pre-Sox vs. yanks day of rest.

I was at a Woodstock-esque wedding this weekend (as in it was basically a three-day event, not as in a concert/wedding which closed the New York State Thruway.) But I'm back for more blogging fun.

Wouldn't it be great if the Red Sox got to play six games each season against a team whose goal is basically to win two of those six games? That's what the yankees get, in the Mets, thanks to the unbalanced, unfair interleague play. The Mets don't bother me, in fact I don't mind at all when they win, because it makes Steinbrenner mad. (Almost as mad as it made him to see the interleague schedule last year, the one time in like ten years that the Red Sox had an easier interleague sked than the yanks.)

But when the Mets play the yankees, even in years where they're pretty good, they just turn to jelly like some kind of, well, like the Orioles. As I'm writing this, they're losing six to nothing in the first inning. So I got about, let's see, zero minutes of enjoyment out of that game. The good thing about these subway series' is that I can watch/listen to the games on the Mets channel, since, of course, I get every Mets game (sometimes in English on one channel and in Spanish on another at the same time), just like I get every yankee game, while getting no Red Sox games. The Mets announcers get little shots in at the yankees, which is great to hear. But I'd trade them in for yankee losses any day.

I just saw on TV a kid at yankee Stadium with a hat that showed the Statue of Liberty, with the Mets logo on one side of it and the yankee arachnid logo on the other. I just can't relate to people who buy things like this. Or the Red Sox-yankees shirts with both logos. I guess those people are thinking, "I was at a fairly common match-up between two rival teams...And I didn't give a crap who won!" (Apologies to my friend Chan, who once got me a Fiesta Bowl shirt which showed both the Nebraska and Florida logos--but that was a special case since I went to college at Nebraska and he attended Florida.)

I did get to see the Sox today, though, as I was visiting my parents in New England. God! I keep forgetting! I live in New England. Anyway, what a great win, by such a fun team. It's such a shame that Fairfield County doesn't get to see these guys play.

On the Red Sox' site, I clicked on a story in the MLB Headlines section about the All-Star voting. I couldn't help but notice an ad for the YES Network (which I call the Hell, NO Network) hext to the story. Why would they have an ad for a regional sports network on a neutral story? I thought, Well, maybe since the gist of the story is the fact that there are soooo many yankees holding leads in the All-Star balloting, they allowed a yankee-related ad to be on there. So I looked for a Red Sox-related story, found one, went to it, and...the same YES Network ad. Maybe they have ads for all regional networks, and they're rotating them. (But I have a strong feeling it's just YES ads.)

Speaking of All-Stars, the amazing David Ortiz should be one, but he needs to be written in (which you know if you read DirtDogs). So please go to the Sox' official site to vote for him, and all our other guys. Thanks.

The magic number is down to 95, and may go down one more as the Mets have now cut it to 7-5. But I can't be very optimistic about that; I'm thinkin' Kaz Matsui has one more key error in him this series.

I don't have tickets to the upcoming Sox-yanks series, but I may be heading to the Riviera Cafe down in NYC to root along with the Sox fans there. Bring on the yanks, time to pick up some games...