Okay everybody, I'm here to tell you the truth about the New York yankees. They're going nowhere this year. Seriously, we've got nothing to worry about. If the Red Sox can play 80 to 85% of what they're capable of, they've got the division wrapped up.

The yanks barley snuck by yet again last night, with Mariano coming within a pitch of walking in the tying run. They were also aided by the umps, as is the tradition, to the point where Piniella got tossed arguing over balls and strikes.

Of course, watch them go and get Randy Johnson. I can't think of a way to make fun of Randy Johnson's name, because his name's already randy johnson for god's sake. And his nickname is the Big Unit. So the bootleg T-shirt makers wouldn't have to think too hard on that one.

Let's just hope they part with some more prospects if they do get him.

And their "murderers row" lineup is supposed to be what wins them games since their pitching continues to be crappy. Let's do some comparisons:

The yankees' top hitter--I'm talking average here-- is Miguel Cairo at .303. I'm not kidding, look it up.

Then they've got Sheffield at .295, Matsui at .288, Jeter at .279, Posada at .274, A-Rod at .271, Bernie at .267.

We've got Manny at .338, Damon at .319, Ortiz at .302, Millar at .284, Mueller at .282, Youk and Nomar at .306 in limited action, Varitek tied with the best player in the history of the world, A-Rod, at .271. With Mirabelli backing him up at .304.

And Manny AND Ortiz each have more HRs and RBIs than any yankee player has in either category.

So we've got them in hitting and pitching, we just seem to be 6 out for some reason. That being terrible performances by Arroyo, Lowe, and Wake, who have all settled down. Well, you know, except for Lowe. Tonight's a big one for him.

I'm taking a little All-Star break of my own, but I'll be back in a week.

I know I don't need to tell you to not give up on this team while I'm gone.

Magic # = 85

Go Sox!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What happened to those things where everyone would meet at a pre-determined time and location, and yell "fart" at the same time or whatever? People acted like that was gonna be the next big thing. I guess people realized just how utterly pointless it was.

Anyway, Pat & I went to Fenway last night, on what happened to be Connecticut Day. Being from Connecticut got us nothing, as we might have expected. The guy who sang the anthem was from the town we grew up in, but that was about it.

I must admit, I realized last night how naive I'd been about the CT/Mass "rivalry." (I've heard the term "Mass-hole" before, but I've never actually used it as far as I can remember, and I don't even know if they have a nickname for us.)

But the first time they annouced it was Connecticut Day, a couple right behind us said, "Boooooo." I turned around and said, "Hey come on, this is the one day we get." They laughed. Then up at our seats, the public address guy again said something about CT Day, and the couple in front of started flippin' out, like, "What?? I paid for this??" They were genuinely pissed. I said, loud enough so they could hear, "Man, everybody hates our state."

They turned around, and the girl said, "Oh god, I went to school in Connecticut, I HATED it." And the guy chimed in with, "It's all yankee fans!"

So I said, "Well that's what WE hate about it." The girl replied, "Well I give YOU credit, then."

Now keep in mind, the closest point in Mass to my house is at least an hour and a half away, so I just wasn't aware that we are some kind of evil to the Mass folks. (On the other hand, I live five minutes from the New York state border, so I'm always getting pissed at New York drivers, and their no right-on-red policy they seem to love so much over there.) I just figured at a Sox game, all of New England would come together as one, but I was way off. If it was Maine Day, I wouldn't have booed Maine!

Alright, there are things I don't like about Mass, again, mostly driving related. (I'll begin and end at "rotaries.") But still, at Fenway, I say we're all New Englanders.

I also think that these anti-CT fans were probably caught off-guard, not knowing that the team has a day for every state in New England, which would account for their exasperation over the whole thing.

And I did see a lot of CT relayed T-shirts.

And I do realize that CT is a pretty bland state, we have no accent, no cool cities, we don't even have the Whalers anymore. And I'm not a UConn fan, either. But still, we are part of New England.

The game was great. Pedro was on. Nomar hit a dong that Pat predicted, saying "I've got a sense!" right before the blast. And Manny hit one off the top of the Coke bottles. And we said hi to Joe Castiglione.

And tonight's game almost caused much misery, but ended well. I can't say enough about Bill Mueller. We're in this race. Magic Number is in the mid-80s, but I'm not gonna say the exact number.

I was psyched to hear a yankee fan call up the FAN today and say that he felt like the yanks can't beat good pitching, and also that he doesn't know how much more of Michael Kay he can take. Welcome to my world, buddy.

In other yankee fan news, here's a great example of how they'll just repeat what they hear from their own media/announcers, thinking that: A. what they're saying is true, and B. they're the ones who came up with it.

On Dirt Dogs, (whose dude still hasn't replied to my letter, except to say he'd reply later), there's an email from a yankee fan, from after Game One of last week's yanks-Sox series. Here it is with my comments in italics. (They were obviously watching on Yes, as I was.)

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Yankee fan rubs it in with:

a) Manny Ramirez hits a fly to center and barely leaves the batter's box. Had Lofton dropped it (like he did against the Mets), Manny could've even been tossed out at first - and this is a close game at the time.

Okay, classic case of yankees' network waiting until Manny runs at anything less than full speed, then showing a close up while the announcers say EXACTLY what this "fan" said, right down to the Lofton reference. Manny ran, he just ran slow because he freakin' popped up. Thrown out at first? Maybe at second. I wonder if NESN even bothered to show this non-issue of a play. Tonight, I put on the yankee game and watched the blessed Derek Jeter loaf down to first--against the Tigers, when no one was watching. The announcers said nothing about it.

b) Derek Jeter beats out the throw from Garciaparra on an error. If Jeter doesn't hustle, Sheffield never hits the 3 run HR to put the game out of reach.

Wait, didn't the ball get away? So even if he didn't hustle, he would've been safe, as Nomar was throwing on the move without even having a chance to see how close the runner was to first.

If Manny ever played under Torre and pulled this kind of thing, he'd find himself on the bench PDQ. One thing Torre does not allow at any time is loafing (and mouthing off, but that's another kettle o'fish.)

More BS. If this was true, the yankees would have no players left on the field. As I said, all the things this person is saying is taken right from the yankee announcers. There was also a play where A-Rod took his sweet time throwing to first and they didn't make a big deal about it.

I find it hard to fault Nomar on those errors, by the way. Those throws are very catchable - Millar nearly fell down on the first throw. If you notice, Rodriguez and Heredia nearly threw balls away, but Tony Clark snagged both of them (chiefly because he's 6'6"). But a first baseman should be able to scoop those throws by Nomar. They were very catchable.

Tony friggin' Clark, man.

Johnny Damon is the first Red Sox centerfielder EVER to hit two HRs at Yankee Stadium

I like how they just threw this in at the end, like, hey, here's some trivia that I KNOW. No, you just heard it on the Yes broadcast. Only, you forgot something. When Kay was spewing this fairly meaningless stat, he then pointed out that Fred Lynn--a Red Sox centerfielder-- did hit two dongs in a game against the yankees on the road, only it was during the renovation of yankee Stadium, so the game was played at Shea. That's right, yankee fans, surely you didn't know this, but your team played it's home games at Shea Stadium in '74 and '75. Backwards Kay quickly then re-stated that Damon is the only one to do it AT YANKEE STADIUM. I'm guessing this fan heard something about Shea and figured Kay meant in a game against the Mets...maybe some World Series that occurred before 1996 that they weren't aware of. My point is, this person got a little brain-washing from Kay and Co., and then tried to pass off all the info they gained as their own. Silly yankee fan. This is what I put up with daily.

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I'm headed up to Fenway tomorrow with Pat. We're gettin' Pedro.

Key blowout win tonight, combined with key Tiger blowout win, and the magic number is down to 89.

I'm also very excited that Castiglione and Trup' asked the audience to "send in your song about the Red Sox." Me and Pat will have a ball with that one.

I could say that I was really busy this holiday weekend, and that would be only a little bit of a stretch, but I have to admit that the real reason I haven't written in almost a week is that that third yankee game rendered me speechless. Considering the previous night's game made me mad enough to play the Thurman Munson card, you can imagine what kind of night it was after game three ended.

That was the type of game where you really could say "Words can't describe..." As a Sox fan, you never get used to those "One strike away" experiences.

I haven't gone on line since that night, and I understand I missed out on some pretty big Nomar trade rumors, that weren't reported on New York sports radio. But then again, I pretty much avoided that for the few days after that game, too. I was pretty miserable.

But I treat that game as a test. If you can still be a Red Sox fan after watching that game, especially if, like me, you had to watch it with yankee announcers desribing (read: lying about) the action, then you are the ultimate fan, and you deserve only the best in life. I think we weeded out a lot of newer fans who maybe tried to jump aboard after last year's run.

The good news, in my opinion, is that even after that night of uttering things like "It never freakin' ends," the Red Sox are far from dead in the water. They--somehow--came back the next night and took the Braves to extra innings. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd just given up ten runs in the first inning and sleepwalked through the whole series. It turned out to be another heartbreaking loss, but they came back the next day and got a nice win. Then Derek Lowe pitched the next day...

But it appears that the yanks beating us in that series took even more out of them, instead of vaulting them toward a twenty game winning streak, as the Mets surprisingly showed up and amazingly swept the series.

I'm trying to look at it like this:

Usually we have a lead pretty far in to the season, but then they overtake us because they have much better pitching. But this year, I think they jumped ahead too early, so we've got time to come back, and we're the team with the dominant pitching. Well, that's what I'm hoping happens. Derek Lowe isn't helping. But I've gotta believe all these guys start playing up to their potential.

We've got six games before the break--all at home. If we can just gain a game or two, I think I can live with it at that point. There's lots of baseball left to be played. (Don't you hate when people say that? As if some teams might just start challenging their opponents to a game of darts or something?)