Today, I realized that a World Series victory has completely no effect on the feelings I have when the Red Sox are seemingly trying as hard as they can to lose a game to the yankees.

And when they eventually came back and won, the feeling of total and utter sweetness was just as sweet as always.

A-Rod, key game-blowing error.

Mariano, another blown save.

"Ear-to-ear" does not do justice to the grin I've had locked on my face for the last four hours.

The proverbial tide turned last year, and it the trend is continuing: Which of the two teams normally wins the first two games, has victory in sight in the third, but blows it, leaving the other with all the momentum?

Apparently it's them now.

"Watching" the game (on Gameday Live) today, I was getting more and more frustrated. I was really pissed. I thought all the double plays and runners left on base had to be a practical joke. But I kept telling myself, Think of it from their perspective. They have to know that they are sure to lose because they can't keep lucking out every inning. (Or doing a great job escaping jams, you can't tell when the game is just words on a screen.) And if they do lose, it will be worse for them than it will be for us if we lose. In fact, I kind of hoped they'd get yet another chance at a double play, and blow it, to lose the game. And, while Manny was up in the ninth (I was in my car listening on radio for that inning, fortunately), I was rooting for him to hit a dong of course, not to hit a double play grounder and root for it to get botched. But how awesome was it when it actually happened? And it was our friend A-Rod, ha!

When I turned on Kay's radio show later on, he was saying "I am SO not proud to be a New Yorker today." He was talking about how Mariano got his ass booed (for his FOURTH blown save in a row--all to the World Champion Boston Red Sox).

I think what Michael is in complete denial of is the fact that yankee fans really are concerned about the Red Sox, and really want the yanks to beat them specifically. Especially this year. Michael is stuck in the past, still pretending that the Sox are second-class citizens, who yankee fans can't be bothered by. I say "pretending" because, as all the "Boston Sucks" T-shirts and signs that have been around for decades show, they always have cared about us (that's what a rivalry is), but would often act like they don't really care about "those losers." (As the "What Rivalry?" T-shirts show.)

So when their greatest-of-all-time reliever gets to the point where he's consistently failing against the Red Sox, well, as my friend Rebecca said today, "What are they gonna do, give him a standing ovation?"

I've got some more topics about yankee fans fresh in my head, so watch for those soon. In the meantime, check out this really fine yankee-hating column by Samara. It starts as a David Wells rant, then gets into some great yankee bashing, the exact kind I can relate to. (And can't see why everybody else, including yankee fans, can't.)