We win 7-5 to sweep the Yanks in the Bronx. And we're a .500 club for the first time this season. Next stop, first place. We sit one out of second, three out of first as we head home for dates with the Birdlanders, the Tiger Townies, and the North Siders.

Thoughts from tonight (and I will leave ESPN's incredible travesty until the very end to keep the happy mood going here):

The Salty dong was so key, to give us that two run lead late. Papi was wailing the ball tonight, two solid shots for a single and a double, and a dong to boot. (The ESPN announcers showed they know nothing of Papi's streak--at least one triple every year since 2000, only guy in the majors who can say that.) Youk's 3-run dong to erase an early 3-run deficit was huge.

Hilarious moment when Bobby V said Yankee fans had been "dull" tonight. This was followed up by shots of several fans in mid text. But Valentine disappointed me when he said Ted Williams went 5 for 6 in his last game of 1941. This isn't something I had to look up to know it was wrong--it's a pretty famous story that Ted went 6 for 8 on the last day, in a doubleheader. Even though I learned it when I was probably 8 years old, I still don't expect V to know it exactly--but I do expect him to not just make shit up figuring close is good enough.

The gratuitous Jeter shot count was low tonight, only about 300-400. Speaking of him, there was one play where Dustin stole a base by a lot. Jeter took the late throw way out in front of the bag, grabbed it very nonchalantly, and didn't even look back to make sure the runner didn't trip or overslide the bag. Am I saying Jeter did something wrong? No. But this is exactly the type of play where if someone else made it, we might hear "you'd never see Derek Jeter do that." That's what pisses me off.

ESPN thinks "Joltin' Joe" is spelled "Jolt'n Joe." But we know the Americans have trouble with any little line that looks like an apostrophe or quotation mark.

Crawford was a little off tonight. He swung at ball 3 in a key spot early, ruining a rally. Then he hit a grounder to Tex and hesitated before getting out of the box, and ended up being out on a really close play. Then he made that error (which made up for A-Rod's super-sweet one) that allowed the Yanks to cut it to one late. The weird thing is, I don't know how the ball got so far away from him. He went to reach down for it as it slowly rolled on the track. Then they cut to a shot of Granderson, and next thing we know, the ball is five-ten feet on the other side of Carl! And they never did show a replay so we could see how the ball got so far away or why it would have even gone in the direction it did. (Instead they showed a mini-feature on Pedroia and Cano.)

Okay, now on to the worst part of the game, thanks to ESPN. If you watched the game from the beginning, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If not, I'll fill you in:

Sometimes a network will miss a pitch for whatever reason. It's never acceptable, but usually there's a reason for it. And usually they cut back just in time so that you see the end of the pitch, or you get the announcer telling you what you missed. It's also usually at the beginning of an inning, with a commercial running long. But tonight, ESPN broke new ground in the world of pitch-missing. The first inning starts, and the Yankee Stadium Bleacher Cretins start with their traditional roll call. ESPN decides they're gonna show this. Not a brief bit of it, but a triple-split screen so that they can show a close-up of the fans chanting, the player saluting them, and, on one little third of the screen, the actual game, all at the same time. Now I grant you, I'm pissed already. I'm not missing the game, but I'm forced to watch it on a tiny screen, while also seeing these mouth-breathers do their little thing. Then between pitches, it's full screen for the bullshit. But then, while we're stuck watching Gardner salute the fans, we hear a crack of the bat. Gardner looks to the side. A foul ball has obviously been hit. Camera finally cuts to...more fans, more roll call. It's been a really long time since we've seen a pitch. In other words, the Red Sox-Yankees game is being played and ESPN is not showing it.

They finally cut back to the action for the next pitch...but no one says anything about the missed pitch. No replay, no "sorry we missed a pitch," not even a "here's what's going on in case you missed it (because we didn't show it)." They just acted like that pitch never happened. Allan at Joy of Sox said it was two pitches they missed. I can't confirm that....but how would I even know?? I would have rewound the DVR to confirm it all, but, unlike ESPN, I just wanted to watch the game.

I would be pissed had they purposely missed pitches for any reason, but the fact that it was done in order to show these meat-headed neanderthals throwing their feces around ruined the whole first part of the game for me. I hadn't got to see much of the first two games of the series, and here I am, waiting all day for the game to start, and that's what I get instead of it. (Of course, I attribute the early 4-1 deficit to this Massacre at the Cosmic Ballet Repertory Theater.)

[It should be noted that while I love making fun of Yankee fans when applicable, the terms I'm using in this case are specifically chosen for the right field bleacher crew at the Stadium and its predecessor.]