ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Its amazing to me that Gary Sheffield can take a shot at a fan while the ball is in play and everyone blames the fan. I was watching the game on NESN with occasional switchbacks to ESPN and it was clear to me at the time, and confirmed by multiple replays, that the fan was not trying to attack Sheffield. The fan definitely made contact with his hat, but beyond that it is difficult to say. It is entirely possible that the fan made contact with Sheffield, which should not happen, but Sheffield should not, repeat NOT, be allowed to go back and punch the fan WHILE THE BALL IS IN PLAY!

I don't mean this as a Red Sox apologist, but this is ridiculous. Ok, enough about that.

RED SOX 8, yankees 5. Now thats what I'm talking about. In the over-used words of Terry Cashman, I'm talking baseball. Not Gary Sheffield and his temper. Not a moog Red Sox fan who despite sitting right by the right field foul pole managed to spend more money on beer than he did on his tickets. No. The story here is the home runs given up by Randy Johnson (three by my count including what might charitably be described as a bomb by Jason Varitek that went so far over the monster it caused a pileup on the Mass Pike) (ok, not really). The story here is the lousy umpiring by the entire crew, who not only missed that obvious called third strike on.. wait for it... wait for it... Sheffield! that ended up costing Boston about four runs, but also missed the very first play of the game when Millar's tag was about two minutes too late to get a streaking Womack. The Womack was called out anyway.

I like that... from now on I shall refer to Tony Womack as "The Womack."

The bad calls went both ways, and then to top it off the home plate guy got all sensitive on us and started indescriminantly tossing Red Sox coaches for perceived slights both real and imagined, though mostly imagined. He did this, totally seriously now, because he could "read their lips." Ok, man, is your job as an umpire or a lip reader? I'd say after last night's performance you should start looking for a third gig, cause it's obvious you can't do either.

Depsite all the extracuriculars, last night's game was a rousing success for the Sox. They took a game from the Yanks in which they were outplayed until Tom "Gas Can" Gordon came in and doused the game with his legendary can of gas, leading to a three run outbreak by the Sox. Additionally, they won a game in which Randy Johnson started for NY and you aren't supposed to win those. Especially so when a castoff from the Pittsburgh Pirates starts for your team. If they stole one from us last night when we threw our best pitcher and left about 8,000 men on base, then we stole one right back in the same fashion.

So, now the Yankees leave Boston and I can't say I'm sorry to see them go. The games against them are always exciting and always meaningful (though not always in the way that I'd like them to be), but is it just me or does it seem that the Sox play these guys all the damn time!? Its time to play a team that doesn't have four MVP candidates in the middle of their lineup, it's time to play a team who's roster costs under $200 Million. It's time to play a team that thinks that winning 43% of their games in a season makes that season a rousing success.

Bring on the Devil Rays!