If the Sox can do it, how about Cornell?

[billhoward]

[Q]Jerseygirl Wrote:

For the record, though, can we please, please, all agree on one thing, and that is he or she who jumps on the Sox bandwagon now is subject to the same disdain as were those who started saying, "Oh, I'm a Yankees fan" around 1996?[/q]

Okay, so there were some inattentive young-Martha Stewart lookalikes in the stands at Feway who appeared not to have been at this Red Sox Nation thing a long time. Maybe their orthodontists had extra tickets. I saw no pink caps with B on them, but a couple white caps which is borderline sacreligious. (Maybe white shows off your tan better.) The husband of my old girlfriend made up and sold about 100 classic-Blue sox caps where the B is outlined in fiber optic strands  and the B can be lit up at night. It is very garish but also useful for ribbing Yankee fans so long as you know there's a cop standing by to protect you from the savages.

There are also many Sox fans going back to the hopeful yet futile days of Rice, Lynn, Yaz, Fisk, Tiant, and spaceman Bill Lee. True Sox fans are still waiting for Carlton Fisk to return from Chicago. Their numbers are not small and they have equally hopeful relatives living in Chicago rooting for the dream series that never happened in 2003.

Also at Fenway, there were some bundled-up-against-Arctic-breezes fans who clearly were fans and not there to see and be seen. Fox had a great closeup of one who was applauding as a Bomber went down on strikes late in game five. While the camera was still on her, in all her innocence and savagery, she turned to a friend and put both hands to her own throat in the classic choking motion. That was great camera work. Even better than playing Manny Ramirez' misplaced flyball over and over at the inning break with "Oh, What a Lonely Boy" as background. Manny could well be the next Bill Buckner. Manny better hope the postseason doesn't count toward the Golden Glove.

Joe E. Brown said it best a lifetime ago: "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel."

New York fans can still look forward to the Ranger and Knicks. Okay, the Knicks. And the Patriots are due to lose sometime.

[mjh89]

The A-Rod slap wasn't a stupid play at all. He was about to get tagged out anyways, so you might wanna try anything you can to get on base. He did, and it very nearly worked.

[Jacob 03]

not even taking the down-the-road implications into effect, the "a-rod slap" was stupid even if he was about to get tagged out.  as it played out, the umps made all the right calls and jeter ended up back on first.  had a-rod let himself be tagged out, jeter would've ended up on second and in scoring position.  

of course, the yankees ended up making the third out on the next play, and there are a million other "what if" ponderances to make, all useless.  but you can't even argue that a-rod made the sensible "good of the team" play because of what it did to jeter's placement.  not that a-rod had time to think about the possible outcomes of his actions while running, but maybe that's another reason most players generally follow the rules instead of gambling on them (outcomes are more quickly and easily predicted).  

[jkahn]

[Q]billhoward wrote:
Jay Levine, a young WHCU charger who moved on to Philadelphia and the big time (and where did he go from there?).[/Q]
Jay's been a news reporter and sometimes anchor in Chicago for the last 20 years or so.  I think he did play-by-play for one season, '69-'70, right after Sam Woodside retired.  Although I didn't hear him often, as I went to about 22 of the 29 games, in my mind I still hear him saying "Lodboa shots, he scores!."

[Will]

Forget about the strategy behind the move (or the potential lack thereof).  A-Rod made an illegal move, as explicitly stated in the rules.  The umps made the right call by upholding the rules.  An illegal move shouldn't be defended.

[Josh '99]

[Q]Will Wrote:
An illegal move shouldn't be defended.[/q]You mean you've never called something a "good penalty" during the hockey game?  Like if you take down Dominic Moore (or the equivalent) when he's wide open in the slot?

[Avash]

Something you may not have seen since the play happened so fast :-) :

http://www.e11even.ca/dump/ArodPurse.jpg

Joking aside though, I can't believe people are actually defending A-rod, especially when I've had to hear for years in an ironically condescending tone about how the Yankees and their fans are the epitome of class and integrity. There's a reason his own dugout was ice cold to him after that play and a reason why much of the talk on NY sports radio after the series was about what it means to be a true Yankee (see: Torre, Jeter, Rivera). I may not like them because they happen to wear pinstripes, but I'm confident in saying that guys like Jeter and Bernie would never stoop to trying something so astonishingly ridiculous.

And in hockey, you take down a player who's wide open in the slot KNOWING you'll end up in the penalty box. You're still going to give the other team a chance to score in a PP situation. The way hockey is played, such a move is not considered childish. On the other hand, slapping at a baseball glove to avoid being tagged is most certainly not considered the right way to play baseball. That being said, A-Rod's a good (great) player, and I'd hope he wouldn't do anything like that again.

It's also a shame that we're even still talking about this "controversial" play. The really memorable thing for me about Game 6 was Schilling giving the most awe-inspiring pitching performance I've ever seen (probably ranking up there with Jack Morris in 1991, which I did not personally see).

[Will]

[Q]Avash '05 Wrote:

The really memorable thing for me about Game 6 was Schilling giving the most awe-inspiring pitching performance I've ever seen (probably ranking up there with Jack Morris in 1991, which I did not personally see).
[/q]

I think that's the one thing that we can all agree on with regard to this series.

[Ack]

Baseball can be played by the numbers (I'm an engineer - I'll probably marry a number), but who or what number can explain the intangibles as spirit, shear will power, desperation, and where's the factoid on who crosses their team's bats on accident...who tied their shoelaces backwards, who knocked on wood an odd number of times, who stepped on the chalk coming on or off the field...?

[cornelldavy]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:
Manny better hope the postseason doesn't count toward the Golden Glove.[/q]

Manny's not winning any fielding awards in this lifetime, unless you want to give him something for the incredible and inexplicable diving catch he made this summer on a Johnny Damon throw from center field, giving the Orioles' David Newhan (son of another excellent sportswriter) an inside-the-park homer.

[gtsully]

[Q]Jerseygirl Wrote:  

The reason the non a-hole Yankees fans find the victory so hard to take is not only because its spoils are being enjoyed by our version of the Harvard hockey team, but also because Sox fans apparently don't seem to see anything annoying or obnoxious about their behavior.[/q]
You've got us on the whining, but I've got to take you to task on the annoying behavior after the win.  First of all, it was our first win of any significance over the Yankees since... ever.  Forgive us if we enjoy it a little bit.  For me personally, it was more about going to the World Series than beating the Yankees, although that was a nice side benefit :-D .

Second of all, as someone who sat in Yankee Stadium for Game Seven last year and had to endure countless 1918 chants, having Baby Ruth bars thrown at me, and a grown man dressed like Don Mattingly (facial hair and all) carrying his infant child out of the stadium afterwards swearing at me and screaming "What a great day to be a Yankee fan!" like the overly-self-important-because-he-grew-up-near-New-York-city degenerate that he is... I think we deserve a little time to gloat.  Yankee fans have been trying to make Red Sox fans feel unimportant for decades - now that we have the opportunity, it's about time we return the favor.

I consider several Yankee fans to be close friends, and I haven't talked to any of them since The Comeback, because if the shoe was on the other foot, I know I wouldn't want to talk to them.  I know most Sox fans aren't like that, but Yankee fans complaining about obnoxious Red Sox fans who are "bad winners" - I know these aren't your words, but I'm generalizing - don't have a leg to stand on.

[Avash]

[Q]gtsully Wrote:

 [Q2]Jerseygirl Wrote:  

The reason the non a-hole Yankees fans find the victory so hard to take is not only because its spoils are being enjoyed by our version of the Harvard hockey team, but also because Sox fans apparently don't seem to see anything annoying or obnoxious about their behavior.[/Q]
You've got us on the whining, but I've got to take you to task on the annoying behavior after the win.  First of all, it was our first win of any significance over the Yankees since... ever.  Forgive us if we enjoy it a little bit.  For me personally, it was more about going to the World Series than beating the Yankees, although that was a nice side benefit  .

Second of all, as someone who sat in Yankee Stadium for Game Seven last year and had to endure countless 1918 chants, having Bâby Ruth bars thrown at me, and a grown man dressed like Don Mattingly (facial hair and all) carrying his infant child out of the stadium afterwards swearing at me and screaming "What a great day to be a Yankee fan!" like the overly-self-important-because-he-grew-up-near-New-York-city degenerate that he is... I think we deserve a little time to gloat.  Yankee fans have been trying to make Red Sox fans feel unimportant for decades - now that we have the opportunity, it's about time we return the favor.

I consider several Yankee fans to be close friends, and I haven't talked to any of them since The Comeback, because if the shoe was on the other foot, I know I wouldn't want to talk to them.  I know most Sox fans aren't like that, but Yankee fans complaining about obnoxious Red Sox fans who are "bad winners" - I know these aren't your words, but I'm generalizing - don't have a leg to stand on.[/q]


Semi-random thought: Are you the Sox fan "Sully" whom the Sports Guy on espn.com refers to occasionally? :-)

[gtsully]

[Q]Avash '05 Wrote:
Semi-random thought: Are you the Sox fan "Sully" whom the Sports Guy on espn.com refers to occasionally?
[/q]

No... there are plenty of Sullivans in Boston.  Everyone out here probably knows one or two...

[Robb]

[Q]gtsully Wrote:

...having Bâby Ruth bars thrown at me...[/q]

They have Baby Ruth bars?  Sweet!!!  

:-P

[Jerseygirl]

First, I was referring to Red Sox fan behavior in general after a win, even though I admittedly didn't express that clearly.  If you guys didn't beat your chests a little after winning the pennant over a team that has performed significantly better than your team throughout the course of history, I'd be hesitant to call you fans at all.  

Second, of course there are more a-hole Yankees fans than there are a-hole Red Sox fans.  The Yanks are the NYC baseball team that it's cool to like, and New York is a bigger city than Boston, plus they have fans like me from west of the Connecticut River, plus oh good the crazy guy who leers at me is outside of my apartment picking through the trash for cans which means I can't go out to pick up my laundry from the cleaners lest I inadvertently attract his attention...sorry, lost my train of thought.  Anyway, I'm sure there's some way of proving my theory, but it involves statistical analysis of some sort and I'm about as right-brained as they come, so I won't personally be responsible for proving my point through the magic of math.

Third, speaking of ESPN.com's sports guy Bill Simmons, he used to be my favorite -- even through this harrowing ALCS -- until he went off on that question during the chat from that woman about the year "2000" chant, where he was all like, "Since you're a girl, I'll speak slowly," or something like that.  I'm too lazy to link.  Screw you Bill.  Of course matters aren't helped when Page 2 doesn't have any legitimate female sports columnists, but still, his whole female bashing is ridiculous and relentless.  Mocking my team I can take.  My gender, no.  

Fourth, speaking of the "Year 2000" chant, I really don't think it will have the desired effect.  After all, the Yanks are really only a little off their pace of 1 championship every 4 years.  I know that's not an exact figure, but you know. I'm right brained and all.