it's that time of year again, the weather is getting warmer, pitchers and catchers have reported, and the yankee-red sox shit-talking train has pulled out of the station, where it momentarily paused to refuel. from here on out it will be picking up speed till april, when the sox and yanks meet in the bronx to open the season.
opening day is what i am most looking forward to; the put up or shut up. but for now, the verbal barbs, especially the ones coming out of boston, are good for a bit of entertainment. the red sox have always been willing to make themselves look like a bunch of whining tools for a little press and i, for one, find it hilarious.
there's the a-rod/trot nixon fued, although the a-rod/varitek on-field fued is much more exciting...trot nixon has appointed himself the resident red sox windbag, and likes to run his mouth about everything, regardless of whether it concerns him directly or not. i must express a certain degree of smug satisfaction at the fact that my side, the "evil empire" , does a hell of a lot less in the way of spewing ridiculous public statements deriding the sox. we leave that to the fans, people like me; loud-mouthed elitists, drunk on my own sense of fan superiority. the yanks themselves run a tight p.r. ship, and i think it drives the red sox crazy. especially red sox like trot nixon.
then we have david wells, who will be playing in boston this season. he wasted no time in slagging the yankees, taking shots at everyone from a-rod to joe torre, pausing to mention that mel stottlemyre was "probably the best pitching coach i ever had"*. he also took a moment to reflect that he perhaps "wore out his welcome"* in new york. couldn't have said it better myself. wells has always been all over the map, constantly pissed off over implications that he is fat, which he is, and don't forget lazy...i won't forgive him for his "freak" back injury that took him out of the 2003 world series in the first inning of game five. by "freak" we mean out of shape and hungover. by "david wells" we mean mercenary, willing to play for any old team that doesn't mind him being sidelined by an occasional case of gout. there's a great quote on espn.com today from wells, who apparently called brian cashman in the offseason and offered his services to new york yet again, before he slithered off to boston. "i told him(brian cashman) that if there was any interest i'd love to come back and play, and brian told me that 'we'd love to have you, but the boss (steinbrenner) is looking in another direction. we're going to go with youth this year.' and then they turn around and sign randy."*
yes, boomer, but i'm willing to bet that randy has logged considerably less time at krispy kreme than you have. in the interest of historical accuracy, i was all about boomski when he played in new york circa 97/98, but when he came back in 2002 he had lost the chemistry that is essential to the yanks. i realize that there were problems between him and upper management, but that's the kind of stuff that shouldn't be seeping on to the field, and in his case, it did. in fact, i happen to believe that his shoddy play was less about injury and more about sticking it to the people in the yankee organization that he was unhappy with, although i'll stand alone on that theory if i have to. either way, in true mercenary fashion, he's taken his fat ass to boston, where he gets to share a pitching rotation with curt schilling and curt schilling's ego, which takes up about four lockers and has its own jersey. have fun, boomer. i'm just hoping for a little side action, a la pedro/schill last year, where wells comes in especially hurtin' one morning and gets into it with curt. i don't think that's remotely beyond the realm of possiblity. either way, wells claims he's dead-set on proving his pitching and yankee-beating abilities at fenway. we shall see, ol' boy, we shall see.
like i said, the real showdown will begin in the bronx on april 3rd, and hopefully, for the sake of good baseball, continue all the way through to the 2005 alcs. oh, how i do love the rivalry; the good, the bad, the ugly. go yanks.
*all quotes from www.espn.com
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