This is what I wanted, isn’t it?
A month or so ago, I glanced at the American League East standings and said to myself, “Man, the Yankees really do suck. Ha, it’s like they’re furiously waving around their limbs in the water to stay above .500, slowly gagging on seawater to meet an impending doom. This is awesome; the Sox really have nothing to worry about.”
After realizing I don’t think with semicolons, I also realized, “No wait, the Yankees sucking is what sucks.”
How boring, I thought. Battling the Orioles for first place is about as exciting as watching a race between Horatio Sanz and Michael Johnson, except Johnson stops to sign some autographs, make a cameo in a movie and write a book before actually starting to run.
The Orioles are definitely better this year, but you had to know sooner or later those birds were going to migrate south and the Sox would pass them for good. Believe it or not, I wanted New York back in the picture. It’s like when the Joker would have a devious robbery scheme all but wrapped up, only to be disappointed Batman wasn’t there to try and stop him so he decides it’s not even worth it anymore. Really, winning isn’t any fun if you can’t dash the hopes and dreams of your sworn enemy while you’re at it.
Something that kind of scares me about Northeastern’s switch to the Colonial Athletic Association is now Husky teams won’t have as many opportunities to beat up on BU or exact revenge on Vermont. In the latter case, it’s a possibility the Catamounts won’t return to Huntington Avenue for a long time. You just need rivals for sports to be fun – even if your team isn’t playing the hated nemisis, that game against another opponent is still important because of how close the rival is in the standings.
Well, now those Yankees are back in form, on their way into Boston tomorrow and those birds are proving to be about as pesky as those Canadian geese that are always pooping all over the Fens. If I had just woken up from a coma after the Red Sox won the World Series (a feasible situation) and looked in the paper to see the Sox led the third-place Yankees by just 2.5 games at the All-Star break, I’d assume it’s been back and forth all season and be thrilled about that lead. Instead, I’m thinking the words “be careful what you wish for” would have been a good adage to heed.
The Yankees are now the ones slowly but surely catching up to us like Jason in one of the “Friday the 13th” movies. You think to yourself, “What the hell? I just killed that guy last year! He’s back? This can’t be happening!”
As Bob Lobel always says after emerging from his tanning bed backstage, “Folks, don’t hit the panic button just yet.” It’s true. The Sox are in good shape and most of the team is playing well. However, things are about as up in the air as they possibly could be during this All-Star game hiatus.
Keith Foulke is on the disabled list after throwing cheese all year. Jay Payton, whose salary was being paid for by his former team, was designated for assignment. Kevin Millar is said to be on the verge of being traded for reliever Chad Qualls of the Houston Astros. Who is Adam Stern? Ramon Vazquez was traded for Alex Cora – essentially the same player except Cora has never played third base and is being paid about $600,000 more. (I’m hoping there are clubhouse issues to explain that one.) Curt Schilling might fill in as closer. Even stranger, Gabe Kapler is probably coming back after hitting .153 in Japan. Anything I missed?
That’s right, the David Wells comments on Kenny “camera slammera” Rogers. I’m pretty sure I have Wells figured out, except I don’t really understand why he decided to open his mouth on the issue. Still, I saw his comments on TV and I actually agree with him and feel like he was just telling it like it is.
(For those not up to speed, Wells told The Boston Globe’s Gordon Edes that he thinks Rogers was justified and the cameraman was purposely pushing his buttons before Rogers attacked him June 29. (For a second parenthetical aside within parenthesis, Rogers had complained about the cameras being on him the night before the altercation.) Wells also went on to equate the behavior of the cameraman to sexual assault and trivialized his subsequent milking of the incident. He likened it to when Yankees Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia allegedly started a fight with a Red Sox groundskeeper who was later seen wearing a neck brace.)
Regardless of how accurate or inappropriate his assessment of the situation was, one can’t make comments like that without expecting a ridiculous out-of-context media controversy to ensue.
That, on top of Johnny Damon’s big mouth of late, makes it seem like this Red Sox clubhouse needs a lesson on holding its collective tongue. Right now, it’s as if the team just broke its mom’s vase and is trying to glue it back together before she comes home so it can keep dating the girl across the street. Except it’s a lot more complicated than that.
The series against New York beginning at Fenway Park tomorrow is shaping up to be the most important three-game set of the entire season thus far. So much can change depending on how things play out over the next few days. It was exactly what I wanted a month ago, but now the anxiety is kicking in. Really though, this is what sports is all about: close competition. And from the spectator standpoint, conflict like this is absolutely necessary. Part of me might be regretting the call for a better Yankee team, but the season really wouldn’t be interesting without them.
In the face of all this pressure, though, I still think the Sox will be fine when all is said and done. After all, Jason is always defeated at the end of every “Friday the 13th” flick.
— Tim Coughlin can be reached at [email protected]
