Red Sox vs. Yankees this weekend.....

I think she uses them as backup.

If you enjoy baseball curses, may I recommend the Chicago Cubs. Ours has a billy goat. :P

Nice thread, btw. I hope to be at Fenway sometime in August. Not quite sure when yet, tho'.

BOSTON — When it comes to the 2004 season, the Red Sox are nine innings away from being Three-D. That's morgue talk for stiffs on slabs, and translates into Definitely Done Dancing.

The Yankees fitted the suddenly mute Red Sox for body bags and toe tags last night at Fenway Park, where they bludgeoned the Dead Sox, 19-8, in front of 35,126 bitter customers — put themselves in position to sweep their blood rivals tonight and capture the AL pennant.

The victory gives the Yankees a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series going into tonight's Game 4. No team in baseball has flushed such a bulge. That means the Yankees are a lock for their 40th flag, and their second straight World Series appearance — this time, against the Cardinals or Astros.

It will be the seventh time in the last nine seasons the Yankees have advanced to the World Series.

A win tonight and the Yankees can do a pinstriped cha-cha-cha celebration on Fenway's olive lawn that would add more misery to a franchise that bathes in disappointment. And they would have another chance tomorrow night in Game 5 if they don't win tonight.

"I am not worried about that," Derek Jeter said following the 4-hour, 20-minute tilt that set the mark for the longest nine-inning game in postseason history. "I am worried about [tonight]."

Hideki Matsui continued his torrid ALCS hitting, going 5-for-6 with two homers and five RBIs. He is batting .600 (9-for-15) with 10 RBIs in this series. The five hits tie an LCS record.

Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield added homers to lead a 22-hit attack that produced three runs in the first, three in the third, five in the fourth, two in the fifth, four in the seventh and two in the ninth. Sheffield had four hits and four RBIs and A-Rod scored five runs, had three hits and had five RBIs.

The 19 Yankee runs also were an LCS record. A-Rod's and Matsui's five runs scored tied a postseason record.

"I expected this all year, it's just happening now," Sheffield said. "Every time we scored we said, 'Let's score some more.' "

Said Matsui: "I tried to do what I could to win tonight. Even from my perspective it was a good outing."

Since Red Sox manager Terry Francona used Tim Wakefield, his scheduled No. 4 starter, in relief last night, Francona will go with Derek Lowe tonight and possibly start Pedro Martinez if there is a Game 5 tomorrow night.

On a night Yankee starter Kevin Brown gave up four runs (three earned) and five hits in two innings, the Red Sox pitchers were brutal. Starter Bronson Arroyo gave up six runs and six hits in two innings. Ramiro Mendoza gave up a run in one inning. Curtis Leskanic was tagged for three runs in one-third of an inning. Wakefield gave up five runs in 31/3 innings and Alan Embree surrendered two runs in one-third of an inning. Finally, Mike Myers was spanked for two runs in two frames.

BOSTON — The biggest bats finally shut up the biggest baseball mouths as the quietest professional, Hideki Matsui, helped lead the Yankees.

The Bronx Bombers annihilated the Red Sox last night at Fenway Park, and believe it, this one was personal. The final score was 19-8, but it was much more impressive than that.

Godzilla homered twice, produced five hits and scored five runs, and is going to be the ALCS MVP with 10 RBI after three games.

The 19 runs were the most ever scored by the Yankees in the postseason. The Yankees buried their undisciplined arch-rivals, putting them in their place and shutting up the Red Sox and the full house of tortured Boston faithful.

"We wanted to make a statement and we did," said Gary Sheffield, who was 4-for-5 with a home run and four RBIs. "We're not here to win a war of words. We're here to win the games."

Said Joe Torre, "Our players have a lot of determination. You saw it. You can't teach that."

No, you can't. Remember, it was Curt Schilling who talked about shutting up 55,000 Yankee fans in Game 1 and barked all year about coming here to break the Curse, but the Curse of the Bambino continues. Exactly one year after Aaron Boone finished off the Red Sox with his 11th-inning home run, the Yankees hammered the 2004 Sawx into submission on this Oct. 16.

This was baseball brutality and when Bernie Williams doubled home Sheffield and Matsui in the seventh off Alan Embree, the fans began to flood the exits. It was Embree who came into the clubhouse chanting "1918" on Thursday. These Sox will never learn to stop mocking the Curse.

At one point the Yankees scored 11 unanswered runs. Five innings into this game, the Yankees produced 10 extra-base hits, behind the bashing of Matsui — who has become the Yankees' Iron Horse — Sheffield and another monster game from Alex Rodriguez.

This wasn't just about the Yankees taking a 3-0 lead in the ALCS and most certainly punching their ticket to their 40th World Series. This was about driving a stake through the heart of Red Sox Nation.

No team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit. In ALCS history, no team has even won the fourth game after falling behind 3-zip.

All season, the Yankees let their play speak for themselves. The Red Sox talk turned out to be so much bigger than their walk.

Before this series started, Sheffield told friends how much he wanted to take care of business against Boston. He was not alone. The Yankees were tired of hearing comments from the likes of Kevin Millar and Johnny Damon, tired of hearing that the Red Sox were going to run the table this postseason, winning 11 straight.

After their three-game sweep of the ailing and sloppy Anaheim Angels, the Red Sox bravado became even bolder. All along, the Yankees were taking mental notes. The Yankees came into this series looking to make a statement: This is how you play the game and always respect the game.

In the first two games, the Yankees beat Red Sox aces, Schilling and Pedro Martinez, but last night, on a cool New England evening, they just beat the cocky Red Sox silly, starting off by corn-rolling starter Bronson Arroyo, who did not make it out of the third inning.

The Red Sox led 4-3 after three innings, marking their first lead of the series. A-Rod then immediately tied it with a home run as the Yankees kept bashing away, teaching the Red Sox a lesson they will never forget.

http://www.newsday.com/media/thumbnails/storylink/2004-10/14737591.jpg

BOSTON — This time, the Red Sox didn't even give their fans the familiar tease — the usual angst, suspense, agony.

For the second straight year, the Yankees and the Red Sox began a game on Oct. 16 and ended it on Oct. 17. The last time, it took an Aaron Boone home run at 12:16 in the morning to kill off the Red Sox, to send their Nation off into a quiet, dreadful winter, and if you'd have asked them, they would never believe they could feel an ache worse than that.

Except last night, when Bill Mueller's lazy fly ball settled into Bernie Williams' mitt at exactly 12:30 in the morning, what you saw at Fenway Park was the worst kind of emotion:

Complete capitulation.

They know they are through embracing this team, enjoying it, believing in it. Those who stayed to the bitter end saw one of the worst thumpings in postseason annals, one of the worst bludgeonings in the long, colorful history of Red Sox-Yankees. It ended 19-8, but it felt even worse than that, because at the end of that score was another one.

This one 3-0.

This one spelling the end of this chapter of the greatest feud in all of professional sports. The Red Sox knew it, even if they couldn't say it. The Yankees knew it, even if they wouldn't. Anyway, the empty eyes and vapid stares of the last Fenway stragglers said all anyone needed to hear.

On a night the Sox could still have fought their way back into the series, still kept a grip on this dream season of theirs, they had the misfortune to have the best seats in the house for the hour when the Yankees we'd expected to see all season finally reported for work.

In the earliest version of this Yankee blueprint, there was going to be an endless string of nights like this one, nights when they were going to treat major-league pitchers like Iron Mike machines, denting fences when they weren't clearing them. And conducting the whole thing was going to be Alex Rodriguez, the best player bringing the most dangerous bat to the best lineup.

Somehow, the Yankees won 106 games before we saw this all explode for real.

But win No. 107 was something else, something to see.

"It's hard to describe when it happens like that," Joe Torre said. "You saw it. You almost can't explain it."

Instead, if you are a Yankee fan, you enjoy it. You especially enjoy the moment in the top of the third inning, right after the Red Sox had stormed back from an 0-3 hole to grab their first lead of this series, 4-3. It lasted exactly four pitches. The fourth was a slider from Bronson Arroyo that seemed to screech to a halt in mid-flight, just high enough for A-Rod to belt it over The Wall, over the Monster Seats, over the screen and out onto Lansdowne Street.

With one swat, he'd shaken this game like a snow bubble. He'd filched the Red Sox' lead. And he'd taken a Hoover to all the excitement, all the life, all the energy that had electrified Fenway Park from the moment they'd opened the gates. One swing is all it took.

"The only way an inning you score runs in [as the Red Sox did] is going to be validated is if you can shut down the other club in the following inning," said Torre. "It's like football. You score a touchdown and get the ball right back."

The Red Sox never got the ball back. Rodriguez, the old high-school quarterback, wouldn't let them. The rest of the night was a blur of bad Red Sox pitching and Yankees crossing the plate. But it took A-Rod to make the rest of it happen. One swing is all it took.

One swing, on another Red Sox-Yankees night that would bridge the 16th and 17th days of October, and A-Rod had delivered another death knell to a city that knows the melody all too well. And had already begun accepting their fate.

Torre is a Troll

http://www.georgettesworld.com/main/stamp3.jpg

KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!

pedro can take the frank zappa cameo role

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20041021/capt.nyy17910210514.alcs_red_sox_yankees_nyy179.jpg

FUCK THE MOTHERFUCKING FUCK RED FUCKSOX.

I WANT TO DIE.

ha ha

IP check on whether or not o.nate is really Tim McCarver, please! ;)

2. One of my ESPN bosses pulled the "This is the year" routine with me on the phone this morning, then asked what would happen to me (and every Red Sox fan) if we won the World Series. You know, the whole "Wouldn't you lose your identity?" thing. I've gotten this from time to time over the years, and I always thought it was so ludicrous that it didn't even warrant its own column. But since people keep bringing it up, I'll explain it to you once and for all:

Red Sox fans don't define themselves by the fact that the team hasn't won the World Series since World War I. We're defined by the fact that the team hasn't won the World Series since World War I. There's a difference. We hate hearing about the (rhymes with "schmurse"), we bristle at every "19*8" reference ... we just want to reach a point where nobody brings this stuff up anymore. It amazes me how many people don't understand that. All we ever wanted was to be "Just Another Team That Won the World Series Recently."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/041007

congrats to the red sox -- the best team won last night. red sox fans, have yer fun while it lasts!

Someone please explain these new yellow and. Blue Red Sox uniforms

City Connect, every team gets a butt ugly alternate jersey for special occasions.