It would take a Yankee fan to be naive enough to think that a three game sweep in this series means a damn thing. So what if the Red Sox had a chance to knock the Yankees out of contention in the AL East? So what if they had a chance to hurt the Yankees chances of getting the AL Wildcard? Dropping three straight games to your archrival is never a bad thing, right?

When you look at it, it's not as though the Yankees came in reeling from dropping three of four in Detroit. The Yankees threw their 1, 2 and 3 starters at Boston, while Boston countered with pitchers who weren't expected to win. And none of that would have mattered if Major League Baseball didn't pull a depressingly juvenile stunt in sending a representative to ensure that Terry Francona was wearing his uniform jersey while the Yankees had a man on base.

That one instance really cost the Red Sox the series. It had a major impact on the game played the night before and on this afternoon's game. Bud Selig owes the Red Sox an apology for that devious bit of trickeration. In all seriousness, while it was a strange incident, undoubtedly poorly timed and probably unnecessary, it's not really that big a deal.

If the Red Sox don't know how to play the Yankees with Jeter at second having faced that team 13 times prior to the game this season, then having their inspired leader on hand might not have been enough to help them there. After all, the team ought to know how to line up to defend Abreu or A Rod or Matsui in every conceiveale count no matter who's on what base. These guys in the Yankee lineup are fairly well known. The Red Sox see them on occasion, so nothing should disrupt their concentration on the task at hand.

However, nothing seems to be able to happen to the Red Sox these days that doesn't present complications. I'm not sure what to make of that incident which culminated in Joba Chamberlain's ejection. Yes, the Sox have hit A Rod a few times this season. But the Yankees don't seem to be the reactive type, or at least they haven't been in the Joe Torre era. Also, why Youkilis and why in the ninth with one out and a five run lead. It would make more sense to get him out as opposed to putting him on base and providing the Red Sox a spark to start a rally.

However, all that logic doesn't change the fact that he threw consecutive fastballs over Youkilis' head, entirely too close for comfort. I think the umpire made the right decision to eject him immediately after the second pitch. While I don't want to believe that Chamberlain was head hunting because it makes no sense in the situation, it's hard to argue with the fact that both pitches were essentially in the exact same location. One pitch can get away from you, but two is hard to explain.

Tonight, in the wake of a three game sweep at the hands of the Yankees, seems to be the perfect time for me to answer the recent attention that has been given to Red Sox Nation's presence in opposing stadiums. This is not a good thing. It's a symptom of the underlying problems in Major League Baseball.

Because the baseball season has devolved into a long, pointless tournament that only a very few teams can win because only they can afford to collect enough quality pieces to play at a high level, fans in a number of cities have long since given up on their local teams. Why pay to see a team that needs a series of major miracles to qualify for the postseason? So there are plenty of tickets to induce plenty of tools who have been priced out of attending games in Boston to travel to cities like Baltimore and Tampa and Kansas City.

Then there is the phenomenon of Red Sox Nation spreading like a virus through America. Since so many people can't afford to live in New England, there has been a diaspora of Red Sox fans. And since man businesses decided to forsake the expensive Northeast for cheaper regions, there are a ton of New England expatriates in Arizona, Florida, California and other such places. So the Red Sox have a small base in a number of other major league towns.

Also, this team and its myriad of vices draws to it with magnetic force every cutthroat, criminal, misfit, moron, hypocrite and douche in each city in which they play. Every person who thinks the infield fly rule has something to do with insects, every jackass who venerates the cliche fest that is Bull Durham, every person who always wanted to be a bully but never had the chance and every tool who thinks Bill Simmons is the lizard king is a potential Red Sox fan just waiting for the bandwagon to gather steam.

But those who remain and endure in New England are seldom any better than the new crop of Red Sox fans and the exiles. For every normal, sane, rational Red Sox fan that I know, there are at least ten that would sip the refuse at the Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant if John Henry's crack staff of PR people broke the story that it contained vitamins and minerals. For instance, there is the fan who tells me things like JD Drew's numbers are comprable to A Rod's and Red Sox fans will regard JD Drew as a bargain next season.

And after 2004, there were those teary eyed losers who railed and raved about how much this team had meant to their ancestors of the nth degree that had endured all the losing but kept the faith. If one in thirty of that class of fan could prove an ancestor of theirs had been on of the 10,000 odd fans who managed to fill Fenway to 1/3 of its capacity for the final game of the single greatest player in the history of the franchise, then I'd be a little less vocal in my criticism.

For every fan (or informed adversary like me) who knows who Jackie Jensen was or has read the John Updike piece on Ted Williams' final game, there is a massive legion whose only connection to the days before Pedro Martinez came to town comes from nostalgia pieces by the CHB, Bob Ryan, Bill Simmons and others. Red Sox Nation is a waste of time and space. We would all be better off if they would shut up, and perhaps refrain from breeding.

What does not help is that the media, for the most part, coddles and even encourages these jackasses to even greater levels of jackassery. Bill Simmons, who ought to know better (but he's from Connecticut, so I make allowances), seems to enjoy this trend to an indecent level. Of course, I shouldn't be surprised the SPorts Guy feels that way, since these bandwagon fans seem to regard him as a spiritual leader and fall all over themselves to worship at his altar.

This piece from USA Today, which seems to have sparked this new wave of attention to Red Sox Nation, misses the key point that ought to be made about Red Sox fans. Red Sox fans are caught up in a connundrum that is all the more maddening for their inability to recognize and understand it. Red Sox fans have all of the vices of Yankee fans. They're loud, they bully people who don't see things their way, they're boring and they have an inflated sense of their own baseball IQ.

However, Red Sox fans have none of the virtues of Cubs fans, to whom they are often compared. Cubs fans are patient, they endure losing without the cynical, affected posture Red Sox fans developed and have not shed since 2004. Red Sox fans are much more like fans of the other Chicago team. Like the White Sox, the Red Sox lost for a very, very, very long time. And just as the stigma of being second team in second city has tainted the White Sox fans, constantly coming off worse than the Yankees year in and year out still wears on Red Sox fans, even in this post-2004 era.

For a change, I am not the only one railing against Red Sox Nation. Red Sox fans have become so arrogant and unpleasant that Jim Caple (author of The Devil Wears Pinstripes) has himself repented of being a Red Sox fan. Caple wrote this piece ripping Red Sox fans for the way they have comported themselves following the 2004 chamopionship run. It's really quite good. Not quite as good as a three game sweep by the Yankees, but still worth the read.

One more happy note before I sign off... The season series between the Red Sox and the Yankees stands at 8-7 in favor of the Bronx Bombers. Good times. Good times, indeed.

Just so you know, there will be no links tonight because I'm feeling particularly lazy. But I have somethings to say. It's just another post with an ESPN theme. Obviously they spent a lot of time on the Daytona 500, today and the breaking story was the bizarre episode of All My Morons that has been the 2006 San Diego Chargers. There was the linebacker shot by an off-duty cop. There was the safety arrested by Federal authorities for allegedly selling codeine. Then there was the waiting until the offensive and defensive coordinators accepted head coaching positions with other teams. Now they hire Norv Turner, who was once chased from a blackjack table in Las Vegas by Bill Simmons and one of his super-cool friends.

But there was a substantial amount of coverage dedicated to the All Star Weekend. First, on Mike and Mike in the Morning, Greenie made the pronouncement that no one puts on a show like David Stern. Meanwhile, he admitted later that he gained a renewed appreciation for Bono as he watched Mary J. Blige flounder her way through the classic U2 song "One."

And then there was Wayne Newton. It took me 2 days to come to terms with his presence. He was terrible. Actually, he was far, far, far, far worse than terrible. First, as Mike Wilbon would say on PTI, he looked like he'd escaped from the wax museum. Whatever they did to lift his face and Botox away his wrinkles made him look like a 2 week old sandwich in Saran Wrap. And there was his "tan." I don't know how to describe it, save to say that it made him look like one of those oranges that have those rough brown patches that the growers call wind scars.

Then there was his hair. It looked like his hair had been dyed with the black paint they use to rustproof metal benches and chairs. I don't know that it can be fairly called hair, but it sits on his head and it's not a hat, so we'll call it hair. It looked to me as though some drunken hair restoration technician had sewn the hair on somewhat imperfectly.

And there was his singing. I don't know much about octaves and that sort of thing, but I know he was nowhere near the high notes that made up the falsetto that made the song unique in the first place. His version of Viva Las Vegas was an insult even to people who aren't Elvis fans (I, however am an Elvis fan). Basically he looked and sounded like a bad impersonator. I get the feeling that Englebert Humperdink sat up somewhere in Branson, Missouri or wherever old lounge singers go to die and called his agent wondering why he couldn't get a gig with the NBA.

Then there was the triumphant return of Around the Horn. Because the show had been bumped all last week for NASCAR Now, they hadn't had a chance to excoriate Tim Hardaway. Everybody's conscience, Jay Mariotti, was in top form. He commended David Stern for the swift and fair response in banishing the homophobe from All Star Weekend. The voice of the voiceless went on to lament that certain other commissioners (Bud Selig, by name) do not act with such probity.

It was truly inspired, or at least it was, before I translated it from Mariotti-speak into English. Basically, Jackass Jay said: "Whah, Whah! Big Bad Ozzie Guillen was mean to me, please fight my battles for me, Mr. Commissioner." I've had enough of Mariotti. He's a total tool. And of the off chance that one of his minions monitors my site, feel free to tell him this. Jay Mariotti is a middle aged guy just coming off an angioplasty. The actuarial tables are in my favor on this one. He's going to die before I do, and I'm going to find his grave and take a leak on it. A little harsh, and totally lacking in my customary good humor, but I am so sick of phony tough and crazy brave reporters.

Speaking of people monitoring my site, I've been setting traffic records lately. It got me thinking. For those of you who are new to this site, Catch 22 is one of my favorite books. In the novel, the protagonist was forced to censor letters written by enlisted prisoners while he stayed in the officer's ward at the military hospital. Since it was boring duty, he got creative and started censoring all the modifiers, then all the romance words, then everything but the salutation while he rewrote the letter's body and finally he censored the envelopes. When he censored the letters, he signed Washington Irving's name.

Once he censored the envelopes, the military bureaucracy sprang into action. The Army sent a man from the the Criminal Investigations Division to the hospital to catch Washington Irving. This triggered an entire series of misadventures which ended up with the first CID man getting sick. The Army then sent a second CID man. Eventually, the two CID men spent all their time investigating each other.

I went through that long aside to say something, believe it or not. The other day, I joked with one of my friends that my spike in traffic was due to a number of people monitoring me for Mariotti, the CHB, the Red Sox, the Pats, NASCAR, Ainge and the other targets of this blog. After keeping an eye in this site for a while, I imagined that they would eventually use this site as a means to monitor one another. It seemed like a funny image.

Can you picture it? Across the country, recent college graduates who always wanted to be athletes, but lacked the size, speed, strength, talent or any/all of them to make it became jock sniffs and gave up their dreams to enter the world of sports journalism. Now they sit in their cubicles, dividing their time between monitoring my site and mooning over the hot receptionist who is hopelessly out of their collective league. And I bet they're questioning their career choice as they try to remember whether Mr. Mariotti takes his coffee with cream and sugar and wonder if Jay will release his pent up aggressions on the lowly intern after Ozzie or Hawk Harrelson disses him again.

At long last, our long regional nightmare is over. Bud Selig will make the announcement sometime in the not too distant future (he'll hold it for a week or so to let the NFL have their little title game) that the formality that is the 2007 season need not even be played. The Boston Red Sox will be awarded the World Series trophy. Matuszaka will get the AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards, Schilling and Beckett will divide the two CY Young awards between them and Ortiz and Manny the two MVP awards.

The final piece of the puzzle is now in place. JD Drew and the Red Sox have finally agreed on the language which will enable the Red Sox to void the final years of the deal should JD surprise us all by hurting himself and missing significant time. After all, just because he's played a maximum of 145 games in his career, and only done that twice doesn't mean that Red Sox Nation should sweat his durability.

There are a few major concerns in this signing. First, JD Drew is not a good guy. He talked the Dodgers into letting him out of his deal this offseason so they could renegotiate. Fans in every city where he has played hate him (except Atlanta, where there are no Braves fans, only nitwits who show up to be seen at the games and do the foolish Tomahawk chop), even Philadelphia where he never played a game but pulled a John Elway and demanded a trade before he'd play for the organization.

Second, there are warning signs that he's not prepared for the pressures of playing in Boston. He spaced out in the playoffs for the Dodgers, getting thrown out at home immediately after one of his other teammates had been tagged. It's also not a good sign that Curt Schilling came out and implored Boston fans to give him a chance 6 months before the season even starts.

Third, the Red Sox have a three man outfield in place right now. Is it really clear that JD Drew is ahead of Wily Mo, Coco or Manny? How will the fans react to a fourth outfielder who earns $70 million over 5 years? Perhaps I'm being unfair, I imagine that Drew could fit in as a spot DH and maybe a first baseman. Obviously the moderate, even tempered citizens of Red Sox Nation will gladly embrace an overpaid underachiever.

There could be another motive behind the Drew deal. Even though he is not as talented as Manny, not a natural center fielder like Crisp and carries more baggage than Wily Mo, JD Drew could have been signed to make one of the other outfielders expendable. It would solve all of the Red Sox problems if they were to deal Manny and plug JD Drew into left field on a regular basis. Or at least as regular as a guy who might make it to 145 games if we all go down to the chapel and light candles can be.

Of all people, I shouldn't be one to raise questions or complaints about this signing, since it seems that the Red Sox "brain trust" is in a death struggle with galactic stupidity. For the guy who writes Sedition in Red Sox Nation, that seems like it should make me happy. But it confuses me. It seems like the only person who could like the Drew signing is the CHB, since it would set up his dream scenario, the Manny trade. I would like to see Manny traded because there is no way that trade makes the Red Sox better. But as I don't understand this JD Drew scenario, maybe it means the the Red Sox aren't stupider than I expect, but stupider like a fox to borrow a phrase from Homer Simpson in the Lemon of Troy episode.

Other things have confused me a bit over the last day or so. First, Gilbert Arenas is allowed to impugn Coach K and Duke's ability to stop him should Agent Zero get the chance to play the man who cut him from the US National team. Obviously, Gilbert needs to watch more basketball at the NCAA level. Yes, he could put up 85 points in an NCAA game, but in Cameron indoor stadium he'd have 3-4 fouls within 10 or 12 seconds of stepping onto the floor. I have to say that the Washington Wizards gold and black uniforms frighten me. They look like something out of a bad sports movie.

The two other things that are bothering me at the moment will have to wait for another day, since I'm tired. They are: the Winter X games and Toyota coming to NASCAR.