The Red Sox and Yankees do not always need to play on Sunday night - Over the Monster Over the Monster Rec Jim Rogash/Getty Images How do you do, fellow kids? Do you have time for a quick word about the Boston Molasses Disaster? In January of 1919, a large molasses tank exploded, sending a river of ooze through the city that killed 21 people and injured 150 more. For years afterward, Bostonians swore they could still smell the stuff under the persistent summer sun. And now I smell something foul at ESPN. Just a quick note at the outset: What you are about to read is a certified take, one forged in the lukewarm fire of middle age by a guy who starts work at 6 a.m. and has a one-year-old daughter -- forces that conspire to send me to Sleepy Viking town at an hour incompatible with most night games, be they on Sunday or otherwise. It is a take that will change exactly nothing whatsoever, and perhaps less than that. Anyhow, the take is as follows: the Red Sox and Yankees do not always have to be the Sunday Night Baseball game, as they have been for the last two weekends.

I oppose this nonsense, because Sunday Night Baseball is a pox on our great game! I do not like how it "starts" at 8 p.m. and, owing to the elongated commercial breaks and general pace of trench warfare, ends sometime during hour two of "Sully and the Scuzz" on the Monday morning commute. This won't just be the second time we've pre-empted the Scuzzer, either; two weeks ago, the Sox played the Astros into the wee hours. I wasn't awake, having long since been swallowed by the sweet darkness, the molasses having taken me whole. To the caveats! Obviously ESPN has a good reason for choosing Red Sox/Yankees for their primetime slot, because it is Red Sox/Yankees, and people will watch the game on television in larger numbers than they would watch other teams. Their logic for doing so is sound and I'm perfectly clear on why it has worked this way, being mostly of sound mind. Howevah, the day's best game will take place Sunday at Wrigley Field, where the Cubs will face the Nationals.

And coming off a Red Sox/Yankees game a week before, there's every reason to throw the Cubbies on for all the non-HBO watchers to see. Leave Papi to his Game of Thrones, and us to our decent baseball teams. Of course, a lot of this is informed by the Yankees' spiral into mediocrity, which has come as fast as a Dellin Betances fastball. Just last week in this same spot, my editor threw a line into my "The Yankees will rise again!" column that hedged against my predictions of doom for this season; seven days later, the team looks like toast, and you don't have toast for Sunday dinner.

[Said editor's note: Stop exposing the business, Bryan.] Must Reads Examining the Red Sox' problem against left-handed pitching The Red Sox need to promote Andrew Benintendi to Double-A On both a more serious note and a larger level, continuously putting the Red Sox and Yankees on the game's biggest stage is great for television, but it robs the rivalry of something of its inherent baseball-ness, and the idea that every regular season game counts just as much as the next one, or that you could, you know, take your kids to see the biggest rivalry in the sport. Oh yeah, I went there. I am Thinking of the Children. But I am also, as an early sleeper and generally cantankerous man, thinking of myself. The bigger problem with Sunday Night Baseball is that it is, real talk, kind of terrible no matter who is playing, even if it's better than ever, largely thanks to its suddenly wonderful booth. Jessica Mendoza is fantastic, but no matter how you slice it, the Sunday Night Baseball delivery system is about 20 years outdated.

There's no real reason to get excited about seeing Papi do his thing on a national game when you can do it on any day of any week at your own convenience with nothing more than an MLB.tv account. If ESPN really wants to maximize the value of Sunday Night Baseball, it would be better served, in the long run, but airing games between teams that are actually good at the time, instead of games between first- and last-place teams that are literally retreads of the previous week's programming, based on chippy games that happened 10 years ago. Maybe no one would notice or care at first, but it could build the product in the long run. Until then, I'll just miss about 90 percent of the Sox game while I'm off watching other things ranging from, but not limited to, [This editor's note: I have saved some of you from a Game of Thrones spoiler. My watch continues.] and the back of my eyeballs, and for the other 10 percent I'll likely cringe through a broadcast that moves at the speed of the Boston molasses flood, and is just about as fun. Something here stinks -- even if it's likely just my own hot take cooking up the smell.

Here is a good podcast about the Boston Molasses Disaster, if you're into that type of thing. More From Over the Monster Boston.com / Sports / Baseball / Red Sox / Finally! The Red Sox got their win, and the Farrellys' 'Fever Pitch' got the perfect ending By Ren�e Graham, Globe Staff | March 27, 2005 (Correction: In today's Movies section preview of ''Fever Pitch," Nick Hornby's book of the same name was incorrectly described as a novel. It is a memoir.) ADVERTISEMENT On a gloriously sunny day last summer, Peter Farrelly stood near the home-team dugout at Fenway Park pondering what it would mean to him if his beloved Boston Red Sox won the World Series. Among other things, it would mean Farrelly, who with his brother Bobby has written and directed such films as ''There's Something About Mary" and ''Dumb and Dumber," would have to change the ending of their latest film, ''Fever Pitch," a romantic comedy set in Boston during the baseball season. Days before he'd already shot an ending at Fenway, and reshoots can be time-consuming and expensive.

Still, Farrelly said, it would all be worth it if the Sox could finally reverse the curse. ''No team, in any sport, has been as consistently good as the Red Sox and not won a championship. We've been right there so many times," he said, taking a break between shooting crowd-reaction scenes at Fenway. ''So it would be amazing. We've been waiting so long, I can't even imagine what that would feel like to win the Series. If the Sox win the Series, that would be the perfect ending for everything." As everyone knows, the Olde Towne Team did the impossible, coming back from the 0-3 deficit to beat the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, then swept the St. Louis Cardinals to claim its first World Series in 86 years. And ''Fever Pitch" will reflect the Sox' historic win. On April 6, the film will have its world premiere, complete with red carpet arrivals by stars Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon at Fenway Park, at the nearby Fenway Theatre.

After the team's stunning ALCS upset, the Farrelly brothers asked the film's screenwriters, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, to change the script to reflect the team's historic winning ways. At the time, months after completing their shoot in Boston, Bobby Farrelly told the Associated Press, ''Until then, we didn't allow ourselves to dream that it could happen. You know how superstitious everyone is in Boston. We felt like if we started writing before that, we'd jinx them." The film's original ending, shot at Fenway after a game in front of 30,000 fans, had Barrymore and Fallon kissing on the field. That conclusion was scrapped. The new one unfolds at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, with the two actors embracing and celebrating among the Sox players at the actual World Series. ''It works brilliantly at the end," he told AP. ''We didn't want to try to fictionalize it, but now it's reality." It was brilliant for Hollywood, even if some Sox fans, basking in the celebration, found such an intrusion on the greatest moment in Boston sports history unseemly.

Based on Nick Hornby's best-selling novel about a soccer-obsessed Brit, ''Fever Pitch" is the story of a rabid Red Sox fan torn between his girlfriend and the team he adores. Still, Peter Farrelly, who codirected the film with his brother, maintains ''Fever Pitch" is a love story, not a baseball movie. ''You don't have to understand baseball to understand this movie. There's not one point where you need to comprehend anything on the field," he said, shortly after completing a scene in which Fallon sat in the stands and pretended to react to a play. At the same time, the real grounds crew was preparing the field for that evening's ballgame. ''Everything that takes place in the stands at Fenway is about his love for the Red Sox and this girl," Farrelly said. ''It's a love triangle -- guy, girl, Red Sox." Best known for his years as a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live," Fallon, who stars as the BoSox-loving fan, agreed. ''This could be about any kind of fanatic," he said, a Sox cap perched on his head.

''There's so many people who struggle in relationships because they're fans of things -- 'You don't understand what I'm about. I love baseball. I live for it. This is not a joke, I am dead serious.' There's a cult of people who feel this way." That's why the film is set in Boston, which the filmmakers view as a baseball town like no other. ''I live in LA. But when you come here and go to a restaurant, everybody's watching the game. They don't do that in LA," said Marc S. Fischer, one of the film's executive producers. ''Here, every bar has the TV on, you're talking on the street, and everyone knows the score. I love the passion. For a while, there was talk about making it [about] the Cubs, and they have history, too, but Fenway Park is Fenway Park." Long-suffering Chicago Cubs fans will testify that they have endured perhaps even more heartbreak than your average Sox fan. From billy goats to Steve Bartman, the hapless Cubs' World Series drought is even more ignominious than the Sox' taking 86 years to claim another championship.

Not only have the Cubs failed to win a World Series since 1908, they haven't even gotten to the big dance since 1945. ''We did talk about the Cubs and Wrigley Field, but in the end it had to be the Red Sox and Fenway," Bobby Farrelly said. ''I think the Red Sox fans have been through more. Yes, the Cubs fans have been through it longer, but I don't know that they've had the heartache. The Cubs are futile, but they don't have the charm of the Red Sox. They're not futile, but they're always good enough to get your hopes soaring." Though most of ''Fever Pitch" was shot in Toronto, the film's cast and crew spent nearly two weeks in Boston to make the film as authentic as possible. Real Sox players such as Johnny Damon appear in the film -- ''When you see Manny Ramirez in the movie, it's Manny Ramirez the baseball player," Farrelly said, not an actor playing him. And part of keepin' it real was barring the oft-imitated, usually butchered Boston accent.

(For an example, see ''Mystic River.") ''One of the things we said right away -- nobody's going to fake an accent in this movie. If they have a Boston accent, great. If they don't, fine," Bobby Farrelly said. ''Not everyone has it, and they certainly don't have the one they do on TV or in the movies, that Bobby Kennedy-type accent that they always get wrong." At the time, the Sox were in the thick of the playoff race and the city was buzzing with what was already shaping up to be a memorable run. Bobby Farrelly called it a ''magical time" to be in the city, and especially Fenway Park. ''Hope gives you so much energy," he said. ''When you expect to win, if you get it, you're just where you expected to be, but we're juiced up with all the hope." So juiced up, in fact, that the Farrellys had no problems convincing Sox fans to spend hours in the stands as nonspeaking extras.

Several hundred showed up each day to mime (crowd noise would be added later) reactions -- throwing their hands in the air, rising up in their seats to see a potential home run, or feigning the kind of soul-shearing disappointment that, until last October, coursed through the veins of every Sox fan. And, at the end of an actual game, nearly 30,000 fans remained for a crucial scene involving Fallon and Barrymore. ''The whole stadium stayed, and since the Red Sox won that night, they were in a good mood," Fallon said. ''It was like having 30,000 people watching you act, and that's pretty rough. But it was awesome. That's one of the most memorable moments of my career." Making ''Fever Pitch" has been especially gratifying for the Farrellys, who were raised in Cumberland, R.I., as diehard Sox fans. Their family would make the 45-minute trip ''four or five times a year, every year of my life" to Fenway Park, Bobby Farrelly recalled. ''I always followed the team and knew how many games they were out. But my brother had it worse," he said.

''He'd live and die for them. Even early on, I was more jaded -- 'They're gonna lose, they're gonna blow it' -- but he bit the hook every single time." Peter Farrelly's devotion to the Red Sox remains. He can toss off obscure facts and figures about seasons past and recalled countless summer nights of his childhood spent with his ear pressed to a radio broadcasting Sox games -- ''I was staring at the radio when Tony C. [former Sox outfielder Tony Conigliaro] got hit by [former California Angels pitcher] Jack Hamilton back in '67," he recalled. ''I'll never forget that." Being on the field at Fenway -- the same field as Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, and now Curt Schilling and David Ortiz -- was ''an absolute goof," Farrelly said. For a lifelong Sox fan, it was an extraordinary feeling only surpassed by the team's improbable, triumphant season. ''I don't want to fall into that trap of people who talk about baseball like it's this great spiritual thing," he said. ''But I must say there's just something about this park.

Being here, it's like life squared." Simmons: Don't bury the Red Sox just yet - ESPN Page 2 Share We were having the funeral for the 2008 Red Sox. Heck, I even gave one of the eulogies. Called my dad during the seventh inning for the requisite, "Yup, we just didn't have it this year," conversation and everything. My father and I covered all the bases in that phone call. The Sox were too banged up. They missed Manny. They didn't have enough reliable relievers. They had too many young guys with Schiraldian looks on their faces, too many pseudo-fans in the stands, too few free spirits in the dugout. They never should have let Josh Beckett pitch to those last two batters in Game 2. They never should have put Mike Timlin on the playoff roster, much less brought him in for the 11th inning of Game 2. And now, they were going down with a whimper. They were going to get swept in the middle three games at home, three humiliating losses to their formerly scrawny stepbrother in the AL East.

Our boys seemed fine with it, and that was what really troubled us. Who was this team? Where were the guys I watched for 6½ months? Were the defending champs really handing over their title without a fight? I remember uttering the words, "I wanted us to win tonight if only because it would have been another two days where I didn't have to think about Matt Cassel." I remember Dad admitting, "I turned it off 20 minutes ago; I'm watching 'ER.'" I couldn't even blame him. We hung up. And yet Stew Milne/US Presswire Hurting and homerless, Big Papi came through once again in Game 5. I didn't turn off Game 5. I did the old "half-watching it, going through e-mails and not getting totally invested even though I totally was" thing. When Tampa Bay's Grant Balfour allowed two baserunners in the bottom of the seventh, I would have been more excited with Dustin Pedroia coming up and David ORRR-tese (as Buck Martinez keeps calling him for reasons that remain unclear) on deck if Big Papi hadn't passed away about three weeks ago.

During an earlier inning, one of my Red Sox e-mail buddies wrote after yet another Papi whiff, "I'd rather have Brandon Moss or Jeff Bailey or Matt Stairs batting third for us. Papi is not just useless, he's visibly, obviously, pathetically useless." I love Papi and couldn't even muster a counter-argument. You can't hit for power with a bum wrist. You just can't. Meanwhile, Pedroia was battling Balfour. And something weird was happening. With no reason at all to believe, the Fenway fans were standing and cheering and willing Little Man to get a hit. This was an unexpected old-school Fenway crowd, like the ones we had before they turned Fenway into a theme park and it became acceptable for everyone to joyously sing the "So good! So good! So good!" part of "Sweet Caroline" in the eighth even if the Sox were trailing by eight runs at the time. By Game 5, with the season stumbling to an end and the demand for tickets waning , the Rich People Who Go To Games Just To Tell People They Went weren't so interested in going, and suddenly, Fenway was Fenway again.

Little Man ended up ripping a line drive to right field that Gabe Gross considered diving for, froze for a split-second, then allowed to bounce 3 feet in front of him. Thank you, Gabe. The Sox were on the board. Now, Papi was coming up. Saddled by the aforementioned bum wrist, poor Papi can crush only two pitches for power anymore -- a fastball right in his unrecognizably small wheelhouse, or an off-speed pitch on the lower half of the plate that he can pull -- and for some unknown reason, that kooky Aussie Balfour decided to throw that fastball to him. Which was summarily crushed into the right-field stands, one of those bombs when the camera guy above home plate has to zoom back to find the ball. Just like old times. And that set up my single favorite announcing moment of any baseball comeback: "And it's a seven to FOUR ballgame!" Now, Fenway was rocking and rolling. Again, just like old times. I called my dad to make sure he was watching. "Nah, we're still watching 'ER,'" he said.

"Call me if they get closer." (At this specific point in time, I didn't realize I would be making fun of him forever for prioritizing Maura Tierney's final "ER" episode over the single most unbelievable comeback in Red Sox history.) Even with the momentum shifting, we needed three more runs and had nobody to pitch the ninth since Jonathan Papelbon already had gotten three outs and never pitches more than two innings because the Red Sox rightly subscribe to the "it's a marathon, not a sprint" philosophy with younger pitchers. After Paps cruised through the eighth, with a potentially rocky top of the ninth looming, I was thinking one thing: "Please, for the love of God, I hope the Rays use Wheeler to get seven outs; that's our only chance." And that was exactly what they tried to do. See, I know Dan Wheeler. He spent much of the 2008 season on my AL fantasy team as Troy Percival insurance which, of course, ended up coming in handy three times. I watched Wheeler pitch many an eighth or ninth inning, suffered through his occasional failures, enjoyed his successes and never trusted him for a damn second.

There are two kinds of closers: the lights-out guys (like Papelbon), and the hold-onto-your-seats guys (like Wheeler). When you need three improbable runs, you want the second guy out there. He's the guy who might get nervous. He's the guy who thinks to himself, "Deep down, I know I'm just a very good set-up guy masquerading as a half-decent closer." When the great comebacks happen in baseball, they usually happen with these specific types of guys on the mound -- Donnie Moore, Calvin Schiraldi, Bob Stanley, Jose Mesa, a long-in-the-tooth Robb Nen -- the guys who can be broken, the guys who can absolutely be taken deep in the right spot. I didn't care that Wheeler saved the Rays by getting 10 huge outs in Game 2. This was different. This was Fenway. This was, "I'm the only person standing between the World Series and one of the great collapses in modern baseball history." This was a spot for Mariano Rivera, not Dan Wheeler. Jason Bay came up to lead the bottom of the eighth. I like Bay. He has been very good.

But if you honestly think I wasn't swearing at Manny Ramirez and Scott Boras at that moment, you don't know me well enough. Manny would have had Fenway swaying like a bridge during a hurricane. Manny would have had the Rays' fans quaking in their boots. Manny absolutely, positively, unquestionably would have gotten on base. (Of course, Manny would have hit fourth, not fifth, but whatever. I can't look at Bay and not think of Manny. At least not yet. Bay is like the dutiful, pretty second wife who does everything right and yet, I can't stop thinking about the soul-wrenching tramp who married me first and broke my heart. I wish it wasn't that way, but it's going to take some time. The fact that Manny finished the 2008 playoffs with an OPS that was almost as high as my freshman GPA in college didn't help.) And if Bay failed to get on base, I would have punched some things and complained about Manny again. But our favorite Canadian import walked. Or should I say, "He stood there while a petrified Wheeler threw four straight balls." Either way, nice job by Bay. That brought up J.D.

Drew, my 2007 nemesis, the guy who hit the $14 million grand slam against Cleveland last October, the guy who carried us in June, the guy who eventually broke down just like the Dodgers and Cardinals fans promised he would. I have changed my opinion on Drew roughly 350 times in 18 months. This time, amazingly, astoundingly, I was feeling pretty good. If I learned anything about Drew over the past two years, it's this: You have to start every clutch Drew at-bat thinking about the worst things that can happen -- in this case, a double play or a called third strike -- and once you cruise through that process, it's OK. Does this make sense? Of course not. I'm the same guy who watched the last three innings of this game sitting in the exact same spot with my laptop on my lap, my feet on an ottoman and my right foot crossed over my left foot. But Wheeler had to throw a strike, and Drew crushes fastballs when he knows they're coming BAM!

"And it's a seven to SIX game!" That's right, we had the $14 million grand slam in 2007, and now, I'm starting to think the next $14 million was a downright bargain for 2008. I might buy one of those Drew T-shirt jerseys before everything's said and done. Don't rule this out. Anyway, Fenway went absolutely insane. Like Games 4 and 5 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yanks all over again. Finally -- finally! -- we were defending the 2007 title. I quickly called my father again to make sure he wasn't watching "The Mentalist" or something. "J.D. Drew!" he screamed. "I always liked him!" So much for Maura Tierney. That same inning, a few minutes before Mark Kotsay belted a double off B.J. Upton's glove in center, I started thinking we could survive Game 5 even after TBS flashed one of those ominous "Don't delude yourself, this would be the biggest comeback in playoff history" graphics.

Francona mercifully pinch-hit Sean Casey for Varitek, which was slightly more dignified than just shooting him in the head. (Since May 22, Varitek is hitting something like .178. I'm not even making this up. When I made my "Silver Linings for the End of the Red Sox season" list in my head in the fifth inning, "I don't have to watch another Varitek at-bat this season" narrowly edged "I don't have to worry about Mike Timlin pitching in a close game again" for the No. 1 spot.) I would have wagered anything on The Mayor coming through, but he struck out. Two outs. That's when Kotsay followed with his double. Now Coco Crisp was up. He's trick or treat. He's like a craps table that just opened and hasn't had a dice thrower yet. You just never know with Coco. I would have believed a three-pitch strikeout could happen. I would have believed a double into the gap. I would have believed a weak grounder to end the inning.

I would have believed an 11-pitch at-bat culminating in the game-tying single to right field. Every scenario is in play with Coco. That's just the way it is. This time around, we rolled an eight to establish our craps point, then spent the next 10 dice rolls (or in this case, pitches) trying to hit that point and wouldn't you know it, on the 11th roll, he came through with the game-tying single. Ladies and gentleman, the Human Craps Table, Mr. Coco Crisp! Of course, there was one problem lurking over everything: We still didn't have anyone to pitch the ninth. Or the 10th. Or any other inning. Rookie Justin Masterson started the ninth by default under the "if they brought out Timlin or Javy Lopez, there would have been a riot" corollary. The good news: Masterson possesses semi-electric stuff with a vicious sinker that causes an uncanny number of ground balls. The bad news: He has been a reliever for only three months.

Hence, he's one of those Tightrope Guys -- you never feel safe with him, but he has a knack for inducing killer double plays at the perfect time. Which was exactly what happened here: He put two guys on and briefly sent Fenway into "Oh God!" mode before suckering the Quietly Terrifying Carlos Pena into a spine-crumbling 4-6-3 to end the inning. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The Rays brought in "flame-throwing" lefty J.P. Howell to start the ninth against Little Man and David ORRR-tese. (Note: I'm not sure what happened with the TBS announcing crew this series, but Ron Darling sounds like a cross between Gene Simmons and James Woods, and every time Martinez unleashes one of those smoky laughs, I think of the reader who compared him to Elmo Blatch in "Shawshank.") If you didn't think Big Papi was injured before this at-bat, you changed your mind when he tried to bunt for a hit with one strike. That was like watching Larry Bird pass up a wide-open 3-pointer to take a 19-footer.

I don't want to talk about it. After Papi feebly whiffed on four pitches for the second out, Kevin Youkilis slapped a grounder to Evan Longoria -- a wonderful player and the only acceptable answer to the question, "Which American Leaguer would you want if you were starting a team from scratch?" -- who made a terrific back-handed stab and then flubbed the throw. The ball bounced over Pena's glove and into the stands, sending Yook to second and spawning a fantastic replay of Joe Maddon staring out onto the field like one of the Fortune 500 CEOs watching the Dow drop another 500 points. Like, he knew it was falling apart and there was nothing he could do, only there was a dugout camera 3 inches from his face. That was when Maddon made a crucial mistake by walking Bay to pitch to Drew. Again, I like Bay but he spent his career playing for 65-win teams in Pittsburgh and just watched Manny dominate the NL playoffs to the point that teams were pitching around him like he was the oversized kid in a Little League game. At least see whether he's anxious, right?

At least see whether he'll chase a couple of high fastballs and a slider in the dirt. Also, why would you want to pitch to someone who just homered and was 4-for-7 against Howell in his career? Why not pitch cautiously to Bay, see whether you can get him out and, if you do, walk Drew and put the game in the hands of Jed Lowrie and Kevin Cash? Wait, why am I complaining about this? You know the rest: Drew cranked a single over Gross' head, Youkilis pranced home, screwed up his steps and almost blew out an ACL jumping on home plate, and then everyone congregated into a Walkoff Mosh Pit as "Dirty Water" cranked from the loudspeakers and the Fenway faithful jumped up and down. The Boston Red Sox had lived to fight another day. More importantly, the champs decided they were going down swinging. Win or lose this weekend, that's all we wanted. Show some pride. Show some heart. Show us last season meant something. And they did. Stew Milne/US Presswire So the Red Sox have paid $28 million for two J.D. Drew ALCS homers? Money well spent.

Now my phone was ringing off the hook. Just like old times. My father was claiming he had watched the whole game, never knew about Maura Tierney's last episode and stopped watched "ER" three years ago. My buddy Bug was raving about the old-school Fenway crowd and wondering whether we could create a Red Sox Fan competency test for future playoff games. The calls and e-mails kept coming. Somewhere along the line, I found myself thinking about the poor Tampa fans and their first Stomach Punch game. That was as brutal as it gets. A dagger to the gut. Look, any neutral baseball fan should be rooting for the Rays in this series. They proved the flawed and immensely messed up sport we call "Major League Baseball" can still work competitively -- as long as the Have-Nots hire the right guys, draft wisely and make low-risk free-agent bets on the right players. Maybe they can't compete year in and year out, but if they play their cards right, things can crest every few years and they can make a run against the Haves. The Rays were the best story in the AL this season, the Bizarro Yankees if you will. They built something.

It took some time -- actually, too much time -- but when it happened, it happened. They're so loaded that a St. Petersburg reader named Darren needled me during the sixth inning by saying, "Don't be down, Bill, just think of it this way: Your 2008 Sox just lost to your entire 2010 roster. Consider this a glorified scouting mission." Normally, I would save such an e-mail and get my revenge in a mailbag or something if things happened to turn. Not this time. When the Sox roared back to send the series back to Tampa, for the average baseball fan with no vested ties, it probably was like watching South Bend charge back from 20 down to break Hickory High's hearts. You can't root for that and you shouldn't. So let's just agree a memorable baseball game happened Thursday night. It delighted a large group of people and devastated a much smaller group. Everyone else marveled at the comeback and probably thought the outcome was unfair, considering the payrolls and the histories of the respective franchises. Unbelievable, memorable, but slightly unfair. And that's fine. I just know we're headed for one more fascinating game and possibly two.

Can the Rays rally from one of the most demoralizing defeats in baseball history? Can the Sox capitalize on their momentum like they did against the Yankees four years ago? Can I survive a few more Varitek at-bats without gargling lighter fluid? Will my father ever recover from Maura Tierney's departure from "ER"? Will Drew earn the third year of his contract a year ahead of time? Will Josh Beckett crack 93 mph on the radar gun? Will James Shields earn the name "Big Game James"? Can the Rays possibly keep hitting after scoring 34 runs in the past four games? You have to admit, this sports weekend suddenly became much more interesting than it was 24 hours ago. One last thing The Aaron Boone homer happened Oct. 16, 2003. The 19-8 thrashing that gave the 2004 Yankees a 3-0 lead in the ALCS happened Oct. 16. The Indians jumped to a commanding 3-1 lead in the ALCS on Oct. 16. Let's just say I wasn't that enthusiastic about Boston's chances on Oct.

16, 2008, although I didn't remember until watching SportsCenter on Friday morning that Boone's homer actually happened 16 minutes after midnight. (Why didn't I realize this? Because I blacked out that night for about an hour. You think I'm kidding. But Thursday night, as far as I knew, Boone hit the homer on the 16th.) As the comeback swung into motion Thursday, I found myself glancing at my cable box's clock and rooting for it to display 9:00 my time (midnight on the East Coast). I didn't think we would get there, but when Pena was batting in the ninth, there were only a few minutes left on the 16th. It was like watching a New Year's Eve countdown. 8:54. 8:55. 8:56. Then Pena grounded into that 4-6-3 and guaranteed that, yes, the Red Sox were getting out of Oct. 16 alive. They made it to midnight.

In fact, if Game 5 were a movie, that's what I would call it: "They Made It To Midnight." Over everything else that happened Thursday night -- Balfour throwing that fastball to Ortiz, Longoria botching that throw, Drew taking Wheeler deep, Youkilis awkwardly hopping on home plate -- I will remember staring at that clock and rooting for Oct. 17. They always said Red Sox fans would care a little less after we climbed the mountain once or twice, that it wouldn't mean as much, that it couldn't possibly mean as much. That's not true. It will never be true. You either love sports or you don't. Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. For every Simmons column, as well as podcasts, videos, favorite links and more, check out the revamped Sports Guy's World . SPONSORED HEADLINES ALCS GAME 5: RED SOX 8, RAYS 7 Down 7-0 in the seventh inning of an elimination game, the Red Sox rallied to stun the Rays 8-7 in Game 5 of the ALCS.

Red Sox 2, Yankees 3: Ump show - Over the Monster Over the Monster Here you go, Ron. Front-and-center, just like you wanted. Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports There's about 500 words of recap I had ready for this game that I won't be using. The Red Sox were handed a loss tonight. They should still be playing. Or maybe they should have won by now. The two teams battled eachother to a 2-2 standstill for six innings before Rick Porcello gave up a solo shot to start the seventh. Then the Sox wasted a few big opportunities in the sixth, seventh, and eighth. Then in the ninth, home plate umpire Ron Kulpa decided to hand the game to the Yankees. Kulpa had been miserable all night. He had made multiple terrible calls throughout the game, punching out several Red Sox on pitches that were close but not strikes, and then others that were neither nor. But things came to a boiling point in the ninth with one out, the bases loaded, and David Ortiz at the plate. Miller fell behind 3-1, then threw a slider that completely crossed McCann up.

At the end of the day, it looked bad, but it was an acceptable borderline call. David Ortiz was incensed, John Farrell came out and got tossed getting between them. Ortiz returned to the plate, Miller delivered a pitch four inches below the strike zone, and Kulpa called him out. Chances are he would've done the same on a pickoff throw to first. It was ball four. It was a run. Red Sox 3, Yankees 3. And Kulpa took that win, took that run, and decided that no, he would be the one deciding this game. What a complete disgrace. You can argue that the Red Sox should have won this game earlier. You can argue that without mistakes X, Y, or Z, they would have won this game in spite of Kulpa. But at the end of the day the fact is that the difference between a tie or a Red Sox win was Ron Kulpa being in equal parts incompetent and egocentric. There is no excuse for this madness when literally every single person watching at home has a better idea of both where the ball is and where the strike zone is then the man making the calls. Fix your product, Major League Baseball.

We don't come to watch the men in black. More From Over the Monster Red Sox vs. Yankees Could Use A Little Punch - Obnoxious Boston Fan - Boston.com Red Sox vs. Yankees Could Use A Little Punch Boston.com Correspondent About the Author Obnoxious Boston Fan is long-time sports journalist Bill Speros and offers a fun, unique and biting perspective on the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, Patriots and whatever else people are talking about in the world of sports. The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry could use a little this . [Less the career-crushing injury to Bill Lee .] [Less Pedro's takedown of the late Don Zimmer .] Or, better yet, this . Definitely, this. Red Sox vs. Yankees. Three games this weekend. Do you feel the fever? It's registering at a blistering 98.7. It's simply way too early in the season to get amped up about any season series, even one between the Red Sox and Yankees. The Red Sox ended 2014 with in last place with a whimper.

In the past calendar year, Boston has spent a combined $365.9 million on Rick Porcello , Hanley Ramirez , Pablo Sandoval and two Cuban ballplayers who began the season in the minors. There were flashes of malcontent during spring training, but there is much optimism Boston will win the A.L. East by default. In the New York, the Mets [Remember them?] have actually found the front and back pages as if it were 1988 . They're also ready to #FORGIV13 Alex Rodriguez in the Bronx. We'll know the Apocalypse is nigh when New York is ready to #FORGIV13 Bill Belichick for leaving the Jets after one day, and tormenting the franchise ever since. The mere presence of A-Rod used to be fuel enough to rile the masses in both New England and New York heading into a weekend series between the Red Sox and Yankees in the Big Apple. A series much like the one that begins at Yankee Stadium Friday night. Not this time. This rivalry needs a little punch. A couple of haymakers would be even better.

It's been more than 10 years since A-Rod got face-planted by Jason Varitek and three months later swatted the ball out of Arroyo's hand with his metaphorical purse. That's a long time, even for baseball. The much-feared " Curse of the Dempstino " that began when Ryan Dempster plunked A-Rod back in 2013 resulted in nothing but another Red Sox Duck Boat parade. A-Rod's post-PED suspension return to New York this season has the potential to provide some serious comic relief as the season progresses. It will intensify as the Yankees pitching staff regresses, along with the team, in the A.L. East standings. A-Rod is one outburst, one slump, one failed drug test from becoming back-page fodder in both the New York Daily News and with the Spygate/Deflategate News Service. If we're not allowed to extrapolate anything from Rick Porcello's first start of 2015, we're not even going to bother checking A-Rod's stats on this young season.

Porcello, the guy who's going to make more guaranteed money on this deal than Tom Brady has seen in his last 650 restructured contracts, pitched just well enough to lose on Wednesday. But it doesn't matter. It's sort of like spring training. It only matters when things are good. After all, Porcello only made, er got away with, one bad pitch. Porcello and his millions won't be pitching against the Yankees this weekend. Rather, he'll be making his first-ever Fenway Park start for the Red Sox on home Opening Day Monday afternoon. As of post time, the Red Sox probables for this weekend in New York were Wade Miley on Friday, Steven Wright on Saturday, and To Be Determined [aka Clace Buchholz] Sunday night on ESPN. The Yankees were one of those A.L. East teams projected to finish behind Boston due to the fact that their rotation and lineup appears thinner than the Patriots' 2015 secondary. Toss in the velocity trouble exhibited by Masahiro Tanaka in his opening day loss, and you've got lots of early trouble brewin' in the Bronx. Still not excited? There's Jacoby Ellsbury .

He used to play in Boston. We all won free tacos when he stole second base in the 2007 World Series. Ellsbury jumped ship to the Yankees in 2014 after they were foolish enough to drop $153 million over seven years into his checking account. If the value of Porcello's deal wasn't a strong enough argument to convince your kids to put down their football and pick up a baseball glove. remember that Ellsbury will earn more than $21 million guaranteed, injured or not/playing or not, when he's 37 years old. This past season, the 37-year-old Brady made $19 million. And he's Tom Freaking Brady. There's plenty of legitimate baseball to get excited about this weekend. The Red Sox will playing an American League/East team for the first time this season. We'll see the debut of the much-hyped, power-packed Red Sox lineup in its purest form. David Ortiz will get to be a DH. Mike Napoli will be playing first. Rusney Castillo will be in Pawtucket. Ortiz might even have an RBI by then. This weekend has far more downside potential for the hosts than it does the visitors.

The Hammer of Thor is primed to smite this $217 million payroll into oblivion. There will be far less patience in New York if/when the Yankees struggle. There's no post-Super Bowl Duck Boat parade euphoria to placate the masses. Winning a title with Darrelle Revis is a lot more fun than signing him after he wins a title. The Knicks and Rangers will be watching the playoffs on TV. If the Mets do contend, you'll see millions of Mets fans suddenly appear out of thin air on Twitter. They've been time-sharing in Kimmy Schmidt's bunker since Bobby Valentine's team lost the Subway Series in 2000. A sweep of the Red Sox will likely be quickly swept under the rug by State Run Media as a result of bad weather, or early-season rust, or Global Warming. Heck, by the time Sunday night's tilt on ESPN is finished, you'll be rushing the kids off to school Monday morning. No matter what happens this weekend, the crowd at the Cask will begins its pregame lubrication at 11 a.m. on Monday with a big smile.

The biggest reason why the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry has cooled in the past 10 years is because the teams have not met in the postseason since that wondrous Game 7 inside old Yankee Stadium in October of 2004. No wonder George Steinbrenner demolished the place. He had to watch the Red Sox celebrate on the field after they completed the greatest comeback since Nixon in 1968. In spite of what you've been told, the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry wasn't always registering at a fever pitch back in the day. During the 1980s and early-1990s, the teams rarely played substantive game in September when both were contending for the division. In 1990, for instance, the Red Sox won the A.L. East. The Yankees finished in last place, 21 games out. Even in pre-Wild Card 1986, the A.L. East champion Red Sox beat the Yankees by a comfortable 5.5 games. The rivalry that your parents and I loved during the 1970s was re-born following the 1994 baseball strike.

The Yankees finished either first or second in the division every year from that strike-shortened season through 2007. During that span, the Red Sox finished second in the division to New York every year from 1998-2005. And from 1998-13, either the Red Sox or Yankees won the division. Last year was either an enormous anomaly, or a historic shift. The Red Sox and Yankees finished a combine 37 games out of first place. Compare that to the fact for 20 years ending with the 2012 season, the Yankees finished a total combined 25 games out of first place. Where once Carlton Fisk and Thurman Munson routinely shared profane unpleasantries, and where once the legendary Lee referred to the Yankees as " Billy Martin 's Brownshirts," players like Ortiz are now writing for Derek Jeter 's website, and [until a rift that began in early 2014 ] yukking it up with opponents like A-Rod on a routine basis. This weekend's series is also a victim of poor scheduling when it comes to driving the hype machine.

The Bruins are battling for Claude Julien's job this weekend in Florida. The Celtics are on the verge of stealing the seventh-seed in the East. Tiger Woods shot a +1 Thursday and should make the cut at Augusta. And Brady can post another Instagram video at any moment. As we've noted before, the biggest challenge facing the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, and baseball in general, is the fact that there are so many choices when it comes to our leisure time. The proliferation of high-speed Wi-Fi, smartphones, social media, on-line gaming, and endless video streaming has conspired to push baseball out of our collective minds. All summer, the Red Sox are competing with Netflix, HBO On Demand, and the fact that you can build your own fantasy league team each night. [But it's not gambling.] The Red Sox proved in 2013 they can exceed expectations when coming off a last-place season. This weekend's series in New York offers a good early look on how they match up with their oldest divisional foes. If we're lucky, both teams will be as good, and bad, as advertised. If that doesn't work, maybe Ortiz and A-Rod can swap some love taps.

The OBF column is written by award-winning journalist and Bay State native Bill Speros .Reach Bill on the OBF Facebook page , Twitter @realOBF or at bsperos1@gmail.com . Thanks for reading. The Red Sox find another way to lose The Red Sox find another way to lose The Red Sox find another way to lose By August 24, 2012 By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff One of the best things about baseball is you never know what you’re going to see when you start watching a game. Take Thursday night, for instance. The Red Sox lost, 14-13, in 10 innings. They couldn’t hold a 6-0 lead in the third inning and an 11-9 lead in the ninth. Get this: Going back to at least 1919, it was the third time the Sox scored 13 runs and lost. The last time was May 3, 1970 against the White Sox in a 22-13 game. Before then you have to go all the way back to 1930.

Advertisement The 59-66 Sox have lost four straight and 11 of their last 15 games. They are 0-5 in extra inning games at Fenway Park. “We’re playing [expletive], [expletive] baseball,” said closer Alfredo Aceves, who allowed three runs in the ninth inning to blow the save then two in the 10th to lose the game. With the Sox up, 11-9, Aceves came out for the ninth inning. Vernon Wells homered to left field, the ball appearing on replay to be worth a video review by the umpires. But the Red Sox did not protest. “I thought it was out,” catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia said, echoing the comments of others in the clubhouse. “It bounced straight up.” Said Valentine: “There wasn’t anybody on the field that didn’t think it was a home run, I didn’t think. That’s the first I’ve heard of that. No one even came back with the replay and said [anything]. How does it bounce straight up like that if it’s not a home run?” Given how Aceves was pitching, it probably didn’t matter much.

With two outs, impressive Angels rookie Mike Trout singled to right and took second when Cody Ross overran the ball. Advertisement It proved to be a big error as Trout scored on a single by Torii Hunter, just beating a strong throw from Scott Podsednik. Aceves stared out at Ross in right field after the run scored. Aceves, who has blown seven saves, then walked Howie Kendrick before Mark Trumbo’s single to center scored Hunter and gave the Angels the lead. “I missed a couple of pitches, yeah,” Aceves said. “It’s not about that [why] we lost the game. There were like 25 runs.” Ross atoned for his mistake with a home run off Angels closer Ernest Frieri in the bottom of the ninth to tie it. After watching Aceves throw 31 pitches in the ninth inning, Valentine sent him back out to the mound for the 10th. Kendry Morales started the inning with a home run. Erick Aybar then singled and scored when Wells doubled off Craig Breslow. “I had two lefthanders in the bullpen and they had a righthanded lineup,” Valentine said.

“I had three innings left [out of the bullpen] and I wanted to squeeze another inning out. It obviously was the wrong decision.” The offense showed some heart, collecting 18 hits. Dustin Pedroia was 4 for 6 with five RBIs including one with two outs in the bottom of the 10th. But with Pedroia on second, Frieri (2-0) struck Adrian Gonzalez to end a game that lasted four hours and 34 minutes. “It was a wild game. We just have to try to find a way to win those,” Pedroia said. Advertisement A few notes for you: • Podsednik was 7 of 13 in the series. He is hitting .375 in 31 games. • Junichi Tazawa and Mark Melancon gave the Sox 3.1 scoreless innings after Franklin Morales and Clayton Mortensen were shelled. • Trout has scored 99 runs in 102 games. .345/.410/.601 and 41 SBs in 45 attempts. That’s astonishing. • The Sox are 24-33 in games decided by one or two runs.

• Sox are 29-37 at home. That .439 winning percentage puts them on a pace to go 35-46 at home. They have not been that bad at home since 1965 (34-47). Thanks to everybody for reading today. It’s appreciated.

Question: If you were watching a game between the Red Sox and the Yankees, what sport would they be playing?
Answer: Baseball