It’s a nice night, if not a bit humid. Maybe it’s just the humidity or something, but in any case, there are a few things that are kind of bugging me in the world of sports, and otherwise, that I wanted to talk about.

First of all, I have some problems with both ESPN and “Red Sox Nation.” ESPN needs to get the Red Sox’s collective dick out of its mouth. You can tell me I just think ESPN is biased toward the Sox because I’m a Yankees fan, but you’re really only fooling yourself. It should really be pretty obvious to just about anyone. The proof? Well, to begin with, watching Chris Berman doing a Red Sox (or Patriots) highlight is about as much fun as listening to John Madden take a dump. Not only is Berman’s “back, back, back” call pretty much as tired as the Hokey-Pokey, but the “Fenway PAAAHK” and “TRAAAAHT Nixon” references are intolerable. And he will not stop calling David Ortiz “Big Papi.” I don’t see Berman showing that kind of enthusiasm toward any other team--except for possibly the “RAAAAAAIIIIIIIDDDDDDDAAAAAAAHHHHHHHSSSSSS.”

Berman, however, is just the surface. The Red Sox get all the credit in the world from ALL the fine folks over at the Worldwide Leader, and I still can’t quite figure out why. I’ll confess, as a baseball fan, the Red Sox winning the World Series was a great story. But it was two years ago. Here in 2006, ESPN essentially handed the American League East pennant to the Sox in the middle of July, with a three-and-a-half game lead over the Yankees. Why? The Red Sox pitching staff has been extremely suspect, including the bullpen (save for Papelbon—get it?). On the other hand, the team ESPN gave essentially no chance to go to the playoffs—the lowly New York Yankees—has a pitching staff that has come together nicely. I know Schilling has been great. So has Mike Mussina. Beckett has put it together, but if you look at their numbers, Mussina and “washed-up” Randy Johnson out-pitched “veteran” Schilling and Beckett the first half of the season. The Red Sox have started something like 25 different pitchers this year (seriously), and they were thinking about rushing David Wells back to start last week or so. If that doesn’t tell you something about the state of Red Sox pitching, I don’t know what else to say.

Actually, I do know what else to say. If you go down as far as the number three starters, Wakefield is having one of the worst years of his career and is now dealing with injury problems, whereas Chien-Ming Wang has established himself as a legitimate young starting pitcher with a deadly sinker who could win 18 or so games this year, and be a 20 game winner in the future. The Yanks' and Sox's bullpens, as with the rest of baseball’s, have been about as secure as JP and Hil’s relationship at times. But in Scott Proctor, Ron Villone and Kyle Farnsworth, the Yankees may have found the “bridge” to Mariano Rivera, similar to Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson or Tanyon Sturtze and Tom Gordon in years past. No Red Sox bullpen pitcher has really set himself apart as a reliable set-up man for Jon Papelbon, who has been equally as stellar as Mariano Rivera this year. (Don’t believe me about the Yankees’ bullpen? Just look at the numbers, especially lately.)

Given all that, and the fact that “pitching wins ballgames,” how can everyone on ESPN say with such confidence that the Red Sox WILL win the East when the Yankees were only three games out? As of right now, the Yankees are actually in first place by half a game. Wait till the five-game series at Fenway in August is over. Then MAYBE you can make an educated guess about who’s going to win the East. Need more convincing that the Yankees have at least as good a chance to win the East as the Red Sox do? Here’s a fun fact you never hear about: the Yankees have won eight straight division titles, and nine of the last ten. Boston’s last divisional title came in 1995, when they lost in the ALDS to Cleveland. I’ll bet you didn’t know that, or if you did, you certainly didn’t find that out from ESPN. Which brings me to my next point.

It’s not so much that the experts on Baseball Tonight can say that the Red Sox will win the American League with so much conviction and so little basis. What gets me madder than Mrs. Corbett stopping a food fight is the way in which the Yankees and Red Sox are covered on ESPN. The oft-maligned Yankees are dissected for every single miscue, and brushed over for every success. The textbook example is A-Rod. For much of the month of July, A-Rod was mired in a horrible slump, striking out an inordinately high amount (especially with men on base) and committing too many errors in the field. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a bad slump. It was. My intent is not to be an A-Rod apologist. At the same time, though, I don’t think that ESPN needed to make A-Rod their top story every time he had a bad game. Slumps happen! No Red Sox player has been thrown under the bus like A-Rod has been this year. I didn’t see Steve Philips telling the world that Manny Ramirez needed to be traded during his homerless rut at the start of the season. “Captain” Jason Varitek, before being placed on the DL, was batting a hefty .243 clip, and that was after a stretch of good hitting to bring that number UP to where it is now. Just last night, David “Big Papi” Ortiz landed the Golden Sombrero—not exactly a rarity for him—but that was brushed over due to Mark Loretta’s “heroics.” (See also: “Carmona’s stupidity for hitting two batters and walking the bases loaded with two outs, basically asking for it”.)

The thing is, A-Rod has been playing poorly and he’s still not having such a bad year! .284/22/78. Think about that. The home runs are a little lower than one might like, but that notwithstanding, there are a LOT of players in the league who would gladly trade numbers with Alex this year. What’s considered an off year for A-Rod would be a career year for many others. So I don’t see where the unfair and honestly malicious contempt ESPN holds toward A-Rod comes from, especially when there are players on other teams, including the Red Sox, who are also underachieving or have underachieved earlier in the year. And I don’t want to hear the money argument. You can’t blame A-Rod for making as much money as possible. He’s worked his ass off, and he’s one of the best in the world at what he does. He should be able to take whatever he can get. Let the highest bidder win his services. (Most people forget that the RANGERS, not the Yankees, gave A-Rod the 252-million dollar cross he now has to bear for the rest of his life.)

I wish we didn’t know how much money players made. How different would our sports world be? A-Rod would be beloved and embraced as one of the greatest and most significant players of our generation, along with Pedro, Jeter, Pujols, Clemens, et al. I think that’s why college sports have such a big following: you root for the school, and you root for it blindly and passionately and unconditionally. You like the players that play for your school because they play for your school. You root for them based on their performance on the floor and their stories off it. You don’t hate them because they make more money than you because they don’t make more money than you… unless you happen to be an Oklahoma fan. (Ba-zing.) Professional sports could be like that; players wouldn’t always be weighted against their contracts, and people could just sit down and watch a game without feeling surly toward the athletes whose salaries they pay. (Even if fans knew that athletes made a lot of money, “$a lot” sounds a lot less imposing than “$28.3 million.”)

Anyway, back to the Yankees and Red Sox. ESPN just needs to be careful to be fair. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Because they are so frequently talked about on ESPN, A-Rod’s struggles and the Yankees’ “collapses” (usually after a two-game losing streak) become much-discussed topics across the country. All I ask is that the Red Sox aren’t glossed over when they screw up like the Yankees are when they don’t. Either tone down the ridiculous and uncensored criticism of the Yankees, or turn up the heat on the Red Sox, who have certainly had their chances to pull away this year, but haven’t. I don’t think it would take much. And like I said, I’m a fan like any other, so I may never think the door swings exactly the same both ways, but I think even most Red Sox fans would agree that there is a palpable Boston Bias on ESPN.

Other Yankees/Red Sox miscellany: Everyone hypes up Ortiz/Ramirez as a lethal 3-4 combination, which they are. Lefty followed by a righty, and they can both burn you equally badly. Here’s a combination that’s almost exactly the same but gets no hype: Giambi/Rodriguez. They’re almost identical hitters. Giambi is the pure lefty pull-hitting slugger who doesn’t hit for much of an average but always drives in runs and walks a lot. A-Rod is the more “professional” hitter, hitting to all fields with a lot of power. Another thing: memo to all teams: DON’T FREAKING PITCH TO ORTIZ. Just don’t give him, the Red Sox fans, and ESPN the satisfaction. I don’t care if it means walking in the winning run. Wouldn’t that be better than facing the humiliation and feeding the hype machine that is the Boston Bias media? Here’s one: if the Red Sox pitching were better, they wouldn’t ALWAYS be behind in the ninth inning and they wouldn’t need late-inning heroics every single night. One thing that gets overlooked about the Yankees: dem boys can RUN. Damon has stolen a bunch of bases and is a good leadoff man. Jeter has stolen over 20 bags. A-Rod, Abreu, Cairo/Cano and Cabrera can all run. Don’t forget about Bernie, who still has some spring in his step. Bubba Crosby can run off the bench. Even Jorge Posada got into it this week, swiping a bag against the napping D-Rays.

About three pages ago, I mentioned that I have a bone to pick with “Red Sox Nation.” I still do. I don’t mind that Sox fans call us the Evil Empire and hate us for it. This is kind of funny on three levels: 1) the Yankees are the “Empire” because they can “buy talent,” but the Red Sox actually have the second-largest payroll in baseball and have not exactly been timid with the pocketbook lately, 2) I’d rather be an “Evil Empire” that’s not at all evil and have 26 World Series Championships to show for it than be the bunch of self-righteous pricks calling others an “Evil Empire” and possessing one ring in the last 90 years, and 3) they play “Imperial March” at Yankee Stadium when introducing the opposing lineup, so the Yankees actually take a subtle jab at those who call them the Empire by making THEM the Empire.

What does bother me is when Red Sox fans start this bullshit that Sox fans are more passionate than Yankee fans. That is so wrong, it makes me want to eat the head off a baby seal. I always hear the argument that Yankees fans that “expect” to win the World Series, and “expect perfection.” I won’t disagree. Those people exist. But they’re not fans. They’re not fans just like people who buy Sox gear and marginally root for the Sox because they hate the Yankees aren’t fans. These Yankee “fans” probably have really small penises and thus they compensate by rooting for the most successful franchise in the history of professional sports, knowing that sooner or later, their ego will get a boost. The thing is, most Yankee fans are not of that degenerate breed. The vast majority of real Yankee fans are every bit as passionate and loyal to their team as

I have been a die-hard Yankees fan my entire life. I have never been angrier in my life than I was during the 2003 ALCS. I still get goosebumps thinking about Aaron Boone’s home run off of Tim Wakefield in the bottom of the eleventh off of Tim Wakefield, at about 1:00 AM, in the family room with my dad, screaming and hugging and jumping all over the place, waking up the whole neighborhood that was stupid enough to go to sleep. I root for every Yankee, through thick and thin. I watch every game. I try to take an optimistic point of view of every loss, but sometimes losses just hurt. My Derek Jeter bobblehead will always smile back at me, no matter how angry or upset I am, and he always makes me feel better. I don’t care how much money anybody on the team makes, but I will always prefer homegrown farmhand talent to costly free agents. I HATE the Red Sox. Passionately. I am as much a die-hard Yankees fan as any fan can be die-hard about any team, including Sox fans about their Ruby Hosiery.

The absolute worst is when people say that the Yankees are “conservative”/Republican and the Red Sox are “liberal”/Democrat. The rationale is that the Yankees like to not have an earnings limit, just using their fiscal girth to win titles, whereas the Red Sox would favor regulations on spending. Nope. Sorry. Not true at all. In fact, they’re both “conservative” by that definition, because as I’ve said, the Red Sox have a really large payroll, just like the hated Yankees do. The real, slightly more legitimate reason that the Sox COULD be seen as more “liberal” is because they do live in the most “liberal” state in the union. (New York’s a big city, and New York is a “blue state.”)

That just about does it. David Ortiz is NOT the “Michael Jordan of Baseball.” That would imply that he’s almost indisputably the best player ever in the game. Ortiz has a long way to go. Jeter for President… actually… Jeter for Diety.