Tweet of the day to the RED SOX

Taking on the " Evil Empire " today  - GO RED SOX

@mlb We'll be cheering on #Boston @redsox all the way from #Kandahar #Afghanistan - #KeepCalmAndCarryOn @jerry_remy twitter.com/Leadership_One…

— Middleboro Jones (@Leadership_One) April 1, 2013

Yankee Stadium becomes " Fenway Park South "

scha·den·freu·de/ ˈSHädənˌfroidə/ Noun: Pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune (From the German language)

WOW - go figure, the Germans have a word that means " Pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune "...shocker.

While I have nothing but admiration and affection for the people of NY, when it comes to the NY Yankees, it is a wholly different situation.

Guess the three game sweep of the NY Yankees in the Bronx sent a sure statement of where things stand right now....Keep it up RED SOX...Pour it on boys....Make'em count.

For those keeping score, the BOSTON RED SOX have gone from season starting cellar dwellers to AL EAST Powerhouse.....AWESOME.


For Yankees, it's Mission: Failed
June, 10, 2011 - espn.go.com

The Yankees had several objectives heading into Thursday night's game against the Red Sox, and perhaps the least important was the simple act of winning the game.

Along with that, they needed to send a message to the Red Sox, who over the past three series in the Bronx have pretty much turned Yankee Stadium into Fenway Park South, they needed to regain a share of the AL East lead, and perhaps most importantly, they needed to salvage some measure of dignity out of a three-game series in which they appeared not only over-matched, but intimidated.

And oh yeah, they needed to put the fear of God into David Ortiz.

Ultimately, they accomplished none of those goals.

They waited through a 3-1/2 hour rain delay to play this important and perhaps symbolic game, and by the time the final pitch was thrown, shortly before 2 a.m. New York time, had failed dismally in every single one of their objectives.

See David Ortiz smiling? Not what the Yanks wanted.

Not only did they lose, 8-3, to be swept at home by the Red Sox for the second time this season -- and have now lost nine of their last 10 meetings with Boston here dating back to last Aug. 9 -- their attempts to get some measure of revenge on Ortiz for showing them up after hitting a home run Tuesday night and at Josh Beckett for using their lineup as ducks at the wrong end of a shooting gallery turned out to be laughably impotent.

Oh, sure, CC Sabathia finally plunked Ortiz with a pitch -- after both Derek Jeter (leading off the game) and Alex Rodriguez had been hit by Beckett. But he neither hurt Ortiz -- the pitch caught the hefty lefty's heavily-padded right thigh -- nor scared him very much, since he smiled right after being hit and then followed with two hits, a single and a two-RBI double, in the Red Sox's seven-run 7th inning that blew the game open.

The Yankees were staked to a 2-0 first inning lead when Curtis Granderson, who has been missing in action the past half-dozen games, launched a Beckett offering into the right-field seats with Jeter aboard. The Yankees could not manage another hit until Jorge Posada's single in the fourth and finished with just four hits all night.

Meanwhile, Sabathia cruised for six innings and then was dismembered in the seventh, allowing six hits including the two by Ortiz, and RBI triple by Jed Lowrie and an RBI double by Mike Cameron.

And after his double, this is how chastised Ortiz was by being hit by Sabathia: He clapped his hands on second base and then clawed at the air with his left hand in a show of defiance.

Maybe that's why after the game, both Sabathia and Joe Girardi played it coy about their rather lukewarm form of retaliation. Asked if it was a case of an ace protecting his teammates or simply a pitch that got away, Girardi said, "I don't know. I didn't throw it.''

Sabathia, who did throw it, said this: "It was a two-seamer and it kind of got away. I've only been throwing it a couple of years. I can't really control it.''

What the Yankees can't seem to control right now is their own destiny as long as the Red Sox are involved. Needing to send a clear message that they are capable of at least beating Boston in their own ballpark, the strongest impression the Yankees left is of a team that is going to need help from someone else if they have any hope of getting past the Red Sox in the postseason. Because if the Yankees can't do the job --and right now, it does not appear that they can -- they're going to have to find someone else who can.

"Well, there’s still a lot of baseball to be played until we see them again,'' said Girardi, referring to a schedule that keeps the teams apart until Aug. 5 at Fenway. "It’s not how you wanted it to end tonight. We felt pretty good about ourselves when we came home from the West coast trip and now we lose three games at home. I still think we’re a very good team. We didn’t play like it these last three days, but we'll be back.''

CRASH & BURN.....NY YANKEES go down to defeat

Ah yes, the things we like to see in the Fall.....The trees turn beautiful colors, Football season gets into full swing, cool crisp nights, cranberries being harvested across southern New England and......wait for it......

The NY YANKEES going down like the LOSERS they are !! Yes, I know the NY fans out there will say they have the most trophies and they are the best, etc. etc. BUT not this year - THEY ARE LOSERS. The RED SOX beat them in our last regular season game and we are glad to see the Texas Rangers do so too.

"Schadenfreude" is a German word which means " To revel in the agony of others" (Figure that out, that the Germans had a word for THAT??- shocker) - This morning is pure SCHADENFREUDE for all us BOSTON RED SOX FANS as we revel in NY's agony.....

Those of us who cheer for the true class in Major League Baseball ( The BOSTON RED SOX) are happy today to cheer on the Texas Rangers, and congratulate them on a fine ALCS series win....and by doing so, knocking out the NY YANKEES from crowing about how wonderful they are, etc. etc. (hold on, I just threw up a little)

So from Boston, all I can say to the NY Yankees fans is, " HA HA HA HA HA...See You Next year!"


Start spreading the bad news
The Bombers got outpitched, outscored, outplayed
By Sam Borden / SNY.tv

ARLINGTON, Texas - Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was standing just outside the visitors' clubhouse at Rangers Ballpark, the season having just ended only minutes earlier. A group of reporters was clustered around Cashman and one of them asked him if he was surprised at how the AL Championship Series had gone.
Cashman shrugged.

"That they whacked us like that?" Cashman said. "Yeah. It's surprising."

It was. The Yankees didn't just lose to the Rangers in the ALCS, didn't just get beat one step short of another World Series. They got pounded. Got whipped. Got pretty much run over by a team that most people had as a pretty decent underdog before Game 1.

And why not? The Yankees were supposed to have better pitchers. Supposed to have a deeper lineup. Supposed to have a better bullpen. Supposed to have more experience. The Yankees had won 27 championship in franchise history, the last one coming a year ago. The Rangers had won one -- one -- postseason series ever and that was their last one, this year's division series against the Rays.

"It doesn't make a difference," Derek Jeter said after it was Rangers 6, Yankees 1, and the Yankees were going home for winter. "We didn't have the better team. They beat us. ... They hit better than us, they pitched better than us, they played better than us."

The Yankees, with a lineup that scored the most runs in the league this season, hit .201 during the six games of the series and scored 19 total runs. They struck out 52 times.

The Rangers, on the other hand, hit .304, scored 38 runs and hit nine home runs to the Yankees' six. If it hadn't been for that five-run rally in the first game of the series the Yankees would have been swept.

"We never seemed to get on track offensively in this series," manager Joe Girardi said. "We didn't accomplish what we set out and, as I told my guys, this hurts. It's not a lot of un watching other teams celebrate."

It wasn't just the hitting. Everyone knew the Rangers had Cliff Lee as their ace, but since Lee won Game 5 in the first round he was only available once in the first six games of the ALCS. That he won (and absolutely dominated) Game 3 at Yankee Stadium wasn't much of a surprise; how the Yankees looked against the Rangers' other starters, however, was an absolute shock.

C.J. Wilson held down the Yankees in Game 1, setting a tone for the series even though the Yankees would rally off the Texas bullpen. The Rangers relievers settled in after that, though, and the star of the Texas staff would be No. 3 starter Colby Lewis, who beat the Yankees in Game 2 and then again on Friday night.

In some ways, that was as indicative of the Yankees offensive struggles as anything else: Lewis, who was pitching in Japan for two seasons before coming back to Texas this season, stifled the Yankees. He faced the minimum through four innings in Game 6 and allowed just three hits and one run over eight innings before turning the ninth over to closer Neftali Feliz.

"He was outstanding," Girardi said. "He threw offspeed when he had to, behind in the count when he had to and put hitters away. He did everything that's necessary to win a ballgame."

The Yankees didn't. Not on Friday and not for most of this series, watching their hopes for a repeat get crushed under the Rangers' dogpile on the mound after Feliz got the final out.

There are plenty of issues for the Yankees to deal with this winter, starting with new deals for Girardi and Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte, if he chooses not to retire for one more year. Then there are the big-name free agents, like Lee, for whom the Yankees will have stiff competition.

First, though, there will be a little while for the sting to wear off. The hurt. The Yankees weren't just beaten in this series; they were dominated.

"I don't know how you measure, quantitate any of it," Girardi said. "It all stinks.