Back in the Bronx

There's never a bad time to post a photo of Big Papi (Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.smugmug.com and used with permission)

My butt has been kicked a bit this week thanks to this ridiculous cold so it amused me that I woke up this morning only feeling slightly better but thinking about nothing but the Red Sox playing the Yankees this weekend.   I’m sure my enthusiasm for the series has something to do with the Yanks dropping two to the Rays and my watching CC Sabathia, Joba Chamberlain and Javier Vasquez combine last night for what might possibly be my favorite non Red Sox game this season.

While there is still a tiny piece of  me that hold out the hope that the Sox could have some miraculous comeback (realizing it has to be combined with god-awful collapses of the Rays and Yanks), my joy really just comes from the idea that the Yankees could actually lose the division this year.  I won’t lie, that thought makes me very happy.  Derek Jeter has previously gone on record as saying making the playoffs on the Wild Card is nothing to celebrate and Michael Kay mentioned during last night’s game that Mariano Rivera feels the same way and won’t celebrate if the Yankees make the playoffs without winning the division.

I’m of the belief that you should most definitely celebrate getting into the playoffs, regardless of how you do it. Eight teams get into the playoffs while twenty-two don’t.  This is a big deal for your team if you make into the post season so howsabout people stop acting like those who get in on the Wild Card have an STD?

The Red Sox, in third place and behind by 7.5 games in the east have the exact w/l record as the Texas Rangers, who happen to be leading the west division and are in first place by four games.  Proof enough to me that just because you don’t win your division, that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be in the playoffs.  (Because of this, I’m also a proponent of choosing the 4 best teams in each league and sending them to the playoffs instead of going by division leaders, but that’s a whole different discussion.)

I get that the Yankees like to pride themselves on being the division leader and, as leaders of the team, Rivera and Jeter probably feel like they need to promote that idea publicly.  But at what point do you stop the entitled crap and realize you are not the center of the universe and there are plenty of teams as good and as worthy as you are of being in the playoffs?  Every time someone connected to the Yankees says getting into the playoffs alone isn’t worth celebrating, they’re insulting every team that has made it via the Wild Card and celebrated it.  Get off your damn high horses, fellas.

Of course, even though I’m looking forward to the weekend, MLB has to ruin it by giving Fox and ESPN the Saturday and Sunday games.  We can’t be greedy, I suppose.

I haven’t written these words in a while about a Sox/Yanks series:  I’m really looking forward to this series.