It's a good thing the NFL Draft is over and that it was good enough to schedule itself around the most over-hyped rivallry in all of sports--the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The way these umpteen games are covered in the media (and by the media I mean ESPN), I'm stunned that the NBA and the NHL had the gall and audacity to schedule playoff games last night since we all know the sports world grinds to a halt when these two storied franchises play each other approximately 10 billion times* times a season.
As I caught snippets of SportsCenter yesterday in the downtown Y locker room and then coverage on ESPN radio, I was stunned at how every triviality of this game was broken down. It was Johnny Damon's return to Boston after signing with the Yankees. This lead to 20 minutes of hard-hitting questions and debate on should he be booed or should the fans first applaud him and then start to boo? I wish I could tell you what the pundits at ESPN decided about this, but it seems this debate will never be resolved. Then, we had this whole story of the Red Sox trading or calling up some catcher, flying him in on the day of the game and the state police escorting him to the game. Did he change in the squad car on the way there? Did the Red Sox send over his uniform with the state police? Never was it addressed that shouldn't the state police be doing things like--oh, I don't know--catching criminals instead of escorting a multi-millionaire to a baseball game? Surely he or the organization could afford a cab or a limo.
But heaven forbid anything take away from this incredibly overblown rivallry that no one outside of the Boston and New York areas really gives two figs about.
I mean it's not like Tennessee is playing Florida or Alabama. Or the Redskins are playing Dallas. Those, my friends are REAL rivallries.
* Not counting potential playoff series, which while they feel like 10 billion games long are actually only potentially seven.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 5/02/2006 07:35:00 AM |
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