Weep for the Red Sox nation as the empire strikes back again
Know any Boston Red Sox fans? Have any of them put a bowling ball through their television set yet?
Treat them gently today. Pat them on their slumped backs and tell them it's not that bad. One day it must all change.
Try to pretend you're not lying.
Pity their fate. They are never safe from the Yankees. Not in the summer. Not in October. Not in winter, when the pinstripers taunt them with wads of cash.
They close their eyes at night and see Pedro Martinez still on the mound in the eighth inning last fall in the Bronx. They wake up in a cold sweat, having dreamed of the most terrifying apparition of all. George Steinbrenner with his checkbook out.
What is he buying now, Lake Superior, to use as his team's whirlpool?
No, just a new third baseman. Barring last second cold feet by Bud Selig, Alex Rodriguez is going to New York.
There, he will find his usual shortstop position already occupied. But the Yankees don't mind. There is always, always, always room in the lineup — not to mention the payroll — for another luxury item.
Rodriguez will cost Steinbrenner $112 million for seven years. It is not clear yet if he will get the funds out of petty cash.
There are three things about Rodriguez that certainly must thrill the Yankees.
He can hit.
He can field.
And he's not playing shortstop for Boston. Which he almost was a few weeks ago.
Just a few last technicalities, and he was ready to be assigned his locker at Fenway Park. Then fate or the union or Babe Ruth or someone intervened, and the deal collapsed.
The Red Sox nation had cause for disappointment but not desolation. Rodriguez was going back to Texas. Who cares who hits third for the Rangers?
But here comes Boston's worst nightmare. Apocalypse now. Rodriguez playing next to Derek Jeter. The left side of the Yankee infield looks like a Cooperstown induction ceremony.
Shocked? We really shouldn't be. It had to come to this. Rodriguez became the poster player for big money the second he landed in Texas three years ago, with a deal worth a quarter-billion dollars. His is the picture that always runs with the story about insane spending in baseball.
A famously fat contract like that doesn't look quite right in Arlington, Tex. Sooner or later, Rodriguez had to become a Yankee.
Now apparently he is one.
The rest of baseball will grumble in NC-17 rated language at another Steinbrenner shopping trip. But weep not for the National Leaguers, who are safe from Steinbrenner's gold mine until the World Series, and keep beating the Yankees there, anyway.
Weep not for the Rangers' fans, even though their cellar dwellers are now partial sponsors of third base in Yankee Stadium, paying a $67 million slice of Rodriguez' contract.
That is the final bill for foolish spending. The Texas Rangers can stand as a warning to all others, of the ruin that comes when a fortune is given to one infielder, with pennies left for pitching.
But I worry for the Red Sox fans, that they might need professional counseling after this one.
First to be teased with getting Rodriguez to help end their eight-decade suffering.
Then to see him in the Bronx.
Their team has emptied its bank account to finance a rebellion in the American League East. Spent millions trying to get even. Only to run again into baseball's one unalterable law.
George Steinbrenner will always spend more trying not to get caught.
So weep for the Red Sox fans. All they know is anguish, when the empire strikes back.
Otter, the
last place the Yankees will occupy will be the cellar.
So many things can happen, and do; but I really don't see them sliding to the bottom of the AL East.
And while I don't totally agree with Steinbrenner's move here for A-Rod, from the morality/ethics point of view, a number of ideas come to mind:
The Red Sox , so obsessed with "The Curse" went out and bought some quality players themselves.
Good or bad, you cannot underestimate the ego of G. Steinbrenner.
Steinbrenner wants to see his team win as badly as any other owner in the game. Is that a crime?
Last fall's colapse to the Yankees in the ALCS shook the Red Sox to their core, there is no mistaking that.
It was probably the bitterest pill they've had to swallow since losing Babe Ruth to ......oh heck, I forget now.
Barring any last minute legal problems, and subject to Bud Selig's approval, Alex Rodriguez, or "A-Rod", as he's known in the baseball world, is going to become a NY Yankee third baseman. 
Their starting pitching will be the reason they won't make the playoffs this year. Everyone in the AL East will have a better ERA than the yankees..Face it, Penn, the Yankees are headed to the cellar like all the NY teams.