When God Speaks

We should all listen.

Gammons:

In New York and Boston, there is a sense that the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry is baseball's first division, and everyone else is Emporia State. But the reality is that the White Sox wiped out the Red Sox -- with ease -- and the Angels outed the Yankees, and the game's two richest teams looked like Karl Rove.

"They both looked very tired," said one advance scout who covered both teams. "They have a lot of stars, but they have a lot of old stars, they didn't have much defense and they didn't have much pitching."

And close to $270M in combined payroll commitments for 2006.

...

Every one of the 30 teams is flawed, but the Yankees and Red Sox were more flawed than their fans realized, in some cases caused by their reactions to the public's gottagottagottagottagottagetthisguy mentality.

In a sense, they are like the final days of the Soviet Union, prisoners of their own doctrine. David Halberstam recounted a night near the end of that government when he went into a hotel restaurant, asked for a table for two and was told he couldn't be seated because the tables for two were taken, although there were dozens of tables for four that were empty.

The Cold War notion is passé. There are 28 other teams, four of whom are still playing.