Nobody cares. LOL. I see you're still at it though. I'm happy a couple of championships after so many many years of tiresome and obnoxious Red Sox fan whining about you alls "suffering" makes you happy and if the 2004 Red Sox want to attribute their latter-half "fire" to A-Rod's asskicking of Varitek, then that's all good as well. Perhaphs Bill Simmons will change his book title from "Now I Can Die In Peace" to "Now, I Can Finally ShutUp". Meanwhile, the Yankees have an enormous amount of good memories to drawn on so I glad you can finally join the "good memory" club with a couple of your own.

You're quite the contortionist.

"It was stupid and unnecessary for ARod to behave the way he did and, as usual, he was only hurting his own team."

Behave the way he did? He got hit by a pitch and was jawing with the pitcher on his way to first base. There's hardly anything unusual about that.

"As far as Varitek and his mask, sure, it would have looked a lot better for him to remove his mask, but I don't think his main concern was to get in a brawl with ARod. His main concern was to protect his pitcher and I imagine none of us, if we were in Varitek's cleats, would stop and say "Hold on while I remove my mask."

"Protect his pitcher" from what? A guy walking up the first base line? Has A-Rod ever been involved in a fight before or since? Btw, Varitek was walking up the line with A-Rod and jawing with him so it wasn't like he was some innocent party who just happened to be there. He exaccerbated the situation, started the fight and got his butt whipped but I guess it was good for Red Sox morale.

Oh please again. Your tortured rationale aside, I know the fight is part of Red Sox lore so it's "importance" is magnified well beyond reason (like attributing the Red Sox .700 winning pace afterwards to it).

But Buffalonian is right. Calling Varitek's sissy shove a suckerpunch is an insult to suckerpunches. The bottom line is that he shoved an open glove into A-Rod's face while wearing his mask and promptly got his tail kicked before the dust settled. If Red Sox fans want to remenber only the glove shove and attribute the incident in general to getting the the Red Sox "fired up" and playing better baseball for the rest of the season, well that's fandom for you.

"Usually this involves completely ludicrous trade possibilities ("We'll trade Robinson Cano for Prince Fielder!") that nobody outside the Five Boroughs thinks are even moderately realistic."

Actually that would be a ludicrous trade for both teams.

Anyway, the Yankees didn't get rid of A-Rod, he opted out of his contract. I think an intriguing trade possiblity for the Yankees would be to package Melky and a couple of prospects and cash for the other Cabrera - Miguel.

The reason that this is interesting is not because of the stats of the players involved but because the notoriously cheap Marlins are involved and there's no way they are going to pay, or even offer, Miggy market rate free agent dollars in 2009. He's making 9 mil now and will certainly get around 13-15 mil or so in 2009 so they might be open to a trade rather than to lose him to free agency. The cheap Marlins get a much cheaper player who's a switch hitter, a good outfielder and is ready to play every day, some prospects and cash and they save on the difference between Miggy and Melky's '08 salaries. The Yanks get a young stud who can replace most of A-Rod production and is a natural 3rd baseman. A version of this trade was a "Yahoo rumor" the other day.

"Personally, I'd rather see him take another glove to the face courtesy of Jason Varitek."

Oh please enough with the Varitek ballwashing about the fight. He sucker-punched A-Rod with his glove while wearing his mask. That was a straight up sissy move. A-Rod then promptly put him in a headlock and whopped that ass until it was broken-up but I guess the latter part doesn't make for good t-shirts.

There is a difference between prejudice and racism. Just because people may be favorably biased toward their own group doesn't mean they must be racist against others. Racism tends to imply actions or a set of beliefs that go well beyond basic "bias" toward your own group or against other groups.

IOW, there is a big difference between a black person wearing "Say, It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" or an Irish person wearing a "Kiss Me I'm Irish" or a Polish person wearing "Polish Power" or a gay person wearing "Gay Pride" t-shirts and, for example, a black person wearing a "Honkies Suck" or a white person wearing a "Niggers Suck" or a straight person wearing "I hate Faggots" t-shirts. The latter go way beyond basic "bias" or prejudice toward your own group and against others.

Though I can imagine the "nature made me do it crowd" will add this to their litany of excuses for their personal failings like:

"See, I'm not racist, people are "naturally discrminatory" and, my current favorite; "Sorry Honey, but I could help but bang that woman because men are naturally predisposed to be attracted to hot young women with nice bodies."