The Pinstriped Morningside Heights

Chass 剛剛才在 Cooperstown 領到了 J. G. Taylor Spink Award，他在 New York Times 上就寫出了這麼一篇對 Red Sox 非常不客氣的報導 "Red Sox Can Take Aim at Yanks, but They'll Hit Themselves" (7/27/04)。不知道他老人家哪裡來這麼大的火，我們來看看：

The Red Sox still have a built-in capacity to shoot themselves in the foot, stumble over the foul lines and hit their heads on the dugout roof.

Remember, these are the Red Sox, and they are capable of self-destructive behavior in their intense, out-of-control desire to beat the Yankees.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox have to overcome themselves, if not the Yankees. They might not be victims of the Curse of the Bambino - who, after all, believes in curses today? - but they are victims of their own mental state.

They so desperately want to beat the Yankees, their fans so desperately want them to beat the Yankees and their owners so desperately want them to beat the Yankees that they can't beat the Yankees.

Except for individual games or series, though, the recent rivalry has been one-sided, and, it says here, will continue to be one-sided because the Red Sox won't beat the Yankees when it matters. They will beat themselves before they beat the Yankees.

我挑了五段出來，剩下來的辛辣程度大概不會超過這些。通常我們在 Red Sox 確定又經歷了一個令人失望的球季後，在 Red Sox 的 newsgroup 或是 Boston 報紙比較容易看到支持者失望的發言跟這篇文章非常類似，在 New York Times 要看到這種東西其實並不容易。老實說，我並不覺得這篇文章是一篇好文章，不過我平常儘量節制自己不寫出這種東西來，讀起來倒是挺過癮的。:p

Chass 最後提到 rivalry，這一兩年來我聽到或看到一些有趣的說法。有些人認為 Yankees 和 Red Sox 之間不能叫做 rivalry，他們的說法是 rivalry 是對等的，你不會把槌子和釘子的關係稱為 rivalry。

有一個反駁的人用了一個有趣的比喻：Lex Luthor 是 Superman 的 arch-rival，不過 Luthor 哪一次贏了？