I’m back from vacation, and the Yanks are still in last place–7.5 games out of first with Boston pulling away. It’s not only the Yankees this year who are disappointing, but pre-season favorites Seattle and Detroit are also well in last place as of this post. All three of these teams are suffering from similar problems.

So what’s going wrong with the Yanks? There’s the obvious loss of A-Rod and Posada, but even when they were in the lineup the offense was not clicking. A-Rod is now back, so get your A-Rod jersey now and hope he can break this offensive malaise. Currently the Yanks are ranked 19th in the majors for batting avg. and and 13th for home runs. This is a surprise for a team that is essentially unchanged from last year and was a top 10 offense for most of that year (albeit below the top 10 in hitting with RSP).

Perhaps less of a surprise is the pitching. The Yanks are currently ranked 19th in the majors for ERA. (At least this team is consistent for something!) I think many predicted that it would be either feast or famine for this year’s staff, which is composed mainly of young arms who have simply not performed. Chien Ming Wang has been impressive as the occasional ace of this staff and Mike Mussina had a string of 5 wins, but Andy Pettitte seems lost, and Hughes and Kennedy combined have 0 wins. Even Joba Chamberlain has an almost human ERA of 2.66.

This may be a coaching issue, as Girardi brought in new coaches as the Joe Torre era ended. Some of the players may need to adjust to some new coaching styles. It goes without saying that if the offense continues to struggle this mightily that heads will roll but probably not Girardi’s. What may very well happen is that the front offense (i.e. Hank and Hal) will step in and have a much more hands-on approach with on-the-field matters.

The 2008 Yanks have not been an inspirational team, have not shown the ability to grind out wins, and have not shown that there is a leader willing to carry the team on his back. In short, this is a team that is not fun to watch and is in serious jeopardy of not making the playoffs.

Last year at this time I was saying that 2007 would be the first year since 1993 (I don’t count ‘94, the strike year) that this team would not play in October. While the Yanks have a marginally better record so far this year, they somehow seem more lost. This is all very unfortunate considering that this is the last year in the Stadium.

There is still a lot more baseball to play, however. On the plane back to NYC, I did manage to play the new MLB 08 for the PSP. It was awesome. Great way to kill time on a coast-to-coast flight.

As everyone knows by now, a Red Sox fan construction worker infiltrated the new Stadium work crew and buried a David Ortiz jersey in the wet concrete to try and hex the Yanks’ new stadium. In a classy and somewhat deliberate move (Yankee management clearly wanted to take the high ground with this), the excavated jersey was sent up to Boston and auctioned off for charity to the sum of nearly $200K.

So what’s the real story here? Some Boston fans, despite winning two of the last four World Series, clearly are as insecure as ever. You would think the actual process of winning a championship would mellow Boston fans, but there is much anecdotal evidence to the contrary–the Ortiz jersey notwithstanding.

Since the Red Sox actually won, I have never seen so many Red Sox hats being worn. It’s as if Boston fans are finally coming out of the closet to accept their team, jump on the bandwagon and bask in the light that Yankees fans have know for almost 100 years. More to the point above, I’ve never heard so many “Yankees suck” barbs in New England accents whenever I venture outside wearing some Yankees gear. 

So here’s my take on the “greatest rivalry in sports”. First off, there really hasn’t been a rivalry until this decade. Until then the Yankees had won 26 championships to Boston’s 5 (all around WWI). Ohio State and Michigan is a rivalry that’s much longer where both teams have shared in the winnings fairly evenly. 

What gives the New York/Boston rivalry life is this sense among Boston fans that everything great that has happened to the Yankees should have happened to the Red Sox if it weren’t for the ill-fated decision to sell Babe Ruth around 1918. But here’s a little know fact: the Boston Red Sox were the last team in the American League to integrate its roster. Don’t believe me, click here. Perhaps the Red Sox “curse” is simply driven by the fact that they were dead last in taking on non-white players who had plenty of talent when the Yankees and Dodgers were winning penants with Elston Howard and Jackie Robinson

The Yanks/Red Sox rivalry is (somewhat unfortunately) driven by the the intense jealousy-cum-hatred that Red Sox fans feel towards the Yankees. No such intense hatred exists on the Yankees side, and why would it? Between 1918 and 2004 the Red Sox could not beat the Yankees in a significant game. The “rivalry” exists in the hearts and minds of Red Sox fans.  Yankee fans know that their real rivals are the Anaheim Angels who have been the only team since the mid 90s to have a real edge in wins over the Yankees. 

So Boston’s inferiority complex with New York and its Yankees continues despite the Red Sox actually doing what nobody thought they could do: win a big game. If the Red Sox won as many rings as the Yankees, would the intense hatred continue? Only an experienced psychologist can answer that.  At any rate, check out this yankees gear here and let me know if it makes it into Fenway Park somehow.