May 17,2006

Hey  


 It's perhaps the most talked about hyped up rivalry in sports. One that brings out the animal in all their
fans. It's the rivalry that saw a 32 year old man toss a man 50 years his senior to the ground. It's the
rivalry that saw Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone hit unexpected season ending homers. It's the rivalry that
produced the biggest collapse in sports history, followed by the end of an 86 year World Series drought.
Its the Yankees and the Red Sox, and last Thursday night, I got to see it firsthand at Yankee Stadium.
    I had been to a Yankee Red Sox game once before, but it was in Boston in 1992. The Sox and the
Yankees believe it or not, were both well out of contention, and the two things I remember about that
game was that Bernie Williams threw a ball to Buck Ludwig, and some clown beat the crap out of a 14
year old kid in the bleachers.
    I also spent some time as a reporter outside Fenway Park interviewing idiots who had gotten tossed
out for unruly behavior. That was after the Jason Varitek-Alex Rodriguez brawl. I was up there for the
2004 Democratic Convention. That story ended up on the front page of the Post and was linked to the
DrudgeReport, one of my favorite memories of all time.
   But I had never had the pleasure of being surrounded by 55,000 rabid, hate spewing Yankee fans
during a Red Sox game in the Bronx. I was looking forward to the experience, mainly for the purposes of
writing.
      Tara had gotten the tickets from her job, and she, along with her sisters Kerry and Megan are die-
hard Yankee fans. I of course was keeping an eye on the out of town scoreboard, looking for the Mets-
Phillies score.
      We got to the Stadium nice and early and that allowed us to watch plenty of clips of recent Yankees
moments with John Sterling's play by play. Sterling is a blowhard who calls every Yankee home run as if
it was hit onto the Grand Concourse. "It is high, it is far, its GONE!" If Alex Rodriguez hits it Sterling calls
it "An A-Bomb from A-Rod". If Jason Giambi hits it, Sterling calls him "the Giambino". (Bob Raissman
calls him the Giambalco) In any event we were treated to a smorgasbord of these highlights.
      When the lineups were announced the biggest boos were saved for David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez.
Ortiz gets booed because he regularly takes the Yankee pitchers deep and Manny gets booed mainly
because he an assbag.
       In the top of the first inning, Hideki Matsui dove for a ball and ended up fracturing his wrist. Matsui
had played in every game since becoming a Yankee, and about 1500 more while he was in Japan. So
unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of history.
      The Yanks had been up in this game 3-1, but bad fielding and a lack of clutch hitting ended up
costing them the game. I came away with a few observations:
1) For a guy who is coming off an MVP award, A-Rod gets booed an awful lot. He's definitely not a fan
favorite. I understand that he comes up short in the clutch alot, and always seems to disappear against
the Red Sox, but these fans really give it to him.
2) I know I wrote about this before, but I can't believe that George Steinbrenner, who practically demands
that the Yankees wear crew-cuts as if they were in the Marine Corps., lets his grounds crew dance to the
Village People's YMCA. I'm not necessarily knocking it, but if they did that at Shea, people would be
talking about how bush league it is.
3) Robinson Cano, who I thought was another overhyped Yankee prospect, actually leads the American
League in hits for a second baseman since his call-up last May. And he made a couple of nice plays in
the field too. I'm not saying he's Bobby Richardson or Willie Randolph, but he's much better than I
thought he was.
4) At the end of last year, the Mets were expected to get rid of Mike Piazza and the Yanks were expected
to let Bernie Williams go. At the last minute, the Yanks resigned Bernie. That may turn out to be one of
their smarter decisions. Bernie can still play and with both Sheffield and Matsui out, they're going to
need him. And the fans love him as much as they can't stand A-Rod. Good for him.
5) Tara's favorite Yankee is Mariano Rivera, so despite the fact that she had to get up at 4:45 on Friday
morning, we stayed through the rain to see him come in. She went crazy when they opened the bullpen
door and the first few notes of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" came on. Mike and the Mad Dog spent an
entire day debating with fans over who has the right to use that song as their entrance anthem, Mariano
or Billy Wagner of the Mets. Francessa thought it was wrong that Wagner was using that song, despite
the fact that a) Wagner used it first (in Houston) and b) that when Mariano was asked why he chose that
song, he replied that he hadn't and that if he had a choice, he would enter to Christian music, showing
just how ridiculous the whole argument is. Hey, if Mariano wants to come into a game with How Great
Thou Art as his theme song, why would the Yankees begrudge him that, he's only been their most
reliable player in the last 10 years.

Overall though, it was a fun time. There really isn't anything else quite like a Yankee-Red Sox game live,
even if it seems like they play each other every other week.

BTW-- Speaking of the Yankees, does it ever happen to you that you hear about someone dying and
you think to yourself "I thought he was dead already?" It usually will happen when some old public figure
who no one has heard from in years suddenly dies. But I found that happen to me a couple of weeks
ago when I heard that Steve Howe, the former Dodger and Yankee relief pitcher was killed. I heard
people saying how shocked they were that he died so young at 48. I can't believe he made it to 48. It
doesn't make his death any less tragic, but with all his battles with drugs and booze, did anyone think
Howe would live to be 85 and go quietly to his Maker?

I have a solution to all this trouble going on between Power 105 and Hot 97. But first, lets review this
whole sordid tale.
        Troi Torain, better known as DJ Star is the morning drive host for Power 105. DJ Star has a rivalry
with Hot 97's morning host DJ Envy which makes the Don Imus-Howard Stern feud look like a church
picnic softball game. With me so far?
        This week Star said something along the lines of "I'm going to do an R. Kelly on your seed." R.
Kelly, you may remember, has been accused of having sex with underage girls.Star even offered money
to find out where Envy's "seed" went to school. Envy's daughter by the way, is 4 years old.
Happy Mother's Day!
        Star was fired and after some political pressure was arrested on Friday for endangering the welfare
of a child.
          Meanwhile Hot 97 isn't exactly an innocent bystander. The building that holds the actual studio has
turned into a modern day OK Corral, with such pillars of society  as 50 Cent and Lil Kim and their
respective posses shooting at each other. There have been at least 3 shootings in the past 5 years at
Hot 97. So I have a solution that will take care of all this crap.
   Back in 1987, country music station WHN was taken over by a new all-sports radio station called
WFAN. The country music station moved to 97.1 FM. Meanwhile 105.1 FM was known as Mix 105,
playing soft rock hits of the  60's 70's and Today (the 80's). Strangely enough, I don't remember any
fireworks between the DJ's playing Willie Nelson and REO Speedwagon.
      Now I'm not a country music fan by any stretch. ( like Tim McGraw mainly because he's Tug
McGraw's son) But I betcha if Hot 97 went back to being Country 97, and Power 105 went back to
playing a mix of music, there wouldn't be any shootouts.
     Better yet, how about giving those guys from CBS FM their jobs back. How about putting them on
105 and giving New York an oldies station?
      Of course people are going to call me a prude at best and some may even accuse me of being
racist. But name another radio station that has had as much trouble as these two have? And name me
one time when these stations had different formats that stuff like this happened. Its not a black or white
thing. It's a not getting shot by somebody's posse thing.

Tara and I are continuing our Red-State Rodeo this week, this time heading down to Hilton Head South
Carolina. I'm hoping to get out an on-locale e-mail while down there, but I can't make any promises. When
we get back, we'll have another review.

In the meantime, Have a Great Week
Wild Bill