Sports Redux: Daisuke Doesn't Hate the Yankees Enough Yet

We refuse - flat out refuse - to get emotionally caught up in a spring training game. Even if it's Sox-Yankees. Especially if A-Rod, Jeter, and Johnny Demon didn't make the trip down to Fort Myers.

But if you saw a nuclear-bomb-like flash to the south yesterday evening, it may have been the million flashbulbs trained on the first U.S. meet-and-greet between the two Japanese superstars: Sox' Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Yankees' Hideki Matsui. "He wished me good luck, so I wished him the same and said thanks.", said Matsuzaka-san of the meeting. Um...that kind of camaraderie and sportsmanship will have to go before the regular season starts, Daisuke. Just sayin'.

If you're looking for a reason to get fired up for the first round games of the local teams in the NCAA Tournament, here's some ammunition. BC is playing a team coached by Bobby Knight, so you can root for the Eagles with a clear conscience, unless you like authoritarian, hot-tempered gasbags. Holy Cross, even if you're one of those heartless types who likes a 4-seed against a 13, is playing Southern Illinois, who's fairly inoffensive, but apparently gets in foul trouble a lot and doesn't have a deep bench. So maybe this is the year for the Crusaders, who've scared the hayseeds out of Kansas and Kentucky in two recent first-round matchups.

And even though Stanford just squeaked into the tournament with an 18-12 record, they're up against Louisville. And if you're not rooting for Louisville to fail spectacularly, you haven't been a bitter, disappointed Boston fan for long enough.

The Bruins are off till Thursday; the Celtics are in Chicago to play the Bulls again tonight. Starting soon, the Celtics and Adidas will be offering a very-limited-edition run of special jerseys and sneakers to commemorate the late Red Auerbach. They'll be numbered 00 to 938 (Red's coaching win total) and select pairs of sneaks will be given as gifts to Celtic greats (#00 to Robert Parish, #6 to Bill Russell, #45 to Raef LaFrentz...you get the idea).

AP Photo by Charles Krupa, from ESPN