Sports Redux: Bouncing Back

Were we sore baseball losers, we might snicker about how Johnny Damon's version of a home run is about as wussy as his arm. We could hypothesize about what Yankee operative snuck into the Red Sox clubhouse to tamper with the Icy Hot Manny Ramirez and Bobby Kielty were using to prevent their backs from seizing up during play. We might even politely ask Cameron Diaz to quit jinxing our team and instead focus on figuring out which celebrity she's dating this week (John Mayer and Bradley Cooper would like to know).

But we're above that, right? We can instead acknowledge that our rival Yankees played a better nine innings than the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night and walked away with the 5-3 win during the first of three games in the Bronx.

What happened: everything the Red Sox did, the Yankees did better. The Red Sox score two runs on homers (solo blasts by Ramirez and Jason Varitek), the Yankees score three (a solo Derek Jeter shot and the aforementioned two-run Damon homer). Boston gets a decent performance from pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka (6 1/3 innings, six hits, five runs, two strikeouts, three walks), New York is treated to a strong showing by Andy Pettitte (seven innings, six hits, three runs, six strikeouts, two walks). The Sox make a single error, the Yankees play clean ball. And, the kicker: the Sox scored runs, the Yankees scored more.

So now what? Let's hope that the squirrel that was stuck on the foul pole has escaped the stadium, for starters. And then we can turn our attention to a matchup that brings us some serious glee: the Red Sox Ace of Today versus the Red Sox Ace of the Past. Josh Beckett, Roger Clemens - the Arm and the Institution.

We're liking our odds.

Remember him? Photo by flickr user culhanen