The rivalry I am totally sick of is the Cubs vs the Cubs, as they’ve been beating themselves and choking on it forever.
Fred McGriff is certainly NOT a sure thing. Alomar is, and what spectaular flameout occurred at the end of his career?
I agree, RickJay. McGriff is almost certainly not going to the HOF, and Alomar almost certainly will.
I am a Yankee fan. I would love to see the networks ignore the Yanks & Red Sox for awhile. I am sick of Sunday night games, pick some West Coast teams ESPN you twits. I hate Morgan and I hate McCarver more. I want my Yankee games to be announced by our announcers, not these network hacks.
I also hate the craziness. Red Sox fans think “Yankees Suck” is an inspired chant. Well it is not, root for your team, not against the other. Then the Yankees take a step below, some dope of a Red Sox fan buries an Ortiz jersey in the new stadium and the Yanks are dumb enough to dig it out. Damn it, what a waste of time and money on both sides. $30,000 dollars spent for fear of a “curse”
“What a bunch of maroons!”
As a Red Sox fan I couldn’t agree more. I’m glad the new Sox management had banned a lot of the nasty t-shirts from Fenway.
As a Cardinal fan, there is nothing better than a Flubs-Redbirds game. Especially a late summer game where the Cubs are on the verge of their annual swoon and the Cards can push them over the edge into disappointment and underachieving yet again. 
Of course, I also hate the mean evil wicked nasty Godless Commie Astros, too. Just not quite as much.
I don’t hate the rivalry. I love a good rivalry and I think it makes baseball more fun, and lets face it, much of the baseball season is boring as sin. HOWEVER, I find the national force feeding of it inexcusable. ESPN and Sportscenter, ostensibly a news organization, really ought to have an obligation to be somewhat balanced in their coverage. I suppose this is the manifestation of the downside to having a virtual monopoly on national sports coverage. If they at least limited the discussion and coverage to when the teams were playing each other it’d be tolerable. Usually MLB tends to schedule “rivalry weeks” in which several of the major matchups happen and the Cubs-Cards, Dodgers-Giants, Mets-Braves, White Sox-Twins type rivalries get completely ignored.
All that said, I think this guy who buried the jersey in the stadium is actually pretty damned entertaining. That’s a fun and worthwhile reason to talk about Yanks-BoSox. Had they not been talking about it for the last 5 months straight people might have had more fun with it. These quotes are particularly hilarious to me:
Fred McGriff is on the cusp of 500 home runs and was considered one of the gentlemen of the game. He may not be first ballot, but he’s the only one from that group who I’m sure will get in.
Roberto Alomar flamed out in 2002, his last year with the Mets. Nearly every major offensive stat was cut in half and his average went from 336 to 266. He bounced around with the White Sox and Diamondbacks before retiring in 2005. As a Mets fan, it was painful to watch.
For example, I’m looking at the headlines on ESPN.com’s baseball section.
Headlines one and two are on the Yankees. Chamberlain leaving the team and the Yankees comeback last night. Headline 3 is about the Red Sox win over Cleveland.
At the risk of a hijack…
I agree with you on McGriff. Guys like Jim Rice and Andre Dawson get serious consideration, and McGriff was a better hitter than either. He might have to wait a year or two, because voters tend to place extra weight on “being the best at your position,” and he rarely was that (he almost certainly was in 1993, at least in the NL, but guys like Jeff Bagwell, Will Clark, and others all had claims to be better than McGriff in various individual seasons).
Roberto Alomar, on the other hand, looks like a first ballot Hall-of-Famer to me. With Craig Biggio, he was the best at his position for a decade. He’s a career .300 hitter and was generally regarded as a superb defensive player. Those last two years were brutal, and I’ll never understand what it was about playing in New York that ended his career, but even on the basis of what he did before he came to Shea, I think he gets in.
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Thanks for clarifying.
Ya’ll know that Bristol, CT is almost exactly on the border between Yankee-land and RedSox-land?
Anyway, not to continue a derailment, but
(First I think the quote was two or three other HOFers, besides the ones mentioned) But mostly, I’m wondering why isn’t Ortiz on the list?
Ortiz has had five really good years, which is a lot less than the rest. The others would all go into the Hall in [del]2013[/del] [or '14, whatever] if they retired today (except perhaps for Mussina).
Well, nobody’s going to remember Alomar having a poor batting average in his last season. They’re going to remember him winning two World Series, playoff heroics, and the huge seasons and Gold Gloves he won. Most Hall of Famers didn’t hit well their last season. That’s usually why it’s their last season. Who cares?
Nobody with Alomar’s qualifications has ever NOT made the Hall of Fame. He’s one of the ten greatest second basemen of all time.
I loved Fred McGriff, but he certainly was not one of the ten best first basemen of all time. I think he’s a legitimate candidate, but will be overshadowed by the wide array of players who DID hit 500 homers at roughly the same time McGriff was hitting 493.
You’re neglecting the Tom Emanski instructional video. That’s gotta be the push over the top for the crime dog.
Just wanted to add, that I dislike the national broadcasts too. In fact I have mentioned before that when I’m happily watching the game at home I often listen to the radio broadcast with my TV on. It’s how I missed Fox’s gaff this weekend of switching the game to another channel mid-inning, mid-count.
One more little thing…
It’s worse than you think!
Do you think this chant is confined to Fenway park? Nay!
It’s some sort of odd Bostonian battlecry. It’s chanted at the Garden, and in Foxborough Stadium during Patriots games (remember those guy who won Boston’s first World Championship in the new millenium).
And not even just sports, this applies to any gathering. You see those drunken knuckleheads in Allston who attend Northeastern University? Two hours ago they were chanting “Yankees suck!” During an intermission of a Fugazi concert.
And it’s not even those damn kids! You see that bowling alley? The one that has the Sunday night bowling league? Somewhere in this region there were a bunch of old guys chanting “Yankees suck” back in the bar while watching the game.
Madness? Absolutely.
But Boston is my home, so that’s our madness dammit.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t “Yankees Suck” chanted at the Patriot’s first championship parade? I understand rivalry, but that’s just crazy.
Yes to both.
Yes, it’s one of the lowest of the lows here in Boston. Hopefully we’ll mature as fans. 
I once heard “Yankees Suck” chanted in Fenway during a White Sox-Red Sox game.
To hell with the Evil Empire, Red Sox Nation, and ESPN.