And So It Begins ...

Prepare for the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments: The Yankees have passed the Red Sox in the American League East. With only 11 games left to go — and an ominous three-game set at Fenway to end the season — we have yet another chapter of Yankees-Red Sox drama. Please do not accuse of East Coast bias for bringing this up; we understand that non-East Coast sports fans look forward to another onslaught of Yankees-Red Sox coverage the way Gulf Coasters are looking forward to Hurricane Rita. Christ ... again?

As you could probably predict, the Red Sox world is losing its collective mind, a condition we'd have a little bit more sympathy for had, you know, last year not happened. A few selected tidbits:

• "The kind of pained scream you make when you watch someone pull the wrong wire out of a bomb, and you just know all is lost." ([ Red Sox Fan In Pinstripe Territory] • "It isn t the end of the world, is it?" [ Keep Your Sox On] • "This was just a sick, sick loss, exploiting some of the worst features of the 2005 team." [ Surviving Grady] • "Really, I mean it's not like we're at war with a bunch of jihadist whack jobs or anything. So the Red Sox are in second place behind the Yankees. It's not like we're about to have a global avian flu epidemic or anything." [ Soxaholix] • "The Choke's on Us." [ Boston Dirt Dogs]

So yeah. Two more weeks of this. Enjoy!

The Beat Goes On [Only Baseball Matters]