Tuesday, April 19, 2005

No seats for you

Talk about swift, severe retribution.
Chris House, the Red Sox fan who took a punch/swipe/love tap at Gary Sheffield last week has had his season tickets revoked by the Red Sox front office. In Red Sox country, especially world champion Red Sox country, that's like the doctor telling you your newborn son will develop an immediate, deep and lifelong interest in ballet dancing and will never harbor so much as a hint of desire to become a big-league ballplayer.
House gets the Pete Rose treatment and Gary Sheffield -- who went back to the fan after he dug the ball out, presumably not to ask him for the time --- undeservedly is heralded as the pinnacle of self-restraint for not clocking the guy.
That's the reason I hate the Red Sox and Yankees, but love their rivalry. It's probably the same gossipy fascination people have with bickering backstabbers on reality TV shows. We want to dig dirt on the famous and successful and make them act out for our entertainment. And it doesn't get much more famous and successful than Yankees and Red Sox. They are like the Hatfields and McCoys, if their rights were purchased by Donald Trump and Bill Gates, with the feuds promoted by Don King and televised on pay-per-view live from Tokyo.

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