Bronx & Beans

I leave the country for a week (honeymoon in Costa Rica - muy bueno) and the S.S. Red Sox starts taking on water. Coincidence? Probably. Annoying? For sure. About to end? You bet.

The Sox lost their fifth in a row today - they were blanked by the Rays' James Shields. World Series MVP Mike Lowell and utility guys Sean Casey and Alex Cora are on the DL. Manny Delcarmen has been lit up like the Fourth of July (3 ER's, 1 IP and a loss in his last two outings). Mike Timlin looks like he's ready for Social Security checks. The rest of the team appears to have bird flu. David Ortiz entered today's game batting .177 and didn't play.

But have no fear, Sox fans - I'll be back on Thursday, and we'll start mounting some wins again. The Orioles' time in first place is destined to go the way of New Coke. And thankfully, the Yankees still bite.

--Whittle

Welcome, Yankee fans. Welcome, Red Sox fans.

Bronx & Beans is our latest incarnation storming through the blogosphere. We promise this is the last time we'll use that B-word.

However, just about every other B-word is fair game here in Bronx & Beans.

We've got a pair of Italian guys from New York who happened to be Yankees fans. Shocker!

And we've got a pair of Irish guys from Massachusetts who happened to be Red Sox fans. Stop the presses!

No matter how good the Celtics are, or how bad the Knicks are, Boston and New York are baseball towns. No matter how many games the Patriots win before losing the Super Bowl to the Giants, Boston and New York are baseball towns.

So we'll spend this season making fun of each other, making fun of each other's teams and making fun of our own teams. Basically, you know all the stuff fans spew in the stadiums, on talk radio and message boards? Well, here's one more chance for you to enjoy what we consider to be the best rivalry in all of sports.

Just remember, at the end of the day, it's just a game and the Bronx don't really hate the Beans and the Beans don't really hate the Bronx. Then again, we're just getting started here and it's a long season, so that all may chance.

OK, remember one other thing: The comments are free-flowing until someone starts cursing. So please don't curse and we can keep the fun going all season.

Patrick Whittle was born in the Massachusetts suburbs in 1978 (yeah, I know) and began following the Red Sox in 1986 (shut up).

Whittle, whose most cherished possessions include an autographed Jerry Remy ball and a 1988 issue of Sports Illustrated with Dwight Evans on the cover, thinks the Yankees stink.

To be honest, he hated the Yankees a lot less when they really did stink, such as when their best pitcher was Scott Sanderson and Matt Nokes led the team in homers with 24.

When not working as a Long Island desk reporter at Newsday, Whittle sends letters to Congress asking for Oct. 20 to be declared a national holiday in honor of the Red Sox winning the 2004 ALCS.

Kevin Dennehy, seen on the Monster seats in 2003, somehow manages a smile even though banjo hitter Bucky Dent, still basking in fame for tapping the most famous lazy flyball in history, sits 10 feet away, and Roger Clemens outduels Tim Wakefield on the Fenway field behind him. (Back when we all marveled at Clemens' maniac workout regimen. How does he keep DOING IT?!?)

Of course, that's all history now.

Dennehy, a native of Boston's South Shore, last on the Red Line and first in your heart, demanded number 8 on every uniform he ever wore in honor of the loveable crank Carl Yastrzemski. (You remember him, Bridgehampton. 'There's no stahhs on a potato fahhm.')

Like so many in his generation, the 1986 postseason meant more than he'd care to admit. And there was a time when he took ball games in April way too seriously.

But he's grown up now. Never again will you catch him jumping into an ugly shouting match with a Bronx vendor selling t-shirts with obnoxious references to '1918.'

Oh, wait. He doesn't have to.

1) I nearly dumped a girlfriend who thought my clapping in 1995 when Don Mattingly finally reached the playoffs was "childish."

2) Seeing Red Sox fans wretch at the mention of Wade Boggs on the horse in the Yankee Stadium is almost as funny as the episode of "Cheers" when Sam Malone and the rest of them "pantsed Wade Boggs."

3) I've sat in just about every section of Yankee Stadium, including the dugout. (Can't lie, that was pretty cool.)

4) I believe that after your favorite player retires or gets traded or signs elsewhere, there needs to be a one-year grace period before carefully selecting your next favorite player.

5) In all my years of attending games at Yankee Stadium, I've never caught a foul ball or home run.

6) I got booed at Yankee Stadium.

7) I witnessed, two boxes to the left of Giuliani, the Tim Raines-Derek Jeter-Paul O'Neill home run parade against the Indians in the 1997 ALDS.

8) Dave "Bleeping" Roberts!

9) When Aaron Boone hit that home run in 2003 - oh, you know the one I'm talking about - I called my friends in Boston and scream "No-maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

10) When Javier Vazquez entered Game 7 in 2004, I screamed "Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

11) Full disclosure: In 1986, I rooted for the Red Sox to beat the Mets in the World Series. Hey, in elementary school on Long Island, it's Yankees vs. Mets and nothing else.

Yep...that's a sausage and pepper hero in Fernandez's hands. At Manhattan's San Gennaro festival, the Long Island native has been known to start with a hot sausage hero then cool down with a sweet before he knocks down some zeppoles -- That's the flavor.

He takes the Yankees as seriously as his heroes. There is still dried champagne on his uncle's ceiling in Los Angeles from the 2003 celebration when Aaron Boone hammered a Tim Wakefield knuckleball. At that time while working in L.A., he flew back to New York the day after Boone's home run to watch the World Series with his father -- he called his boss from Kennedy Airport, telling him he needed a week's vacation.

"Hopefully there will be more than 18 games played between the Yankees and the Red Sox this season," Fernandez said. "This is my favorite rivalry and I respect Boston. After all, Rocky Balboa wouldn't have been Rocky Balboa if he didn't have Apollo Creed...that said...I'm not hugging any Sox fans* in the ocean."

* (except for Maria Menounos -- but that's it.)