Not to be a pain in the ass, (well, actually, yeah to be a pain in the ass,) who do the Red Sox have a lead over in the 21st Century? 2000: NY Yankees 2001: Diamondbacks 2002: Angels 2003: Marlins 2004: Red Sox 2005: White Sox 2006: Cardinals So unless you mean the Red Sox have more titles than the Mets, then I'm not sure what you're saying. Woohoo! A bonus bang on the Mets! :breakdance:
Too bad the 21st century actually began on January 1, 2001, which is no doubt what sunday is referring to.
I knew someone would attempt that excuse. Sorry, I look back to the Y2K "problem" as proof that 2000 was the beginning of the new century. If a computer says so, it MUST be true! :wink:
Well, yeah. That, and the dismantling of the Yankees in the 2004 American League Cham. . . . . ooops, I'm doing it again, aren't I?
Yep that trumps the Century long domination the Yanks have had over the Sox including coming back and beating the Sox out for the div title the last 2 years after that fluke in 2004. Enjoy your 1 fluke title, it might be another 80+ years before your Great grandkids get to see the next one.
Please tell me how it was a fluke. They went to game 7 of the ALCS in '03, won it the next year, and then blew up the team. If they had kept the team together they very well may have won in '05 too. And as I said, if this rotation (assuming Matsuzaka is signed) lives up to 75% of it's potential, they'll probably be winning another one very soon.
Wow, my bad guys. I threw out a simple joke, nothing to stress over, and it turned into another Yankees/Sox/Mets flame war.
They blew up the team? Sox fans were calling the Sox the next dynasty. They lost an aging pedro who didn't help you much in '04 anyway so you had pretty much the same team except pedro. That's pretty much it. Then a year later they lost Damon but acording to Sox fans they got better and younger w/ Crisp and also got Beckett for the rotation. You didn't blow up anything, the Sox were a fluky title team who haven't won a playoff game since. Your rotation looks nice on paper but has a million ?s and Grape Ape and manny are getting old. You won't be seeing another one anytime soon.
That offseason they got rid of Lowe, Pedro, and Cabrera. Foulke was hurt and never regained form, Schilling was hurt for much of the year and was never close to 100% until '06, and Bellhorn and Embree sucked so bad they were sent to the Yankees. Then the following year they got rid of Damon, Mueller, Arroyo, and Millar. Going into '06, a full TWO THIRDS of the starting lineup on the championship team was gone. Flukey? No. They were one extra inning game from the World Series the year before, and made the playoffs again the next year. If they had a Pedro or a healthy Schilling or even a Derek Lowe to start game one against the White Sox instead of the deer in the headlights Matt Clement, that could have been a different series. Ortiz is 31, and showing absolutely ZERO signs of decline, in fact improving over the last few years, and Manny is 33 and still one of the most feared hitters in the game. Neither of them are of any concern whatsoever. And as I said, I know there are questions in the rotation, but it's not a million. Schilling, even with a decline, is a fantastic number 3 at worst, and Wakefield is a great 5. Matsuzaka is an unknown, but that often works to a pitcher's advantage, and he has amazing stuff. Beckett could go either way, but I think we'll see a much better year this year, and if Papelbon adds 3 full runs to his ERA (not likely to be that much), he's still under 4.
