Time to Make a Decision

The Red Sox have just lost their closer to the Philadelphia Phillies. Earlier in the offseason, they had lost their Manager and GM to chicken wings and beer in the clubhouse. With everything going on around Boston, it is only natural to ask, who will be our rival next season?

Don't get me wrong. We'll still act like, despite their 20 game deficit in the standings, beating Boston is key to our baseball success. But, for a real thrill, we're going to need a new rival. Just on a part-time basis mind you.

We could stay internal, keep it in the division and look at Tampa Bay, but it's hard to hate a team whose home stadium is filled with your own fans when you play them. It makes it hard to get aggressive. Besides, half the Yankees live in Tampa anyways, making the Trop basically a home game for us. The Rays can't serve as our rival.

The Phillies are an option. After all, they keep landing players we'd love to have. Halladay. Lee. Oswalt. Now they signed Papelbon? Well, it's not that we wanted Papelbon, and actually they kind of did us a favor. Not that I want to face Bard with his 110mph change-up, but I want to have to look at Papelbon even less. Plus the Phillies play in another league. Different league + did us a favor = not our new rival.

But maybe I've made a mistake. Maybe I didn't look internal enough. What about the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees? Those motherf@#$%*s regularly send us players who don't pan out and give up runs as though its contractually stipulated that they do so. Remember when we gave Andrew Brackman his own country to play for us? How did that whole Scranton development plan go? These dirty sons of dishes keep screwing us time and time again. I think we've found our new rival.