162

Strange pairing

As Red Sox fans know only too well, for the past few days, the Sox playoff hopes have depended not just on their ability to win games but on the Yankees' to beat Tampa Bay. This puts Red Sox fans in the strange position of hoping the Yankees actually win. The horror! There have been all kinds of jokes about Sox fans taking extra showers and stories like the silly one in the Times yesterday about Yankees and Sox fans actually consorting.

Yaz during 1978 slide

Reader, I can't do it. Listening to the Yankees-Tampa Bay game on the radio on the drive home last night, I cheered when the Rays pulled off a triple play (!) with the bases loaded and Yanks down by only one. Even though it turned out to be decisive in the Rays winning the game. Boston also won, for a change, so here we are all tied up on the last day of the season.

"Coexist" the Yankee fan's (other) bumper sticker reads. Yes. Codepend even. But, as Walter Sobczak puts it in the Big Lebowski, "That line, you do not cross."

It all comes down to tonight. Fill in your own sports cliché here_______.