THE RETURN OF PRINCE P

I know baseball season has officially begun when I start grinding my teeth whenever the Red Sox win a game. I have tried to be fair in my coverage of Boston's Home Nine, but now that the games count, I find that I've reverted back to the maturity level of a 5th grader. Cursing them, hating them, instinctively and irrationally. Still, in spite of my limitations, it's been great to enjoy a good rapport with Ed Cossette, who runs the excellent Red Sox blog, Bambino's Curse.

Pedro Martinez will pitch tonight against the Devil Rays after experiencing the worst outing of his career. I was e-mailing with Ed the other day, and here was his reaction to Pedro's performance in the Sox home opener:

Sad to see/hear Pedro get booed. I know it's a tough town, but sometimes I think people take that too far. Indeed, I suspect it's the fans who really don't have much self-esteem about their own baseball knowledge, or who really don't love the game and instead hide behind that mob mentality. Obviously, it's the same group who won't give up on the "Yankees Suck" thing, despite how ridiculous it is.

I remember talking to a Yankee fan a couple of years ago about the "Yankees Suck," chant. "The worst part about it," I said, "is that it just isn't true. I could almost deal with it if they Yanks did suck. I mean I'm not interested in going to the Stadium and yelling, '1918,' or 'Red Sox suck.'"

"Yeah, the only difference is the fuggin Red Sox do suck."

Oy veh. There isn't much difference between Yankee fans and Red Sox fans after all. We both think we are superior. And we are both wrong.