Where Is All the Hype?

Where is everyone?  The Boston Red Sox play their last regular season games this week at Yankee Stadium (and most likely, the last games ever).  The place that Ruth built, site of the Aaron Boone homerun, the place where the greatest come-back (and greatest melt-down/choke) of all time occurred.

And even if none of those things were in play, did I happen to mention the Red Sox NEED to win these games.  Not only would it send the Yankees to the golf course earlier than ever in the past 15 years, but we also wouldn't need to listen to the worst joke ever told: What's the difference between a Fenway Frank and a Yankee hot dog?  You can buy a Yankee hot dog in October.  (For the record, I've been to 17 different Major League ballparks, and have yet to find a worse tasting hot dog than what is served at Yankee Stadium.)

But I digress (I do that a lot).  The Red Sox enter this series 4 1/2 games behind the Tampa Bay (don't call me devil) Rays.  No one, not even the writers for the New York Post, really think the Yankees have a shot at making the playoffs this year.  Even Hank Steinbrenner has talked about "building for next year." 

The Yankees can, however, play an active role in the 2008 playoffs: they can act as spoiler.  They have six games left playing both the Red Sox and the Rays.  Twelve games that very well might be the deciding factor in who wins the East, who gets the Wild Card and who goes home. 

So I ask again: Where is all the hype?  Where is ESPN hyping Wednesday Night Baseball when they broadcast the only game of this series that will be nationally televised.  Where is the announcer with the deep voice sounding like the fate of the free world depends on the outcome of this series? (oops, sorry, that's only on Fox.)  The Olympics are over, the Little League World Series is over, so where is everyone?

Don't let the lack of hype fool you...this series may be the make or break games that decide if the Sox head to their third postseason in a row. 

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Those that know me sometimes think I am too honest and too nice when I am.  An example often sited to prove this occurred during a no-hit bid by Mike Mussina at Fenway Park in 2002.  I decided the baseball purist in me had to stand and cheer the no-hitter if he got it, never mind it was someone on the Yankees doing it at Fenway Park.  Baseball come first, devotion to the Red Sox second (a very close second, but second none the less).  To be clear, I did cheer, scream, and laugh when Carl Everett broke it up in the bottom of the 9th.

So with that in mind, understand why the baseball purist in me says this:  Why in the name of all things holy are the Red Sox and Yankees playing the last series of the regular season at Fenway Park?  Tell me closing down Yankee Stadium for the final regular season game against the Red Sox would not be a fitting end to a stadium that has seen so much Red Sox vs. Yankees history?

And it would have been so easy to do:  the series in New York this week could easily have been played at Fenway.  And the final games of the season could easily have been moved to New York instead being played in Boston.

I know the Yankees were disappointed not to play the final regular season games at home, and maybe the folks at Major League Baseball just assumed the Yankees would be in the post season, so it wouldn't matter.  And let's be honest, if the Sox are playing the final games of the season fighting for a playoff spot, all of Red Sox Nation wants those games to be at Fenway, especially considering their winning record at home. 

But to the baseball purist in me, this just doesn't make sense.  Someone at MLB dropped the ball.