Hot Stove II

The best news that has wafted northward from the early weeks of baseball's Spring Training comes not from Florida or Arizona but much further south--Venezuela, in fact. That's where the surprisingly efficacious Venezuelan police rescued the mother of Detroit reliever Ugueth Urbina, who was kidnaped six months ago. I would not even try to fathom the hearts of darkness of someone who'd kidnap a celebrity's mother (though the Moms of Brooke Shield and Gary Coleman would not elicit much sympathy). The savagery of the outlaw sociopathy in the cocaine regions of South America is uncomfortable to contemplate, as is the presumed incompetence and corruption of the local police and militias. But somehow they all came through for the baseball hero. Unbelievable, and huzzah.

Next comes the pre-emptive audacity of Barry Bonds. Now that he has been ineradicably stained with Steroid suspicion, his home run record is forever tainted. So he lashes out at the media with a "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" diatribe. Too late, Barry. Although one can still argue that you're one of the two or three greatest hitters of all-time, we will never know whether your last couple of, frankly, amazingly productive seasons would have happened had not your body been so hospitable to steroidal enhancements. Some time in September, or early 2006, as you approach Hank Aaron's 754 home run record, the controversy will erupt that will make the 1961 Roger Maris asterisk affair seem like, well, an asterisk. Number 755 will engender a whole lot of resentment and hardly any celebration. That's already a done deal. Too bad for baseball. The only person to possibly benefit from this is Jason Giambi, whose brief infamy will be totally overshadowed by the Bonds debacle.

The most foolish non-controversy has come from the public relations division of the Boston Red Sox, who briefly decided not to allow their hometown champions to receive their World Series rings during Opening Day ceremonies because it would "show up" the visiting Yankees, whom they embarrassed last Fall. I have no idea what kind of logic went into this idea, but it surely defies the entire point of fan inclusion. Now I am a Yankee backer of longstanding, and largely antipathetic to the Red Sox "idiots," and find their constant razzing of Arod to be roundly obnoxious, but they certainly earned the right to parade their post-season bling-bling in the face of any opponent. If they were opening the season agains Tampa Bay or Cleveland there would be no question about ceremonial proceedings. And if the Yankees had won the series, they certainly would have feted boisterously in front of the Sox in Yankee Stadium on April 3. Why would the Red Sox act so deferentially to the Yankees?

Boston's post-season surge was, however painful to me, also remarkable and heroic. The Yankee's collapse was devastating but also historically embarrassing and they deserve to have it flung in their collective faces. After a surge of protest from Red Sox fans (whom, except for my niece, I largely despise, as they've been trained to utter "Yankees suck!" with the same mindless knee-jerk intensity of a "Sieg heil!"), the Boston brass rescinded the idea and will allow the presentation to continue. I find it implausible that anyone wanted to spare the feelngs of spoiled Yankee millionaires who are so detested by the Boston fans. They waited 86 years to rub it in the face of their opposition, so let them have the glorious moment. And, hopefully, the humiliation will motivate the Yankees to perform more efficiently this season, just as their flopping in 1997 energized their spectacular three-season championship run from 1998 to 2000.

Come to think of it, that may be why the Red Sox brass were afraid to gloat.