Head Case. "You know better! You understand the vast conspiracy to keep Red Sox fans down. ... Now you can show your Red Sox pride while protecting yourself from the powerful mind control rays used by the Evil Empire to control their hidden army of sports journalists and major league baseball executives. ... The Tin Foil Red Sox Cap blocks all harmful mind control rays surreptitiously broadcast by the YES Network, including the ultra-powerful "WTF Rays" that caused Grady Little to leave Pedro in to start the 8th inning of game 7. Order yours today! Operators are standing by."

Larry Mahnken at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog crunches some numbers (here too): "The first thing that stands out is that last year's Yankees lineup projects as being a better hitting team than last year's or this year's Red Sox lineup. As wrong as that sounds, it kind of makes sense when you figure that Bernie, Giambi, Nick and Jeter were hurt last season. I still don't necessarily agree with it, so there's an issue you can have with these numbers. But then, this projects the Red Sox to score about 950 runs this season, so maybe they're not that off. ... The Yankees' top three starters are fantastic, and much better than Pettitte and Clemens would have been, but the bottom is a bit shakier. ... PECOTA says the Red Sox rotation is better than the Yankees. Barely. What stands out here is how crucial the Curt Schilling accquistion was for the Red Sox, how important it is for Byung-Hyun Kim to succeed as a starter ... Boston's bullpen is about the same as New York's overall, but the Yankees have two pitchers [Rivera and Gordon] that rate better than anyone in Boston's pen. But then, Boston has a lefty [Embree] who's not only above-average, but considerably so." The Pythagorean Winning Percentage Formula projects 106 wins for the Yankees and 108 wins for the Red Sox.

Travis Nelson, aka Boy of Summer, on the Rodriguez Trade: "I cannot, for my life, figure out why the Rangers would do this. ... They have argued that his enormous contract (all together now: $252 million over ten years) was a millstone around the organization's collective neck, preventing them from acquiring the pitching they needed to compete. This is ridiculous."

Letters to Theo: G-e-t V-i-d-r-o!