Everything And More

Johnny Pesky: "This tops everything ... I'm glad I was alive for this. This is like being reborn."

Damon: "It's better than my wedding ring. You can always get wedding rings."

E-Rod: "I think I'm becoming a cult hero in Boston. I don't want that. I don't want that at all."

Mariano Rivera: "I didn't know they loved me so much here. It was nice. I enjoyed it. ... What was I going to do? Get upset and start throwing baseballs at people? You just roll with it."

ESPN seemed desperate to create controversy where none existed. John Kruk and Harold Reynolds spent a good deal of time saying they were shocked that Derek Lowe (and to a lesser extent Dave Roberts) wore Red Sox shirts when they received their rings. Both players are now employed by other teams, so they apparently dissed their new teammates by wearing those shirts for 15 minutes. ... I heard no mention of Ramiro Mendoza, who also wore his Red Sox jersey, even though he is currently under contract to the Yankees. Perhaps I missed it.

The ceremony was marred only by Terry Cashman (he wrote the horrible "Talkin' Baseball" song), who sang what was quite possibly the worst song in the history of ever. The Globe's Eric Wilbur called the song "pathetically and painfully awful. It was so bad that as the pennant was being raised in center field, fans were rather quiet. The pinnacle moment of all this, and we've got Terry Cashman. The Yankees had to be embarrassed for everyone involved in this one. Ugh." The song included these lines:

Raise the flag, the Curse is over,
The Babe don't live here anymore.

To my surprise, Red Sox management was okay with the Ruth Curse theme. Wilbur notes that fans entering Fenway received signs that read, "I got you Babe." He also reports that you can now buy a Red Sox Rally Monkey. Noooooooooooooooo ...

The Times' Richard Sandomir reports that "the Yankee-centric myopia of the YES Network reached a fascinating level of absurdity yesterday in a pregame show that virtually ignored the sight of the Boston Red Sox receiving their World Series rings. Oh, it was discussed, but not seen live. During Kimberly Jones's 5-minute-24-second report from Fenway Park, the camera never showed the ceremony, live or on tape." ... Steve Zipay of Newsday calls YES's behavior "a bush-league move."

After the rather sedate atmosphere of Monday's win, I think the crowd will be back to normal on Wednesday night. Curt Schilling opposes Jaret Wright.