The Next Battle

Bill Simmons isn't ready to start the season either. Plus he's calling 2005 "Year 1 of a 500-year grace period."

[T]rue Sox fans worried about dying without seeing a championship, not whether the Babe had put a ridiculous hex on the franchise. ... That should have been the angle all along: A baseball team that couldn't get over the hump, supported by millions of fans spread across the country who kept sticking with them. Looking back, did every Fox and ESPN playoff telecast have to start with 435 pictures of Babe Ruth? ...

I never thought I would say the words "Thank God for the Yankees," but I'm saying them now. Thank God for the Yankees. As soon as Sunday night rolls around and Yankee fans are booing Boomer, Manny, Damon and everyone else, every Sox fan will snap right into, "All right, it's time to defend the title now" mode. You can't help it. We're natural enemies in the wild. ...

If the Yankees lay the smack down this season and beat the Red Sox, and this happens a few more times, how many years will pass before Yankee fans officially start playing the "You got lucky once, now things are back to normal" card?

Probably one. That's the funny thing about Yankee fans – they're keeping low for now, but if their team outlasts the Sox this season, they'll go right back to being as insufferable as ever. It's almost like they're biding their time. ... When it comes right down to it, this blood feud with the Yankees is unlike anything else in professional sports right now. They're the Ali to our Frazier, the Iron Sheik to our Sergeant Slaughter. We need them, they need us. We hate them, they hate us. The rivalry is developing into a self-perpetuating organism – a zero sum game for sports, a de facto Cold War – something that neither team can ever truly win. ... And on that note, I'm ready to start the season. Let's defend this thing.

He also wishes Dave Roberts was still around.

Now we don't have a proven fourth outfielder/late-inning baserunner/good clubhouse guy, as well as a walking reminder of the most important moment in Red Sox history and someone who would have been A GUARANTEED STANDING $%#%@%& OVATION EVERY TIME HE CAME TO FENWAY!!!!!!!!!! How could this happen? We couldn't have found Roberts 300 ABs this season? Couldn't have given him a million-dollar bonus to stick around? ..."

Plus, he's not even in the same league anymore. When will he return to Fenway?