THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2008
NSAN
2008
SPORTS
5B
MLB
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Boston Red Sox left fielder Jason Bay catches a fly ball hit by the Los Angeles Angels' Mikael Napoli against the Green Monster to end the six innings during Game 4 of baseball's American League division series in Boston on Monday. Bay, who joined the Red Sox in the Manny Ramirez trade in July, scored the win in the Red Sox's 3-2 victory.
Tampa Bay, Boston set to battle
New-look Rays not expected to back down from division foe Red Sox
BY BEN WALKER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Exactly why the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays tangle so much is hard to tell. Blame it on a high-and-tight pitch here, a hard slide there.
Whatever, this much is true: The teams playing in the AL championship series sure get into a lot of scraps.
"There's no hatred," injured Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling insisted Tuesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
That's kind of how Sarah Palin sees it, too.
"It's more a combination of talent/personalities and place than anything, I think. For years Tampa Bay was looked down on and the Sox were one of the powerhouse teams. The start to respectability is as much an attitude as it is talent and a few years ago the Rays, I think, got tired of being pushed around," he wrote.
"I know that earlier some of the experts this year were kind of tough on the Rays. I've been there," Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, said Tuesday during a speech
said Tuesday in Clearwater, Fla. "But what a difference a season can make, and now the Rays, in the playoffs for the first time ever."
Even before their rise to prominence, the Rays were plenty feisty.
They've scuffled with the Red Sox at least a half-dozen times this decade, punctuated by a wild brawl at Fenway Park in June that resulted in eight players getting suspended.
"You know, we've had some good battles with them all year," Boston pitcher Jon Lester said.
Funny, know who was often
Other matchups in the majors get more attention, be it Yankees-Red Sox or Cubs-Cardinals or Dodgers-Giants. But there is no baseball rivalry that's more spirited than Tampa Bay-Boston.
in the middle — somehow — of those sluggfe?
Manny Ramirez.
Yep, the same slugger who's now the main man in the NL championship series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies.
Ramirez, manager Joe Torre and the Dodgers open the best-of-seven set Thursday night at Citizens Bank Park.
Traded from Boston to Los Angeles on July 31, Ramirez reprised his role as a one-man October wrecking crew in the first-round sweep of the Chicago Cubs. The 2004 World Series MVP went 5-for-10 with two home runs and four walks.
"He could fight a bear with a stick and win," praised Phillies broadcaster Gary Matthews, MVP of the 1983 NLCS when Philadelphia beat the Dodgers.
"I know that earlier some of the experts this year were kind of tough on the Rays. I've been there."
Coming off their victory over wild-card Milwaukee in the opening round, the Phillies are aiming for their first championship since 1980. Torre, no stranger to the postseason, is hoping to lead Los Angeles to its first title since 1988.
The defending champion Red
SARAH PALIN Vice presidential candidate
Sox and the Rays begin Friday night at Tropicana Field. James Shields is likely to start Game 1 for Tampa Bay — he hit Coco Crisp with a pitch on June 5, triggering the bench-
Shields and four other Rays were suspended, while Lester and two other Red Sox players were penalized. A day after the fight, Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon hardly backed down.
clearing fracas in Boston.
Before the season began, Maddon's team showed it would not be intimidated. Twice it got into scrapes with the Yankees
"I want to be very clear: I defend everything our guys did," he said then. "I feel actually proud of the way we handled the situation that was presented."
The trouble between Tampa Bay and Boston dates to 2000, when Pedro Martinez hit Gerald Williams with his first pitch of the game. Williams rushed the mound, a brouhaha ensued and
In 2002,
2004 and 2005.
Tampa Bay and
the Red Sox
tangled after
pitches either
hit or were
thrown near
Ramirez. After
the last of those
three scraps,
in spring training - back when they were 200-1 underdogs to win the World Series.
a slew of players were suspended.
Schilling said then-Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella was trying to turn his team into "a bunch of tough guys."
These days, Schilling said, the clubs are not bitter enemies.
Schilling doesn't foresee any brawls in the next week or so. He'll sit this one out following shoulder surgery.
and are good friends, so much like the Yankees and us."
"The game results are far more important than any egos involved, so no" he said. "I've
"There are very few players left from the earlier times. The dustups we've had since I have been here have mostly been due to the competitive nature of the games more than anything," he wrote. "There are a lot of players involved that know each other
"For years Tampa Bay was looked down on and the Sox were one of the powerhouse teams."
CURT SCHLLING Red Sox pitcher
already seen the Coco/
Shields match three
times today.
This series,
these teams,
are bigger
than that.
the Chicago White Sox in four games and Boston eliminated the Los Angeles Angels in four.
While Boston will try to win its third championship in five years, the 100-win Angels can put away their postseason bunting. In fact, that's what doomed them — a botched suicide squeeze by Erick Aybar in the ninth inning.
"I thought it was a good situation for us," manager Mike Scioscia said. "It didn't work out."
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LINGCOLN, Neb. — Bo Pelini says his faith in his plan to rebuild Nebraska isn't shaken after a 35-point loss to Missouri.
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"I know how to get the job done," the first-year head coach said Tuesday. "I know exactly where we want to head and how to get there, and I'm committed to doing it. I'm working day and night to get it done."
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The Cornhuskers (3-2, 0 1 big 12) go into Saturday's game at seventh-ranked Texas Tech off back-to-back losses to Virginia Tech and Missouri.
In last week's 52-17 beating, Missouri scored on eight of its first nine possessions, with two Nebraska turnovers leading to Tiger touchdowns.
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The Huskers still are looking to establish a semblance of a running game, and their defense ranks no higher than 50th in any major statistical category.
"There is enough talent here to play better than we did Saturday and to compete and win," Pelini said. "I'm not a guy who sits here and makes excuses, and I'll never be that way."
Pelini again offered a mea culpa for the Huskers' performance against Missouri.
"I look back, and sometimes as a coach you try too hard," he said. "I regret some of the things we did in our plan, especially
"He said we might have been trying to get too cute and too advanced," Potter said. "I thought we had a good plan. It just didn't work."
Pelini declined to go into specifics about how the plan fell short. Nebraska came out using three down linemen and had defensive end Pierre Allen float behind them, looking for a passrush lane. The Huskers also used a number of different blitzes.
Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel threw for 253 yards and three touchdowns and wasn't sacked.
"I don't have all the answers," Pelini said. "You're going to make some mistakes along the way, but at every turn you have to learn from your mistakes."
Defensive end Zach Potter said Pelini told the players after the game that he had designed a flawed plan.
Potter said Pelini and the assistants shouldn't shoulder all the blame, however.
"We're the ones going out on the field and making mistakes, missing tackles, missing blocks," Potter said. "He can take all the blame for it he wants, but really it's on us."
defensively."
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Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh said the difference between this year and last year is that the Huskers never gave up when they fell behind.
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For voter registration forms contact:
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phone 785-832-5147
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Barbara Ballard
State Representative Forty-Fourth Political adv. paid for by Committee to Elect Barbara Ballard, Treas. Chuck Fisher