What a f***ing great series. That's pretty much all there is to say about the recent three game series of the Yankees at Fenway.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. There's a LOT more to say about it. But it still boils down to the fact that it was a fabulous series, great theater and great sports. Now, you'll hear the players and commentators say constantly that it's "always" great when these two teams match up. That may be true in a larger sense, but we have also still seen our share of blow-outs and lopsided wins/losses that can lack drama. I've seen the Yankees win 22-1 and 16-5 at Fenway in the past, and although those games were FUN for the Yankees fans, they weren't exactly drama-laden. Heck, in the 22-1 blowout, we forgot the score after a while and had to keep looking up at the scoreboard (what? it's 16 runs now? oh, I guess so...) And this year, just before the All Star Break, there were those blowouts at the Stadium. Who would have expected David Wells to serve up five home runs? A fun time for Red Sox fans, but not the most gripping contest.

This time, all three games were close, which meant that win or lose, both sets of fans could get excited about each game. Each time one team would go ahead, the other would threaten, or the lead would flip flop, the tying run would come to the plate in the ninth, or even the go ahead run. On Friday night around the seventh inning I turned to the Sox fan sitting next to me, an older gentlemen who had come with his son, and said "We've got a real doozy here!" Well, I said it again on Saturday, and again tonight.

It's Sunday night around 2am as I'm typing this, and I'm too tired to write up full recaps of all three games. Just try to think of all the unpredictable crazy things that could happen when you put these two teams together, and your list might look something like this:

1. David Wells, who had only walked two men all season before the Red Sox came to the bronx, where he walked four of them, walked FIVE men in under six innings! And yet the Yankees won!

2. Jesse Orosco, at 46 years old, finds himself traded out of San Diego and makes his first appearance in a Yankee uniform, to come into a tie game with the bases loaded! And strikes out Johnny Damon!

3. Enrique Wilson, seldom-used utility man for the Yankees, would got 2 for 3 with a walk, steal two bases, and score the two deciding runs in the game in the 7th and 9th innings!

4. These two runs would be scored charged one to Pedro and one to Byung-hyun Kim!

5. Kim would blow TWO saves in the three game set against the Yankees!

6. And yet then pick up the win in one of them!

7. Nick Johnson would play his first game back from the DL and make three sparkling, difficult plays in the field!

8. Jeremy Giambi would record his first stolen base ever in regular season play!

9. The stolen base would lead to the game-winning run!

10. Chris Hammond, who had only given up one homer all year, would yield back to back round-trippers to Jason Varitek and Johnny Damon!

11. David Ortiz would leg out a triple!

12. Manny Ramirez would make an incredible sliding, tumbling catch into foul territory against the stands to make the final out of game three!

I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately. I went to game three of the series with one of my geekiest sabermetrician friends (Eric Van, find him on the Sons of Sam Horn discussion list) who also happens to be a lifelong, diehard Red Sox fan. "The only difference between these two clubs is luck, not ability," I told him. The wonderful thing about studying statistics in baseball is that the better you know the game, the even more astonished and surprised you can be when things that are completely against the odds occur. The element of luck in baseball is significant (we can even prove that it is, statistically...). The result is a game that can be studied, scrutinized, and understood to the minutest detail, and yet one still has to play the games, and watch them, because no one can predict what will actually happen. It is baseball's inherent nature, to produce big moments where it seems like miracles can occur or mortal men can overcome (or succumb to) everything from each other's desire to win to each man's own limitations.

Perhaps this is why, even though my team lost two of three this weekend, I am not depressed about it. These were great games, and I enjoyed them; they excited me, even if the final scores were not in our favor. And of course I believe what all Yankees fans believe. That no matter how good the Red Sox are, we're always going to turn out luckier in the end. See you in September, boys...