Saturday October 11th started out festive here in Red Sox Nation. I had to get up early to drive to Provincetown, which took me on the long road through Cape Cod past many quaint taffy shoppes and ice cream parlors, all bedecked with "GO SOX" on their sign boards and home-made "COWBOY UP!" banners. I left P-town around 3pm, headed to The Fan Club in Wareham, MA, a nice little sports bar where there is a Yankee-loving bartender named Steve, and some other true diehard baseball fans, though they are mostly for the Sox, of course. I've seen at least one game of the postseason there every October for years now. On the way I stopped in to a little candy shoppe in Truro to buy some sugary road snacks to keep me alert. When I went in, I took off my Mussina jersey but left my NY cap on--I'm not sure why; I guess I just didn't want to be too incendiary and the jersey seems like a bit much. But what I found inside the shop was a plump and cheerful Cape Codder wife who upon seeing my hat exclaimed excitedly "Are you going somewhere to catch the game?" I told her yes, to a sports bar I knew. "Wonderful!" she replied. "I'm closing up the shop right now so I can get home to see it!" I quickly snagged a bag of gum drops shaped like lobsters (no, I am not making this up) and paid for them. "Good luck!" she said with extra cheer as I walked out the door. "You too!" I replied.

It was sunny and sixty eight degrees at game time, but by the sixth inning Fenway was fogged in, chilly; you could see the breath of the players steaming. The mood of the day underwent an equally drastic change, the result of the action on the field, and off.

How did it start? For years now, every time these two teams meet, some reporter will bring up how the "rivalry" now between the teams is not the same as it was back in the 1970s. They'll get Willie Randolph or Don Zimmer or Bill Lee to comment on how back then, the players really hated each other, and now it's really more of something just for the fans. A nice PR statement, and maybe it was even true at one time. I'm not sure it still is after tonight.

The current strife--which caused Sox manager Grady LIttle to comment that he felt the increase in emotional level "escalated the battle to a war"--has been brewing for a while. Pedro Martinez has gotten as much of a reputation as a headhunter as Roger Clemens in recent years--engaging in beanball wars with such targets as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (remember when Gerald Williams called him out?) and even saying once "wake up the damn Bambino and maybe I'll drill him in the ass." Earlier this year he sent both Derek Jeter and Alfonso Soriano to the hospital in a single game. This prompted one Yankee observer I like (Dan McCourt of TakeHimDowntown.com) to opine that Pedro is actually psychotic. At the time I thought that opinion a tad extreme. Now, I'm pretty convinced he's right.

The flare up actually began in the game before, when the Red Sox felt that Jose Contreras, a guy who is completely new to the whole rivalry thing and who wasn't even with the Yankees the whole year, buzzed Kevin Millar up and in. It couldn't have been that close because the Red Sox partisan crowd at Good Time Emporium where I was watching the game barely twitched. Good Time is a huuuuuge sports bar/entertainment complex--a giant single-story warehouse with 200 pool tables, laser tag, skee ball, and every single wall of the place is covered with giant projection televisions. I was there with one other Yankees fan, in a sea of about 400 plus Red Sox fans. They were getting on us every chance they could. They didn't even blink about Millar.

But the Red Sox did, retaliating by drilling Alfonso Soriano in the back in the 8th. In the ninth, Todd Walker came on to pinch hit with two outs, and Mariano Rivera retaliated for Soriano by buzzing Walker under the chin. How could it NOT escalate with the two leading headhunters of a generation facing off against each other at Fenway Park in Game Three?

Perhaps if Pedro had had his dominating stuff, it never would have reached that point. But the Yankees were hitting Pedro hard, and Pedro was throwing soft, in the early innings. Jerry Trupiano and Joe Castiglione were commenting in the play by play on WEEI Radio that Pedro didn't seem to be using the fastball much. He threw a curve to Jeter that he hit for a single in the first, then threw the same curve to him in the next at bat and Jeter smacked it for a game-tying homer. He walked Bernie Williams on six soft pitches and then threw two more softies to the next hitter. What the heck? I arrived at the Fan Club about this time, and came in to find not only the Fox broadcasters but everyone in the bar talking about it, too. "Is he just saving the hard stuff for later, or is he hurt?" one guy asked another as I sat down. "If he's saving it for later," I cut in, "it's not helping him." Indeed, the Yankees then took the lead 3-2, as Hideki Matsui got his first ever hit off Pedro, an RBI ground rule double deep to right.

On the very next pitch, Pedro drilled Karim Garcia, who ducked his head out of the way and was nailed on the shoulder blade. Soriano then hit into a double play with the bases loaded, and a run came in, 4-2.

Now the disturbing part. Garcia took out Todd Walker with his slide, ostensibly trying to break up the double play, though he overslid the bag more than is polite. He and Walker exchanged angry words, and then Garcia yelled at Pedro, too. That got everyone yelling, especially Jorge Posada and Don Zimmer from the Yankee dugout. Pedro pointed to Posada, and Fox replays made it clear what he was saying to anyone who could lip-read. "I'll hit you," Pedro said, and then pointed to his own head, "I'll hit you right here."

That is just wrong. That was the moment when I started to think maybe the diagnosis of Pedro being psycho might be right. That is the equivalent of a Los Angeles driver taking the gun out from under his seat and waving at the guy who cut him off in traffic and saying "I'll shoot you, man. I will." Both benches were warned and Roger Clemens had a discussion with the homeplate umpire Alfonso Marquez and crew cheif Tim McClelland to make sure they would not automatically toss him if he threw inside. Point of fact, after warnings are issued, umpires can still use their judgement as to whether anyone should be ejected, and I've seen games where after warnings were issued, men were hit, and no ejections resulted. Roger took the hill and seemed relatively calm.

The first batter he faced was Manny Ramirez and he had him down in a 1-2 count when he let one fly, high but over the plate. Replays and even many Red Sox partisan eyewitness accounts agreed--the ball was high, Posada had to reach straight up to snag it, but it was right in the middle of the plate. Not chin music or a knock back pitch at all. But Manny was either expecting to get buzzed or he was just waiting for any excuse. He took several angry steps toward the mound and again we lip readers were treated to several choice words: "Don't fuck around like that. Fuck you." Roger, in reply, was shown to reply in kind. When asked if he thought Manny Ramirez overreacted, Joe Torre later said yes he did, but he could understand why he might, given the emotion of the situation. Torre knows a little bit about being hotheaded himself. But although Torre said he could understand why Manny might react like that, that didn't excuse it.

Both benches emptied as Manny and Roger approached one another, and out came little old Don Zimmer, at 72 years old still one of the fiestiest guys in baseball and a guy who knows first hand what a knockdown pitch can do. (For those who don't know, Zim was hit by pitch early in his promising career as a shortstop with the Dodgers, was unconscious for over a week, and when he came to had to learn to walk, talk, and swing a bat all over again... his career as a star player forever derailed. Zim still has a hole in his skull where the doctors did not put a plate.) Zim went right for Pedro.

Some reports say he tried to throw a left hook at Pedro, but if you watch the replay you will see that Zim's palm is open. (This is the sort of thing martial artists notice. But watch it for yourself and you'll see it, too.) Whatever--Zim either tried to slap Pedro upside the head for being a naughty boy, or just grab him. Pedro reacted as most people would when attacked--he tried to defend himself. He grabbed Zimmer by the melon and threw him to the ground. Zim ended up shaken up, dizzy, with a cut on the bridge of his nose. A policeman immediately began patting him on the back and Andy Pettitte could be seen kneeling over him saying "What happened?"

What happened was Pedro incited violent emotions in everyone that night. Speaking as a martial artist, I do not believe this makes Zim's "attack" (feeble or fierce as it may have been) justified, nor any of the events that came after. But the initiation of the chain of events belongs with Pedro and Pedro alone. And regardless of whether Zim "attacked" him, it still looks awful to have a 31 one year old man treating a 72 year old like a pro-wrestling stuntman. The woman sitting next to me in the bar, a Red Sox fan, commented: "My god, that's worse than when Michael Jackson dangled the baby out the window."

Credit Pettitte, Giambi, and David Ortiz for being the peacemakers and the umpires for keeping their cool in a hot situation. No one was ejected over the incidents (though I bet there will be some fines levied). After a 13 minute delay, during which Pettitte and Gene Monahan helped Zimmer off the field and the umpires conferred with each other and their supervisor in the stands, Roger took the mound and Manny resumed his at bat. He struck out on the very next pitch.

After that the game was extremely tense, but both pitchers, amazingly, settled down. Roger finished that inning without allowing a man on ("A perfect inning that was far from perfect," commented Joe Buck on FOX TV, "so let's just say he sat them down one two three.") and did it again in the fifth, adding two more strikeouts. Pedro faced Jeter first in the fifth and gave up a long shot that would have gone into the seats beyond Pesky's Pole, except for a leaping catch by Trot Nixon. (Aside: that's the second homer Jeter has had stolen from him this October!) After that he set down eight men in a row. Roger hit mild trouble in the sixth with a bloop and a four pitch walk, then struck Nomar out on three pitches and made his last pitch ever at Fenway Park to induce a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Manny Ramirez. After that, Torre decided Roger had done enough and sent him to the showers.

The Red Sox scratched a run in the seventh, after Felix Heredia walked the one man he faced, David Ortiz, who led off the inning. But it was too little, too late, as Mariano pitched perfectly in the 8th and 9th.

But the excitement did not quite end even there, as before the bottom of the ninth, another kerfuffle erupted, this time in the Yankees bullpen. There are conflicting reports of what happened. A Red Sox employee, a groundskeeper stationed in the Yankees bullpen, was waving a rally towel and inciting the bleacher crowd to cheer. He had apparently been doing it all game. Jeff Nelson finally told the guy, if you want to cheer, go do it in the Red Sox bullpen. Heated words were exchanged and the next thing you know, there was a fight. Karim Garcia, who had already taken that shot to the back and also been in the hard slide in the DP, turned and saw the fight, leaped over the bullpen wall and into the fray. Jorge Posada, like a mother goose protecting her chicks, sprinted full speed from the dugout to the bullpen--in full catcher's gear--to protect his pitchers. By then about twenty cops had jumped on the guy, though, and dragged him away (still shouting and gesitculating, according to the FOX replay).

Who hit who first is not really known--as I said, conflicting reports. One phone caller to WEEI Radio after the game claimed to be a friend of th groundskeeper's (accidentally saying the poor guy's full name on the radio, but with seven second delay they muted it out), who had been called to bail him out of jail. When talk show host John Wallach asked for details the guy said his friend "just snapped. Nelson said something snide to him and he wouldn't really tell me what it was because it's his job on the line." I'll say. Other reports say the guy berated Nelson verbally but that it was Nelson who grabbed the guy from behind. Given that there are no real non-partisan viewers in the situation, and the Fox cameras didn't catch the action until Karim had already jumped in, we may never know. All you can really say is this--emotions were still running high and both Nelson and this overzealous Sox employee are both at fault for getting into it. (Later: the next day news reports had the groundskeeper considering filing assault charges against Nelson and Garcia.)

Perhaps the Sox employee felt empowered by his team's current frat house, bad boy image. I mean, during the Oakland series they did a bunch of bush league things, including the bullpen guys spelling "LIL-LY" on their jackets in tape to incite the crowd to chant and get on Ted Lilly, which they were excoriated for by General Manager Theo Epstein in the press for doing. How about Derek Lowe's obscene "fist pump" (Lowe's term for it) to the Oakland dugout after the game five win? Steve Lyons on Fox, a former Red Sox player himself, spoke with a radio interviewer earlier in the day to say he felt it was absolutely wrong, as it was wrong for Manny Ramirez to stand and admire his three-run homer in that same game--he did not start to circle the bases until after the ball had gone and he had pointed to the dugout. Let's not forget the partiers who rushed out of bars around the park on the night of the Oakland defeat to overturn cars and riot. With these kind of antics going on, is it any wonder the workers at Fenway might feel like getting in on the "fun"?

Out of control. This incident resulted in Karim Garcia cutting his hand and needing to leave the game to stop the bleeding, and in a lot more finger pointing between Yankee partisans and Red Sox partisans as to who started it. But remember, Pedro started it hours before.

How's this for a statistic? Fox flashed up a number the other night after the Soriano drilling. Since 1999, the Yankees have hit 23 Red Sox. The Red Sox have hit 50 Yankees. Does that speak to the control of the one pitching staff, or the frustration of the other? Like Joe Torre understanding Manny's reaction, I can understand this reaction on the part of the Red Sox. But understanding it and agreeing with it are two different things.

The Yankees won the ballgame to go up two games to one in the ALCS. The resulting emotional state in New England was an ugly one. As I drove home from the sports bar I tuned in to the postgame press conferences, which were followed by a sports radio talk show. Host John Wallach took his first call from a woman named Sarah, who tried to claim that Roger Clemens, in his tosses to first to keep Johnny Damon close to the bag (Damon of the grade 2 concussion sustained in a fielding collision in Oakland), was trying to hit Damon in the head. Her reasoning--Roger must have wanted revege and since throwing at batters at the plate would have gotten him ejected, he must have been throwing over to try to nail the guy with the concussion. "You're nuts," was Wallach's reply to her.

She also thought that Kevin Millar should have tried to get himself hit later in the fourth inning, so that Clemens would be ejected. Wallach's opinion of her didn't change. Then came a caller complaining that Grady Little needs to teach the Sox to play small ball. He sounded like he was in tears. "They never do the little things that it takes to win games!" he wailed. "Why couldn't Nomar bunt? How come they couldn't cash in the run from second?" He may as well have just been saying: Why does this team always break my heart? Wallach finally asked him, "Where are you calling from tonight?"

"I'm on the bridge over the Turnpike outside Fenway!" he replied, his voice a wail.

"Don't jump! Don't jump!" Wallach tried to calm him. "Hey, it's only game three..." The wailing did not abate and finally he told the caller, "I want you to hail a cab right now. Just get in a cab, don't try to drive, and go home."

The next caller suggested that the Red Sox just eat Manny and Pedro's contracts right now, and let them both walk away because of the way they disgraced themselves and the organization in the game. "Don't you think that's a bit extreme?" Wallach asked the caller. He then lamented, "I'm getting all the nuts calling tonight. Is it something about me?"

No, John, it's not about you. It's about much more than that. At that point I had reached home and figured listening to any more Red Sox post-game therapy would only be sadistic on my part. But these examples show how raw and deep the pain is, how far from rationality people can get, players, employees, and fans. You can't say "it's only a game" because that would be trying to erase a century of history, to trivialize generations of heartfelt emotion, and more. You can't do it.

At this moment I am not sure how I feel about this. One part of me wants to be condemning any and all violent action (on both sides), while another part of me feels validated, that this is something that means so much to people that they would go to such lengths. Baseball, the rivalry--I'm not the only person in the world who has invested great emotional resources in it. I can't be the judge of one side or the other, nor do I want to be. I'm trying to step back and just observe this grand spectacle, but no other writer who writes about this will do that, will they? Oh, I am sure some will claim journalistic "objectivity" but I doubt I'll believe it. Among the Yankees and Red Sox beat writers, angles are more important that objective views. And I am sure the newspapers will have many, many angles on this all. I can't decide if I want to read them or not.

All I know is I can't wait to see what happens next. Wells against Burkett. Wells has been the Yankee enforcer before. Will he drill Manny? I hope not. I hope the Yankees will take the high road. Let the Red Sox have their frat boy, nasty boy image if they want. Let's be business-like about this, and dismantle them in a methodical and thorough fashion. If we are to deliver a whuppin', let it be the 16-4 variety, with our bats and our pitching. To me, THAT'S fun...

Of course today the weather called for "highs of sixty eight, with a little rain." It has been pouring all morning and all afternoon. This time maybe the gods are trying to put out the fire.