The greatest show on Earth

Don't you love it when the circus rides to town? Sitting in that compact, bottom-bothering seat watching a hyperactive clown cartwheel around the field while the potent scents of peanuts, and cotton candy tickles your nostrils.

Believe it or not, you aren't sitting under a Big Top watching elephants roam around and trapeze artists soar through the air. Chances are you are sitting in Fenway Park when the Yankees come to town.

Those rump-irritating seats in the Fens were designed for people who represent the Lollipop Guild while those hyperactive clowns aren't really clowns at all but drunkards who have one too many pops at the nearby watering hole. Along with the familiar scents of franks, peanuts, and cotton candy, a faint aroma of stale beer may tend to permeate through the night sky. This is the usual setting when the hated New York Yankees come to town and this is Fenway Park at its best.

While a heated divisional series against an AL East team tends to get the Boston sports fans' adrenaline flowing, nothing jolts the system like a meeting with the archenemy Yankees.

On a night when the Yankees arrive at Fenway Park, the stadium becomes juiced with electricity. There is a smattering of celebrity sightings all across the park and there are more boys in blue patrolling the stands. The members of both teams arrive at the park early to avoid overzealous fans and press, while also taking more physical and mental prep time for the ensuing battle. The typical attire around the ballpark includes navy blue shirts of 'Jeter Sucks' or the more common off-white, 'Yankees Suck' shirt; clothing designed to offer fun for the whole family. While most of the games at Fenway Park usually sell out, it's not uncommon for there be some no-shows. When the Yankees come to town, twenty people would wrestle for the opportunity to bearhug a pole in an obstructed view seat.

Pre-game Sox/Yankees is all Chutes and Ladders. Once the game commences, it becomes a game of Crossbows and Catapults.

When Chuck Knoblauch struts from the on-deck circle to start off the game, the fans rise from their seats and launch continuous volleys of jeers as the venom spews from their tongues. Their hearts turn black with bitterness, disdain, and rage. This is the team that stole the game's greatest player from their grasp and set them on course for an 83-year campaign of ineptitude and "what-ifs."

The animosity only intensified when some of the best players in Red Sox history (Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens) got so tired of getting annually schlacked by New York that they jumped sides. Boggs and Clemens wanted to know what the cake tasted like as they were sick of getting spoon fed lima beans. As quickly as they left Boston, both now have gold championship rings adorning their ring fingers and to them Boston seems like a tiny little blip in the rearview mirror. The place that made them into superstars is a grainy memory and the fans in Boston can't shake the sour aftertaste from their mouths.

As tiresome as it may seem after lugging an 83-year old weight around like a prisoner's ball and chain, the flame still burns bright and the mission remains similar to that of an old ninja shogun - defeat the enemy at all costs. In the last few years, the Yankees seem to waver in the regular season like immature apprentices until the post-season. Once they advance, they become as invulnerable as Popeye was after downing a plate of spinach.

The Red Sox pay the loot to enter the adult card game but can't even come up with a two pair while the Yankees are always holding a royal flush at the end of the round. There is nothing more frustrating to Boston fans and that is why they get so jazzed for a scheduled appointment with the boys from the Bronx.

As is the case anywhere in the country, the Yankees are the game's greatest dynasty and they have a massive following from their own New York fans, to the game's historians, pure-bread baseball fans, to even bogus bandwagon jumpers. Either way, Yankee groupies are bound to land anywhere their team travels towards and when they emerge in Boston, you better put on your hardhat because its going to fly fast and furious.

Maybe the guy seated in front of you is wearing a Bernie Williams tee shirt or some jamoke across the way is holding a Mariano Rivera poster. One time at the Fens, I saw someone have the gall to wear a Clemens shirt during the Yankees series. At the end of the game, all I saw him leave with was the skin on his back and a massive wedgie.

This week the New York Yankees head back into town and already the fans are preparing their pre-game party plans. The press is diligently working on the soap opera angles and the sidewalks leading up to Yawkey Way soon will be littered with anti-Yankee propaganda.

This week there will be no clowns, just amorous Red Sox fans in blue and white war paint. While there will be cotton candy and peanuts, the closest thing resembling lions or elephants will be the pitbull-like fans and their anti-New York mentalities.

This is New York vs. Boston - this is the greatest show on Earth.