Fenway Park

News item: Ravens quarterback Steve McNair refuses to count himself out of today's game against the New York Jets, despite the groin injury that kept him from fully participating in practice this week. My take: This "game time decision" needs to be made by someone else. McNair should be congratulated for his toughness, then be told to take a seat. News item: In a showdown to see which traditional college football powerhouse could stay winless longer, Michigan crushed Notre Dame, 38-0, yesterday to drop the Fighting Irish to 0-3 for only the second time in school history.

April 7 Yankees 10, Orioles 7, Yankee Stadium: The Orioles took a four-run lead into the eighth inning and Danys Baez got a quick out before losing his control. He walked Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez, bringing left-handed slugger Jason Giambi to the plate. Jamie Walker was ready in the bullen, but Perlozzo stayed with Baez, who served up a three-run homer to Giambi. Given only a one-run lead to work with in the ninth, Chris Ray surrendered a two-out grand slam to Rodriguez. April 11 Tigers 4, Orioles 1, Camden Yards: Adam Loewen was matching Justin Verlander in a pitchers' duel, but the Orioles starter had to leave a scoreless game after five innings because of an elevated pitch count.

All I want for Christmas is for Scott Boras to represent me the next time I'm looking for a job. Baseball's uber-agent has done it again, securing a six-year, $52 million contract for Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka even though the 26-year-old right-hander has never thrown a pitch in the American major leagues and will cost the Boston Red Sox a total of more than $103 million if you include the posting fee they now must pay to the Seibu Lions of...

BOSTON -- While the rest of his teammates were at Yankee Stadium on Thursday night, Erik Bedard was settling into his Boston hotel room so he could get a good night's rest in preparation for his final start of the season. The last thing Bedard expected was a drama-filled night, but that's what he got when he turned on his television and watched his teammate and friend, Daniel Cabrera, make a run at a no-hitter. The normally reserved Bedard was so incensed when Robinson Cano broke up the no-hit bid with one out in the ninth, he said that he had to restrain himself from throwing something at the television.

Opinion: There's only one appropriate response to Rafael Palmeiro's telling The Sun that if some team might happen to want him, "I don't see myself as someone who brings a lot of luggage." Is he kidding? Fact: Two of the 12 Negro leagues players going into the Hall of Fame this year have Baltimore connections. Jud Wilson played third base for the Baltimore Black Sox for most of the 1920s. Ben Taylor managed the Black Sox. Opinion: Forget the drama of all those trades and the gambles that various teams took.

BOSTON -- Livan Hernandez struggled through his shortest outing of the season, leaving him searching for answers. Tim Wakefield pitched six strong innings to lead the Boston Red Sox to their fifth straight victory with an 11-3 win over the Washington Nationals last night. While Wakefield cruised, Hernandez (5-8) left the game after 1 2/3 innings and watched his ERA soar to 5.64. "I'm worried about him," Nationals manager Frank Robinson said. "This is the way he has been except for two or three starts this year, and he has just not been consistent enough."

I would love to gleefully tell you all about the imminent demise of the defending world champion Boston Red Sox, but I learned my lesson last year. Lest anyone forget, here is an excerpt from my column on Oct. 18, 2004, after the Sox were obliterated by the New York Yankees, 19-8, to fall behind three games to none in the American League Championship Series: Can't blame the Bambino for this one ... The Yankees squashed the Sox like so many bugs around...

BOSTON -- After all of the anticipation and hoopla, after the high-profile injuries and the closed-door grumblings, after a grueling 162 games that once threatened to climax with a loser-go-home showdown between baseball's superpowers, this is what Fenway Park was left with last night: normalcy. And a second consecutive day of champagne showers as the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees both head to the postseason. Was there ever any doubt? OK, there was plenty, but the defending World Series-champion Red Sox removed much of the anxiety quickly yesterday by pounding the Yankees early and often for a 10-1 win in the regular-season finale - an outcome that had no impact on the Red Sox's wild-card berth in retrospect.

BOSTON - A ground ball that could have been turned into a double play sneaked through the infield yesterday, leaving Orioles first baseman B.J. Surhoff swiping at the dirt in anger. It was the second time his glove came up empty. Surhoff failed to make a backhanded stop of Bill Mueller's sharp roller in the fifth inning, putting two runners on base instead of giving pitcher Rodrigo Lopez two outs. And a scoreless game wasn't going to stay that way much longer. On the next pitch, John Olerud launched a three-run homer to right field, a typical response by the Boston Red Sox when given a break.

RAFAEL PALMEIRO is an American hero. In our time of national crisis, with death and devastation all over the Gulf Coast where Hurricane Katrina hit, we needed some levity, some comic relief to take our minds off the scenes from Louisiana and Mississippi. And into that void Tuesday night stepped a brave, lonely, sensitive man with a pair of earplugs. Earplugs. Because in the second road game in which Palmeiro had appeared in the month since his suspension for a positive steroids test, the Blue Jays fans that half-filled the open-roofed former SkyDome booed him loudly.