50 Things More Likely To Happen Than The Yankees Overtaking The Red Sox In The American League East

With approximately 25% of the 2007 season completed, the Red Sox sit comfortably atop the American League East with the stumbling Yankees and overmatched Orioles far back in the rearview mirror. The Sox feature the major's best rotation. Their bullpen is one of the league's most effective and least worked. The team's offense, supposedly saddled by the slow starts of Manny Ramirez, Julio Lugo and Coco Crisp, among others, ranks first or second in the majors in runs scored, batting average, on-base percentage and OPS. The bench is loaded with seasoned professionals and the manager has an excellent relationship with his players. The minor league system is stocked with talent, giving the team's top-notch baseball operations staff plenty of ammunition to either reinforce the major league club in the event of an injury or make a decisive midseason move. And the owners will spend to win.

And yet, despite all the evidence to the contrary, some weak-kneed members of Red Sox Nation, can't accept the fact that the 2007 Red Sox, a team with a payroll north of $140,000,000, are good enough to hold off the [If you're one of those fans still not convinced that the Red Sox are actually good enough to win the AL East, you may want to skip ahead to the next paragraph. The following word may cause you to lose control of your bowels.] Yankees. If you're one of those people, you're an idiot.

You know who you are. You hear someone say that the Sox have an 8.5 game lead in the AL East (as of this writing) and you reflexively blurt out "But, it's soooo early in the season and they're the Yankees." It doesn't matter that the Yankees' pitching staff is underwhelming, overworked and injury-riddled. It doesn't matter that the Yankees are counting on a pitcher turning 45 this August to power them down the stretch. It doesn't matter that the Yankees have never faced such a daunting deficit in the AL East race this early in the season during Joe Torre's managerial tenure.

Because you're not a Red Sox fan as much as you're a Yankees apologist.

If the Yankees had an 8.5 game lead in mid-May, you would be ranting that the Red Sox should trade Manny Ramirez, build for the future and hope to compete for the Wild Card next season. But because it's the Red Sox, you can't handle it. The 8.5 game lead is an illusion. Surely, they'll be devastating injuries. Beckett's finger will fall off. Papelbon's arm will come unattached from his shoulder. Manny will miss a game and be seen at the movies that very same night, prompting a Schilling blog that destroys the team's chemistry. The Alex Cora-Dustin Pedroia situation will end in bloodshed. Tim Wakefield will stop knuckling, J.D. Drew will be in traction and DiceK will demand a trade back to Japan. And the Yankees, just as you predicted, will romp to yet another American League East title.

It ain't gonna happen.

In fact, I'm so confident that the Red Sox will win the American League East that I can think of 50 crazier things more likely to happen in the next five months than the Yankees actually staging a miracle comeback and overtaking the Sox.

1. Roger Clemens brokers peace in the Middle East.
2. Curt Schilling and Dan Shaughnessy get hitched on the pitcher's mound at Fenway Park.
3. Lindsay Lohan stays sober.
4. Lindsay Lohan's nipples and vagina stay hidden from public view.
5. Hank Aaron sneaks into Barry Bond's house in the dead of night and slits his throat.
6. Bill Belichick trades for Brett Favre because "The Pats could use a veteran third-string quarterback when we give Brady a week off to go bang some supermodels, just in case Matt Cassel is too tuckered out from all his singing to start."
7. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver downplay Derek Jeter's intangibles.
8. Barbaro rises from the dead and leads Satan's demon army against the forces of good with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.
9. Ted Williams is thawed out and brought back to life.
10. A reborn Ted Williams takes a Louisville slugger to Barbaro's bad leg and saves humanity.
11. Danny Ainge admits that not all of the players on the Celtics roster are destined for the Hall of Fame.
12. Michael Vick's Ultimate Dog Fighter reality series debuts on Animal Planet.
13. Hayden Panettiere's 18th birthday is overlooked by Barstool Sports.
14. Hayden Panettiere spends her 18th birthday with me because my wife is super-cool about that kinda stuff and Hayden totally digs guys that write for biweekly newspapers and blogs and don't earn much money.
15. Peter King doesn't try to take credit for the discovery of the HDTV, The Wire, The Beatles, breakfast sandwiches, music, Grady Sizemore, "the best meatball sub anywhere in the greater Spokane area," bowel movements, s'mores, iPod's, fantasy baseball and Will Ferrell.
16. Pam Beesly brutally murders Karen Filippelli, dismembers her body and buries the remains on Dwight Schrute's beet farm on one of the funniest Office episodes of this season.
17. Shaquille O'Neal fights crime. With the power of his rhymes.
18. The Bruins do something sorta newsworthy.
19. Phil Jackson admits that the triangle offense is all "just a bunch of shit I made up to hide the fact that unless I have at least two Hall of Famers on my team, like Michael and Scottie or Kobe and Shaq, I'm really not all that great a coach."
20. Sanjaya is awarded the Medal of Honor after single-handedly tracking down and killing Osama Bin Laden.
21. Dogs and cats unite against us.
22. David Ortiz is traded to the Yankees, leading to the tragic on-field suicide of Wally.
23. Tiger Woods gives up golf to pursue a career in motivational speaking.
24. Julian Tavarez remains in the Red Sox's starting rotation.
25. Nick Lachey's deal with the devil runs out and he goes back to being just another washed-up former boy bander with a goofy barbwire tattoo and no future.
26. College football is outlawed.
27. Al Gore is unmasked as a shill for a shadowy cabal of polar bears bent on world domination.
28. Pacman Jones publishes what is widely praised to be the "year's most important and noteworthy novel." It's the story of a young mother and her two children, their struggle to survive as serfs in Imperial Russia and the electrifying NFL cornerback that helps them beat all the odds and win the big game.
29. Tom Brady stops smiling.
30. The Little League World Series is won by a team without at least one freak of nature pitcher who looks like he should be in a Marlboro commercial.
31. The Tupac & Biggie World Tour finally kicks off.
32. Keira Knightley wins the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Sexily.
33. The Red Sox dating show on NESN is a hit.
34. In something we all should have seen coming, the Russians and Cubans invade America in order to seize our precious grain reserves.
35. The Russians waste little time in rounding up and executing Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, C. Thomas Howell and Charlie Sheen.
36. Luckily for us, Lea Thompson still knows her way around an AK-47 and drives the invaders off American soil.
37. Don Cherry moves to Sweden.
38. Fast food stops being so goddamn tasty.
39. God strikes me down for blaspheming him.
40. God is revealed to be none other than Dabney Coleman.
41. Manny Ramirez drops his pants and a deuce in leftfield.
42. The Supreme Court rules that fantasy football drafts that take place prior to the final game of the preseason are illegal and all those involved in such drafts are to be classified as "enemy combatants."
43. The New Kids on the Block reunite as an A-Team-like group of good-hearted renegades.
44. DiceK moves back to Japan because he misses the game shows.
45. Brooke Hogan's penis pops out in the middle of a concert.
46. Kevin Millar stops writing letters to Theo Epstein, begging to be traded to the Red Sox.
47. Fenway Park is destroyed by an asteroid.
48. A steroids scandal rocks the National Spelling Bee.
49. Dick Cheney joins PETA.
50. George Steinbrenner demands the Yankees be moved to the National League Central.