Sports Is Not War

The Yankees start a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox tonight at Fenway Park in Boston. Even if today were not September 11, the Sox' awful season, awful in so many ways, would make this the least consequential Yanks-Sox series in 15 years -- since 1997, the last year in which the Sox had a losing season.

I've checked the Red Sox website. No mention is made of any commemoration planned for today. But since the Red Sox are still an American team, the New York team will be the opponent, and both planes that hit the World Trade Center took off from Boston's Logan International Airport, I'm sure there will be something appropriate done.

I've called the Yanks-Sox rivalry "The Hundred-Year War." I'm not the only person who's compared the rivalry to combat.

But it's not. As World War II U.S. Navy gunner and Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller taught us, "Anybody who says sports is war has never been in a war."

I present this video, from Yankee Stadium, September 11, 2009.