Baby Boomer

The Opening Night starter for your World Champion Boston Red Sox, approximately 200 victories and 200 cases of Coors ago . . .

I'll probably jinx him by predicting this, but I remain confident in my hunch that David Wells will outpitch Randy Johnson tonight.

A Wells masterpiece just seems a likely plot twist in this Red Sox-Yankees drama, one in which the unexpected often becomes the reality. And believe me, from what I've been hearing during tonight's pregame hypefests, a Wells/BoSox victory is certainly unexpected.

While the "Baseball Tonight" doofs spend all their adjectives on praising Johnson, New York's favorite stork, it's almost as if Wells's participation in this game is an afterthought.

His role in Chapter 1, Vol. 102, of the Sox-Yankees saga should not be so easily dismissed.

Consider: Wells wants to stick it to the Yankees, who rebuffed him after he indicated a desire to return as a free agent this past offseason, telling him they wanted to get younger, then trading for the 41-year-old Johnson. (Hey, he is younger.)

And if there's anything he's proven in his 18-year career - other than that a hangover can be a precursor to perfection - it's that a vindictive Boomer is an effective Boomer. That Wells - a Babe Ruth aficionado who wears the No. 3 in tribute to The Bambino - ended up in Boston only adds to tonight's countless subplots.

Further, he always has been at ease in the spotlight, and the same can't be said for Mr. Don't Talk Back To Me in the other dugout. Considering that this is the nationally-televised opener between the most bitter rivals in sports, the spotlight doesn't get much brighter than it will be tonight.

It's Boomer's kind of show. I expect him to command the stage.

(Now excuse me while I cross my fingers and pray he doesn't get lit up like his first name is Byung-Hyun.)


Update, 12:48 a.m. Monday: Tonight's final: New York 9, Boston 2. Johnson was everything Yankee fans hoped. So was Wells, who pitched 4 1/3 sloppy innings, allowing 10 hits and four runs while staking an early claim to the Ramiro Mendoza Embedded Yankee Trophy. My point: You should consider this post Example 9,280,983 that I am a glue-sniffing assclown. I knew I shouldn't have skipped my shock therapy yesterday.

Anyway, I'll post something new on the game later today. In the meantime, this diehard will be clamping himself to the Toyota's DieHard, just to avoid any more delusional hunches.

(BZZZZTT! Zapcracklewhimper)