I Hate Yankee Games.

I hate them. I really, really hate them. And not just because they generally come with a side of Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee on Saturday and friggin' Joe-did you know that the Cincinnati Reds won the 1975 World Series? Didja?-Morgan on Sunday, I hate Yankee games because they're complete crap.

They're more about the media and MLB hyping the most fantabulous, fantastical rivalry in-the-history-of-sports-in-the-whole-wide-universe-ever than baseball. The rest of the country doesn't give a damn about Sox-Yankee games but since MLB/Fox/ESPN seems to think that the rivalry is the most-awesomest thing since the creation of the millstone, they shove it down everyone's throats. And because of that, things get out of hand. I love my boys but, in general, they're not the smartest chickens to ever crawl across the face of the planet. On some level they buy into it and manage to ruin a perfectly good ballgame.

That said, I don't hate the Yankees. I hate Yankee fans-I loathe them in the same way that Bartok despised Shostakovich-but I don't hate the Yankees. Really, it's almost August and they're in third place. Given their recent history, it's hard for me to make myself care about them. But I'm really starting to dislike this Chamberlain kid.

Possibly there's some history there that only Joba knows about-Youkilis seems just as clueless as everyone else as to why Joba keeps trying to kill him-or maybe he's just a punk kid who takes the whole thing too seriously. Either way, kid needs to chill.

Look, I've tried to like the microdont. For Clay's sake (although Buchholz has shown some questionable taste in the friends he keeps) and for his love of exclamation points (how could I not be a little bit taken with a, perhaps, slightly abusive but ever-enthusiastic grammarian?), I've wanted to like him. He's also a really good pitcher and good pitching is fun to watch no matter where it comes from. I don't know why he feels that it's necessary to try to intimidate Youkilis every time Youk steps into the batter's box. But the way it comes off to me, two things scare Joba Chamberlain: bugs and Kevin Youkilis.