Kritik und Vorschläge » games worth circling on the calendar. T

The time of the superpowers, when the Yankees and Red Sox were the greatest show in baseball, is over, and at Yankee Stadium this week the final pieces will fade into history. Roger Clemens and Mike Mussina are gone. Pedro and Gary Sheffield are in the broadcast booth, retired. Joe Torre is in the commissioners office, and Terry Francona in the Cleveland dugout.Chapters are closing. In the last two years alone, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte have retired. Rodriguez didnt last the season, and now Mark Teixeira and David Ortiz will exit. Ortiz and Rodriguez were the last active links on each team to the last border war, in 2004, the last time the Red Sox and Yankees met in the postseason.In between has been clubhouse beer and fried chicken, the boom-and-bust of last place or championship on one side, yearlong drug suspensions and yearlong goodbyes on the other, and with the Blue Jays, Rays and the Orioles in the playoffs reviving themselves in between. Baseballs 50-year assault on the Yankee brand, the inability to get younger and a heavy caboose of big contracts have finally taken a toll in the Bronx.There was a time when we were the sun and all the planets revolved around us, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told me. Today, were Pluto.September, however, suggested an awakening of the force, and maybe, just maybe, Red Sox-Yankees is ready to resume hostilities atop the AL East, and maybe once more atop baseball.The rest of the country might blanch at the thought of Boston and New York reloading for another takeover, but baseball desperately needs this revival. Individually, the leagues players do not rank on the same level of national mega-stardom as Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers, LeBron James or Steph Curry, even though Mike Trout is just as good at his job as they are at theirs. Trout is the best player in the game and on a national scale barely anyone knows who he is. Baseball has chosen regional money over national prominence, and while it might not seem to be paying much of a financial price, it is paying a heavy one in the imagination.The Red Sox have already arrived. They have David Price, and theyll enter this last game at Yankee Stadium having clinched the division after losing 84 games last year. The Red Sox entered Tuesdays final series with the Yankees having beaten New York 11 of 16 times. They have three MVP candidates in Ortiz, Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, and an outside fourth in Dustin Pedroia.For now, the Red Sox have the advantage. Jackie Bradley Jr., who at one point looked like the center-field version of Rey Ordonez, proved that the wizard with the glove could also swing the bat. Betts is a star, and Bogaerts doesnt even look as if he has yet hit full throttle. Their young nucleus will get its first taste of October. This team could very well win the World Series.Unless the Cubs and Red Sox are on a collision course, a Boston World Series run isnt nearly as attractive as a Boston run with New York standing in the way. Even a one-time dream matchup between Theo Epsteins past and present isnt as good for the sport as a sustained return of Sox-Yankees. The San Francisco Giants, after being a version of the Red Sox in terms of success, heartbreaks and living in the shadow of a bigger, more successful rival in the Dodgers, won three World Series in six years but with one gigantic hole -- the Dodgers and Giants still have never met in the postseason.If baseball cannot generate a LeBron James/Reggie Jackson/Ken Griffey-style box-office hit, then it is up to the historical rivalries to give the sport games worth circling on the calendar. The Yankees folded in September, but the sudden star Gary Sanchez didnt. During a four-game sweep by the Red Sox at Fenway, Sanchez hit .368 (7-for-19) with two home runs. In the opener against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, Sanchez took David Price deep. The Yankees, old for so long, finally looked fresh. The day after Rodriguez was released, Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge hit consecutive home runs in their first at-bats as Yankees, then hit .197 and .179, respectively. Austin, on the bench much of this month, also took Price deep Tuesday.After dropping the enormous ballast that was Alex Rodriguez in mid-August, and now with no players on the roster who made their big league debut in the 1990s, the Yankees -- on the strength of their young players and the recognition that, yes, finally, the team was ready to move on from the old days -- have begun embracing the future.The month of September was brutal for the Yankees. They started off 0-2, won seven in a row, and started thinking big, in reach not only of the arsenic-laced wild-card game that is baseballs nonsensical one-game postseason, but also of the division. But the consecutive stretch of playing Boston and the NL West-winning Dodgers three times finished them -- at least for 2016.Baseball might have succeeded in neutering its most valuable asset in order for that dreaded word parity to have some sort of meaning, but the game loses power when there are no villains, no mountains to overcome, no wars worth fighting. Unless September will be remembered as nothing more than an empty tease, 2017 will begin with the Red Sox and Yankees as the favorites in the division: youth versus youth, the games greatest street fight renewed with new names finally unsaddled by the old ones. Wholesale NFL Jerseys . The recently retired Stern was elected Friday to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and will be enshrined with the class of 2014 on Aug. Cheap NFL Shirts . Malkin got tangled up with Detroits Luke Glendening early in the third period and his left skate took the brunt of collision with the boards behind Pittsburghs net. http://www.cheapnfljerseysbest.com/ . In what the team had called a retirement, Ryan said Thursday that he is resigning as chief executive of the Rangers in a move effective at the end of this month. NFL Jerseys China . 4 Villanova with a 96-68 drubbing on Monday. Wragge hit 9-of-14 from behind the arc, matching Kyle Korvers school record for 3-pointers in a game set in 2003, as Creighton (16-3, 6-1 Big East broke a conference record with 21 treys in the rout. Jerseys NFL Cheap . -- Former San Diego Chargers safety Paul Oliver was found dead at his Atlanta-area home Tuesday night, and a medical examiner said Wednesday that the ex-player committed suicide. BARCELONA, Spain -- Lionel Messi scored a hat trick and Neymar excelled as a playmaker to lead Barcelona to a record-setting 7-0 win over Celtic in their Champions League opener on Tuesday.Celtic failed to convert a first-half penalty and level the score at 1-1 in a miserable night for the Scottish visitors.Neymar set up Messi to score twice in the first half hour at Camp Nou before the Brazil striker struck from a free kick just after halftime.Neymar kept pouring it on, crossing for substitute Andres Iniesta to fire in a vicious volley.Messi took his career tally to 86 goals in Europes top-tier competition before Luis Suarez rounded off the rout with a pair of goals.It didnt matter who we had in front us, I remember a beauty and precision that was of another class. Against that, rivals can do very little, Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said. It was a great way to make our entrance to the competition (this season).The 7-0 victory surpassed Barcelonas biggest win in the Champions League to date, a 7-1 defeat of Bayer Leverkusen in 2012.Luis Enrique credited Messis deft movement across the front of the attack, and his dips into Barcelonas midfield where he acts as a facilitator, as key to unlocking Celtic.Leo Messi plays at every position, he has freedom to do so because he is the best in the world at any position he plays, Luis Enrique said. Thats total football. We wouldnt be very smart to put limits on him. Thats why he is the best of all time. Not just because of his numbers, but for his vision of the game.Long gone was the firepower Brendan Rodgers team displayed in Celtics 5-1 rout of fierce rival Rangers on Saturday in the Scottish Premiership.Instead, Barcelona improved on the 6-1 win over Celtic from their last meeting in 2013.There can be no embarrassment because they do that to better teams than ourselves, (but) its obviously a disappointment, Rodgers said.dddddddddddd To lose by so many goals is tough to take.It was the first joint-start this season for Messi and Neymar, after Neymar missed Barcelonas first four matches helping his country win the Olympic gold medal.The two stars, who played in the last half hour of Saturdays stunning 2-1 Spanish league loss to Alaves, needed just three minutes to link up and put Barcelona in charge.Neymar used a clever, no-look pass to play Messi clear on the left side of the area. Messi did the rest by sizing up Dorus de Vries before blasting a left-footed shot past the Celtic `keeper.It got even better from there.The second goal was a brilliant piece of shared playmaking that undid Celtic completely, as the ball flowed from Messi to Neymar and back again for him to nudge over the line in the 27th.The ball moves like its on an ice rink, and they move as fast as that, Rodgers said. (Barcelona) is the worlds best at keeping the ball.Three minutes earlier, Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen made up for his foul in the area on Moussa Dembele by blocking Dembeles penalty kick and denying Celtic its only scoring chance.Goal No. 3 came in the 50th when Neymar curled a free kick over the wall. De Vries got a hand on the ball but not enough to keep it out.Iniesta blasted his volley home in the 59th, seconds before Messi slid to tap in Luis Suarezs pass.Suarez added his own flourish to the demolition when he took Neymars lob on the chest, before swiveling and beating De Vries with a left-footed strike in the 75th.Suarez got his second from a low cross from Messi.Five-time champion Barcelona extended its winning streak at home in European competition to 12 straight matches. ' ' '