The Red Sox are playing the Yankees tonight. It should be one heck of a show. Boston/New York games are always special, but tonight's game, and this three game series could be one to write home about.

Why? you ask. Aren't the Yankees about 75 1/2 games behind the Sox in the standings? Well, not quite, but they're lagging behind The Hose like I'd be lagging behind Bill Rogers in a marathon.

The standings aren't the point. This is only June 1. Anything can happen between now and September. In 1978 the Red Sox had a 14 game lead over the Bombers, and guess who won the pennant?

Bucky Dent.

Bucky Dent? For you readers who aren't baseball fans, that probably sounds like something an auto body shop might be asked to bang out. The words " bang out " are fitting. Because that's exactly what a 78 Yankee player name of Bucky Dent did - bang out a homer to win a one game playoff contest to decide which team got the World Series tickets.

In Red Sox Nation, the anniversary of that blast is a day of national mourning.

It's June 1. It's not about who's gonna end up winning it all at the end of the season. It's about A-Rod.

A-Rod? you ask. Is that another motor vehicle reference? Is that like, say, a Hot Rod?

Nope. A-Rod is Alex Rodriguez, the Yankee third baseman. He's the highest paid baseball player in history. Makes something like $123,987,843,345,876,123,921, 988,765,000 a year. Give or take a few billion.

Nobody likes A-Rod. His wife liked him. Until yesterday. Everybody, except his wife, loathes him because he makes all that money for playing a game. His wife loathes him because of that picture she - and everybody else on the planet - saw of him yesterday. Him and that " buxom blonde " walking out of a Toronto strip joint together.

I was listening to WEEI ( Or as I call it, W Aye Yi Yi ) in Boston this morning. It was a sports talk show on which two guys say provocative things designed to get other guys to call in and make fools of themselves. They're very good at it. Not the hosts - the guys who make fools of themselves. This morning the topic was, of course, A-Rod.

The talk show hosts wanted to hear ideas for tonight's game. What kind of chants can we come up with when A-Rod's at the plate?

Among the bright ideas was:

A-Rod!! A-Limony! A-Rod! A-Limony!

I know. Pretty stupid. But what do you expect? This wasn't NPR's Talk of the Nation and tonight's event in Boston ain't gonna be held at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Will I be watching tonight? You betcha. I cannot wait. Gotta go.

I'm working on what I'm gonna be chanting when A-Rod walks up to the plate.