Before you feel compelled to point out that "old Yankees" grandstand in the clubhouse every time the Yanks secure a division title or pennant, put a Sox in it! All those old Yankees come fully adorned with their own rings; bought and paid for with their own toil and triumph.

Sox fans always deride the Yankees and their fans for living in the past and droning on about 27 28 World Championships, but, have you ever heard a Yankee of the 1996 to 2000 or 2009 vintage dedicate a championship to his pinstriped ancestors? Acknowledge? Yes. Include? No.

The same holds true with the fan base which elects to view winning as a progression and the next link in a glorious tradition. When the Yankees beat the Phillies in 2009, it was no more a victory for the 2001 Yankees than the Phille's loss was a crushing reversal for their ancestral brethren, the 1980 Phillies.

Does the Sox winning the 2004 World Series mean that their ancestors of '86, '75 and '67 won as well? I guess the Mets, Reds and Cardinals will be hearing from Bud Selig soon to inform them of the sudden retroactive victories of the Red Sox. The truth is simply that 2004 is only relative to 2004. We are weary of hearing about how the '04 Sox have vindicated, absolved, and otherwise redeemed all previous Boston underachievers.

Win or lose, Yankee teams stand alone unless linked via sequential or clustered Championships ('77 & '78, '96 to 2000) or sustained post season appearances ('95 to 2007). In non championship years, Yankees and fans possess the admirable trait of honoring the past while playing in the present and anticipating the future.

What happened at Fenway in 2005 was not an opening day ceremony; it was a revival meeting. The only thing they did not do was dunk old Red Sox in the Charles. Yankee fans are not about redemption, we leave that for the Sox. We're about class, style and tradition. That Opening day at Fenway was not about celebrating and embracing. It was an exorcism; the Sox and their fans did not reclaim their past, they banished it! By forever linking past failures to current success, they have diminished the noble and valiant accomplishments of current and past players.

High Mass at Fenway could only be complete with the presence of the Yankees. And what did they do while being forced to watch this spectacle? They stood and applauded. If the situation was the other way around, do you really think the Red Sox would have stood and applauded in their dugout at Yankee Stadium?

All that welcoming of the past and the making right of old wrongs is more about fear of the past returning than it is about ushering in a new era (error?). The Yankees will always be in their heads and our presence was required to complete the exorcism; after all, how can you banish "evil" if it does not even show up?