Interleague Play Is Here

Done dispatching the woeful Tigers (3 out of 4), the Red Sox now head home to take on the NL West, starting with the World Champs. Much of the attention is naturally going to be on the Pedro-Schilling matchup Saturday (if anyone has tickets to that game, you should know that tickets won't be honored at the gate, so you might as well send them to me). Some attention will be on World Series hero Luis Gonzalez; I've read it suggested that Fenway fans give Luis a big round of applause for beating the Yankees last fall. I like it.

But I think the best part is that one of baseball's true great guys is coming to Kenmore Square for the first time. AZCentral.com has the following Mark Grace anecdote:

"I'm going to go to the scoreboard and write my name. That's the tradition," Grace told reporters. "I guess Ty Cobb and Ted Williams are up there. I think you can lump me in that group: greatest left-handed hitters ever - Williams, Cobb, Grace. What are you guys laughing at?"

In other interleague intrigue, Roberto Alomar and the Mets go to Cleveland, the Cards and Royals have an '85 World Series rematch, Barry goes to the Bronx, and Houston visits Oakland in a matchup that would be awesome if it featured the rainbow Houston uniforms and green-and-gold A's jerseys of the early '80s.

And let's not forget that riveting Padres-Devil Rays clash. Somewhere up there in the Beyond, Bart Giamatti is kicking things.