Funkerstation » Henoc Muamba is also glad to see the

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. Cheap Angels Jerseys . Parker had 26 points and eight assists and San Antonio beat Toronto 112-99 Monday night. 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Cheap Angels Jerseys Authentic . -- Ryan Blaney provided more evidence that Penske Racings No.WINNIPEG -- A jack of all trades last season for the troubled Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Demond Washington is hoping to add even more to his resume in 2013. "I played probably every position on the field last year," said Washington, who apart from helping out on defence also ranked third in the CFL in combined return yards. The Auburn product wasnt signed until April 2012 but his return credentials were already solid after compiling 1,117 yards in his senior year, good for fourth in all of U.S. college football. Now Washington is challenging for a starters job on a defence that must get a lot better -- especially in the secondary. "I told the first group of secondary people last night I wasnt happy with their performance and if they dont pick it up, theyre going to be gone," Bombers head coach Tim Burke said Tuesday at training camp. He says his defensive backs lack intensity and thats exactly what he sees in Washington. "Hes fast, hes quick, hes got really good hips and feet, and he plays with a lot of intensity," Burke said. "Thats what I like about him." Washingtons combined 2,011 return yards last season could have been even higher if not for some dropped balls -- an issue he has said he has been working hard to correct. "Last year was the most I had in my whole career combined so Ive got to eliminate those things," he said. Whether or not he gets the return job again as well is something that hasnt yet been determined, but Burke says he would have no problem with it if thats what special teams coach Craig Dickenson wants. Washington is currently pencilled in at weak-side linebacker, a position usually occupied by a player strong enough to support the run but also athletic enough to drop into coverage "I have Demond working the weak side of the coverage to put some pressure on some people," said Burke, who has also tried Washington at halfback in the secondary. "This is my first time playing boundary halfback and I think its coming along pretty good right now," Washington said after practice. One mmember of the defence who isnt on Burkes naughty list is middle linebacker Henoc Muamba.dddddddddddd The Bombers have been nothing but impressed with their first pick in the 2011 CFL draft. Muamba says with all the newcomers, the competition is stiff for starting jobs. "Weve got a bunch of great athletes, great defensive players. That is only going to make our team better," he said. "The competition is very high at every position and Im loving it." One of those newcomers is brother Cauchy Muamba, who has moved to the Bombers from the B.C. Lions. Henoc Muamba says his older (but not bigger) brother is fitting in well. The Bombers have him slated to start at safety. "Thats just a credit to how smart he is and how much he can pick up," Henoc Muamba said. "Its just a matter of being comfortable now and getting enough reps with each other at the position so we can react to each other very well and instinctively in games." Henoc Muamba is also glad to see the return of Casey Creehan as defensive co-ordinator, who was linebacker coach when Muamba joined the team. "I know how he coaches. I know what he expects of me," Muamba said. "He knows my game. Hes always told me hes going to help me take my game to the next level." Nickelback Johnny Sears has yet to return from off-season surgery and the Bombers secondary has also been hurt this season by the defection of linebacker Marcellus Bowman to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Cornerback Jovon Johnson, the CFLs outstanding defensive player in 2011, says Creehans return should also help get some of that intensity back for the secondary. A new diet and workout regime has seen Johnson gain 10 or 15 pounds of what looks to be pretty solid muscle. He says he now weighs in at around 190 and feels it can help his tackling ability. "It made me slim down at first but then we started training a lot harder in the weight room and I put the weight back on," he said. "I think people want to see me tackle more ... so I need to decide to go out and do that." ' ' '