So, to the students in Massachusetts who are requesting a pregame handshake between the rival teams, I say worry about more important things, like taking the advice of A League of Their Own manager Jimmy Dugan and avoiding the clap.

Part of the reason the kids are hoping for a sign of peace is that students themselves were "relentlessly taunting each other." Well, who's fault is that? Not the players'. A few of them have done some unsportsmanlike things in the heat of this rivalry, but I'd put their ability to keep their emotions in check way, way higher than the fans.

Yes, there have been a couple of on-field fights in the last two years. Wanna bet there were 50 times as many in the stands?

Look, I play the role of Yankee propagandist here, but this is my space, to be enjoyed by my friends and strangers who (hopefully) understand my sensibility. I don't taunt anyone, simply because I don't log onto your computer and type in my URL. You do.

And I don't go to Red Sox sites and post venomous graffiti. That's the difference between enjoying your own team with your own friends in your own hometown and being a Grade A asshat.

We don't give 1/10th as much of a crap about any opposing team as they do us. That's a straight-up fact. When I saw regular-season games at Wrigley in 2003 and Camden Yards at 2004, I was amazed at how on-edge the crowds were. Like the Hell's Angels had just arrived at their family picnic. When the home team did something good, the fans' immediate reactions were not to high-five friends but to look around for Yankees fans to taunt. Somewhere in our 10-year postseason streak, other cities forgot about the "root, root, root for the home team" part. Hell, does anyone know what Jim Caple's favorite team is?

But these fools are easy to deal with. They think the 2004 World Series was the worst time of our lives. Maybe it was, kinda like the year Bill Gates' net worth dropped to $40 billion. In fact, the night the Sox beat the Cardinals, me and some friends hoisted shot after shot, thanking the Babe and 86 good years. We actually had a blast.

I meet people from Boston and they go from "hello" to mentioning the 2004 World Series in three seconds. "How did it feel? How did it feel?" Well, not good, but we didn't have grown men cry like you dinks in 2003.

Plus, you just say something like, "Was it a best-of-seven like the 26 we won?" or "Nice World Series champs t-shirt ... I have four at home just like it" or "Yeah, it sucked not making the World Series for the seventh time in nine years."

And if that exchange turns from laughs into something truly confrontational, then you're too stupid for words. And Mariano Rivera shaking hands with Johnny Damon ain't gonna solve any of that.

Today's Sports Links:

• SU Hoops: Clouds of Doubt Hang Over '05-06 — Mike Waters of the Syracuse Post-Standard on how the orange shape up next season. Lots more questions than answers, peeps. Especially since our best returning player, Gerry McNamara, really struggled for much of this past season. There is one Diaper Dandy coming in, though.

• 1965 Autographed Braves Ball Goes for $515 on eBay — May not mean anything to you, but I have one at home, in great condition, and bought for $100 one Christmas season in the late-'80s. I guess I just thought it was a good value with Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews and Phil Niekro on it.

• Mike and the Mad Dog Interview Congressman Chris Shays about the Steroid Hearings — Scroll down and listen to the March 18 audio where they just blast the guy. Screaming, bullying, insulting, cutting him off. Doing everything that drives me nuts about WFAN's most-popular show. Just a downright uncomfortable segment.

• Phil Mushnick on That Fraud Schilling — The New York Post crumudgen comes away from the hearings with the same take I did on Ketchup Sock: "Curt Schilling, Thursday, proudly accepted a position on a Congressional drug task force, declaring he wants to get to the bottom of the problem. Then he called Canseco a liar for claiming that there's a significant problem. Then Schilling said that if there's a problem, it's a tiny one. How'd you like to hire the Curt Schilling Detective Agency? Psst, Curt. That big guy seated to your right, Mark McGwire, the guy who destroyed the home-run record. He just refused to answer drug questions. Two-plus-two, Curt, do the math."

• The Thinking Man's Sports Trivia Gauntlet — From SportsLinkCentral.com, a bunch of great trivia questions that require some thought and a bar stool. For example, Who are the last five Most Outstanding Players of the men's NCAA basketball tournament — all in the last 20 years — who went on to be top-5 selections in a future NBA Draft? (Answers)

• Best Sports Bars in NYC — The Daily News picked up the slack where Sports Illustrated failed. (Thanks, Ayan)

• Syracuse University Cheerleader Faces Murder Charges — Eh, I can't even make an obvious joke. Just not right, man.

• AP Survey: Bonds In, McGwire Out of Hall — Mark McGwire pulled a Pete Rose last week, and he just might match his fate. McGwire was considered Hall-worthy for one reason and one reason only: power. And yet he won't talk under oath about where that power came from.

• Haslett Says '70s Steelers Made Steroids Popular in NFL — Jim's like Jose Canseco with an average coaching record. But what do I know? Back then I was trying not to urinate in my Underoos.

• Damn! It's the Yankees — The Sporting News' Ken Rosenthal, who says he "hates picking them," goes with the obvious pick to win the 2005 World Series. As much as I appreciate the selection, I'm only linking to it because I feel bad that no one actually reads The Sporting News anymore.

• The Madness of King George — A new blog about the Yankees that I wish I'd learned about before I wrote my 26 essential websites for Yankees fans, for this simple reason: a lot of those sites suck ass and I was just trying to fill out the list.