There are those among us who like watching things over and over. I'm one of them, as my wife can attest only too well . . . or perhaps, in the distance on some quiet night, you've heard such anguished cries as "Not The Godfather AGAIN??!??" floating across the sky.

But this is one rerun (or, as they're known in the entertainment trade these days, Encore Performance) I'm sick of:

JULY 7, 2003 -- Lost by allowing a run in the bottom of the ninth.

MAY 28, 2003 -- Tied it with four runs in the top of the ninth; lost by allowing a run in the bottom of the ninth.

JULY 21, 2002 -- Led 8-7 going into the bottom of the ninth; lost by allowing two runs.

JULY 20, 2002 -- Led 8-6 going into the bottom of the eighth; gave up the tying runs in the bottom of the eighth and the winning run in the 11th.

JUNE 4, 2001 -- Tied it with a run in the top of the ninth; lost on a run in the bottom of the ninth.

APRIL 22, 2001 -- Went ahead with a run in the top of the 10th; lost on two home runs in the bottom of the 10th.

English translation: Six walkoff losses for the Red Sox in their last 23 games at Yankee Stadium.

A year ago, after those two mind-bending July disasters, I wrote the following: If you were a typical dipstick Yankee fan, or a typical New York media member, what happened over the weekend to change your view that the Yankees will always beat the Red Sox when it counts . . . even though that's not, and has never, been the case? In fact, wouldn't you have come out of this weekend believing it more than ever? Do you honestly think that the fact that the Red Sox played the Yankees tough, that they twice erased big deficits and held leads going into the late innings, means anything? All it means is that they can't close the deal, they can't win games they're supposed to win.

Stereotype reaffirmed Monday afternoon, when a post-first-inning Yankee lineup that sparked memories of the Horace Clarke / Frank Tepedino / Jerry Kenney years managed to win a game started by Pedro Martinez.

I'm not much inclined to buy into the hearts-guts-moxie aspect of baseball analysis, and I take the Curt Schilling view of Mystique and Aura. (It's hard, in fact, not to point out that the real reason the Yankees won Monday is because of the performances of Mike Mussina and Jason Giambi, for whom they spent approximately $200 million in the offseasons of 2000 and 2001.) But all stereotypes have, at root, at least a germ of truth, and there's no denying: If the Red Sox get into a close game at Yankee Stadium, at least in the last three years, they invariably lose. And, frequently, those losses are, ah, a little tough to swallow.

Why?

Well, if you're looking for an ethereal answer, the best I've seen may have been provided by David Pinto, whose Baseball Musings blog is a daily must-stop for me. (He actually got the idea from Edward Cossette's Bambino's Curse, which -- I'm ashamed to admit -- I've been avoiding strictly because of the name.) Pinto lays the blame not on the Yankees' refuse-to-lose mentality, but on the Red Sox' oh-well-whatever outlook:

I wonder what John Henry did after the game yesterday? Did he break some chairs? Did he threaten to fire the manager? Did he question the heart of his players? Probably not. Steinbrenner wants to win more than anything. He hates to lose. Maybe that's what the Red Sox need. They don't need a desire to win, but a hatred of losing . . . The Red Sox don't hate to lose. Maybe someone up top should start breaking some chairs.

You know, he might have a point.

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Speaking of John Henry, he was in Rhode Island last week and -- at his request -- stopped by at the Journal to meet with some writers and editors. The main news, I felt, was his assertion that he felt it was "probable" the Red Sox would re-sign both Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra, but two other pieces of the conversation stuck with me.

First was his revealing that Theo Epstein was worried about the bullpen as early as spring training, but that Henry and others in the front office convinced Theo that his relief fears were nothing more than first-year jitters. I found it interesting because conventional wisdom -- which is, usually, a stereotype boiled down to its simplist level -- is that Epstein and Crew were determined to "reinvent" relief pitching this year, based on something Bill James wrote in the Historical Abstract. (Get a tape of Saturday's FOX broadcast and listen to Tim McCarver's rantings to get the full blast of this point of view.)

What Epstein and Crew were actually determined to do, if you take Henry's comments one step further, was not pay Ugueth Urbina $8 million. And for that, I heartily applaud them. Urbina ain't worth it. Yeah, he's better than Chad Fox and, yeah, he's better than Brandon Lyon. But is he good enough to win with? And is he going to give you full bang for your $8 million worth of bucks?

In my view, the answers are no and no. They were better off doing what they did, which is not overpaying for less-than-Grade-A performance and instead waiting around to see who became available.

Having said that, I also realize the bullpen was far worse than anyone could have imagined . . . and the half-dozen or so in-the-bag games this 'pen has blown may be the difference between making and missing the postseason. But if you were to ask me if they did the right thing, I'd still say yes. Because, in my opinion, you weren't going to win with Urbina. He's not the lights-out, Grade-A closer who you want protecting a one-run lead in Yankee Stadium in September or October (and if he's not, why in the world would you write him a check for $8 million?). Better saving the money, leaving yourself with midseason financial flexibility, and hoping you wind up with someone better. Which they did, I think, when they got Byung-Hyun Kim. (And, yes, I know all about the 2001 World Series. I still think he's a better bet to succeed than Urbina.)

The second interesting point made by Henry concerned Pedro Martinez' comments about his contract and his subsequent media boycott (which slowly, and without announcement, has all but ended . . . as many predicted). I defended Pedro, saying that Sean McAdam -- who was there -- insisted both publicly and privately that Pedro's comments weren't nearly as inflammatory or challenging as they were portrayed by columnists and pundits who weren't part of the conversation. "That may be true," Henry said with a smile, "but you have to realize that when you're speaking publicly, everything counts." Which means that no matter how you meant it, if you say it there's always the danger of it being misinterpreted.

Henry said that in his year-and-a-half as owner, nothing has been written or said by anybody that he found truly unfair or untruthful. "The coverage has been fine," he said. "I have no complaints whatsoever with the media." And I got the feeling the next step will be teaching the players what he already knows: Specifically, learn not only what to say but what not to say. Learn how to avoid potential minefields like the one Martinez inadvertently wandered into by just not going there.

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Some other Red Sox-Yankee musings:

-- Pinto recently discovered -- and, thus, so did I -- a great Yankee blog: Larry Mahnken's Replacement Level Yankee Weblog. Mahnken writes well, and he is absolutely not your garden-variety, "1918!" "Bucky Dent!" "Bill Buckner!" Yankee fan. ("It seems that whenever the Red Sox have a good team," he wrote last week, "the Yankees have a better team. I don't think they're really cursed, but it's gotta be annoying.") These last few days were the litmus test for me. Most Yankee fans gave Monday's game the Mystique/Aura/1918!/Dent/Buckner treatment, but Mahnken didn't bite. He cited it as an important win for the Yanks (which it absolutely was), reveled a bit in their continuing ability to, if not beat Pedro, at least win games started by Martinez (which is an undeniable fact), and pointed out the A.L. East race could be over soon (which might be the case). But he also takes Joe Torre to task for some of his in-game decisions, says Ruben Sierra has no business being in the middle of the lineup, and puts forth the opinion that Hideki Matsui doesn't deserve to be on the All-Star team. He's a serious fan, in other words -- an analyst --- and his is a welcome voice in our corner of the baseball world . . . especially since I've met so few Yankee fans who are either serious or analytical. Glad I met you, Larry. I'll be checking in often.

-- More representative of the Yankee Fan Genre, at least among those I've met, is WFAN regular Jerome from Manhattan (NOTE: Thanks to Buck Showalter at SOSH for the correction, which someone alerted me to via e-mail), who I swear was three seconds from bursting a blood vessel in his head as he furiously vented his bile on Pedro Martinez for having the audacity to pitch inside to Alfonso Soriano and Derek Jeter on Monday. (This was a post-game call to Mike And The Mad Dog that we heard on the way home Monday afternoon.) Even Francessa couldn't contain his amusement as he asked Jerome if Roger Clemens threw inside (yes), if he considered Clemens to be a "headhunter", which is what he kept screaming about Martinez (yes), and if that was okay with him that Clemens pitched that way (yes). "Oh," said Francessa, "in other words, Clemens is a headhunter, but he's okay because he's your headhunter." Well, yes.

Gotta love it.