You might remember back to the incident in Houston where Manny Ramirez shoved Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick. Well it turns out Manny said he was “disrespected” by McCormick.

As for the incident that had him knocking down a Red Sox executive, “I was wrong,” Ramirez said.

He said the relationship with the executive had been deteriorating for some time, and a day earlier the guy had said some nasty things to Ramirez in front of Ramirez’s teammates.

Ramirez went home troubled, returned and asked for a meeting with the executive. “I told him, ‘I can’t have you disrespecting me in front of my teammates.’ ”

When he didn’t get the response he liked, it escalated into a shove.

“I didn’t handle it the right way,” he said.

We knew the truth would come out eventually as to what really happened but let’s think about this for a second.

Manny says he was disrespected by McCormick but what did Manny do to the Boston Red Sox organization, his teammates and the fans just a few weeks later. He disrespected them by faking an injury and not playing. He disrespected them with his many comments about how he wanted out of Boston.

Then he has the balls to say when he gets to LA that he thanks the fans of Boston for supporting him. Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black.

According to all of the assembled media reports, the surgeries for UConn Huskies quarterback Tyler Lorenzen and tight end Steve Brouse were successful. No word on how long they will be out but I suspect Randy Edsall may say something during the Big East Coaches conference call today.

Chip Malafronte of the New Haven Register says Zach Frazer will be off-limits to the media this week.

As you may or may not know, the UConn Huskies cracked the top 25 on both polls yesterday.

Brian Bennett of ESPN.com takes a look at Week 5 in the Big East and looks ahead to Week 6.

David Gillett has video of Ray Allen’s visit to the White House with the Boston Celtics.

The UConn men’s soccer team beat Syracuse 1-0 in double overtime.

The UConn women’s soccer team lost to Marquette 1-0.

Former UConn hockey player Anthony Marotta is appearing on this season’s installment of the Amazing Race.

It’s been a long season of Boston Red Sox baseball. A season that started in Japan ended with a walk-off win over their hated rivals the New York Yankees who were playing for pride. A win for the Yankees yesterday would have given them a sweep of the weekend series before they head to the golf courses and warm, maybe tropical destinations.

Towards the end of last night’s victory, all of Red Sox Nation had their hearts ripped out of them when Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald broke the news that Josh Beckett might be out for the entire postseason. Fortunately, we were given a lifeline when Terry Francona announced after the game that Beckett would be penciled in to start Game 3 at Fenway Park next Sunday.

I don’t think we would slot him in. Now certainly, if it goes the wrong way, we’re going to use pretty good, hopefully very good, judgment. But I think that we’re slotting him in there because we think he can pitch there. I don’t think – Friday was actually discussed. I think after Theo [Epstein] and I and John Farrell talked about it more and more and more, we thought that was pushing it. Because then you’re messing around with maybe cutting short a side session. It’s not just health, but it’s competing also. He has to be able to go out there and execute his pitches. I think he’s going to be OK.

So now instead of Beckett going in Game 1, we will see Jon Lester and then Daisuke Matsuzaka in Game 2. If Beckett is able to go in Game 3, the Red Sox should still be in as good of shape as they were before the Beckett announcement.

Steve and I conducted a poll of who you thought should be the Red Sox MVP of 2008 and with 49% of the vote, SOX & Dawgs readers have decided Dustin Pedroia is the 2008 Red Sox MVP. Kevin Youkilis finished second with 43% of the vote.

Links from the local Boston and New York media after the jump.

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this is who Steve and I would want on our 25-man rosters for the Boston Red Sox during the 2008 ALDS against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Steve’s reasoning:

Even with the injuries to Lowell and Drew this team is so deep and has so many guys who can play different positions that it won’t hurt them to have both on the roster even if they don’t play right away in the series or at all. If they advance they can re-evaluate their status at that time. Francona has never been one to do a lot of pinch hitting and I expect that won’t change in the post season unless they make the World Series and the pitchers are batting in the NL park. So having guys like Lowrie, Cora, Youkilis, Kotsay and Ellsbury who can all play two or more positions it won’t be an issue to carry Lowell and Drew. They’ll also end up keeping a few extra guys around like Timlin and Smith as well as Velazquez, Bailey and Ross.

Ian’s reasoning:

Obviously when you look at things, Steve and I don’t differ on anything except for one pitcher.  He has Aardsma making it while I have Timlin. My reasoning for Timlin is the fact that he’s been a pretty decent pitcher in the postseason for the Red Sox in the past. So while I may be taking him for the wrong reasons since he didn’t have the best of seasons, I’d rather have his experience of pitching in big games over Aardsma who’s never appeared in the postseason.

If the news about Josh Beckett is true and he can’t pitch at least in the ALDS, then I would have to add Aardsma to the roster in place of Beckett.

After the win over the New York Yankees on Sunday night, Boston Red Sox skipper Terry Francona announced the starters for their ALDS matchup with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Jon Lester starts Game 1 while Daisuke Matsuzaka will start Game 2. Josh Beckett is penciled in right now to start Game 3.

The game times for the first two games of the ALDS have been announced as well. Game 1 on Wednesday night will start at 10:07 with Game 2 on Friday night starting at 9:37 PM.

10/1 – Game 1 @ Anaheim, 10:07 PM, TBS

Jon Lester vs John Lackey

10/3 – Game 2 @ Anaheim, 9:37 PM, TBS

Daisuke Matsuzaka vs Ervin Santana

10/5 – Game 3 @ Boston, TBA, TBS

Josh Beckett vs Joe Saunders

*10/6 – Game 4 @ Boston, TBA, TBS

Jon Lester vs John Lackey

*10/8 – Game 5 @ Anaheim, TBA, TBS

Daisuke Matsuzaka vs Ervin Santana

* if necessary

Chip Caray and Buck Martinez will be calling the Red Sox-Angels series on TBS. NESN will also be broadcasting 1 hour before and will be on immediately after the games when the TBS coverage ends.

Jonathan Van Every’s walk-off single scored Alex Cora from third base to give the Boston Red Sox a 4-3 win in 10 innings over the New York Yankees to close out the regular season in front of 37,440 at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox finish up with a 95-67 record, which was good for second behind the Tampa Bay Rays (97-65) while the Yankees finish 89-73 to end up 3rd in the AL East.

Terry Francona and Jonathan Van Every are all smiles after Van Every's walk-off single.

Cora led off the bottom of the 10th with a triple off of Jose Veras just past the dive of Melky Cabrera in right center. Veras struck out Chris Carter and then the Yankees decided to intentionally walk Jeff Bailey and Sean Casey. On a 2-1 count, Van Every stroked the game-winning single to send the Red Sox and the Fenway faithful into a frenzy.

Tim Wakefield may have made his final regular season start for the Red Sox and looked good keeping the Red Sox in the game by throwing 5 scoreless innings. He allowed 2 hits and struck out 3 on just 56 pitches. Justin Masterson worked 2 innings allowing 1 run on 3 hits with a strikeout while Mike Timlin worked an inning giving up a hit, a walk and he had 1 strikeout. David Aardsma allowed 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk while striking out 1 in his inning of work. Devern Hansack threw a perfect 10th inning with a strikeout to pickup the win.

Cora went 2-for-4 in the nightcap while Casey was 1-for-4 with 2 RBI. Coco Crisp, Jeff Bailey, Jed Lowrie and Van Every had the other hits for the Red Sox with Carter driving in the other run.

Coco got things started for the Red Sox on the 1st as he led off with a double off of Yankees starter Sidney Ponson. Cora moved him over with a groundout and Carter drove him in from third on a groundout to first to put the Red Sox up 1-0.

The score stayed that way until the 6th inning when the Yankees touched up Masterson for a run.

Robinson Cano started it with a single and went to third on a Jason Giambi single. Xavier Nady brought in Cano from third on a fielder’s choice that saw Giambi out at second. Masterson got out of the inning as he got Ivan Rodriguez to ground into a 1-4-3 double play.

Darrell Rasner came out to pitch for the Yankees in the 8th inning and he walked the first three batters he saw inthe brother’s C, Crisp, Cora and Carter. Rasner struck out Bailey for the first out but a Casey single scored Crisp and Cora to put the Red Sox up 3-1.

Aardsma took over for Timlin in the 9th and looked to close out the Yankees but had a rough going of things.

WIlson Betemit greeted with a single and pinch-hitter Johnny Damon worked a walk. A Melky Cabrera bunt single would load the bases for Juan Miranda, who hit a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 3-1. Aardsma rebounded to strike out Brett Gardner but Cano’s single scored Damon from second to tie the game at 3.

With the regular season over, the Red Sox will be getting ready for the postseason tomorrow at Fenway Park when they hold an optional workout before the rally that gets underway at 4 PM on NESN.

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This is the absolute worst news possible for the Boston Red Sox. I was perusing my feeds when I came across this from Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald.

According to a source, Beckett sustained an oblique injury during a bullpen session following his last start.

Asked last night if Beckett is suffering from an oblique injury, a separate Red Sox source said a medical update on Beckett will be announced today, before the team boards its charter flight to California for Wednesday’s Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the Los Angeles Angels.

It’s okay to shed man tears, it really is.

UPDATE: Terry Francona said in his press conference after the game tonight that Josh Beckett is penciled in to start Game 3 of the ALDS.

[flash http://ianbethune.com/beckfrancona.FLV w=425 h=300]
video courtesy of NESN

Here is the transcript of what Terry Francona said about Beckett and his playoff availability.