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First, let's answer the compound question that constitutes the title of this piece, which movie buffs among you may recognize as a little play on the title of an old Dustin Hoffman flick.

Ken Rosenthal is the field reporter who sends soundbites up to the announcers calling FOX Saturday baseball broadcasts, presumably from somewhere in the general vicinity of the dugouts, although I'm not actually that sure of his whereabouts during the games. Because the information he shares is always unnecessary and distracting, often wildly speculative, and occasionally either wrong or delivered with a sensationalistic and misleading spin, I'd wondered about his credentials and looked them up on the Internet.

Apparently Rosenthal has some nominally valid ones. Besides his on-camera role, Rosenthal is the senior baseball writer for FOXSports.com. Prior to that gig -- at least according to Wikipedia and other online sources -- he wrote for the Baltimore Sun and The Sporting News magazine. I assume this to be true.

The first time I became aware of him, however, was when he entered my home a season or two ago via the FOX Saturday window of broadcast exclusivity. The camera would cut to him before the game, and then between innings, and sometimes maybe even during innings, and he'd answer boneheaded questions from the booth that went sort of like this:

Announcer: Ken, what's this you've uncovered about the Yanks possibly trading for Barry Bonds?

Rosenthal (with a perpetual grin): "Well, highly placed baseball sources tell me the Yankees make money. Enough money to pick up his contract if they really want to. Sources also tell me Bonds can hit home runs and home runs put points on the scoreboard. Finally, the Yankees like it when that happens versus other teams. Putting all this information together, I can unequivocally say, yes, Barry Bonds could possibly wind up in the Bronx if the Yankees want him."

Yes, I'm being hyperbolic. Barely. About everything but Rosenthal's everlasting, unaltering grin, that is. And once, maybe a year back, he did raise a Bonds-Yanks rumor during a broadcast. If I could have dug it up and offered it here verbatim, I'd have done so. Since it was as inane as my imaginary bite, nobody could then write to accuse me of being over the top.

Now, for the record, I don't know whether Ken Rosenthal said anything outlandish during this past Saturday's FOX Yanks-Sox broadcast. That's because I'd chosen to quit viewing the game for several innings. Besides having had my fill of the proceedings on the diamond, I'd had enough of being bombarded by FOX's tiresome and sometimes absurdly inaccurate onscreen graffiti ... or should I say graphics. Like the one that showed disabled Yankee players, for instance. It included two guys who aren't even on the team's Major League roster, plus Yanks spot-starter Jeff Karstens, who was standing on the mound right there in front of my face -- if I could have seen him through the graphic, that is. I guess that after somebody at the network went through all the trouble of preparing the thing, the producers were bound and determined to use it.

Shortly after seeing that chart, I closed the FOX window into my home for a while. By that point it had become clear that Karstens' out-pitch du jour was the hanging breaking ball, and that for every couple of runs the Yanks would score against Josh Beckett, he would promptly toss the Sox some cookies and give a couple back.

Hey, I know it's a bit unkind of me to put it that bluntly. We all know Karstens, like Chase Wright the following night, shouldn't have been pitching at Fenway in the first place, and wouldn't have been if not for injuries to the Yanks' starting pitching staff. But on the other hand, come on. After David Ortiz nearly sent two of those Karstens hangers to the moon in early at-bats, it would've behooved the kid to be more careful about that third one, effectively putting the game away for the Sox. Or better yet, behooved Joe Torre, who'd presumably seen Karstens' previous Wheelhouse brand cookies from the dugout, to get him out of the game and put Sean Henn to face Ortiz before it was too late.

But Joe didn't get him out. And it got to be too late. And, again, that's right around when I went upstairs to my office, turned on my computer, and listened to a 1979 Patti Smith Group concert from the famous lower Manhattan rock club CBGB's. See, I recently discovered this great website, wolfgangsvault.com, which offers free streaming audio of some hard to find vintage rock concerts. You can't go wrong with it, or with Patti. The recording was from the vault of a live radio performance show called the King Biscuit Flower Hour that used to be syndicated on FM radio in bygone days, and it so happens I was at the show. It wasn't one of Patti's best. But it had many good moments. Even Patti's worst shows have their moments, and, in my opinion, are better than most everybody else's. Also, like this column's writer, her once and current lead guitarist and collaborator Lenny Kaye is a former New York City record store clerk. From back when there were record stores in New York City. I can relate to this band.

Unfortunately, I became a bit distracted from grooving to their music. It was the little voice in my head that's constantly reminding me of my professional obligations -- in particular, the fact that I would owe the people of another sterling website, YESNetwork.com, a column this week.

This presented a conundrum. Was I to go back downstairs and watch the remainder of FOX's coverage of a predictable Yankees loss? Or might there be a way to avoid it and still feel I was being a responsible pro?

Thanks to yet a third handy-dandy website, MLB.com, I found a compromise solution ... the Gameday feature that gives you virtually every bit of pitch-by-pitch in-game data imaginable in something very close to real time, and that, this season, offers superb enhanced animation presenting pitcher vs. batter matchups from alternate vantages -- you can follow strikes and balls from the batter's point of view, the pitcher's, or even from various side angles. If you are a fan of baseball, or an author-fan who writes about baseball roughly twice a month, MLB Gameday is an indispensable resource. If you're ever blacked out of a YES game feed, or can't handle the national ESPN and FOX coverage for whatever reason on a given day, I recommend it. Especially in tandem with Patti streaming in the background. And best of all, it's a Rosenthal-free zone!

But enough of him. By now, you may have surmised that I wasn't in the mood for Yanks-Sox this past weekend. Wasn't ready for it, shall we say. Just as the Yanks weren't ready because, due to circumstances beyond their control, they'd found themselves Boston-bound without any bona fide starting pitchers for Saturday and Sunday packed away in their luggage bags.

Part of it was because, earlier in the week, coastal Maine had caught the brunt of the nor'easter that plowed up the east coast. The Wife and I were more fortunate than many. Though we were without power for a long while, as was much of the state, our home escaped serious damage. We were lucky indeed.

Meanwhile, our neighbor, The Glaring Man -- who is so known because all he ever does, or has seemed to do since we moved into our house, is, you guessed it, stand around and glare at us -- got the windshield of his pickup truck broken. Something blew down from somewhere, and hit it in the 60 mile-per-hour gusts, and gave it a star fracture. How I found out was that I happened to be walking my dog across the street, holding onto a tree so the wind didn't carry us both off into the turbulent heavens, when I noticed a patrol car parked opposite his home. Simultaneously, a police officer appeared in Glaring Man's very steep and slick driveway -- slick because we had hail and snow accompanying the wind around here -- and promptly took a tumble in that sent him flopping down toward the road.

I was concerned for the cop. It really looked like he'd had a nasty spill. So I crossed the street and asked if he was okay, and he said he was.

"You the neighbor?" he asked, then, motioning toward Glaring Man's house.

"Yup," I said.

"How about we talk?" he said.

Uh-oh.

"Sure, c'mon in where it's dry," I said, and started toward my house.

Well, it turned out that Glaring Man had decided some sort of pipe or other that allegedly blew from my rooftop in the storm must have struck and broken his windshield. He then called the police to file a report and ask that a car be dispatched to his home. Whether asked, or on his own initiative, the responding officer had then come over to my home to inform me of the broken windshield, and ask if I planned to compensate Glaring Man for the damage after he provided me with a repair estimate.

Bear in mind, this is all in the middle of the most devastating nor'easter to hit the state in almost twenty years. There's pretty much no power anywhere in Maine. There's extensive destruction of property. There's tragic loss of life. There are people in trouble that need real assistance, and Glaring Man is calling the cops about his windshield, and a cop is actually indulging him.

Anyway, I told the cop that I'd check with my home insurer about liability once the wind stopped roaring outside like a freight train, and my house stopped shaking as if the walls were made of cardboard, and electricity and heat and other necessities like that were restored. Which I eventually did. What I also did, right after he left, was poke my head out my window for a look at Glaring Man's driveway and yard.

They were littered with bricks that had blown down from somewhere on his property. A broom handle, sands broom head, was lying directly in front of his truck. The broom head itself was elsewhere in the driveway. As was other debris that could have come from anywhere. This interested me, and I took a snapshot of it from my window. I had nothing else to do. My computer wasn't working, and I couldn't get any writing done. Nor could I watch any ballgames.

When the officer called our house the next day to inform us of Glaring Man's damage estimate -- now apparently representing him in this matter -- The Wife made him aware of the rubble and other junk strewn across Glaring Man's property that may well have broken the truck's windshield. The officer then told her that he himself had seen the alleged piece of pipe. Where, she asked? Glaring Man, he told her, had placed it in the front seat of his truck as evidence of our rooftop's culpability.

"What I don't understand is why he isn't having his auto insurance company inform us about his," said The Wife.

The cop's reply?

"I'm informing you," he said flatly, adding that he wanted to speak with me at a later date.

Well, I did not like what was going on -- it all seemed very strange -- and wasn't particularly eager to speak to him. So I finally called my home insurance company. I found out we weren't liable. There had been a major storm, the insurance agent said. Unless I'd stood on my rooftop and deliberately thrown something at Glaring Man's windshield, the storm was responsible, not me. It was legally considered an Act of God. If Glaring Man wanted, he could contact his auto insurer, and an agent could contact me, and I could refer him or her to my home insurer, and all this would be settled in a civilized fashion.

I phoned the police officer. He wasn't in. I left a voice mail to explain the situation, and offer the insurance agent's information

Saturday during Yanks-Sox, he called me back. My voice message, he said, confused him. So I explained it again.

"You know," he said testily, "I really have no business being involved in this."

You got it, I thought but did not say.

A few minutes later he was off the phone, and I was back watching Gameday animation on the computer and listening to Patti. Hopefully I don't hear from the officer again. Even more hopefully, he doesn't read this column. I have paranoid visions of becoming the next Richard Kimble, with Glaring Man serving as my personal version of the One-Armed Man.

So you see, it had been one of those weeks. There was the storm, Glaring Man, an overzealous cop, and other stuff I won't mention. The main point is I wasn't in the mood for Yanks-Sox. Not with Karstens and Wright pitching Games 2 and 3 (setting the Yankees bullpen up for exhaustion that manifested to the team's profound detriment Sunday night). Not with Matsui injured. Not, as it turned out, with Posada and Damon hurt. And especially not with me having to watch those games -- if I chose to watch them -- on FOX and ESPN respectively.

As for the series itself:

Look, I really don't think the sweep was that big a deal in terms of the long-term picture. Yeah, sure, the Yanks took it on the chin. But they played well despite injuries to key position players and only a single legit starter, my Hero, capital "H", Andy Pettitte.

Pettitte was great. He did what he was supposed to. If not for an arguable managerial bungle or two, and Mo's rustiness, Andy wins Game 1 handily.

On the other hand, Schilling stunk. And Beckett stunk even worse. And the Legendary Dice-K stunk worst of all ...

Which leads me, at last and in summary, to an email I received this morning from my friend The Fellow Author, who put last weekend neatly into perspective, and will doubtless now resume bugging me for royalties because I've made him a running character in this column:

I'll say one thing -- no, two things -- I still think the kid {Wright} has potential -- just needs a bit more seasoning.

If I'm Boston, the fact that I just barely beat the Yankees when they threw two wet behind the ears rookies at me in essentially emergency starts scares me more than a little.

P.S.: I'm calm because the truth is, after we lost game one, I knew we'd get pounded in two and three. By my lights, we actually did better than expected.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. That's why the FOX and ESPN announcer raves about the Sox, and endless crowd shots of celebratory Boston fans, was more of a visceral annoyance to me than the games themselves.

The Fenway faithful gave both Beckett and Dice-K standing ovations for sub par, and in the latter case, poor performances. But I guess they can afford to be giddy beating the Yanks in April.

This series came at a bad time. That's about all there is to say about it.

And, seriously, in my most rambling fashion ever, that really is all there is to say.