Our man on sports, Jim Behrle, celebrates the fiery magic of Talladega and the Yankee shame in Fenway.

With less than quarter lap left to go in Talladega, Carl Edwards and his drafting partner Brad Keselowski were about to jostle for the lead. After using this bumper-to-bumper drafting technique to blow by another set of drafting partners, these two non-teammates were about to decide who should win the wild, wreck-strewn race. Edwards went momentarily up toward the center of the track and then turned back down to guard the double yellow line that no driver can cross to improve their standing in the race. Keselowski's black car was there, at first turning Edwards car across his front bumper. Then Edward's light blue car took flight at 199 mph, lofting, spinning with all four wheels off the track. He first collided and tore off the hood of the 3rd place car. Then the car flipped high against the protective barrier of the track, which buckled but held. The car came to rest upside-right on the track, on fire. After a few moments, Edwards emerged. He began to jog away from the fiery car, trying to get some distance from the wreck. And then it became clear: he was running for the finish line. With a determined, frustrated step he stomped on the white stripe at the end of the race, ala "Talladega Nights."

And thus concluded an event in which, if it happened on any highway of America, there would have been a pile of dead bodies. In the fantasyland of Nascar, it was just a neat exclamation point to a weird race.

When we watch sports when we're not rah-rah, or bored, or channel-flipping, we're watching to see things we've never seen before. If Detroit made cars that could flip over and burst into flames but somehow preserve the life inside *for everyone*, well, there would be no need for us to put on rally caps in commercials.

Juxtapose that with Jacoby Ellsbury breaking from third base for homeplate against Andy Pettitte in the middle of his pitching motion. With the third baseman way off the line, speedy young Jacoby was able to take a big lead away from third base. With the left-handed Pettitte pitching from the wind-up, Ellsbury has a pitcher with his back to him who was moving slowly toward delivering the pitch. Ellsbury broke toward home. The catcher Posada seemed to recognize Ellsbury was coming at the last minute, moving toward the balls of his feet to try to catch the ball toward the corner of the plate, to make a tag. Ellsbury slipped, bellyflopped into the plate, dust rising. Looked back toward the umpire as if he was unsure he made it safely, and only when the ump called a ball, clapped ferociously; smiled a smile that lasted an inning and a half.

A straight steal of home is rare, requiring speed, guile, luck, gold kryponite, defensive obliviousness. Even in the overheated, overblown, overrated, distended realm of Yankees v. Red Sox, Ellsbury's steal was like a psychic 25 run homer. At 3-1, the game was over. If we are to believe an April baseball game could decide *anything*, it was Mike Francesa's "Mike'd Up Sports Final Program" which hyperbolically seemed to declare the Yankees defeated for all time, instantly transformed into a baseball version of the Christians in the Christians v. Lions forum fame.

In the week ahead there will be hockey Game 7s, mostly likely some more NBA last-second playoff shots, and a bigtime horse race. Should you cut Emilio Bonifacio from your fantasy team in the meantime? YES. But always remember Carl Edwards walking away from a spinning fireball, 7 injured. Buckle up, people.