Longtime umpire "Cowboy" Joe West called out the Red Sox and the Yankees for taking too long and not complying with the league's mandate to speed up the play of the game.
This is one of these stories that has me conflicted, because while I agree with what West is saying, West is also one of the "old school" type umpires that drives me nuts, and who thinks the umpires should be a bigger part of the game. It is like watching Jonathan Papelbon pitch, with Nick Swisher at the plate as the winning run...you wish, somehow, both would fail.
Torii Hunter's "imposter" comment got the most attention, it seems, but Hunter and former umpire Steve Palermo took these two teams to task during the USA Today roundtable for dragging out the time of the games.
I think a lot of the problem with this is that not doing anything about it conveys the attitude that the Yankees and the Red Sox are more important than the other 28 teams, and shouldn't have to play by the same rules. Watching the Sunday night opener between the two teams, the announcers were even playing into that, saying that the quality performances by newcomers like Mike Cameron and Curtis Granderson were that much more important in terms of proving themselves to their teammates because of who it was against, and games between Boston and New York carry much more weight and importance than a regular ol' game.
As the article where West vents notes, the umpires denied a couple of hitters' requests for time, and seemed to be making an effort to move things along. But it seems like some more is going to have to be done if Boston/Yankee games aren't going to last four hours every time.