You can pin this one on the Red Sox

It sounds like last season’s American League divisional series against the Detroit Tigers, or maybe an October code name for Alex Rodriguez: Yankee Elimination Project.

Actually, the Yankee Elimination Project (YEP) is a program initiated by the Boston Red Sox single-A affiliate, the Lowell Spinners, to purge the name “Yankees” from youth baseball leagues in New England.

Beginning last February, the Spinners offered to donate money for new uniforms to any local youth league willing to replace its Yankees with a team called the Spinners. Any team agreeing to change its name would be allowed to play on Lowell’s home field before a Spinners game.

According to the Boston Globe, about 75 Yankees teams in more than 35 communities in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire have been eliminated so far.

The Globe reported: “So far the whole thing has cost the team more than $20,000, but if you ask the Spinners, it was money well spent. All along, the goal was to protect young Red Sox fans from the devastation that many feel when they find out they must wear pinstripes.”

Jon Goode, the Spinners’ vice president of communications, told the newspaper that the team’s goal was to eradicate 100 Yankee youth teams. But after last year’s purge, how many Yankees can be left?

“Hopefully,” Goode said, “none.”

Trivia time

Which World Series most valuable player began his professional baseball career with the Lowell Spinners?

Here, a goat gets skewered on ESPN

The Red Sox and Yankees think their rivalry is intense. But when was the last time Theo Epstein or Brian Cashman received a goat’s head in the mail for Christmas?

Rino Foschi, general manager of the Italian soccer club Palermo, told the ANSA news agency that he received the package Dec. 22, placed it under his family’s Christmas tree and then was awakened in his sleep when his wife opened the “gift” on Christmas Eve.

Inside was the severed head of a young goat, covered in blood.

“It was a sour Christmas, especially for my family,” Foschi said. “My wife was shocked when she opened the package, but I think it was a joke and I’m sleeping peacefully. Let’s not make a film out of this.”

Palermo is having one of its best seasons, currently in third place behind Inter Milan and Roma in Italy’s top division. Foschi didn’t think the head was from the mafia.

“I don’t have anything to do with that stuff, those are things you see in films,” he said. “I’ve lived in Palermo for five years and I’ve never received any threats. I feel safe in Palermo. I don’t have anything to fear.

“I really don’t have any explanation. I don’t have any suspects to signal. Maybe some idiot wanted to make an ugly Christmas joke.... Maybe I’m disliked for some soccer market moves.”

In a related story, Chivas USA’s goat-headed mascot has canceled a holiday trip to Italy.

No ham, no cheese, no foul

ESPN basketball analyst Jamal Mashburn says he learned quickly in the NBA that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

“You are a rookie and you are making all this money and the players are making all this money,” Mashburn told the New York Post. “I’m on the free-throw line, and I’m talking with Harvey Grant of the Bullets. He said, ‘I bet you on the next free throw that you’ll miss.’ “I’m thinking, ‘What do you want to bet?’ I’m thinking this is going to be a huge bet with a veteran who has made a lot of money. The only thing he wants to bet is a sandwich. I’m like, ‘You want to bet a sandwich?’ “I made it, but I never got the sandwich.”

Trivia answer

St. Louis Cardinals shortstop David Eckstein batted .301 in 68 games with the Spinners in 1997.

And finally

George Lucas, a graduate of USC’s film school, performed the coin toss before Monday’s Rose Bowl game. The coin came up for USC, leading to concerns that Lucas had used the old Jedi Mind Trick.

*

[email protected]