Red Sox Nation has little to cheer about these days, what with being eight and a half games out of the American League East and six and a half back for the Wild Card slot, but fans of recently-traded Scott Hatteburg (formerly a Sox catcher) can at least savor his game-winning home run that propelled the Oakland A's to their twentieth victory in a row, an AL record and the third-longest winning streak in the history of baseball. Go Hattie!

More disturbing Red Sox news - apparently the new owners have declared war on the pushcart vendors who have sold their sausage sandwiches, hot dogs, and steak bombs on Yawkey Way since time immemorial. With the permission of the City of Boston, the Sox were able to close the street to the public on game days (starting this afternoon), creating a ticketholders-only venue where only "officially-sanctioned" food vendors will be able to sell their treats, shutting out the majority of the old concessionaires. Neighborhood activists decry the fact that beer will also be for sale along the cordoned-off Yawkey Way promenade, prompting silly predictions of Bacchic anarchy on game days - as if people don't get tanked at baseball games already! - but the real injustice to me is the treatment of the hard-working independent salesmen being run out of their livelihood. Part of the magic of going to a game at Fenway was stuffing your face with a greasy sausage sub from one of many of the vendors, who hawked their products with an almost theatrical pushiness in order to stand out from the competition. Now that it's all the Red Sox' money, one way or the other, something is going to be missing. Sure, the quality of the food - crab cakes and Cuban fare, I'm told - sounds much better, but I can get fancy food anywhere in Boston. But I wonder, what will become of the Sausage King?