Opinion

Welcome to Tribe Talk, where Bleacher Report's Tribe fans weigh in on the ups and downs of the Indians each week throughout the season.

If you're a Yankee fan, there was plenty to be excited about following Wednesday's 2-1 rubber-game win against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Curtis Granderson looks like a stud. Mo was Mo. The bullpen put it together. Nick Johnson didn't get hurt.

On balance, it was a successful beginning to the championship defense.

But ironically, it would be comments by longtime umpire Joe West that provided the biggest headline after the season's first series was through.

We all knew what to expect when the New York Yankees headed up to Boston to face the Red Sox in the Opening Series of 2010.

The games would be long, exciting, hard-fought battles.

Those expectations were met.

Along the way, the Yankees taught us a few things.

You can follow Ari Kramer on Twitter by clicking here: http://twitter.com/Ari_Kramer

Begin Slideshow

This is a much larger issue than simply Yankees-Red Sox, of course. The issue is that the pace of baseball is apparently too slow and the need to decision to establish rules to speed the game up.

Umpire Joe West should take this idea and apply it to his country singing. Talk about painfully slow and dull. But I digress. We need to quit trying to find fault with the game.

When the Yankees got Curtis Granderson in the winter, some people weren't totally sold on the center fielder.

"He only hit .249 and he can't hit lefties and he strikes out too much," were some of the things I heard about why trading for Granderson wasn't a good move.

After this past series with the Red Sox, I'm sure most of those critics will be silenced.

One of the most common things heard about new players is having them "earn their pinstripes." The way Granderson played this past series, he's earned them.

Red Sox Nation has a voracious appetite for all things Red Sox, and the Boston media does everything it can to ensure The Nation will have plenty to read about.

The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Providence Journal, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, numerous other newspapers, NESN, NECN , the sports departments of at least five television stations, ad infinitum—all of these media outlets battle one another for readership/viewership.

I'm not bashing Brandon Medders and his performance in 2009 by any means. I thought he was a surprising reliever in 2009. He had a great May where he posted a FIP of 2.85, and a solid September/October where he had a FIP of 3.16, and proved to be an integral part of the Giants' success last year.

Fans like Spring training for couple of reasons.

For one thing, it's the start of a brand new season. Second of all, it piques their interest of watching the young prospects play.

Teams take note of the latter. They hype their young players to get fans to watch these meaningless exhibition games.

Baseball players tend to be superstitious and can have some strange rituals. Many players often have specific routines they perform in belief it will maintain their success on the mound, field or in the batter box.

All hitters have their series of tugs, pats, and taps when in the batter box. I’m sure we remember how we all mimicked our favorite hitter’s rituals when we were young.

Ask around Major League Baseball and most people close to the game will tell you the same thing about Spring Training—it's an incredible window into the game that a true fan needs to experience.

I've never gone myself, so I can only trust in the wisdom of those words, but my faith is strong.

Granted, the same thing that I'm sure makes the Show's exhibition run so exceptional is the same thing that makes it confounding to professional prognosticators—it's utterly meaningless.