Bronx Bummer

BRONX, NY - Call off the search party! After having gone missing for more than 72 hours, former Red Sox players Mike Torrez and Bill Buckner were found alive and well this morning, albeit snugly ensconced in the foundation of the new Yankee Stadium.

According to NYPD spokesman Hank Leinert, it seems that yet another overzealous, Red Sox-loving construction worker abducted the two men over the weekend and took them to the site of the new stadium, burying them up to their necks in wet cement. "It looks like a copycat type situation," said Leinert, alluding to an incident earlier this spring in which the uniform jersey of David "Big Papi" Ortiz was discovered in the Bronx edifice, purportedly to cast some sort of hex on the storied franchise.

Both Torrez and Buckner, while having outstanding Major League careers, are infamous in Boston lore for gaffes that cost their team championships. Buckner's misplay on a Mookie Wilson grounder cost the Sox the '86 World Series, and Torrez surrendered a game-winning home run to Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent in a one-game playoff in 1978. It is presumed that these sentient beings were planted in the bowels of the stadium to put a "curse" on the Yankees.

After being liberated by jackhammers, the players were able to shrug off the kidnapping and living entombment as "just another part of this great rivalry," said Buckner. "Sooo... cold," echoed Torrez.

Making the incident slightly less traumatic for the former Sox was the fact that they were not left for dead by their captor. An ingenious series of drains and ducts, designed and built by the at-large mastermind, provided Torrez and Buckner with sustenance by channeling spilled beer underground and across the street from the floor of the luxury box of Yankee president Hank Steinberg, and into their awaiting mouths.

Furthermore, the NYPD would neither confirm nor deny that a few detectives have gone undercover to infiltrate the ring of Red Sox-crazy construction workers, even with rumors swirling that there is a guerilla plot afoot to plant the brain tumor of Sen. Ted Kennedy.