And the Boys Have Come Out to Play

Jimy Williams responded angrily Monday to charges by George Steinbrenner that he incited the crowd during a ninth-inning argument in Sunday’s 9-2 New York Yankee victory over the Red Sox in Game 4 of the American League championship series.

“When Georgie Porgie speaks, I don’t listen,” said Williams, the Red Sox manager, referring to the Yankee owner. “I didn’t incite the fans. The situation incited the fans. There were plays out there where every manager would go out and argue, maybe more than I did.”

It was Williams’ ejection during his final argument of the night--over a close play at first base--that preceded the fans’ pelting of the field and players with plastic bottles.

“You need to stand up for your team,” Williams said. “I was just sick and tired to keep having to come out there on those plays.”

Williams would not say whether he also thought Steinbrenner kissed the girls and made them cry.

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In a last desperate attempt to break the Curse of the Bambino, the Red Sox arranged for Julia Ruth Stevens, Babe’s last living daughter, to throw out the first pitch in Game 5 of the ALCS against the New York Yankees.

Typical of this chaotic series, Stevens ripped the umpires and announced that she had become a Red Sox fan.

“I thought what they did to Cleveland was wonderful. That’s what I want to see them do to the Yankees,” said Stevens, who lives in Arizona and New Hampshire. “[The Red Sox] have had a lot of tough breaks . . . and the umpires certainly haven’t made it any easier.”

When asked if she thought she was being disloyal to her father, Stevens reminded everyone how much he loved Boston before being sold to the Yankees in 1920.

“I have a feeling he would be pulling for the Yankees, but a little tiny bit would say, ‘Well, if the Red Sox win, that’s OK too,’ ” she said.

As for Stevens, she implied that she became a Red Sox fan when she realized that, hey, maybe they were cursed.

“I used to be a Yankee follower but . . . the Red Sox have had a lot of bad luck,” she said. “I’m certainly hoping that from here on in, they’re having a lot of good luck. I’m 100% a Red Sox fan.”

Careful. If she keeps talking like that, Georgie Porgie may do some housecleaning in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park.