They have built a powerful lineup and arguably the best starting pitching staff in baseball. Yet they are uneasy in Boston.

They solved a glaring problem in the bullpen by acquiring the America League's save leader as their stopper. Yet they are fretting in Boston.

They added pop and a veteran presence to their bench by bringing in reliable Ellis Burks and secured stability at DH by reaching a deal with David Ortiz. Yet they are lighting candles in Boston.

They are barely a day into spring training and every pre-season preview magazine picks them to win either the American League pennant or the World Series. Yet they are fixated not on themselves but on the Yankees in Boston.

This is what it means to be a Red Sox fan. It means a constant state of unease.

When the Red Sox swung a trade for Curt Schilling to team with Pedro Martinez and give them two No. 1 starters, they were gloating in Boston.

When the Red Sox used hockey legend Bobby Orr and a ton of money to convince the Oakland A's' Keith Foulke to become their closer, they were rollicking in Boston.

When the Red Sox added a reliable glove at second base in Pokey Reese, they reminded the world how many more victories Derek Lowe would have this season with someone behind him at second base with range and a golden glove. They rejoiced in Boston.

When winter's doldrums ended with six guys in the lineup with 25 or more homers last season and four who hit over .300, they were convinced this, at last, was the year in Boston.

Then the Yankees did the one thing the Red Sox could not do. The Bronx Bombers swung a trade for Alex Rodriguez, and they grew morose in Boston.

Although the Red Sox still arguably have the superior every-day lineup and starting pitching and may have a bullpen that can rival New York's, this was all Red Sox fans needed to begin to beating themselves with sticks. Next to baseball, self-flagellation is the most popular activity in Boston.

In actuality, the addition of Rodriguez could explode in the Yankees' faces. First, it cost them second baseman Alfonso Soriano, who was a force at that position and a reliable clutch hitter who had grown used to the pressures of New York. That is something Rodriguez knows nothing about yet.

Although Rodriguez is the game's best player, he is also the kind of guy who recently stiffed a television crew he'd willingly allowed to set up in his living room by refusing to come out of his bedroom for a scheduled live interview when he couldn't decide which pair of pants to wear. If A-Rod possesses that kind of overblown ego and odd world view, what happens when his friends, family and enablers begin to tell him how he never should have had to move to third base in deference to Yankees captain and long-time shortstop, Derek Jeter?

Or what happens if Jeter is injured again this year, as he was for six weeks last season, and Rodriguez moves over to short and plays brilliantly, as he probably would? Worse, what happens if Jeter begins to feel the daily heat of the presence of the game's best shortstop 50 feet away from him and struggles? How long would it take before The Boss, aka The Bully Formerly Known as George Steinbrenner, orders Joe Torre to make the switch at shortstop that sends Jeter into a funk?

So there are two ways to look at the Rodriguez deal, although not if you are from Boston. If you have grown up in New England enduring springs of hope, summers of promise and falls of gray despair, you cannot see that your team holds an edge over the Yankees in five of the nine starting positions, including pitching, even with New York's addition of Kevin Brown and Javier Vazquez. You ignore the fact that your biggest weakness - the absence of a reliable closer in the bullpen - was solved with the signing of Foulke. You forget that the Yankees at the moment don't know who their second baseman will be (most likely Enrique Wilson) and have 36-year-old grouch Kenny Lofton playing center field for them at Steinbrenner's insistence even though his baseball men opposed that move. The Yanks also have a fading Bernie Williams at designated hitter (15 home runs, 64 RBI, .263) while the Sox have David Ortiz, who finished third in the league in slugging percentage while drilling 31 home runs and knocking in 101 runs last season.

What you see from Boston is the addition of Vazquez, Brown and power-hitting Gary Sheffield to go along with the crown jewel, Rodriguez. That is how it always goes in Boston. No matter what they do, they care more about what the Yankees have done. Boston labored for two months to acquire Rodriguez but in the end lost out because Red Sox ownership refused to pay the cost. They were cheap, to be kind, and so they lost out to Steinbrenner, who is many distasteful things, but certainly not cheap.

What made it worse was the guy who had destroyed last fall for Red Sox fans, Aaron Boone, had killed them again. First he beat them in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the ALCS with a most unlikely home run off Tim Wakefield when Wakefield's knuckleball didn't knuckle. Then he tore up his knee so bad in the offseason he's out for the season, which is what inspired Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman to get Rodriguez only days before spring training.

So Boston's worst fears were realized when the Yankees did what their Red Sox could not. Always saddled with the kind of enormous inferiority complex shared by the people of Oakland, Calif. when they look across the Bay at San Francisco, the Red Sox fans had once again been slapped in the face with one harsh reality. They are not New York.

What they haven't been able to see is that, for this year at least, they may be better than New York. At least on the ball field.

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