The fans at Yankee Stadium never really gave Carl Crawford a hard time in the past, he said on Sunday morning, standing at his locker. The Devil Rays, as they were once known, would generally go into Yankee Stadium prepared to take a pounding and were rarely surprised. "We had a lot of ugly days," Crawford recalled. "I took a lot of lumps here."
The notorious Bronx crowd, seemingly adhering to the old adage about how to handle sleeping dogs, never really said much. But it was different over the weekend, as Tampa Bay took two of three from the Yankees, and finished the first week of the season 3-2. "When they're winning, they're pretty cool," said Crawford. "But when they're losing in the ninth, that's when it's not pretty."
And Crawford chuckled, as if remembering several of the most memorable lines thrown at him, which he chose not to share, for the sake of America's youth. "They yell a lot of stuff you can't really say," Crawford said, laughing again.
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Buster Olney
