Mark Teixeira, left, who signed with the Yankees after a long and public dalliance with the Red Sox, will face Jon Lester on Friday night.

"They will meet on Friday at Fenway Park the way they always seem to be: dead even in the standings. The Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, never far from each other’s consciousness, have identical 9-6 records. The Yankees have won six of their last eight. The Red Sox are on a seven-game winning streak.

6 Reasons Baseball Is a Weird Sport

Many people take the game of Baseball rather seriously, but lets step back and open your mind to the top 10 6 reasons baseball is one weird sport.

1. The 7th-inning stretch makes baseball the only sport where spectators must take part in calisthenics.

2. When a pitcher walks a batter, the batter jogs to first base. Incongruous, but it is a nice show of effort.

3. There’s a rule preventing pitchers from spitting on the ball. They can spit anywhere else they like, apparently.

4. If you aren’t such a good hitter, you can have a pinch hitter bat for you. If you aren’t such a fast runner, you can have someone–a pinch runner–come in and run for you. At what point, you might wonder, is a team entirely comprised of “pinch” players?

5. It is legal to “steal” in this game. This is, perhaps, a questionable example for children.

6. If a batter fails two-thirds of the time, they’re still considered an excellent batter. It’s too bad this standard isn’t applied to everything else in life.