Red Sox Seek Move To National League East

"It's not fair," Red Sox principal owner John Henry told a hastily assembled Boston news conference. "The teams in the American League East are too good. The National League is like Double-A ball compared to what we have to face. We want out."

Henry sought "compassionate leave" status from Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig for the bloodied and brutalized Red Sox, who dropped a weekend series to the longtime rival New York Yankees.

"This isn't whining," Henry said. "It's a demonstration of absolute failure and frustration on our part. We can't compete, even with a Yankee team like this one, held together with spit and baling wire."

"We've done our part for baseball," Henry said. "A century of rivalry with the Yankees and the Orioles, and now the Rays and Blue Jays, too? Give us a break. We'd rather face off against the Mets and the other dregs of society over there in the National League Least."

Henry said that his team had "deliberately given up all those runs to the Yankees" in order to lull the New York team into a "state of complacency. We've got them just where we want them. It's just that we don't want to be here anymore."

Henry said that if Selig didn't let the Red Sox move into the National League "by the end of the regular season," he would "pick up his players and go home."