Ladies and gentlemen, I thought I had it. In the heat of yesterday’s scavenger hunt, in which faithful readers and incarcerated hipsters alike were asked to seek out photos of rock stars and baseball players together, something fell into my inbox that knocked me on my ass. The subject line? “Carl Yastrzemski and Gene Simmons.”

Let me repeat: “Carl Yastrzemski and Gene Simmons.”

A photo of Yaz and the Demon? Man, that’s one of those things you look at once, and immediately upon your brain’s processing of said photo, the gears that spin the universe simply grind to a halt — because clearly your work here is done — and hellfire, mortar and copies of Mr. T’s Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool rain down all around you. There’s no going back to ordinary life after seeing Yaz with Gene Simmons. You simply unplug the laptop, throw it into the Charles River, then duck into Bukowski’s and order a couple whiskeys while contemplating driving your car off a cliff somewhere. And as I read the subject line, I saw myself calling that hot chick from Psych class who I never dared speak to, to ask if she’d consider a quick shag before the apocalypse.

But. It was not to be. While the photo clearly depicted Gene Simmons, the gentleman with him was not Carl Yastrzemski. So I clicked out, sliced myself some blueberry pie, and cried like a ten year old girl for about a half hour.

This is not to take anything away from the winning photos. But Yaz and the Demon? Come on. That’s “shut down the internet, our work here is done” type stuff.

Anyway: Here’s how it worked out. After pouring through the links and e-mails, we decided that we had to double down, as they say, and actually have two winners and two runners up. So here ya go:

Winner Number One:

This one gets nostalgia points for bringing us the cogs of the 2004 World Series machine. But the thing that keeps me coming back is right dead center. I mean, what in the f–k could Dave Roberts and the guy from Godsmack possibly be talking about? Amps? “The Steal”? Prison food? The mind wanders. Of everything that came in yesterday, this one had me the most curious.

Winner Number Two:
Click this link and you’ll find a regretably small photo that includes Ken Griffey, Jr., Method Man, Dr. Dre, Vanilla Ice and Snoop Dogg. Okay, they technically aren’t “rock stars.” But, come on. The fact that Griff and Vanilla Ice have rubbed elbows is enough to make me happy.

Runner-Up Number One:

Okay, yes. It’s DiMaggio. A Yankee. But he’s with The Chairman of the Board. And Frankie gets respect here. If we got a photo of Carlton Fisk and Sinatra, we would have used it. But we didn’t.

Runner-Up Number Two:

It’s the back of Brian Johnson from AC/DC. But I’m far more impressed with the front of Mrs. Damon.

So there you have it. Shirts for Mary and NV, books for Brian A and Nancy. E-mail us yer sizes/addresses to soxfiend2004ATcomcastDOTnet. And thanks to everyone who sent pics in.