Every year, I look forward to seeing the Boys square off against our
biggest rival the Boston Red Sox... no matter what! I think many can agree,
we circle all the dates on the schedule when we face them. For me,
living an hour outside of Boston, and running into a plethora of Red Sox
faithful on a daily basis feeds my passion as a Yankee fan. They rib
me, I rib them back. It's what fans do. We get geared up for the two
teams to go head to head. But, what is it that makes this rivalry so
significant exactly?
Look, I know many of you are savvy baseball fans.
You know the history. You know what sparked it with the sale of
Babe Ruth to the Yankees by then Red Sox owner Harry Fareze. The Yankees and
Red Sox rivalry is baseball magnified times 1,000. Why? Because it
doesn't matter where we are in the standings, you are going to get great
baseball when the play each other. The players play on pure adrenaline and really take in the
chance of being a part of THE biggest rivalry in sports altogether! They
look forward to it and so do we.
You get memories out of a regular season series
between the two teams. No question. We still talk about the
Bucky Dent
home run back in 1978. They still talk about being down 3 games and coming back
to beat us in The House that Ruth built to punch their ticket to the
World Series back in 2004.
We bring up
Pedro Martinez being left in there late in
Game 7 of the ALCS in 2003. We both talk about who actually started the
fight between
Alex Rodriguez and
Jason Varitek. But we won't debate
that here. My point is, both sides carry everlasting memories when
we meet. I know the old school Yankee fans look back when The Yankee
Clipper
Joe DiMaggio beat out
Ted Williams for AL MVP in 1941 for instance.
The
list goes on and on. I'm too young to remember the first Boston
Massacre, but I surely witnessed the second one. Both sides have
heroes emerge from games of this storied rivalry. For example, we have
Aaron Boone and they have
Curt Schilling. Players have worn both uniforms
like
Roger Clemens,
Wade Boggs,
Johnny Damon,
Ramiro Mendoza, and even
John Flaherty.
It's a spectacle that takes it's own course and gets the
undivided attention of all fans all over. It doesn't stop there. We've
seen the off-season as a battleground for both franchises. Remember when
we signed
Jose Contreras? It was then we became known as the "Evil
Empire". The Yankees did it to the Red Sox again in February of 2004 when we swooped in and nabbed Alex Rodriguez, and setting the stage to an
already heated battle stemming from the 2003 playoffs previous.
(In Photo: Gary Sheffield)
It trickles
to the fans getting involved.
Chris Chambliss getting a dart thrown at
him by a fan in a game at Fenway, do you remember that? How about
Gary Sheffield getting his cap almost
knocked off by a fan while fielding a ball in rightfield at Fenway? That also resulted in a push and shove between a player and a fan. The
altercations between
Lou Pinella and
Carlton Fisk and
Graig Nettles
and
Bill Lee. All of them happened.
It's clear that there is no rivalry like that of New
York and Boston. It's about two teams that have met over 2,000 times in
their existence, with many meetings in the post-season. It's about 2 fan
bases that live and breath their teams loyalty 24/7. It's the tale of
two Northeastern cities within 300 miles from each other and which city
reigns supreme. It's about which owners display the desire to win at all
costs. You don't get this much excitement from two other teams that
pretty much put the world to a halt to witness what unsung hero will
come out and make an impact and add to the history of this ongoing saga.
It will always be about who is better between us and them. When it
comes to the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, you know there will be memories
and moments we carry for the rest of our lives, and share with our
grandchildren.
That my friends makes it the greatest rivalry in sports... there ain't nothing better... Go Yanks!
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