BOSTON – Sure Opening Day was several weeks in Baltimore, but that is only because the schedule dictated that.
The games against the Orioles, Royals, Indians and Athletics have been the baseball equivalent of the college football team using its first few games as extended scrimmages.
Now the real season begins, albeit for three games.
It is still the greatest rivalry in all of sports. Nothing else comes close. So once again we bring to you another installment Yankees-Red Sox. All you have to do is refer to as simply ‘The Rivalry” among my own baseball fraternity members.
Quite simply, the rest of the league is put on hold for the next three days. The schedule reads that there is other action going on, but unfortunately Cubs-Cardinals and Nationals-Mets just does not cut it. You may as well look at the rest of baseball as nothing more than Triple-A action.
Here is where baseball is fun and at its most exciting. Each game, inning, situation and at bat scrutinized to the ultimate degree. If you’re a Red Sox or a Yankees fan, the panic button and the angry meter is always on edge.
In “The Rivalry”, anything goes. From Kevin Youkilis and Joba Chamberlain seemingly ready for World War III to explode with the next supposed brush back pitch, to the ongoing subplot of A-Rod and the entire Red Sox team. Even something as small Jon Papelbon against the Yankees fans after what he said during the All Star break last year.
It’s always something.
The battle wages on.
Part of the drama of these games has deteriorated because of the over-hype that surrounds it. We make a game in late April out to be a postseason game, where losing is unacceptable and the 24 hours before the next game are met with anticipation that rarely is topped in any sport.
Think of Michigan-Ohio State, Duke-North Carolina, Colts-Patriots, Lakers-Celtics and Cubs-Cardinals, pack them all into one bag and turn up the voltage an extra 500 percent and you have this.
From Yankee Stadium to Fenway Park, it is always a hostile environment for the visitor. The chanting and language is always a little more creative when these two teams lock up.
However, it is about more than that. The emotion is one of the big factors, but it is the great competition that each team brings to the game. Sure, they do provide the occasional clunker and sometimes tediously unwatchable four hour game, but more times than not, these games come down to whichever team gets that big base hit late in the game and occasional ninth inning drama.
Even in a down year for “The Rivalry” last year, it still had its moments. From Mariano Rivera battling threw 30 pitches and bases loaded no out jam in July, to the very next night when Manny Ramirez takes three straight pitches from Mo and Brett Gardner getting the game winning walk-off hit to win the game.
They wage a yearly arms race for the games best talent both inside and outside of the country. Each team tries to find ways to increase revenue in order to either close the gap (Boston) or increase it (New York).
It never ends.
No one is immune to an ass whipping and being humbled. From Papelbon to Rivera to Beckett to Pettitte to Ortiz to Jeter. All of them have experienced success and failure in this struggle.
The numbers bear it out. Since the start of the 2002 season, these two rivals have met 145 times. Official tally reads Yankees 75, Red Sox 70. It is that close and neither team give an inch to the other.
The faces may change (and they have). The dynamics may have changed (they have).
But in the end, “The Rivalry” never seems to change.
Gone are some of the people that gave this rivalry its character - Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling are no longer around to be lightning bolts for Boston. Jason Giambi and Mike Mussina have bid adieu. And for the time being (until he returns from injury), Alex Rodriguez is away, taking all of his drama with him.
Now we are introduced to the likes of CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Mark Teixeira and Jason Bay (despite playing in several meaningless Rivalry games last year) get to experience the craziness on a full 18 game basis. No one is going to hear it more from the Red Sox fans on Friday night than Teixeira will.
If he thought Baltimore was rough on Opening Day, he hasn’t seen anything yet.
He was supposed to have signed with the Red Sox as a free agent in the winter and all indications were that he would sign with the Old Towne team. Suddenly, in a twisted set of events, Teixeira signed his eight year, $180 million contract with the Yankees, instantly making him Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of Red Sox Nation.
By the way, I agree with Hank Steinbrenner on this…Red Sox Nation? What a bunch of [crap] that is.
When he steps to the box as Carl Beane introduces him, the booing will be venomous. For some reason, the vitriol there is more intense than it is anywhere else. Who knows, the fans may have already bought enough old versions of the Monopoly game so they can throw fake money at him.
That is just the way “The Rivalry” is.
It is always about one-upping the other. Already David Ortiz has thrown out the first salvo by suggesting that Chamberlain “play the game right” and not throw too far inside to Red Sox hitters. This of course stems from the battle that both the pitcher and Youkilis have had where four pitches have thrown either over his head, near his head, or behind him.
Funny to hear Ortiz suggest such a thing when his own pitchers have been using Yankee hitters as target practice over the years and his own teammate Josh Beckett nearly uncorked a pitch (unintentional or not) near former Yankee Bobby Abreu’s head.
You think he would know this already.
However, it’s “The Rivalry”. All logic is thrown out.
I wouldn’t want it any other way.
See you Friday night at Fenway.
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