Yankees vs. Red Sox: greatest rivalry in sports

Baseball Digest, July, 2004 by Larry Stone

IF YOU GO BY THE NATURAL assumption that a classic rivalry must have give and take--an exchange of triumphs and failures, a relatively equitable parceling of fulfillment and despair--then the Yankees and Red Sox don't qualify. Not even close.

Their rivalry has been compared, from the standpoint of relative success, to that between a hammer and a nail.

Oh, the Yankees and BoSox have give and take, all right. The Red Sox give--starting with Babe Ruth and continuing right through then-manager Grady Little's ill-fated refusal to lift Pedro Martinez in Game 7 of last year's American League Championship Series--and the Yankees take.

But it doesn't matter, because all the other elements--the unparalleled passion of the two fan bases, the deep resonance of shared history, the eat of vivid characters and catalogue of bizarre and riveting moments--make the best rivalry in baseball, without question, and arguably the best in all of sports.

And far from detracting from the experience, the Red Sox's enduring futility--no World Series tide since 1918, one on before The Gift of the Bambino, compared to 26 for the Yankees in that span--actually the quality that makes the rivalry unsurpassed.

THE DEAL THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

On January 3, 1920, Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000.

The entire Yankees-Red Sox dynamic--the Yankees' eternal supremacy, the Red Sox's eternal heartbreak--can be traced back to this fateful moment. Before 1920, the Red Sox had won five World Series, the Yankees none. Since then? The Yankees 26, the Red Sox none. Some would even call it a curse.

As thoroughly and heartbreakingly as the Yankees have dominated Boston, the Red Sox Nation is forever sustained by the notion that this, finally, is the year and oh, how sweet it's going to be.

"If you can win a World Series," former Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman once said, "you will he immortal around here.

And the Yankees? Just like Road Runner out-foxing Wife E. Coyote, they are sustained by the pure, unadulterated joy of foiling the Sox, over and over.

Yogi Berra once put it, with uncharacteristically unbungled eloquence. "We've been playing these guys for 80 years. They're never going to beat us." Beep! Beep!

The Red Sox don't buy that. Can't buy that. So, after finishing second in the A.L. East behind the Yankees for the past six seasons, they went hellbent for a pennant and World Series title last offseason, and have assembled a team equipped to do so, if things break right.

Like they ever do, But you never know.

Indeed, it seems clear, as the Red Sox and Yankees had their first meeting of the 2004 season in mid-April at Fenway Park, with Boston winning three of the four games indicating the rivalry his never been more heated, more robust and more competitive.

"If you go and look at a football season, where one game seems to be a turning point, it's a good analogy," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "One game stands out. There's 19 seasons here, when you play these guys.

"Every single game is ... I hesitate to say warlike, because you certainly don't want to get into the feeling it's dangerous out hare. But I think the passion and need to win on both sides is something you won't experience anywhere else."

The Red Sox and Yankees played an unprecedented 26 times last year, including those seven in the post season. But now the rivalry extends even to spring training, where fans slept out overnight to get tickets to their "showdown" in Fort Myers, Florida last March. Tickets were being scalped for $200, and commemorative pins were sold to mark the occasion.

Now the hype is nearly nonstop. Five hooks pertaining to the rivalry are scheduled for publication, along with two film documentaries and an off-Broadway play.

The rivalry has seeped into the popular culture, from references in Adam Sandier and Matt Damon movies to "Catch Me if You Can," in which Frank Abagnale's father asks his son, "Do you know why the Yankees always win? Because the other team's too busy staring at the pinstripes."

(Abagnale was played by Leonardo DiCaprio, star of "Titanic." Fenway Park opened on April 20, 1912--five days after the Titanic sank, for what it's worth.)

To understand the current state of the rivalry--or, to use accepted nomenclature. The Rivalry--and how it has in the last two year's taken its greatest leap forward since the epic 1978 season, you must of it now permeates the highest levels of the boardrooms, to an unprecedented degree.

That point was brought home when the Red Sox failed in their vigorous attempt to land Alex Rodriguez, only to have the worst possible backlash--A-Rod signing with the Yankees, bringing their payroll to a record $182 million.

Not that the Red Sox are exactly the Pittsburgh Pirates--their $125 million payroll trails only the Yankees--but principal owner John Henry reacted to Rodriguez's signing by indignantly calling for a salary cap "to deal with a team that has gone so insanely far beyond the resources of all the other teams."