The Sporting Day: The Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry

This week the New York Yankees meet the Boston Red Sox in a three game series at Yankee Stadium, the House That Ruth Built and as legend has it, funded entirely by the soul of the Boston Red Sox. It is the continuation of a century old rivalry, a rivalry considered the most fierce and hate-filled in sport. Think Carlton-Collingwood, Manchester United-Arsenal, Green Bay-Chicago and Ali-Frazier combined and you are somewhere in the vicinity of how heated the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is.

It is an enmity that is built on perennial glory and eternal disappointment, on luck both good and bad, on moments of grandeur and decades of frustration, on redemption and violence, on the need to succeed. One sportswriter eloquently noted that the rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox was the same as the rivalry between “a hammer and a nail”.

The rivalry stretches back over a century and has its roots in the rivalry that existed between the two cities dating back to the days of the American Revolution. In baseball terms, the first punch was thrown, literally, in 1903 when a long-forgotten Yankee baserunner crashed into Red Sox pitcher George Winter and instigated a wild fight. In those early years, it was the Boston Red Sox who dominated the feud. The Sox won five World Series between 1903 and 1918 while the Yankees, then known as the Highlanders, were routinely residing down the bottom of the standings.

Things changed, however, in 1918. This year, for nearly a century, was recognised as the clear turning point for both clubs by both supporter bases. Yankee fans look back and smile. Red Sox fans see those four numbers and cringe. This was, until 2004, the Red Sox last World Series victory. It was also the year that the move by Red Sox ownership to sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for nothing more than cash and a loan germinated. It was 1918 that the “Curse of the Bambino” was placed firmly and squarely over the city of Boston. Ruth won four World Series with the Yankees and played in a further three. During that period, the Red Sox finished last nine times in eleven seasons.

Between 1918 and the curse breaking championship of 2004, the Boston Red Sox won only four American League pennants. In that timeframe, the Yankees won twenty-six World Series championships and thirty-nine AL pennants. In the four World Series the Red Sox played in, they lost every one four games to three. There was 1975 when they blew a 3-0 lead in game seven. And famously 1986 when Bill Buckner let the curse and the World Series and eternal glory slide through his legs and up the first base line.

The Yankees were Goliath to the Red Sox David and they never let Bostonians forget it. And they never let Red Sox Nation forget the moments that shone like a beacon in Yankee history and were monuments of great despair for New Englanders. Like 1949, when the Red Sox lost the final two games of the season to the Yankees to lose the pennant. Like 1977, when as the Bronx was burning, the Yankees chased down the Boston Red Sox and went onto win the lot. 1978, when the Sox blew a 14 ½ game lead and lost the pennant in a one-game playoff. The Yankees getting Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens in the nineties and Johnny Damon this decade.

But the Red Sox got what they considered redemption in 2004. They shattered the curse and shattered the Yankees. They came from 3-0 down to defeat the Yankees in the ALCS and then led Red Sox Nation to their first true moment of joy in over 80 years.

The Yanks and the Red Sox play a three game series this week that will have a significant impact on the playoff hopes of both teams. For all ball lovers, this is a must follow series.    

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