Rivalry

The Red Sox have some catching up to do. This is the 2,768th meeting of the BoSox and Yankees, and the Yanks are up 1,119-934-14. (You thought I was going to bring up the Yankee's season-opening series sweep, didn't you. Hey, I'm a pinkhat, but I'm not stupid.)

This, the most noted sports rivalry of all time,* has been going on since April 26, 1901, before Boston was called the "Red Sox". Interestingly, it was before the Yankees were called the Yankees. They
were the Orioles and were located in Baltimore, not New York.

The first major incident between the teams occurred in 1903- a fist fight after one of Yankee's (at the time named the Highlanders) batters ran into Sox pitcher George Winter. The Sox went on to win the
game and the first World Series. (Thought I'd include those details to win back some Sox fans after the first paragraph.)

The rivalry built as the two Northeast teams continued to face eachother. But what sealed the hatred, what still drives Sox and Yankee fans to get ejected from stadiums, happened off the field. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to New York. The Bambino had set the homerun record in Boston and continued to rock statiticians' worlds in New York. The Yankees actually made it to the
World Series for the first time, but Ruth got hurt and the Yankees lost. (Do you love me again Boston Bluehats?)

And so it continues... more fighting on the field and in the tunnels underneath the stands. Sox left-fielder Theodore Williams (Teddy Ballgame) bats .406 for the 1941 season but the American League MVP
goes to Joe DiMaggio, who had a 56-game hitting streak. More fighting... Like really brutal fighting. Plus a period of time, a pretty long, pretty sad period of time, where the Yanks were getting
it done at the end of the season.

Fast forward to 1999- only because I was there to witness it. Red Sox pitcher turned Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens faced Pedro Martinez in game 3 of the ALCS. Fans had a field day when Clemens was pulled in the third and the Sox won the game 13-1. The game was most memorable for me because my mother scrambled for a ball tossed up from the bullpen with a bunch of young children and came up with the ball (and some bruises).

More fighting- between the Red Sox and the Yankees, not my mother and
the children.

2004. Who can forget Curt Schilling's bloody-sock and the Red Sox coming back to win the American League title after being down three games?

Not going to talk about the massacre.

2007. Red Sox win the World Series again, but no brawls to report. In fact, the Sox-Yankee war has become more of a vocal one, following the release of the Mitchell report and other steroid allegations, and some highly publicized remarks by both teams ownership and management. And now it's 2010. It's still early in the season. Plenty of time for controversy still. And plenty of time to chip away at that all-time standing.

Come on, Sox.


*According to wikipedia, which just happens to be the source of all
the other facts and superlatives in this post.