The Rivalry

The Boston Red Sox just swept three games from the New York Yankees, coming from behind each night.  

Friday night, the Red Sox were down by 2 with a runner on and two outs.  Jason Bay (thanks Joe!) came up to face Mariano Rivera and promptly deposited the ball over wall.  Watch it here.  Kevin Youkilis ended the game in the 11th with another home run to Left.  

I didn't see Saturday's game as a friend came up to visit, but it was on in the background where we went to dinner.  There was a family of Yankee fans there, with one kid who couldn't have been more than 7 years old.  When we got there the Yankees were winning 4-0 and added more to go up 6-0 and the kid clapped so hard and looked around at us all with such pride (more on that later).  By the time I left the restaurant though, the Red Sox had struck again, capped off with a Jacoby Ellsbury homerun to tie the game just as we were paying the bill.  The Red Sox eventually won that game, 16-11.

Sunday Night, the Yankees once again jumped out to a lead, 1-0, but the Red Sox ended up winning 4-1.  The play of the game was Jacoby Ellsbury's straight steal of home, the first since Billy Hatcher (again, thanks Joe, I think anyway...) in 1994.  

Granted, this is April, but it wasn't all too long ago that the exact opposite always seemed to happen.  The Red Sox would jump out to early leads and blow them to the Evil Empire.  I remember the old days.  I remember being mad at the thought of all the 5 year olds at Yankee Stadium, who probably couldn't remember a time when the Yankees weren't World Champions. 

I remember being at Fenway for a Ranger-Red Sox game, and Yankee fans (don't ask me why they were there, but there were loads of them) hung the number 1 for the first Red Sox who struck out, 9 for the next, 1 for the next and 8 for the next and repeating that pattern.  As my cousin said to me "It sucks cause they're right and there's nothing we can say back."

I remember skipping a little league game to go to Fenway and  see the Yankees beat the living day lights out of Boston... it was something like 26-3 and even though the game was at Fenway, my uncle and I were 2 of 3 Red Sox fans in our section and it seemed like every section was like that.  

To tell you how bad it was, I remember a game when the Red Sox had a 3-1 lead at Yankee Stadium, recorded the 27th out of the game, and yet somehow still lost!  I'm not making that up either.   Look at September 18, 1993 in the link above.  That's unbelievable.  The Red Sox did everything necessary to win, but still somehow lost.  I know of no other comparable moment in any sport.  The next day, Anakin Skywalker said it was too bad it wasn't like football and they couldn't penalize the Evil Empire 5 yards or something.  

But now it's different.  I wouldn't say the roles have reversed completely, but it's nice to know that 7 year old in the restaurant has never seen a Yankee championship whereas the Red Sox have won 2 in his life time.