Yanks vs. Red Sox Baseball's Greatest Rivalry by Harvey Froomer

Harvey Frommer on Sports

Yanks vs. Red Sox Baseball's Greatest Rivalry

It is the oldest and strongest rivalry in American baseball history - the Yankees of New York versus the Red Sox of Boston. These two teams will once again test each other beginning Wednesday night, when they square-off in the American League Championship Series.

It is a competition of teams, cities, styles, ballparks, fans and, at times, writers. Its roots reach back to Babe Ruth and Harry Frazee.

Part of the rivalry is the stark contrast in the image of the two teams. The New York Yankees represent the most successful franchise in baseball history. It's a club of legends with Ruth, Gehrig, Dickey, Ford, Berra, Munson, Raschi, Reynolds, Mantle, Maris, Jackson, and many others. Through the years, winning has been as much a part of Yankee baseball as the pinstriped uniforms, and the monuments and plaques in deep center field.

The Red Sox - less successful, more human, more vulnerable - have seemed like the rest of us. For the team and its fans, winning at times has not seemed as important as beating the Yankees and then winning. For the fans of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, the slogan used to be "Wait 'til Next Year." For Boston fans it has been -"When are they going to fold this year?"

The competition involves much more than a baseball team representing Boston against a baseball team representing New York. It is, in reality, a competition between the provincial capital of New England and the mega-municipality of New York City, the different lifestyles of the people in those areas, the different accents they have, and the contrasting symbols that are the guideposts to the cities.

It's the Charles River versus the East River; Boston Common compared to Central Park. History, culture, style, pace, dreams, and self-images. All are mixed up in the competition in one way or another.

And the fact that both teams have been in the American League since the beginning of the century doesn't hurt the rivalry either.

Don Zimmer, a baseball lifer of more than 51 years and today the confidante of Yankee manager Joe Torre, was the manager of the Red Sox when Bucky Dent hit the home run.

"I didn't even know there was a big rivalry until I came to the Red Sox," Zim said. "But I found out soon enough. I was coaching at third base in 1974 at Yankee Stadium, and the fans were throwing so much crap on the field that I had to put on a helmet for protection. The players don't really hate each other" Zimmer said. "It's really a rivalry of fans."

The rivalry is also a rivalry of the Babe and Bucky and Butch. It is Carl Yastrzemski trotting out to left field at Fenway with cotton sticking out of his ears to muffle the boos of disheartened Sox fans. It is the Scooter, the Green Monster, and the Hawk. It is Rich McKinney on April 22, 1972 making four errors on ground balls to third base that figured in Boston's scoring of nine runs to defeat the Yankees, 11-7. It is Joe Dee versus the Thumper, Yaz and the Commerce Comet, Mombo and King Kong.

The rivalry is Mickey Mantle slugging a 440-foot double at Yankee Stadium in 1958 and tipping his cap to the Red Sox bench. It's Williams spitting, Jackson gesturing and Martin punching. Fisk's headaches from the tension he felt coming into Yankee Stadium. It is also the Yankees' Mickey Rivers jumping out of the way of an exploding firecracker thrown into the visitors' dugout at Fenway.

The rivalry consists of signs which read 'I LOVE NEW YORK, TOO, IT IS THE YANKEES I HATE,' or 'BOSTON CHOKES. BOSTON SUCKS. BOSTON DOES IT IN STYLE.

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You can reach Harvey Frommer at:

Email: harvey.frommer@Dartmouth.EDU

I am at work on my newest effort - - REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY, a companion book to REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (The Definitive Book) Fall 2008 (Abrams, STC). If you or those you know have specific stories and memories of times (first game, marker moments, oddity) at the Fens - please get in touch with me and hopefully we can set up a date and time for me to interview you. I would appreciate that.

All best,
Harvey

About the Author:

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published September 1, 2008 as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".

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Harvey Frommer along with his wife, Myrna Katz Frommer are the authors of five critically acclaimed oral/cultural histories, professors at Dartmouth College, and travel writers who specialize in cultural history, food, wine, and Jewish history and heritage in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean.