There have been many rivalries for the Yankees, who are loved by New Yorkers and hated by most everyone else. There were the Dodgers, who kicked them out of the Polo Grounds. There were the more recent Mariners, who delt them a heart breaking loss in 1995. But no team has ever had a rivalry with the Yanks like Boston.
In the early years of the Red Sox, they were poverty stricken, baseball had not been very good to Bosox owner Harry Frazee. There were looking to unload the high salary of George Herman Ruth, more commonly known as Babe. The Yanks were doing okay, and were more than wealthy, and paid the Bosox $100,000 for Ruth, as well as a $300,000 loan. The Yanks at one time held a mortage on Fenway park, something the Red Sox fans never forget.
Arguably, Ruth is all-time best player in baseball. Some Sox fans, however, argue that Babe Ruth was no more than a name when Frazee sold him to the Yanks. First off, if he was, why would they have paid 400,000 dollars for him, almost as much as they paid for the whole Yankee franchice itself. Unlike the untested player the Sox claim they sold away, Yankee colonels Til Huston and "Jake" Ruppert bought an ace pitcher, as well as a sure-handed feilder and the best hitter in baseball at the time. All in Babe Ruth.
You see, ever since that transaction took place, the Yankees have won 24 world championships. The Red Sox have won none.
And they've only ever won four pennants, and then they've lost the series in a drawn-out, heartbreaking style. The last they lost when Bill Buckner let that ball roll through his legs...
But the other time they threatened...there's a story.
In 1978, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox finished in a tie for the American league. That season he witnessed one of the ultimate turnarounds in baseball history. By late July, they led the Yanks by fourteen games. But then Boston started to lose, and the Yanks began to win. And win. And win...
The Yankees came to Boston down four, and left tied, having outscored the Red Sox by thirty-one runs in the past four games, a series so one-sided it was title the Boston Massacre by Red Sox Fans. They ended the season in a tie.
Because there were no playoffs yet, they Yanks and Sox met for a one game playoff, an all-or-nothing game. It was in this one game that, with one swing, in Boston, "Dent forever became a four-letter word".
The Yankees and Bosox seemed evenly matched, with a two-run lead going into the seventh for Boston. Back to back singles by Chris Chambliss and Roy White saw lighthitting shortstop Bucky Dent to the plate.
Now, to hit a home run at Fenway is not an easy thing. The Green Monster stands high in left, and few people have conquered it. Rarely can a person claim to have seen one clear the Monster, and many less can say they've hit one over, especially not a shrimpy little last-in-the-lineup hitter.
But it did. It cleared it the fence, and gave the Yankees a 5-2 lead, and they would need every one of those runs. The Red Sox got two more in the eigth, and the Yanks were in trouble again with a man on first and one out in the ninth. But here's where fate-and the Bambino- came into play.
Jerry Remy smoked a ball into right field where Lou Pinella was blinded by the lights. Panicked, Pinella faked seeing the ball and Burleson, on first, was fooled by him. Instead of going to third, he only reached second when the ball was not caught, and that proved to be the game.
You see, the next ball hit was a deep sacrifice by Jim Rice that would've scored Burleson if he had been there to tag. But he wasn't.
Boston only made it to one other series after that, the 1986 series where they had that tragic loss to the Mets. The Yankees went on to win that series (Bucky Dent was the surprise MVP), and didn't appear again until 81 when they lost to the Dodgers. They dissapeared again, until their recent championships in '96 and '98.
For Boston fans, Steven King sums it up best. "In Damn Yankees a man sells his soul to the devil so he can pitch for a team that beats the Yankees. Red Sox fans laugh at that concept; we know the Yankees are the devil."