Has the Red Sox / Yankees Rivalry Cooled?

Today is Labor Day and I've been known to pen a non-work-related article on holidays. Today is no exception. As the summer draws to a close I can't help thinking about baseball. Well... errr... I kinda think about baseball year-round, so as the summer draws to a close, what really happens is I get melancholy about baseball. As has been the case more times than I can count, the Sox and Yankees are in a battle and that means the earth is spinning correctly on its axis. But the question is this: Has the Sox/Yankees rivalry cooled a bit? I'm thinking yes.

We have to keep my perspective in mind. The Sox of my childhood were Yaz, Freddie Lynn, Dwight Evans, Carlton Fisk, Bill (Spaceman) Lee, Luis Tiant, Dennis Eckersley, and of course the beloved Jim Ed Rice. I guess in baseball years, I'm old. As a teenager I swooned over Dennis Eckersley (who didn't, right??). The "Manny-being-Manny" thing came later, along with the best of the best... Pedro and Big Papi, but the one thing that stayed constant was the disdain between the Sox and the Yankees.

Don't get me wrong, my overall love for the game allowed me, every now and then, to cross the line. I wept when the despised Yankees catcher Thurman Munson crashed his plane and died. I was pulling for David Cone with my fingers crossed as he faced the last batter in his perfect game. It was OK, it was special... I was allowed. But those were exceptions. Most of the time, it was just the opposite. I remember standing in church one Sunday in 1979 as a teenager listening to the priest talk about not hating anyone and never wanting anyone to die. "Hmmm, I thought to myself... I wouldn't mind it if Bucky Dent died..." (And I'm sure I mentioned that during Confession...) I will never forget 10/2/1978.

Throughout my young adulthood Bucky Dent, along with Aaron Boone, shared the same middle name in my opinion, and it began with an "F" !

Those days seem to be gone. While there's no love affair going on, the rivalry seems to have cooled down, and that's sad. The game needs a benches-clearing-brawl every now and then. The game needs some smack. So far in 2021 the Sox have swept the Yankees, and the Yankees have swept the Sox, and there was no smack. I have a theory as to why this is: three words... "Tampa" "Bay" "Rays." It's amazing what happens when there's a common enemy, eh? :-)

There's still time left in the season, though, to bring back old memories and put the civility on hold. It would definitely help with this melancholy I'm feeling, and it'll help keep the earth spinning correctly on its axis.

Yes, the baseball in the photo is signed by "The Eck." I still swoon...