I suppose rivalries are good for any sport, but as a fan without any particular rooting interest in either the Yankees or the Red Sox (other than the usual jealously at their payroll/media coverage/relative success vs. other teams), I am completely tired of this overblown rivalry.
The two teams play each other 18 times this season, with every game it seems nationally televised on either Fox or ESPN. Last night’s tilt dragged like a playoff affair, with the 8 1/2 innings clocking in at 3:55. And now comes this over-the-top story of a construction worker attempting to bury a Red Sox uniform at the new Yankee Stadium.
Televised sports are by definition the elevation of the trivial, but after being battered by the escalated coverage of this rivalry ver the past few years I thought I’d see if anyone else is as tired of the relentless saturation. I’m sure Red Sox and Yankee fans don’t care, but what about the rest of us?
Mets fan, and the answer to your question is no, I’m not sick of it. “Dragged like a playoff affair” is a weird sentence to me; a regular season game that feels like a playoff game is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Besides, the Yankees and Red Sox are objectively the two best teams in the American League. If I had to bet my life on it, I’d bet that one of those teams will represent the AL in the World Series. They boast, variously, the best position player of my lifetime, the best closer of any lifetime and two possible successors, the best playoff pitcher in the game today, two and possibly three additional first ballot Hall-of-Famers, and two beautiful stadiums.
I hate the Yankees, and I’d like to see them lose every game. But when they play the Red Sox, it will be two great teams playing, which usually translates to great baseball. Why wouldn’t I want to watch that?
Sick of Yankees vs. Sox? Hell, I’m a lifelong UNC fan and I get REALLY sick of the lengths that UNC vs. Duke will go to sometimes. The Hansbrough vs. Henderson non-issue of a couple seasons ago is the example that readily comes to mind; many people in my area (including some members of my family, sadly) are STILL pissed about it, for no decent reason as far as I can tell. It was a hard foul, Henderson was ejected and suspended for the next game, Hansbrough was injured but it wasn’t exactly a long-term debilitating thing, and everyone on both teams seem to have gotten over it. I mean, damn, what do you people want? I also hate it when Roy Williams/Coach K throw some stupid barb at the other (like the infamous “unlike other schools, we don’t release our injuries” nugget that Coach K offered up last season), a little exchange starts up, and some guy on ESPN comments that this is “exactly what Carolina-Duke is all about”. Yeah, I can’t think of anything that represents two fine learning institutions better than basketball coaches sniping like nine-year-old boys over the national media :rolleyes:
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As for the Yankees vs. Red Sox…baseball isn’t my favorite sport, but I do like the Yankees and I have followed them about as long as I’ve cared about pro sports. I don’t hate the Red Sox by any means (maybe it would be different if I were from the New York area), and some of my best friends in college were die-hard Sox fans from New England, so I can respect their love for their team. What confuses me sometimes is what seems to be this attitude among some Sox boosters that the Yankees have this huge legion of bandwagon fans that blindly supports them (instead of the Red Sox?), and this is a big reason to hate them and boo hoo woe is us we have no fans. Well, I can’t deny that many people jump on the Yankees bandwagon because they’re the Yankees, but isn’t this true of pretty much ANY sports team that happens to be good at the moment? These days I seem to run into more bandwagon Red Sox fans (like my cousins, born and raised in TN) than Yankees fans, because the Red Sox have won a couple of World Series in the past few years. So I think it’s hardly fair to single out the Yankees for this sort of thing.
Nice post. I’m a lifelong Red Sox fan, but I appreciate a well-played game by any two teams. Not to derail, but I think could be more than two or three first ballot inductees:
Mariano Rivera
Alex Rodriguez
Manny Ramirez
Curt Schilling
Derek Jeter
Mike Mussina
I don’t think Schilling or Mussina is a first ballot hall of famer. I’m not even sure Mussina will get it in. He’s the ultimate almost great type of player. He almost pitched a perfect game. He’s almost won 20 games in a season (19 twice, 18 thrice.) Come to think of it, is Schilling even a sure thing? Three great seasons and several postseason gems. I think he will, but’s he is close to borderline too.
As for the rivalry, it does make for exciting baseball. The volume and passion of the fans really contributes to the experience. Of course it’s going to garner more national exposure. But I can certainly understand fans of other teams feeling left out.
Let me qualify that…“Dragged” in the sense that it was lengthy like a playoff game, yet there was very little on the line. The teams are in 3rd and 5th place respectively right now, it is very early in the season, and quite frankly the “drama” of Farnsworth vs. Lugo or Timlin vs. Molina just isn’t there without something more in the balance. And if–as many who love this rivalry predict–one will win the division and the other the wild card (I don’t agree, but I’m in the minority), what’s justifying the fuss?
Taking the weekend of games objectively, it was a fairly middling series (agreed, part of that was the Saturday weather). If one of these teams is in the dumper come July 4th (unthinkable, yes, but who knows), would Fox and ESPN still both feature them on their main broadcast?
If you said “yes”, that, in a nutshell, is my problem with this rivalry. While up until quite recently both teams were among the best in baseball, I saw a definite slip last year on the Yankee side, and think it’s gotten worse this year. Predictably the amount of silliness associated with the rivalry has increased to fill the void left by the diminished on-field drama–the incredible over-reaction to the jersey incident is proof of that.
That’s another one I agree is overblown, though at least when these two play they’re both usually ranked in the top 10. i guess I’m more interested in the athleticism of sports than the tribalism, and the excessive coverage of rivalries seems to be dominated by the latter more than the former.
I’m a Yankee fan and I get sick of it sometimes. I’m perfectly happy to watch high-quality, dramatic baseball games between two very good teams that have a long and historic rivalry. I don’t care about the background stuff and I think ownership of both teams should shut the hell up. Red Sox Nation, Yankee Universe, “Evil Empire,” the entire thing is obnoxious and absurd. Almost any bad thing you can say about one team, you can also say about the other.
I know I’m sick of ESPN/Fox always showing the Red Sox or the Yankees. Sunday nights, I don’t care about since there aren’t many games scheduled for a Sunday night anyway. But, Fox having a monopoly on Saturday afternoon and always showing the Red Sox or Yankees drives me nuts.
If one of the teams is out of it by the All Star Break, I’d hope to see the broadcast schedule change.
Here is ESPN’s baseball schedule. Notice almost every game has a team from Boston, New York or Chicago.
Yes, I am thoroughly sick of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, and I would like nothing more than an October without either one of them.
I’m wating for Yankees fans to invent a curse. They haven’t won since 2000, you know. There are ten-year-old Yankee fans who can’t remember the frisson of a World Championship.
After Fred McGriff (a sure thing), who’s on tap for the 2010 class?
Roberto Alomar is a maybe (the voters will remember his spectacular flameout at the end of his career), Barry Larkin is a maybe and Edgar Martinez is a maybe (the DH thing could hurt him).
After those three maybes, there aren’t even any guys who should be up for discussion.
Maybe he means the players who are going to retire in 2010. Schilling, Rivera and Mussina may all retire that year, or sooner, and Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux could join them. Rodriguez and Jeter will still be playing and Ramirez probably will be, too.
It’s just another example of East Coast Media Bias. Fox and ESPN are laboring under the delusion that the rest of the nation is transfixed by whatever happens in the NorthEast. newsflash: the Cubs and Cardinals have a long and storied rivalry, can’t stand each other, and play each other 18 times. Obsess over them for a while.
(I’d love to mention the Giants & Dodgers, but the Giants are better off if no one pays attention to them for a while, until they can actually field a team.)
As much as I hate both the Yankees and the Red Sox, I don’t mind ESPN and Fox having shown their games over the weekend. Out of all the series from this weekend, Yanks/Sox was definitely the most entertaining match-up (Rockies/D-Backs would probably be a distant second).
However, in spite of that, I am burnt out on hearing about the rivalry between the two teams. I’m sick of see the magazine pieces on SportsCenter about them every ten minutes. I’m sick of Red Sox fans thinking that they are this higher echelon of baseball fan. Amazingly, as glad as I was to see the Red Sox come back on the Yankees in '04, I actually like the Yankees slightly more now. The Red Sox have overthrown the evil empire and have become equally tyrannical.
The OP and I certainly aren’t alone. Just last night, the evening radio host on Philly sports radio brought up the topic of being tired of the New York/Boston-centric ESPN coverage. There were plenty of calls from people who have had enough of this crap. I don’t understand why ESPN doesn’t promote other, fresher rivalries (COUGH PHILLIES METS COUGH). Especially after last season, the Mets and Phillies fans pretty much hate each other, and with us both being good for once, it would certainly increase the rivalry even more if it got some national attention. The fact that there is so much bad blood between the two teams has basically flown under the radar, though, because of ESPN clinging onto the fact that they still think that the Red Sox are a likeable team. They aren’t loveable losers anymore. Watching a game between these two teams is like rooting for one of two competing oil companies.
The Yankees, coming off of a phenomenal 4 straight World Series championships, obliterated the team with the AL’s best record in the ALCS in 5 games…only to be humiliated by a McFranchise in the World Series after Mariano Rivera has his only blown save of the entire season.
The invincible, immortal, indestructible, almighty Curse was smashed, gutted, shredded, burned, mangled, flattened, quartered, and pulpled, and its dessicated remains were recently seen spiralling past Alpha Centauri.
The Red Sox offered a nine figure contract for a Japanese pitcher.
Yankee Stadium was scheduled for demolition.
George Steinbrenner retired.
What the hell is there left?
Okay, I understand that there’s a lot of prestige here and plenty of diehard fans. But why the continued national fascination, especially with mainstream media outlets like ESPN? The Curse is over. The House That Ruth Built is over. Rinky-dink outfits like the Marlins are winning titles. How can we continue to care so much?
I’m a Sox fan, and I can’t believe the rivalry gets this much air time on the national level. I would love to be exposed to more National League play, it think the pitching substitutions are much more interesting but I don’t see it enough to even know the players. But except for the Mets, you never hear about any NL teams up here.
Attempt? Hell, he DID bury a uniform, and the Yankees spent 50 large jackhammering it out of the concrete.
While the games are intolerably long, I love the sniping back and forth between the teams. The Curse, 1918, The Evil Empire, players signing autographs Red Sox Suck! The hate makes me smile.
Totally and utterly sick of it. So sick of it I’d love to resurrect Montreal, move it to the American League, and start a totally new rivalry from scratch.