Red Sox-Yankees Rivalry

Year Began: 1901
Group: MLB
Go to Forum: Click Here

The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is one of the longest and the most bitter rivalries in professional sports. For over 100 years, baseball's New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox of the American League have been chief rivals, compounded by their geographic proximity.

Since the inception of the wild card team and an added Division Series, the American League East rivals have squared off in the American League Championship Series three times, the Yankees winning twice in 1999 and 2003, and the Sox winning in 2004. In addition, the teams have met in the last regular season series of a season to decide the title, in 1904 (where the Red Sox won), 1949 (where the Yankees won). The teams also finished tied for first in 1978, when the Yankees won a high-profile one-game playoff for the division title.

Since the Red Sox' defeat of the Yankees in seven games in the 2004 American League Championship Series, the rivalry has become more intense than ever before. USA Today has dubbed it "the fiercest rivalry in sports."

History & Highlights
Since before the start of the American Revolution, Boston and New York have shared an intense rivalry as cities. While the Sons of Liberty stirred up the flames of revolution in Boston. Tories (loyalists) in New York argued that America should stay loyal to the crown. When the Siege of Boston ended, most citizens of Boston celebrated wildly (and still celebrate Evacuation Day to this day). George Washington later faced defeat in New York, which remained under British control until the end of the war.

For more than a century afterwards, Boston was arguably the educational, cultural, artistic, and economic power in the United States. Boston's location as the closest American port to Europe and its concentration of elite schools and manufacturing hubs helped maintain this image for several decades. During this time period, New York was often looked down upon as the upstart, over-populated, dirty cousin to aristocratic and clean Boston. New York's economic power soon outpaced Boston's in the 1800s due to its rapid population growth and terminus of the Erie Canal, along with massive growth in the manufacturing, shipping, insurance and financial services businesses. By the start of the 20th century this dynamic had completely shifted as New York had become the focus of American capitalism (especially on Wall Street), and the change was reflected in the new national pastime.

The Red Sox were one of the most successful teams in baseball at the turn of the 20th century and through the following two decades. The team won the inaugural World Series in 1903 and four more between 1912 and 1918. During this period, the Yankees were often called the Highlanders, in reference to playing their games in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Although physically located on a hilltop, the Highlanders routinely finished near the bottom of the standings. The one notable exception came in 1904, when the Highlanders, led by pitcher Jack Chesbro who won a record 41 games, met the Boston Americans on the final game of the season to decide the AL pennant. Chesbro threw a wild pitch and Boston won the pennant, but there was no World Series that year as the Giants refused to play. That would be the last time in a hundred years that the Red Sox would defeat the Yankees in a title-deciding game.

In 1916, the Red Sox were purchased by Harry Frazee on credit for $500,000. Though the team won the World Series in 1918, Frazee was hard-pressed to pay off the loans he accrued by purchasing the team and by producing Broadway shows. After the Red Sox finished sixth in the American League in 1919, Frazee sold several Red Sox players, including pitcher-turned-outfielder Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Frazee received $125,000 and a loan of $300,000 - secured on Fenway Park, the Red Sox' home stadium - for Ruth.

Ruth's arrival in New York simultaneously launched the Yankee dynasty while ravaging the Red Sox. While the Red Sox' five World Series titles were a record at the time, 1918 would be the team's last championship for 86 years. Meanwhile, Ruth's home run hitting prowess anchored the Yankee line-up, which became known as "Murderers' Row" in the late-1920s. After his trade to the Yankees, Ruth's new team reached the World Series seven times during his career in New York, winning four. This abrupt reversal of fortunes for the Red Sox marked the beginning of the supposed "Curse of the Bambino". But it was not the Ruth deal alone that reversed the fortunes of both clubs.

Robert W. Creamer, in Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (Simon & Schuster, 1974, p.209), reports that, "The loan was made and relations between the two clubs continued to be cordial, with Frazee sending player after player to the Yankees over the next few seasons for more and more cash. The Red Sox soon became a baseball disaster area, finishing dead last nine times in eleven seasons." Among others, Wally Schang, Everett Scott, Carl Mays, Waite Hoyt, Joe Bush and Sam Jones went from the Sox to the Yanks in the next one to three years... along with Ed Barrow, former Red Sox manager who became the Yankees' General Manager and empire-builder for the first quarter-century of the Yankees' dynasty.

From 1920 through 2003, the Yankees won 26 World Series championships and 39 pennants, compared to only four pennants for the Red Sox. To make matters worse, in every year that the Red Sox won the pennant - 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986 - they lost the World Series four games to three, leaving them with no World Series titles. During this time, the Red Sox finished second in the standings to the Yankees on twelve occasions - in 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1949, 1978, and every year from 1998 to 2003. During the 84 year period, the Yankees finished with a better regular-season record than the Red Sox 66 times, leading one sportswriter to quip that the Yankees' rivalry with the Red Sox was much like the rivalry "between a hammer and a nail".

The 1949 season, about which books have been written, saw a dramatic finish between the teams. The Yankees were painted as the underdogs. A Willard Mullin cartoon showed a broken and battered Yankees player trying to "bar the door" of the "First Place" house. Already sitting inside was a Red Sox player wearing a derby, holding an "eviction notice", and telling the Yankee, "Expecting someone, Bub?"

The Red Sox found themselves up by one game with two games left against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won both of them to capture the pennant, and then won the World Series, starting a record run of five straight World Series titles for the Yankees.

In 1978, the Red Sox, led by Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn and catcher Carlton Fisk, seemed as if they were destined for a trip to the Fall Classic for the second time in the 70s. They led the Yankees in the standings by 14 1/2 games by mid-July, less than three months to go in the regular season. The Yankees turned their season around just as the Red Sox seemed to collapse. By September 7, the Yankees had closed the once seemingly insurmountable 14 1/2 game deficit to only 4 games just in time for a four-game series at Fenway Park in Boston. The Yankees won all four games in the series by the scores of 15-3, 13-2, 7-0 and 7-4 for a combined score of 42-9. This series became known as the "Boston Massacre". On September 16, 1978 the Yankees held a 3.5 game lead over the Red Sox but the Sox won 12 of their next 14 games(and their last eight in a row) to overcome that deficit and finish in a first place tie with the Yankees with identical 99-63 records. A one-game playoff was scheduled in Boston to determine who would win the AL East Pennant for 1978.

Boston placed former Yankee Mike Torrez on the mound, while the Yankees countered with the Cy Young Award-winner from that year, Ron Guidry, who took at 24-3 record into the game. The Sox led 2-0 going into the top of the 7th, when Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent hit a two-out, three-run home run over Fenway's Green Monster to take a 3-2 lead. It was just his fifth home run of the season. The Yankees added another run that inning, and in the eighth, Reggie Jackson made the score 5-2 with a solo home run to dead center. The Sox rallied in the bottom of the inning, scoring twice. They rallied again in the ninth, only to come up short when Yastrzemski popped out to third baseman Graig Nettles with runners on second and third, ending the game. The Yankees won 5-4. New York went on to defeat Kansas City in the ALCS and Los Angeles in the World Series for their second straight World Series title.

In 1999, the Yankees and Red Sox faced each other for the first time in the ALCS. The Yankees were the defending World Series Champions and in the midst of a run of three consecutive World Championships, while Boston had not appeared in the ALCS since 1990. Despite intense buildup to this historic, first-ever postseason meeting between the two longtime rivals, the series proved to be somewhat anticlimatic, with New York winning four games to one. The lone bright spot for the Red Sox came in Game 3 at Boston's Fenway Park, in what had been a much anticipated pitching matchup of former Red Sox star Roger Clemens, who was now pitching for the Yankees, and Boston ace Pedro Martinez. Martinez struck out twelve and did not allow a run through seven innings of work; Clemens was hit hard, giving up five earned runs and only lasting into the third inning of a 13-1 Red Sox victory. However, the Yankees rebounded to win games 4 and 5, clinching the American League pennant and advancing to the Series, where they swept the Atlanta Braves. The loss to Martinez was the Yankees' only postseason loss, as the team went 11-1.

In 2003, the two teams faced off in the ALCS for the second time. The intensity of the series was highlighted by a protracted dispute in Game 3 which devolved into a bench-clearing altercation in which Yankees coach Don Zimmer charged Boston ace Pedro Martinez and was shoved to the grass. Tied at three wins apiece after the first six grueling and fervent games, Boston held a 5-2 lead in the eighth inning of Game 7 at Yankee Stadium in New York, with Martinez on the mound. The Yankees began a one-out rally with three straight hits that cut the deficit to 5-3 and left runners on second and third base. It seemed that Martinez had tired, but Boston manager Grady Little decided to leave him in the game. This decision immediately backfired when the next batter, New York catcher Jorge Posada, blooped a double into center field that scored both runners and tied the game. In the bottom of the eleventh inning, third baseman Aaron Boone, batting .161 in the postseason to that point, hit a series-ending home run into the left field stands, winning the Yankees their 39th American League pennant.

The tone for 2004 was set early when new Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who confounded the Yankees in the 2001 World Series with the Arizona Diamondbacks, showed up at an ice hockey game in Boston wearing a "Yankee hater" hat. That year, the Red Sox won an eventful season series against the Yankees. A 13-inning comeback win for the Yankees on July 1 was punctuated by a catch by Derek Jeter, who ran and dove into the stands at full speed and came out with facial lacerations, Pokey Reese made an identical catch earlier in the game that is oft overlooked. The Red Sox had their own memorable comeback win on July 24, triggered by a fight between Alex Rodriguez and Jason Varitek and a subsequent bench-clearing brawl. Despite their success in the rivalry series, the Red Sox still finished second to the Yankees in the AL East for the seventh straight season. Both teams would advance to the ALCS, for the second straight year.

The Yankees started out strong, winning the first three games, and putting an exclamation point on their Game 3 victory with a 19-8 win. No team in the history of baseball had ever won a best of seven series after being down three games to none. Entering the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4 at Fenway, Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera came in to close out a 4-3 victory and a series sweep. But after a leadoff walk, pinch-runner Dave Roberts stole second and came around to score on an RBI single by Bill Mueller. The Red Sox would win the game in the bottom of the 12th inning on a home run by David Ortiz. Game 5 featured another extra-inning Boston comeback, as the Red Sox tied the game in the 8th inning, and won it in the 14th. In Game 6, Curt Schilling, who had undergone ankle surgery during the series, returned to pitch seven innings of one-run ball in what would be dubbed "the bloody sock game." (Stitches from Schilling's surgery opened during the game.) The Red Sox completed their unprecedented comeback with a blowout win in Game 7, and went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in four games for the franchise's first World Series title in 86 years.

With the World Series triumph by the Red Sox, many pronounced the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" to be dead and buried.

During the 2005 season, Yankee outfielder Gary Sheffield was involved in an altercation with a Red Sox fan at Fenway Park. The fan was ejected and was stripped of his season tickets, while Sheffield was not punished, as MLB ruled that the fan instigated the altercation. Both teams finished the year with identical 95-67 records; however, the Yankees won the division due to beating the Red Sox in head-to-head games (10-9). Both were eliminated in separate ALDS series.

In 2006, the Yankees won the AL East for the ninth time in a row, while the Red Sox finished behind the Toronto Blue Jays for third place thanks in large part to a late-season five-game sweep by the Yankees. It was the first time since 1997 that the Red Sox had not finished as the division's runnerup.

On September 28, 2007, Boston won the AL East after a win against the Minnesota Twins and a loss by the New York Yankees against the Baltimore Orioles. This was the Sox first AL East Championship since 1995, ending the Yankees' nine-year reign in the division. The Red Sox would eventually go on to win the 2007 World Series, sweeping the Colorado Rockies in four consecutive games.