I remember when the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry meant something. It was before the Red Sox won three World Series in a ten year stretch. It was before the Yankees bought one World Series – they’re still paying down the interest on that one by the way. (Don’t get me wrong, the Yanks winning the World Series during my senior year of high school was absolutely amazing. Hideki Matsui was one of my favorite players, and the rest of the team was still comprised of enough players from the old guard, that they felt like the Yankees.) Anyway, I remember when the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry meant something. I was twelve years old. A lot has changed in the twelve years that have passed since then, and I have my theories about the evaporation of one of the greatest rivalries in sports.
Theory 1: The Sitcom Paradox
One of my favorite comedies of all time is The Office. It’s easily in my top three, and during a rewatch, somewhere between “The Dundies” and “Dinner Party,” it might be my absolute favorite. The comedy is so consistently funny over the early seasons, but what elevates it as a show is the emotional depths it is able to reach in episodes like “Casino Night.” After two full seasons of Jim and Pam teasing us with their flirting we finally make contact! Jim Halpert, ladies and gentlemen:
Jim
I was just um,… I’m in love with you.
Pam
What?
Jim
I’m really sorry if that’s weird for you to hear, but you needed to hear it.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s the Aaron Boone home run. I don’t want to get too specific with the analogy in direct relation to The Office, but the end of the third season when Jim comes back from the job interview, and asks Pam if she wants to get dinner; that’s game seven of the 2004 ALCS. Yes, the Red Sox are who we’re rooting for in this analogy. Because the greatest rivalry in sports was built on the same model that helped propel a number of successful sitcoms: will they or won’t they?
In Cheers, Friends, The Office, we have Sam and Diane, Ross and Rachel, Jim and Pam. In Major League Baseball, for over eighty years we had the Red Sox. Will they or won’t they? For the Red Sox there were two goals constantly tormenting and tantalizing their fans. Will they win a World Series? Will they beat the Yankees?
In 2004 they did both of those things. And just like that, Pam and Jim are walking the fun run holding hands. But as anyone who has watched one of these sitcoms knows, things can get a lot less interesting, once that seemingly unreachable, yet predestined goal is reached. It may not happen immediately, but it will happen. At first you’re excited to watch what things are like after the paradigm has shifted. The thought “is this really happening?” will probably rear its head. But the longer it keeps really happening, the more normal it becomes. And normal isn’t very exciting.
Theory 2: Who Are You, and What Have You Done With the Yankees?
The Yankees are stuck in limbo. Their team is made up of over the hill superstars getting paid for a World Series they won last decade. There seems to be a shift in sports marketing, as a result of social media and the way we are able to communicate. Meaning, the Yankees don’t have the same advantage over smaller market teams at the negotiating table, like in years passed.
Stephen Strasburg re-upped with Washington before he even had a chance to hit the open market. Who’s to say they don’t end up doing the same thing with Bryce Harper; alleged Yankees savior a few years down the road? Crossing over to basketball for a minute; look at Kevin Durant. Does it matter that he plays in Oklahoma City as opposed to New York or Los Angeles? Feeling like a big fish in a small pond doesn’t matter as much when Vine and Snapchat work just as well in Tornado Alley as they do on Broadway.
What does this mean for the Yankees? Basically, they are stuck with a team built on the old model: sign big name free agents when they hit the open market. Only now they are playing in a league with teams who are embracing a new model. The Red Sox farm system is loaded with top prospects. If the Yankees had just one guy with the hype of Yoan Moncada or Rafael Devers, I would be very excited. Aaron Judge is a top 100 prospect, and should provide a bevy of home runs in Yankee stadium, but he doesn’t seem like the type of player who is going to turn the franchise in a new direction.
Then again, maybe a prospect coming up and making an impact, is all it will take to reignite New York. Last year when Greg Bird got called up, and went on a hot streak, there was palpable enthusiasm among Yankees fans. But Bird is out for the year, and Judge is still in the minor leagues.
Back during the height of the rivalry, there was a consistent cast of characters on both teams. The Red Sox are beginning to cement their new regime with guys like Bogaerts and Betts. While the Yankees have to trot out old men who can’t even play the field anymore, in Beltran and A-Rod. There’s no narrative, because the Yankees lack depth in terms of character development.
That’s what a rivalry is, after all. It’s a narrative. But, there needs to be a consistent cast of characters (players) each side believes in, for the narrative to have any teeth. I’m not going to be telling my grandkids about Yankee greats Carlos Beltran, Aaron Hicks, and Brian McCann. More importantly, neither are Red Sox fans.
Theory 3: The Flame is Always Burning, but not Always Brightly
I’m going to take a more realistic look at the current Yanks-Sox landscape. Putting things simply, it was crazy that both of these teams were so good for so long, it’s understandable to think they won’t both be consistently dominant without any cyclical dips on one side or the other… Okay maybe that isn’t “simple.”
I was born in 1992, which means there was a point in my life where I just assumed the Yankees won the World Series every year. I’m sure my perspective on baseball is so colored by that introduction to fandom, and it is probably a big reason I feel like the rivalry has disintegrated. I mean, It was never realistic to think both teams will be good at the same time forever. But that’s the narrative I grew up with. Maybe the rivalry is like a flame that is always burning, but it vacillates between bonfire and pilot light. And for most of my baseball watching life, the flame has been “signal fire on a deserted island” bright.
Theory 4: The Ship of Theseus
A rivalry is a narrative. It’s a story we tell ourselves about two teams. Maybe that’s how I came up with the sitcom analogy. But, sitcoms get cancelled, and syndicated, and put on Netflix. Baseball rolls on and on, summer after summer. If you cut out ten seasons from 1996-2006 and just titled it: The Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry, it would encapsulate everything that was great about the rivalry. People might rewatch it the same way I rewatch The Office. But, that isn’t how sports work.
Each year there is a new season, and the players change little by little, just like Grandpa’s Axe… Grandpa’s Axe is a version of Theseus’ Paradox, which examines the identity of an object. Theseus uses a ship to describe the phenomenon.
This “ship of Theseus” stayed there for hundreds of years. As time went on, some of the wooden planks of Theseus’ ship started rotting away. To keep the ship nice and complete, the rotting planks were replaced with new planks made of the same material. Here is the key question: If you replace one of the planks, is it still the same ship of Theseus?
There will always be The Yanks and The Sox. But it’s never going to be what it was. How can it? The rivalry I grew up with, was different from the rivalry my Dad grew up with, and so on, back through the decades of baseball history. The rivalry, the narrative, the uniforms, are all an illusion to keep us invested in an idea. That the Yankees are always the Yankees, and the Red Sox are always the Red Sox. The uniforms don’t change, but the players do, and they are the characters. They’re the planks of wood, they write the story, and they fan the flames.
Lemmen's Nursery 