Rivalry reversal
by Matthew NameeJune 19, 2004
The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is perhaps the most famous in all of baseball, but it's been pretty one-sided. On the other hand, the Dodgers-Giants rivalry has been roughly even, and one could argue (as I would) that it's the greater rivalry.
I'm a fan of both the Dodgers and Red Sox, and I grew up just hating the Giants and Yankees ("Boo Yankees!" was one of my early exclamations). Yesterday, the strangest thing happened... Thanks to the zit that is interleague play, my two favorite teams faced off against their two enemy teams, backwards.
The Dodgers played the Yankees, whom they hadn't seen since the 1981 World Series. Meanwhile, Boston took on the Giants, a team they hadn't played since... um... the 1912 World Series.
For me, this was the opposite, emotionally, of the Dodgers-Red Sox matchup last weekend. Here, I knew exactly who I wanted to win. And they did. L.A. beat the Yankees, which is just a cool thing to see. Yes, I hate interleague play, but it's really cool that the Dodgers beat the Yankees. And, to finish things off right, the Red Sox beat the Giants, meaning my two favorite teams beat the other's enemy and took steps forward in the standings.
I guess the obviousness of this weekend makes up for the emotional ambiguity I dealt with last weekend.
Matthew Namee cofounded The Hardball Times in 2004, when he was working as the assistant to baseball author and Red Sox executive Bill James. Matthew still lives in Kansas, where he is currently pursuing a law degree. He can be reached at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com.