Any avid fan knows that great rivalries are what make sports worth watching. Watching Duke battle North Carolina this season, waiting for the inevitable New York Knicks -- Miami Heat playoff series, even watching Sampras and Agassi go at it one more time, these are the most emotional moments in athletics.
It goes without saying however, that there is no rivalry more intense than the 98-year-old war between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. At least, in the eyes of Boston Red Sox fans. Having grown up in New York an avid Mets fan, I have watched this "rivalry" continue with keen interest and a dose of perplexity.
The basis for the rivalry is the 1919 sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $100,000 that Red Sox owner Harry Freezee needed to pay off his debts and to put on the musical "No No Nanette."
The "curse of the Bambino" was then set into place: since 1918 the Yankees have won 26 World Championships and the Red Sox none. In fact, the closest that the Red Sox came to winning a World Championship was in 1986, against the New York Mets, no less, when a surreal ending to Game Six of the World Series cost the Red Sox what appeared to be the end of their jinx.
Needless to say, eight decades of misfortune has left Boston fans livid, and created a rather unreciprocated hostility of Bostonians toward New York, and a raging hatred of the New York Yankees.
Although I was aware of this, I did not experience it fully until I went to a Bruins-Tampa Bay Lightning game in Boston, which, as if one cue, ended with a crowd of drunken hooligans behind me chanting "Yankees suck!"
Now I might have been mistaken, but I was quite sure I was attending a hockey game against Tampa Bay, but I decided that maybe any sporting occasion called for a "Yankees suck" chant.
The next time I was in Boston I was enjoying my first true punk concert, waiting for the Dropkick Murphys to come out and close the show. They took a while, leaving an interlude for a fellow next to me to start a vicious "Yankees suck" chant, which mercifully came to an end after about ten minutes, only to give way to a "Rangers suck" chant in reference to New York's hockey team.
I chanted along, because you know what? The Rangers do suck. They are one of the worst teams in the NHL, and have been for a significant portion of franchise history. The Bruins of course, have been steady contenders to make the playoffs this decade.
I then endured the spectacle of the Dropkick Murphy's guitarist cursing out New York, saying how much it "sucked," how Boston "ruled," and how the Yankees sucked too.
Where is this rage coming from? I have never heard an anti-Boston chant in all the years I have been following New York sports, and the closest thing to Bostonian hatred is the nervousness that appears on Yankee fan faces every July, that duly subsides every October when they beat the Red Sox.
The only team I truly hate this much are the Miami Heat, who the Knicks have split their last 44 games with and played four years in a row in the NBA play-offs, after the one-time Knicks coach Pat Riley quit his contract to go coach them. Now that is a rivalry.
As we left that punk concert the crowd was still chanting. To all my Boston fans, let me tell you: You may know your sports, and you may love your teams, but chill.
I asked my Bostonian friend why people must act this way. He told me Boston, as a small city, was able to really bond as a community through its sports franchises.
I guess that's what I always thought high school sports were for- heck I even got suspended from school for "harassing" an opposing fan at a basketball game.
But now I am in college, and as I watch the NCAA Basketball tournament and see my college peers lighting it up on national television, I am filled with a sense of pride for my beloved Big Green, even though they didn't quite make the tournament this year.
I'll bet you catch me at the Dartmouth baseball games this year, rooting for one of the best teams in the Ivy League. There is no question that I will find ways to heckle and shout nasty things opposing players, maybe even come to dislike them as people, but let me promise this:
No matter what happens this baseball season, Boston is alright with me, and I'll chill there anytime. All I ask is for all you Boston fans out there to remember what my high school principal always told me, "It's only a game."
