FanPost

Prompt for Writing Job: Favorite Moment of Yankees-Sox Rivalry

I live in San Diego and there’s a really good fish and chips place just a few miles from my home. A friend is the bartender there, and they always have NBA games on. So, yesterday, my husband and I were craving some fish and chips, beer, and wanted to watch a good NBA playoff game. One could argue we only got two out three, but either way, there we were, eating, drinking, watching the Warriors-Rockets and minding our own business…but, hubby is wearing a Yankees cap, and this fish and chips place is Red Sox friendly. You know where this is going. Immediately after sitting down, we get a heckler in the form of a retired baby boomer.

"Hey, do we allow Yankee fans in here?"

"At least this one, he’s a good one," says my husband’s friend, the bartender. (Who could care less what hat he’s wearing.)

"A good one? I thought the only good Yankee fan was a dead one!"

Crickets.

We quietly chuckled, internally rolled our eyes, and went back to watching the playoffs. Realizing we weren’t taking the bite, the Red Sox fan went back to watching them lose to the A’s.

As silly as it sounds, I enjoyed the interaction, and the fact that just us being there got to this guy. Since moving to California four years ago, I’ve come to see the rivalry with new eyes, and I’m really appreciative of that. Being born and raised a Yankee fan in NY, well, the rivalry is everything there. It’s both history and a current event, tradition and the future (baby bombers!), bragging rights and, at certain points of the year, all-consuming. Meanwhile, in San Diego, well, the fact that there’s only one professional sports team remaining says it all. (And that’s a conversation for a different day.) But, getting back to my point, being away from the eye of the storm has given me not only fresh perspective, and actually instills more Yankee pride.

I might have been born in the decade of no championships, but I grew up with the dynasty. I cursed when Pedro shoved Zimmer, cheered when Jeter dove in the stands on July 4, was ecstatic when Boone hit that homerun, and cried like a baby when the curse was broken. I felt like I lived all those moments myself, and I can guarantee you any Yankee or Red Sox fan will say the same thing. This rivalry is personal, and one that the fans, players and coaches all take to heart. Without that buy-in, this rivalry is nothing.

I could sit here and rattle off facts about the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Talk about the famous, really well known moments. Bucky. Boone. Babe. I can also talk to you about the smaller moments. Mussina getting as close as you can get to a perfect game without getting one, Pedro’s one-hitter (thanks Chili!)…but at the end of the day, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This rivalry is fluid, evolving, always epic, and very personal to its fans. How beautiful. Oh, my favorite moment? All of them.

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