Enough Already
October 12, 2004
by Brendon McCullin

One year when I was working in Los Angeles, on the week leading up to the USC-UCLA rivalry game, some Bruins and Trojans supporters were yapping at each other. On Friday before the big game there was an informal all-hands divisional meeting. As the head of the division was addressing the troops he posed a question. “How many people here attended USC,” he asked. A handful of people raised their hands. “How many people went to UCLA,” he followed. Again a handful of people put their hands up. Finally, he said, “How many people went to neither school and would like them to just shut the hell up about it?” Every other hand shot up.

So, how many people out there are sick of hearing about the storied rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox? I’m certain there are more hands up than I could possibly count.

It’s not that I don’t understand the history behind it – the Curse of the Babe and all of that. I get it. I’m just sick of hearing about it. I’m not going to suddenly become a fan of one of the two teams just because every member of the sports media is going to do five different stories on what the rivalry means to baseball. Here’s what it means to most people: every obnoxious Boston and New York fan across the country is going to annoy everyone around them for the next two weeks.

I split my childhood between Philadelphia and Michigan, meaning I have the privilege of being both a Phillies and Tigers fan. Sure both teams have won a World Series since the last time the Red Sox did, but that isn’t really a cure-all. The Phillies and Tigers have also fielded some of the worst teams of the last fifty years and no one goes out of their way to romanticize any of it.

Both teams have featured Hall of Fame players that still frequently get mentioned as afterthoughts in any “Greatest Ever” discussions (Al Kaline for the Tigers, Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton for the Phillies). Besides Pete Rose, who’s always thought of as a Red, the most famous former Phillie currently might be John Kruk. The Tigers don’t even have anyone that glamorous.

Meanwhile, the Yankees get guys in the Hall that hit .273 for their careers with 38 home runs (Phil Rizzuto, hello!). Current Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter has had one outstanding season and some other very good years, but is treated like the greatest player since sliced bread. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner has spent enough money since he bought the team to finally go from a disgraced buffoon to a national icon that does goofy commercials. The team has a freaking museum in their outfield for God’s sake.

The Red Sox play in a dilapidated stadium that has seats so narrow that it’s like sitting in my son’s booster seat. Red Sox Nation also has a gaggle of celebrities, led by Ben Afleck, that miss no opportunity to jump on camera and wax poetic about Carl Yazstrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Dwight Evans and Pedro Martinez, breaking out the New England accent they otherwise try to suppress. Boston fans, like their counterparts on Chicago’s North Side, love to wallow in their own misery, endlessly replaying their playoff gaffes of the past.

Of course, the fact that ESPN’s headquarters sits directly between Boston and New York doesn’t help the situation any. If you listened closely enough, no matter where you were, it would’ve been possible to hear the champagne bottles popping in Bristol, Connecticut as soon as the Yankees-Red Sox match up in the ALCS was set. Fox may be broadcasting the games, but ESPN will manage to get every baseball expert on their payroll on the air to analyze every aspect of the series right on down to the color of Joe Torre’s boxers. Consider yourselves forewarned: Peter Gammons is about to become omnipresent.

Bitter? Oh you bet I’m bitter. Other teams have had collapses in the playoffs besides the Red Sox. Other teams have seen their managers make stupid mistakes in key situations. Where are the books and documentaries on them? When former Boston first baseman Bill Buckner famously had a ball roll through his legs in a World Series game, I laughed. Hard. Big, loud belly laugh. That’s how funny I thought it was.

Every time a baseball expert says that I have to respect the Yankees for their resilence, I want to scream. I don’t have to respect them. Not when they have a payroll that could finance several Third World countries. Rather than respect them, what I need to do is break out my A-Rod voodoo doll and start sticking pins in it.

Will I watch the games? Of course. It’s the ALCS and I’m a baseball fan. But I won’t root for either team – although I might openly root for another bullpen brawl between the Yankees players and Red Sox fans, just like last year. For all I care, baseball grand poobah Bud Selig and his buddy Joe Torre could get together and call the whole thing a tie, just as if it were an All-Star game.

But while I’m watching I’ll be telepathically sending the following message to every cocky Yankees fan, whining Red Sox supporter and hyperbolic sports media lackey wherever they may be – Just shut the hell up about it!

(Brendon McCullin is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)