Jake LaMotta used to say, ''I fought Sugar Ray Robinson so often, I almost got diabetes."
Does this mean the Red Sox are in danger of catching Mad Steinbrenner Disease or Jeter-itis?
The Sox play host to the Yankees tonight and it'll be the seventy-second meeting between the teams since the start of the 2003 season. That's 26 times in 2003 (including seven in the playoffs), 26 times in 2004 (another seven-gamer in October), and 19 times last year.
The three-year record?
Boston 36. New York 35.
Can't get much closer than that, can you?
Both teams have won an American League Championship Series at the expense of the other during this span and the Red Sox have a World Series title to boot. The Yankees own a 26-1 edge in Series championships since 1923, but the Sox lead, 1-0, since 2000.
What is particularly annoying here in the Hub is the ranking of the teams in the AL East since 1998. Boston has finished second to New York for the last eight seasons. That is a major league record.
The Sox thought they had the Yankees whipped last year, but when the teams finished with identical records, the Yankees were declared division champs on the basis of a better regular-season record against Boston. Now it appears the Blue Jays are capable of breaking up the New York-Boston grip on the top two spots in the division.
We have not seen the Yankees at Fenway since last October when Robert Redford, Renee Zellweger, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Yo-Yo Ma, Tim Russert, and thousands of other movers, shakers, and fakers filled Boston's ancient ballyard for the final three games of the 2005 regular season. The Sox and Yanks both poured champagne on the clubhouse carpet that weekend, then went off to lose first-round playoff series to the White Sox and Angels, respectively.
Red Sox-Yankees is probably the best rivalry in the history of American sports, and in recent winters events somehow brought the hype to new levels. Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino (Remember him? Before the Theo Epstein's Machiavellian power play, Lucchino was a big guy around Fenway) threw high octane on the smoldering fire with his ''Evil Empire" remark before the 2003 season. Then we had the hideous Alex Rodriguez bidding war in the winter of 2003-04. Last year the border war was fueled by Boston's Opening Day ring ceremony in the face of Mssrs. Torre, Jeter, and Rivera as Red Sox fans basked in the afterglow of the New York Chokees of October '04.
And tonight we have Johnny Damon at the center of the universe -- right where he wants to be.
