Start of something (too) big

So that's why I'm jacked. I want to see what Messrs. Schilling, Beckett, and Matsuzaka do against a Yankee lineup that leads all of baseball in runs and the American League in on-base percentage as they eagerly await the return from the disabled list of Hideki Matsui to make the lineup even more formidable.

The problem is that we baseball fans will have to endure the sophomoric overuse of many naughty words as we enjoy our baseball.

Historically speaking, it is a great rivalry. Is it the best North American sport has to offer? Our parochial conceit leads people in these parts to say "yes," but is it on a par with our great college rivalries, or the Cubs and Cardinals or even Calgary and Edmonton? Maybe, maybe not. I do know that I've enjoyed other local rivalries more.

You know why? It's because like so many other things in modern sport, it has lost its purity. Remember that great scene in "Diner" when the old guy tells Shrevie that on his television the Ponderosa looked "fake "? That's the way I feel about the state of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, at least at this end of I-95.

It's the times. No longer can things just be. Everything is over the top. Fans are whipped up by talk shows and chat rooms to the point where there is no more gray in the Crayola box. I acknowledge the print media doesn't help, either. Does Joe Cronin taking on Jake Powell in 1938 really have any connection with A-Rod stepping in against Schill tonight? It's a great story, and it was the true start of the rivalry (the rivalry having zero resonance when The Babe was a Yankee since the Red Sox were perpetually horrible), but that's the end of it.

A rivalry is really good when it's from the inside out, not when it's from the outside in. Celtics-Lakers was a great rivalry when Bird was trying to outdo Magic and the entire Celtics team disliked Kareem and when Kevin McHale gave the entire state of California reason to hate him by decking Kurt Rambis. Yankees- Red Sox was a great rivalry when Billy Martin, Thurman Munson, Mickey Rivers, and Graig Nettles were on one side and Carlton Fisk, Bill Lee, Luis Tiant, and Rick Burleson were on the other.