April 8, 2005, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California: The film Fever Pitch premieres, starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. It tells the story about a man in love with a woman and a baseball team, and what happens when the 2 loves come into conflict.
It was based on the 1992 memoir of the same title by Nick Hornby, then an English teacher in London, and a fan of North London soccer team Arsenal. He told of following the team from the fall of 1968, when he was 11 years old, until just before publication, including the 1971 "Double" season (meaning that they won the Football League Division One and the Football Association Cup in the same season) and the next League title, which wasn't until 1989 -- 18 years.
It had previously been made into a film in the United Kingdom, premiering in 1997, starring Colin Firth and Ruth Gemmell. This version, with Hornby writing the screenplay, followed a fictionalized version of Hornby during the epic 1988-89 season, with flashbacks to his youth in 1968 and 1972.
The United States version was adapted by Providence, Rhode Island-based filmmakers Peter & Bobby Farrelly, fans of New England's sports teams, including the Red Sox. They cast Fallon, then a former star of NBC's Saturday Night Live, and not yet the host of a late-night talk show, now hosting The Tonight Show. Ironically, in real life, Fallon is a Yankee Fan, so this film proves that he really can act.
This version of the film follows the Red Sox in their own epic season, of 2004. Unlike the makers of the U.K. version, the Farrelly Brothers did not know how the season was going to turn out. So, having already got permission from the MLB officers to film at Fenway and use game footage, they asked one more favor, and got the right to set up cameras at Busch Memorial Stadium when the Sox finished the job on October 27, 2004, and put Jimmy and Drew on the field, in character, celebrating.
Most Yankee Fans hate the film, for obvious reasons: It glorifies the Sox, and shows the Yankees losing and the alleged curse ending. Most Sox fans hate it, too, because, as Jimmy said of his group's trip to Spring Training, captured on ESPN and seen by Drew's character and her parents, "We looked like morons!"
Me? I think it's a good movie, but the ending makes it a horror movie.
April 14, 2005, Fenway Park. Yankee right fielder Gary Sheffield's cap is knocked off by a Red Sox fan while trying to pick up a fair ball in right field. In response, Sheffield pushes the fan. The conflict is quickly stopped by security guards. The fan is ejected from the game for interfering with play, and is eventually stripped of his season tickets. Red Sox 8, Yankees 5. Still, the Sox fans once again prove that they, not the Yankees or their fans, are the evil ones.
I was in Boston on the 20th, for the 4th game, although my chances of getting into Fenway were slim and none, and I had to watch from elsewhere in Scum Town. Then again, I'd rather have watched from outside Fenway and won than watched from inside and lost.
You should have heard Sox fans, not to mention the WEEI radio hosts, talk: They were in a daze, acting as though what happened in October 2004 had never happened. (And, based on what we now know, it really didn't.)
April 22, 2007, Fenway Park. Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek hit 4 consecutive home runs off Yankee pitcher Chase Wright, powering a comeback from a 3-run deficit and completing a 3-game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway Park for the first time since 1990. Red Sox 7, Yankees 6.
While the Yankees do get the Wild Card in this season, they never recover enough from this beating to take the Division title. The Sox win the World Series again, although this can also been deemed illegitimate. Of the players who hit the 4 straight homers, Manny is later proven a steroid user, and the other 3 have also been suspected.
Joe Torre is lowballed on a new contract offer, and leaves the Yankees. Former catcher Joe Girardi is named manager. Meanwhile, the Sox go on to win the World Series again.
December 13, 2007, Office of DLA Piper, Washington, D.C.: The Mitchell Report is issued. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, Democrat of Maine, was charged with finding out just how far baseball players had gone with the use of performance-enhancing drugs, including those that fall under the term "steroids."
He based his report mainly on the testimony of 2 men whose credibility was highly questionable: Brian McNamee, a personal trainer who had worked for Yankees Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch, and who had previously worked with Clemens as the strength & conditioning coach with the Toronto Blue Jays; and Kirk Radomski, a former clubhouse employee of the Mets.
Among the players Mitchell said had used PEDs were Clemens, Pettitte and Knoblauch. And it was already known that Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield were steroid users, although neither of those two ever managed to help the Yankees win a World Series.
Interestingly, no players from the 2004 Red Sox were named, and only 2 players from the 2007 Red Sox were, and they were hardly crucial to the World Series win: Eric Gagne, the reliever whose streak of 84 consecutive saves with the Los Angeles Dodgers electrified fans from 2002 to 2004; and Brendan Donnelly, also a reliever, who had been a rookie on the 2002 World Champion Anaheim Angels. (I have previously said, on more than one occasion, that the '02 Angels were clean as far as I knew. I had forgotten about Donnelly.)
The Report did not name either David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez, who would later be revealed to have failed steroid tests. Nor Bronson Arroyo, who would later confess to PED use. Nor Curt Schilling, nor Trot Nixon, nor Kevin Millar, nor Bill Mueller, nor Mark Bellhorn, nor Kevin Youkilis, all of whom have been suspected.
Mitchell is a lifelong Red Sox fan, and was, at that time, a member of the team's board of directors. Until that point, only crazy conservative pundits questioned his integrity. But this was a massive conflict of interest: Yes, the research should have been done; yes, a report should have been issued; no, he should not have been the one to do it.
At any rate, the Yankees became the face of "cheating" in baseball, while the Red Sox got off scot free. The Red Sox were "America's Team," and the Yankees were the "Evil Empire."
The truth would come out.
February 29, 2008, Legends Field, Tampa, Florida. At the spring-training complex soon to be renamed for his father, Yankee senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner responds to the popularity of the Sox in The New York Times newspaper's Play magazine:
"Red Sox Nation?" What a bunch of bullshit that is. That was a creation of the Red Sox and ESPN, which is filled with Red Sox fans. Go anywhere in America, and you won't see Red Sox hats and jackets, you'll see Yankee hats and jackets. This is a Yankee country. We're going to put the Yankees back on top and restore the universe to order.
Not "restore order to the universe.""Restore the universe to order." It will take 2 more seasons.
July 15, 2008, Yankee Stadium. The House That Ruth Built hosts the All-Star Game in its last season. Jeter and A-Rod are elected starters, and get huge ovations. Manny, David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia are also elected starters, and get the hell booed out of them. (Ortiz was injured and could not play.)
Sox reliever Jonathan Papelbon, having closed out the previous year's World Series against the Colorado Rockies, tells the media that he should close out the game, not Mariano Rivera of the Yankees. In Rivera's ballpark.
Despite having his own manager, Terry Francona, managing the AL team (the managers of the previous season's Pennant winners are always the opposing managers), Papelbon is inserted in the game in the 8th inning, and he blows a 2-2 tie to give the National League the lead. And the Yankee Fans let him hear it.
But the AL ties it in the bottom of the 8th. Rivera is called on to get the last out in the top of the 9th, and gets the biggest ovation of his career so far. He gets the last out, and pitches the 10th as well, getting into trouble, but getting out of it. The AL wins the game in the 15th, and the only one on the AL team who doesn't feel like celebrating is Papelbon.
August 28, 2008, Yankee Stadium. The teams meet at the old Bronx ballyard for the last time. Jason Giambi hits a bases-loaded single off Papelbon in the bottom of the 9th to win it for the Yankees, 3-2.
On September 21, the Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles 7-3 in the final scheduled game at the old Yankee Stadium, thus keeping them mathematically alive in the Playoff race. The next day, the Sox clinch the Division, and the Yankees don't get the Wild Card, either.
September 28, 2008, Fenway Park. The teams close the regular season with a rain-forced doubleheader against each other. The Yankees win the 1st game, 6-2. The Red Sox win the 2nd game, 4-3, on a walkoff single by Jonathan Van Every off Jose Veras. The Sox get as far as Game 7 of the ALCS, before losing to the Tampa Bay Rays.
May 4, 2009, Yankee Stadium II, Bronx. The teams meet at the new Yankee Stadium for the 1st time. Boston wins, 6-4.
July 30, 2009, Fenway Park. Exactly 10 years to the day after the 13-3 demolition I saw at Fenway, it is revealed that both David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez failed steroid tests in the 2003 season.
With Papi and Manny the 2 biggest reasons the Sox won the 2004 and 2007 World Series, those titles are now revealed to be completely illegitimate. The Curse of the Bambino still lives. 1918 * Forever.
Meanwhile, Pettitte's excuse was that he did it only briefly to come back from an injury in 2002, a year in which the Yankees did not win the Pennant. And Clemens remains the only player ever to go to court over it and beat the rap. Brian McNamee's evidence did not hold up. "Presumed innocent until proven guilty."
Did Clemens actually do it? "Of course he did," you might say, "everybody knows that." No. Not everybody knows that. Indeed, the only person who knows for sure is Clemens himself -- if he's innocent. If he's guilty, then the only other person who knows is McNamee, who can't prove it.
But the idea that the Yankees were dirty is impossible to prove; while the idea that the Red Sox were clean has already been proven a lie.
August 7, 2009, Yankee Stadium II. A-Rod ends a 0-0 standstill after 15 innings with a 2-run home run off Junichi Tazawa, who is making his major league debut. Two days later, Damon and Mark Teixeira hit back-to-back homers to give the Yanks a come-from-behind 3-2 win and a sweep.
September 27, 2009, Yankee Stadium II. Yankees 4, Red Sox 2. The Yankees complete a 3-game sweep of the Red Sox with a 4-2 victory, clinching their 1st AL East title since 2006. The Yankees came back to tie the season series against the Red Sox 9-9, after starting with an 0-8 record against them, and go on to win their 27th World Championship -- slaying their own dragons (real, imagined, or steroid-induced), and in Hank's words, restoring the universe to order.
May 17, 2010, Yankee Stadium II. Marcus Thames breaks a bottom of the 9th slugfest deadlock with a walkoff homer off Papelbon. Yankees 11, Red Sox 9.
September 28, 2011, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland. As late as September 1, a date on which they completed a 2-out-of-3 series win over the Yankees, the Sox were in 1st place in the AL East. But they went into a tailspin, the Yankees took advantage, and, on this date, the Sox lose to the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3, while the Yankees lose to the Rays. As a result, with the Yankees having already clinched the AL East, the Sox blow the Wild Card to the Rays.
Manager Terry Francona and general manager Theo Epstein will soon be fired. Once again, it is the Yankees who are regarded as champions, and the Red Sox who are regarded as chokers. As God intended it.
April 20, 2012, Fenway Park. The Sox celebrate the ballpark's 100th Anniversary -- the 1st Major League Baseball stadium to reach a Centennial -- by playing on the exact anniversary, and playing the exact same opponent. But they don't get the same result, as the Yankees hit 5 home runs: 2 by Eric Chavez, and 1 each by Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, and 1 by Alex Rodriguez. Yankees 6, Red Sox 2.
Every time A-Rod comes to the plate, the Sox fans chant, "Steroids!" -- while cheering known steroid cheat David Ortiz.
April 21, 2012, Fenway Park. The Yankees come from 9-0 down to beat the Sox 15-9, including 7 runs in the 7th inning and 7 more in the 8th. Swisher homers again, and Teixeira hits home runs from each side of the plate. The next day, the series finale was rained out, and postponed until July, but the Yankees ended up winning it then anyway.
July 7, 2012, Fenway Park. The Sox lead 5-3. Boone Logan comes in to relieve Phil Hughes with 1 out in the 6th, man on 2nd. Flyout, back-to-back walks, strikeout. End of that threat. But Girardi should have realized that, having already walked 2 batters, Logan shouldn't be kept in the game.
He leaves Logan in to start the 7th, and he allows a double. Girardi brings in Cory Wade, who turns that leadoff double (totally Logan's fault) into 4 runs (all of them partly Logan's fault). The Sox lead 9-4 instead of 5-4. The Yanks manage to make it 9-5, meaning if Logan doesn't allow that double, it's no worse than 5-5.
And this is against The Scum. Granted, the Sox were awful in 2012, but you still want to beat them, and the Yanks were still in a Division title race. This was Game 21 in Logan's Litany of Losing.
However, having Bobby Valentine as manager turns out to be a disaster for the Sox, as they go 69-93, their worst season since 1965. The Yankees win the Division, but the postseason turns out to be a disaster.
May 31, 2013, Yankee Stadium II. The teams play each other for the 1st time since the bombing at the Boston Marathon on April 15. "Boston Strong" signs are everywhere, and, for once, the fans of the 2 legendary rivals are united. (Despite the banner of solidarity at Fenway, there were no games between them in 2001 after September 11.) Behind the pitching of CC Sabathia and an RBI double by Vernon Wells, the Yankees win, 4-1.
August 5, 2013, Commissioner's Office, Rockefeller Center, New York. Alex Rodriguez is suspended for the rest of the 2013 season, and all of the 2014 season, for steroid use. They don't have a failed test on him.
David Ortiz, who did once fail a test, is permitted to continue playing.
September 6, 2013, Yankee Stadium II. The Yankees host the Sox, and lead 8-3. Andy Pettitte has pitched 6 strong innings. But Girardi brings the struggling Phil Hughes in to pitch the 7th. He gets 1 out, but allows 3 singles and a walk, making it 8-4. Girardi brings Logan in to face Ortiz with the bases loaded and 1 out. Cringe time... Logan strikes Ortiz out! All right, now get him out of there!
No, Girardi leaves him in to face Mike Napoli with the bases loaded and 1 out. Logan feeds the gopher, and Napoli hits a game-tying grand slam. Girardi still leaves him in, to face Daniel Nava. Nava singles, and, finally, Girardi takes him out, and Preston Claiborne gets Stephen Drew out to end the inning. Claiborne and Joba Chamberlain finish the disaster in the 8th, and the Sox win, 12-8.
By this point, even Girardi had learned that Logan could not be trusted with pitching in the major leagues. Only once more did he put Logan in a game, and that was on September 24, in a game that an exhausted Hiroki Kuroda had already let get away. It was in a 7-0 loss to the Rays, and Logan faced 1 batter, Sam Fuld, and struck him out. But the September 6, 2013 game was the 34th game that Logan blew, or helped to blow, in his 4 seasons in Pinstripes. Exit permanently, stage lefty.
The Yankees went 85-77, a decent season by most teams' standards, but missing the Playoffs, finishing tied for 3rd in the AL East, 12 games behind the Division-winning Red Sox, and 7 games behind the 2nd Wild Card team, the Rays.
The Sox went on to win another World Series, beating the St. Louis Cardinals in 6 games. David Ortiz, who shouldn't even be allowed to play professional baseball after being outed as a steroid cheat and a liar, and still lying about it, was named Series MVP.
September 4, 2014, Yankee Stadium II. Chase Headley hits a home run off Koji Uehara in the bottom of the 9th, giving the Yankees a 5-4 win.
September 28, 2014, Fenway Park. At the same ballpark where Mickey Mantle played his last game, 46 years earlier to the day, Derek Jeter plays his last game. The Red Sox present him with gifts.
Jim Rice, Mookie Betts, David Ortiz, Derek Jeter and Carl Yastrzemski
In the top of the 3rd inning, he singles home Ichiro Suzuki against Clay Buchholz, part of a 4-run inning. Brian McCann -- a slow catcher, so this Girardi move makes no sense -- is sent in to pinch-run for him, and the New England fans give him a standing ovation. The Yankees go on to win, 9-5.
September 28, 2016, Yankee Stadium II. Teixeira hits a walkoff grand slam, the 409th and last home run of his career, off Joe Kelly to give the Yankees a 5-3 win over the Red Sox.
As of April 25, 2017, the Yankees have hit 225 walkoff home runs in their history, counting the postseason. 29 of these, including the postseason walkoffs by Bernie Williams in 1999 and Aaron Boone in 2003, have been against the Red Sox.
September 29, 2016, Yankee Stadium II. For the final time, David Ortiz, the biggest Yankee Killer ever, plays against the Yankees. CC Sabathia strikes him out in the 2nd inning, then walks him in the 4th. As with Jeter in his farewell, he is removed for a pinch-runner, in his case Brock Holt. The Yankee Fans give him a standing ovation. Thanks in part to an RBI double by Jacoby Ellsbury, one of the heroes of the Sox' 2013 title who then signed with the Yankees, the Yankees win 9-5.
April 26, 2017, Fenway Park. On his 25th birthday, Aaron Judge hits a home run against the Red Sox. He becomes the 6th Yankee to hit a homer against the Sox on his birthday. The Yankees win, 3-1.
August 13, 2017, Yankee Stadium II. This was a season in a nutshell. The Yankees got good pitching from Jordan Montgomery, David Robertson and Dellin Betances, and led 2-1 going into the top of the 9th inning.
But Aroldis Chapman gave up a game-tying home run to Rafael Devers, and was left in for the 10th inning, hitting Jackie Bradley with a pitch, and giving up a walk to former Yankee error machine Eduardo Nunez. Girardi brought Tommy Kahnle in, and he walked Mookie Betts to load the bases, and gave up a single to Andrew Benintendi to lose it.
The Red Sox win, 3-2, and end up winning the AL East by 2 games. Oddly, the Yankees not only snuck into the Wild Card Game, but won it, and won their ALDS, while the Sox lost theirs to the Houston Astros, only for the Yankees to stop hitting in Games 6 and 7 of the ALCS, and lose the Pennant to the Astros by 1 game. Who knows if winning the Division would have made a difference?
Girardi's contract ran out, and the Yankees did not seek a new one. The new manager was rivalry hero Aaron Boone.
October 8, 2018, Yankee Stadium II. Game 3 of the ALDS is the worst loss in Yankee postseason history, 16-1, including 7 Boston runs in the 4th inning, shelling Luis Severino. Nathan Eovaldi, whom general manager Brian Cashman released due to long-term injury, getting nothing for him, was the winning pitcher for the Red Sox.
October 9, 2018, Yankee Stadium II. Through a stroke of luck, this became the 1st live postseason sporting event I ever saw. I would have been better off missing it.
As with another win-or-go-home game, Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, Bucky Dent was invited to throw out the ceremonial first ball. As on that earlier occasion, no effect. The Sox tagged Sabathia for 3 runs in the 3rd inning, and a Christian Vazquez home run in the 4th made the difference. The last out was much-hyped rookie Gleyber Torres, Cashman's golden prospect, grounding out on a play that had to be reviewed, but the replay showed that he was out. Red Sox 4, Yankees 3.
They had already clinched the Division at our place, and now they clinched this series at our place as well. They went on to win a World Series without David Ortiz for the 1st time in 100 years.
Since 2000, the count is now Red Sox 4, Yankees 1. That is unacceptable.
June 29 and 30, 2019, London Stadium. The rivalry goes international. BEAT THE SCUM!