Respect Replaces Hate: A New Era in the Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry

Any question as to the biggest rivalry in sports?

If the three games at Fenway Park this weekend didn't end the debate, I don't know what will.

It's no secret why there's so much passion on both sides of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. The players, the owners, the fans they can't stand each other.

This is where I tell you that I grew up and still live in Boston. And that I'm a Yankees fan.

I like all Boston teams except the Sox; I never forgave them for letting Carlton Fisk get away. My cousin took me to Yankee Stadium when I was a kid, and I got hooked. I bought a Reggie Jackson shirt and proceeded to get into a fight at school every time I wore it.

I won't lie: I don't like Sox fans. Take your average Bostonian honest taxpayer, hard worker, good family man. Mention the Sox and he goes goonie gaga. Mention the Yankees and he gets irrational, hypocritical, and downright paranoid.

A lot of folks thought Boston's 2004 World Series championship would dampen the rivalry. Not quite. It's like the kid who always gets beat up, and then one day decides to fight back...and actually wins.

He doesn't ease up. He just keeps battling.

Was there anything better this weekend than the group of fans in Blondie masks giving it to Alex Rodriguez? I never laughed so hard. And the —Where is Roger?— chant? Priceless!

No hate, just fun—because it is after all just a game. 

There's one thing that stood out for me in these three games. It wasn't Derek Jeter making two HUGE errors on Saturday. It wasn't Mariano Rivera finally getting a one-two-three ninth. It wasn't Mike Lowell barreling into Robinson Cano. It wasn't even the brush-back/purpose pitch to Kevin Youkilis.

It was the conspicuous absence of the "Yankees Suck" chant.

When the Yanks were burying the Sox decade after decade, you could hear the chant every five minutes at Fenway. Hell, Sox fans would do it when the Devil Rays were in town. The fact, though, was that the Yanks owned the Sox...and the chant was ridiculous.

But times have changed.

The chant made a brief appearance during the seventh inning of Saturday's game—and the Yanks were so bad even I got in on it.  Still, you don't hear it as much as you used to, and I think it's because Boston's hate for the Yanks has been replaced with respect.

Sox fans have finally learned firsthand what it takes to win a World Series. And that's why there's so much success around Fenway Park these days—because the negative energy has been replaced with an expect-to-win attitude. 

In the words of Tony Soprano, "people who want respect give respect." I still dislike Sox fans, and that's okay. But respect has checked in for hate on both sides of the divide—and it's taken the biggest rivalry in sports to a whole new level.