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It’s begun. Baseball’s greatest rivalry. First came the buried jersey. One construction worker/fan’s attempt to reverse the Babe’s curse by burying a David Ortiz jersey beneath the new Yankee Stadium.

The excavated David Ortiz jersey

Then came the ballgames.


And if you watched the series between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park this past weekend, you’d have a heck of a time remembering it’s only April.


As far as the fans and the media were concerned, it could have been late September with the pennant at stack. Things are so hyped between the two teams that FOX broadcast the game on Saturday and ESPN took Sunday.


And because the Sox took two out of three, the media in New York has already raised the volume, worrying about the Yankee’s young star Phil Hughes, and criticizing Joe Girardi’s managing.
When it comes to the Yanks and Sox, it’s amazing how quickly things can turn.


After Friday night’s masterful showing by Yankee ace Chien-Ming Wang, Red Sox fans were worried. They were freaked out by David “Big Papi” Ortiz suddenly inability to hit the ball; they were worried that wunkerkind Clay Bucholz might have lost something one year after his magical no-hitter.

Chien-Ming Wang - Photo: Barry Chiu/Boston Globe

One night later – after rain – and Jonathan Papelbon’s blazing fastball and sinking split – it was New York’s turn to despair. It didn’t take long for New York to pile on Joe Girardi for his decision to let Mike Mussina pitch to Manny Ramirez. Manny – a one-man Yankee wrecking machine – did what he loves to do, he smacked the ball.

Manny running to first - Photo: Matthew Lee/Boston Globe

This is the way NY Newsday described it:

Up one run in the sixth inning, with Red Sox on second and third base and two outs, what would compel Girardi to go after Manny Ramirez? Before anyone could even voice such a thought, the decision backfired, with Ramirez’s two-run double on Mike Mussina’s first pitch putting the Red Sox ahead.

It’s important to put Girardi’s decision in context. If Mussina had walked Manny, he would have had to face Kevin Youklis. We’re not talking Julio Lugo here, we talking Kevin Youklis. And as great as Manny does against the Yanks, Mussina does well against him: even though he previously hit a solo home run earlier, Manny was 25-for-97, batting .258 lifetime vs Mussina. But this time, Manny got ahold of a fastball that made its way back over the plate and sent it to right centerfield. Ellsbury and Pedroia scored and a Yankee lead of 2-1 was transformed to a 3-2 deficit.

Girardi was direct: “You have to live by your decisions. There’s a lot of decisions that you’re going to make during the course of the year. Hopefully, 95 percent of them work out. But that’s not the case during this game.”

And Mussina took the blame: “Whatever the strategy was, I didn’t make a good pitch. Manny’s too good a player to make mistakes like that. He was up there ready to go, and he hit it.”

Newsweek blogger Ken Davidoff wasn’t so understanding:

That’s exactly why you take the bat out of Manny’s hands and take your chances having to be precise with Youkilis.
That’s why Girardi’s first high-profile tactical decision since he took over the Yankees manager’s office - with the understanding that he would exhibit more in-game savvy than Joe Torre - made surprisingly little sense.

Sunday night brought more pain to the Bronx Bombers. Already a bit shaky with Jorge Posada absence behind the plate, backup catcher Jose Molina’s hamstring injury revealed how easily things fall apart. The Sox, on the other hand, have managed to beautifully overcome World Series’ MVP Mike Lowell’s injury by shifting Youklis from first to third and bringing Sean Casey in to first.
Manny continued to be Manny on Sunday night, going 2-for-3 with a walk, one RBI and two runs scored.


So Round One goes to the Red Sox. But Red Soxers still have reason to worry – Big Papi’s silent bat and Matsuzaka’s propensity to walk batters.

A frustrated David Ortiz - Photo: Barry Chiu/Boston Globe

Round Two resumes at Yankee Stadium.


And just a reminder. Save some energy for the season to come. It’s still April.

Several commentators to our last post made the point that Duncan’s spikes-up play at 2nd base brought the Yankees together.

Well who would have suspected that just days later, the Red Sox would find a way to create unity without the possibility of a career-ending injury to Aki Iwamura.

Now anybody, everybody who breathes baseball knows of the lifelong hatred between the Pinstripers and Red Sox Nation. And without walking into a crossfire here, I do want to hand it to the Sox for their classy display of team camaraderie.

Some bloggers at espn and cbssportsline lost it for a bit there with the usual rants about overpaid players. But that completely missed the point. Because this was about overpaid players looking out for the support staff – the folks almost everybody overlooks. That’s right. It was all about the coaches and Red Sox staff who do the day-to-day baseball stuff behind the scenes.

Red Sox Bench Coach Brad Mills - Photo: AP

They don’t make the big bucks. Fact is the $40,000 they thought they were getting for the long trip to Japan - the same stipend the players were to get - is a sizeable chunk of their annual salary.

The Red Sox willingness to boycott their last exhibition game and the threat to forego the Japan trip was, in the words of ESPN “an extraordinary move.” Add to that the willingness of the Oakland A’s to do the same, and you’ve got some deep team loyalty and unity at work. The players of the two teams standing up for the folks of their team who don’t get the face-time or the press or the accolades. The folks no one asks for autographs.

Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon - Photo: J. Meric/Getty

 

It all came to a peaceful conclusion when Major League Baseball agreed to pay the managers, coaches and trainers on the trip $20,000 each from management’s proceeds. And The Red Sox agreed to chip in the rest and give the other team personnel the stipend to make the trip.

Here’s what some of the players and staff had to say:

“The players just stepped up and they did what I think was right,” Boston bench coach Brad Mills said.

Terry Francona declared: “We’re so united. And I don’t mean just the players. I mean the staff, the trainers and our players showed that and that’s what this was about. It wasn’t about being greedy. It was about trying to be unified.”

Oakland player rep Huston Street put it this way: “They’re just as much a part of this team as anybody. Playoff shares, coaches get an equal share. You look at previous Japan trips, coaches have gotten an equal share.”

Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell stated that giving $20,000 payments for the coaches would not have been acceptable when the players were making $40,000.
“We didn’t think that was correct,” he said. “Giving them half of that is not equal.”

How’s that for team unity!