The Bitter Rivals Thread

[KenFougere]

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Since February 2, 2002

Which teams do you feel have the strongest, 'most bitter' rivalry in Major League Baseball today? What makes your favorite rivalry so special to you and what do you think is needed to make a rivalry stand out from the rest?

My View:

THE rivalry began almost 100 years ago. Ever since, it has taken on a life of its own! It starts with the front office exec's, to the players, right down to the their fans. (past & present) Unlike other rivalries, these two teams have never re-located, to, or from another city since their inception into the league. They have the same basic team uniforms that date back to before the Titanic sunk! I feel no other rivalry can match this historic, Boston Red Sox - NY Yankee rivalry!
Especially since in 2004, when the Red Sox made MLB history, against the Yankees, as the first team ever to comeback from a 0-3 games deficit to win the ALCS. That enabled them to go on to win their first World Series in 86 years by sweeping the Cardinals. How can anyone doubt that this rivalry is the best in American pro sports.

[cowboy15]

i would have to say its a tie between the mets and braves, they have always been rivalrys of the astros and many of the mets fans that i have met have been complete jackasses, please dont take offense if any of you are fans, but im just talking about the few i have met personally. and then the braves of course because they always seem to bump the stros outta the playoffs whenever we get there

[rockin500]

White Sox n Brewers. I hate the Brewers more than any other team. (well, not hate, as i dont really hate any time. just cant stand the team)

[Steffo]

Yankees. They are the rivals of the Dodgers and I just hate them.

[Baseball Guru]

Originally posted by KenFougere
Which do you think is "THE" rivalry that is the oldest & strongest?


My thoughts>>>>

For almost 100 years now THE rivalry began. Ever since then it has taken on a life of its own! It starts at the front office exec's to the players, right down to all the Boston & New York baseball fans (past up to present). Unlike other rivalries these two teams never re-located. They have the same address and team uniforms that date back to before the Titanic sunk! No other rivalry can match the Red Sox - Yankee history.

Agreed.....

Nothing compares to that rivalry...

A good current rivalry now is the Mets and Braves....

Mets and Yanks is always a highly anticipated matchup now that they play each other in interleague.....

[yellowdog]

Without a doubt, the Yankees-Red Sox is the mother of all rivalries. But the Dodgers-Giants would have to be the runner up. The Baseball Guru mentioned the Braves-Mets which should heat up this year, especially with Glavine on the other side now. But in recent years, this has been a pretty one sided rivalry with the Braves pretty much dominating it. That may change this year.

The Braves also had a pretty good rivalry going with the Dodgers in the early 90s when both teams were in the NL West but that sort of fizzled out when the Braves moved to the East.

And I`m thinking the Cubs-Cardinals have a pretty good rivalry going also.

[PopTop]

Agreed, Sox-Yanks sits atop the list all-time ... I might go Giants-Dodgers next, maybe Cubs-Cards third ... Guru's Mets-Braves could fit in there, 'specially since the '69 divisional split.

[YankeeMan]

Originally posted by LouGehrig
The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is a rivalry only to the Red Sox FANS.

A rivalry is a competition for a prize. One team has won the prize 26 times. The other has not won it during that same time frame.

How can that be a rivalry?

I think you need to expand your vision of rivialry. Besides, the BoSox have won a few pennants that the Yanks would have liked to have won themselves. But, unlike the Yanks, the BoSox never capitlized on the opportunities. True, it's bigger for BoSox fans than Yank fans. But hey, what franchise, in any sport, compares with the Yanks?*


*Montreal of the NHL?

[KenFougere]

Originally posted by LouGehrig
The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is a rivalry only to the Red Sox FANS.

How can that be a rivalry?

Although I've been a hardcore Red Sox fan for over 36 years & I really can't stand the Yankees, I do respect the team. I feel very privileged to have a hometown team that has been and still is involved in this VERY SPECIAL part of baseball...
It's ashame you don't appreciate this unique aspect of the game.
Both teams are lucky to have each other to compete with for so many years!

[Sandman]

Yanks-Sox
Yanks-Mets
Mets-Braves

[Baseball Guru]

Originally posted by Markfisher
I think it would be Yankees-Mets if only the Mets were consistently competitive....sorry Mets fans.

Cheers

Since interleague began the Mets have been pretty consistantly competitive...

They have even played the Yanks in the WS....

My thing with listing this as a good rivalry is not only some of the good games they have played but also the fact that it is NY vs NY and all of the sub-plots that come into play when they play each other..

IE. Clemens and Piazza....

Mets are 11-16 vs the Yanks since the beginning of interleague play.....
Not as one sided as one may think...

[NickG]

There's no doubt that the big one is Yankees vs. Red Sox.

What about Atlanta and Florida? This is one that got started in 1997, and the games have always been interesting since then, even when the Marlins have stunk. It's not as "historic" as the others mentioned here, but it deserves a mention, I think.

[LouGehrig]

Originally posted by KenFougere

It's ashame you don't appreciate this unique aspect of the game.
Both teams are lucky to have each other to compete with for so many years!

I do appreciate the unique aspect of the game which you refer to as an intense rivalry at the highest level.

While you are right that in 2003 most fans would consider the Yankees-Red Sox to have the greatest rivalry, I do not accept that conclusion to be valid for the reason I stated.

I lived through the New York Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers rivalry. Due to the passage of time, most modern fans do not consider it the equal of the Yankees-Red Sox, but that does not change the fact that is was more intense for the fans and, more importantly, for the players.

The Yankees and Red Sox players do NOT have the dislike for each other that the Dodgers and Giants players had for each other. Ask David Cone, Mike Stanton, Sparky Lyle, or Mike Torrez ( I did ask Torrez and he said he considers himself a Yankee but has nothing against the Red Sox).

As punishment, O'Malley traded Robinson to the Giants, and to his credit, Robinson simply retired.

When Sal Maglie walked into the Dodgers clubhouse as a DODGER, it was with trepidation and great wariness.

Another important factor is that the Dodgers won sometimes and the Giants won sometimes. While the Dodgers won only one WS while in Brooklyn, it must be recognized that the two teams competed for the pennant, as do the Yankees with the Red Sox, but that there was not great domination of one team over the other as with the Yankees and Red Sox.

Finally, after the Giants won the WS in 1933, neither team again won it until the Giants won in 1954, so there were 21 seasons in which neither team won it all. And the following year, the Dodgers won it. No Yankee World Championship has been followed by a Red Sox WS victory.

[shlevine42]

Thanks, Lou – for putting this issue in perspective and for citing the dominant characteristic of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry:

HATRED. Blinding, unrepressed hatred.

(YOU felt it, and you rooted for ANOTHER TEAM!!)

In fact, “rivalry” is too tame a word; it was a !@#$%WAR.

And unless you lived through it, you can’t appreciate the tension that surrounded EVERY GAME between the two teams. And you’re right to point out that while it was excruciatingly intense for the FANS of both teams, for the players, it was nothing short of COMBAT, driven by the HATRED they felt for one another.

For those of us who DID live through it, it was the defining rivalry/competition of our baseball youth. And 50 years later, those feelings and memories are as vivid and intense as ever.

You hadda be there!

[KenFougere]

Originally posted by Baseball Guru ..... all of the sub-plots that come into play when teams play each other..

IE. Clemens and Piazza....

Very good point about the "sub-plots" that fester in a rivalry between certain players.

Do you remember when.....
Carlton Fisk met Thurmon Munson at homeplate?

Ah.....the good-ole-days!

[BoSox Rule]

In my opinion, which doesn't have to be the same as your's, is that nothing will ever compare to Red Sox vs. Yankees.

[Calder]

I think for pure theatre the BoSox-Yankee rivalry, right now especially, is pretty fun to observe from a distance. I like the rivalry because both teams have been around for so long. The Clemens-Pedro, 2-0 Sunday night matchup a couple years back on ESPN was one of the most dramatic, nerve-racking regular mid-season games I have ever seen/heard. As a baseball fan, THAT WAS AWESOME! On purpose, I didn't even WATCH the game on ESPN, but listened to the call from Charley Steiner and Soup Campbell on ESPN Radio, and that just added to the lore of that game, for me anyways. Man, that game was pure baseball.

[razors]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by YankeeMan
[B][COLOR=darkblue] But hey, what franchise, in any sport, compares with the Yanks?*

i think it would depend on the criteria used - e.g. fan base (amount vs. intensity), titles, name recognition, revenue, blah, blah...

manchester united for sure...

...and maybe:

arsenal
barcelona
real madrid
juventus

amd i think the green bay packers have a fairly successful and storied history...

razors

[jhwinfrey]

While these certainly don't qualify as "the" greatest rivalries, they are definitely "my" greatest:

Royals-Yankees
and Royals-Cardinals.

Most Royals fans I know deeply hate the Yankees. The KC A's were treated like a farm team by the 50s and 60s Yankees. Then we had the great playoff series between KC and NY in 1976, 77, 78, and 80. Then the "pine-tar" incident in 1983. So there's some great history there, even if things have been one-sided lately.

Royals-Cardinals is more of an artificial rivalry, fueled quite a bit by Don Denkinger's call in Game 6 of the '85 series. And with interleague play, we basically get to relive the series every year. My wife is a Cardinals fan from St. Louis and we went to a Royals-Cardinals game the day after our wedding. About 30 members of our families were there, and the Royals won, of course (they can always get up for the meaningless games)
Now when we go to interleague games, we take our son, who has a STL cap and a KC jersey.

[CardFanNV]

Don't know if it's really a rivalry, because during the Cub's good years, the Cards are usually buried and vice-versa ............. I don't remember them playing each other when the pennant was on the line for both teams ..................

I think it's more of "a thing to do" .......... both cities are big on baseball, and they're close enough together to drive between .....

Giants/Dodgers is AT LEAST as big as Yanks/BoSox .........

If you lived in NY in the fifties, you loved one and absolutley HATED the other ............. from what I heard, their was no middle ground ............... then it moved to the Left Coast, and continues to this day ........................ many times they've played each ohter with the pennant on the line ...........................

Mets and the Birds had a good one going in the mid-late 80's .....

[racosun]

While I can appreciate the rivalry between the Sox and Yanks, I always look forward to watching the Tigers play the Royals. It simmerred down last year, especially after Weaver was traded, but this will be one that will stick around for a while. Weaver vs. Sweeney was a great matchup, IMO. I can only wonder what Fick would be yapping at Sweeney as Weaver got ready to wizz one by his chin. As we all know, these two teams have been cellar-dwellars for some time now, and both are rebuilding. Hopefully, I can watch the rivalry grow as the teams get better, and it would make for great lore to see these teams battle it out for the division one day. I just pray that that one day is not a week into the season.

[The Real McCoy]

The Red Sox/Yankees rivalry is a good one but its been basically one sided ever since the Babe for Broadway Lights trade. Additionally, the teams and the vast majority of each team's fans are separated by 200 miles.

In contrast, during the forties and fifties, the Dodgers and Giants and their fans were separated by 30.....subway stops. They, both team's management and the fans, never stopped antagonizing each other, never stopped deriding the other team, never passed up a chance to take a gratuitous shot at the other, and it got even worse once the season started. And it reached a fever pitch every one of the 22 times they played each year. Each game was a heavyweight championship fight, the teams literally "feeling each other out" during the first inning which often lasted thirty minutes, unheard of in those days of two and one half one hour games. I was fortunate enough to live through that period, "up close and personal" and was one of a very large contingent of Brooklynites who could never bring themselves to root for the New York Giants.....football team. Brooklyn was a hotbed of Cleveland Browns fans in those days, at least on the corners I frequented.

There are some wonderful rivalries in this wonderful game of ours, the best rivalries in all of sports, but nothing compares to the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, nothing.

[Biggtone23]

The Yankees - Red Sox is the top rivalry.

But there are some good ones getting bulit up.
The Yankees - Athletics with New York having elminated Oakland from the playoffs 2 of the last 3 years. and now we have one of their best players from those teams.

Yankees - Mariners - same thing. Beat the A's in the LDS then beat the Mariners in the LCS. This is of course intensifed by the 1995 ALDS when the Mariners elminated the Yankees and ended Don Mattingly's career. I know it is not a big deal for the players now but the fans really make the rivalries and we havent forgotten.

[TheDarkDragon]

Consider this: the Red Sox haven't won a World Series since 1918, that's 85 years. During that time, 26 WS have been won by the Yankees, that's more than a third of the years the Red Sox have been in drought. During that time, the Yankees have also won 38 pennants, preventing the Red Sox from reaching the WS nearly half of all of those years. Suppose the Yankees did not exist, how many of those pennants would the Sox have won? Quite a few, I suspect, by nothing more than probability. And out of those WS appearances, how many victories do you suppose they would have? At least a few, after all, even a blind mouse occasionally finds a piece of cheese.

As I've said before, the BoSox aren't cursed, they're screwed.

Are you going to tell me, in all honesty, that there is no animosity toward the Yankees for that dominance all these years?

[YankeeMan]

Originally posted by penguinfan
Dodgers & Giants. Man I hate the Giants!

I can vouch for that rivalry! My dad, "Mr. Dodger", absolutely hated the Giants. Not as much as the Yankees, but hated them none the less.