The Bitter Rivals Thread

[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]

Re: #1 Rivalry -- Red Sox v. Yankees

[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]

Cubs-Cards .......................

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]

Giants v. Dodgers

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.

[Hammerin Hank]

I think the best rivalry in baseball is between the Red Sox and Yankees too. But since I'm a Cubs fan I will allude to that. The best rivalry involving the Cubs, I think, would be against the Cardinals. And the best rivalry for the White Sox would be with the Twinkies, since they're the only two teams in the AL central worth a darn.

[KenFougere]

How Do You Motivate Millionaires?

The reason I really like the Boston-New York yearly battles is that each team picks it up a notch or two every time they meet.

The difference is... come June 15th Boston's intensity go's on vacation for the summer!


------------- :grouchy------------

[lucasmod]

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 agree with the above statement in that this rivalry does seem to be more of a cncern to Red Sox fans than Yankees fans. I recently moved from Boston, where you can't go to church without hearing a "Yankees Sucks" chant to New York where the average Yankees fans I talk to don't even sweat the Red Sox. For the actual teams, this may be different. Who knows the truth behind George's "stealing" of Contreras from the Red Sox, but from a fans standpoint (I'm a baseball fan moreso than a fan of a particular team), this rivalry is more a one sided hatred on the part of the Red Sox.

Red Sox Fans hate the Yankees regardless of who the Yankees are playing. Yankees fans hate thir teams opponent whoever that may be.

[KenFougere]

It's felt in New York as well...


I disagree...
...all you have to do is read some of the threads that Yankee fan members post about the Red Sox. Especially when Boston is leading in the AL East, {which is usually only April-June} that's when you'll sense the "rivalry" in the NY fans too!

[YankeeMan]

It's felt in New York as well...

Originally posted by KenFougere

...Especially when Boston is leading in the AL East, {which is usually only April-June}

Actually, don't you mean the first few weeks of April?

FYI: During the 1986 World Series, I was pulling for the Mets. And I absolutely detest and loathe the Mets. That should tell you how I feel about the BoSox... It's Fisk v. Munson, Normar v. Jeter, and on and on and on... It'll be this way until the BoSox win a championship, which means it'll always be this way.



Sorry Ken, but I have to tease you -- It's the law!
1903 1912 1915 1916 1918

[KenFougere]

Originally posted by LouGehrig
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've played alot of sports and the most enjoyable part of a championship season/series for me was the actual competing against and beating a tough rival.
It's great once the game/series is won,
but the working as a unit with talented team-mates to beat an equally good rival is the most enjoyable part...

I can say this because as a Sox fan I've never had the chance to experience the celebration of BECOMING the world champs...

{Why did I even go there...now I'm depressed}