Given The Rivalry (although it hasn’t been worthy of capital letters these days), it is rather shocking that I have never been to Boston, if only just to walk around Boston Common with a Yankee hat on to tick people off! One of these days, I am going to have to visit this part of Red Sox Nation myself. And, of course, I do have my plan to run the Boston Marathon one day as a charity runner, getting Yankee fans to help donate the five thousand dollars I need to fundraise by promising to wear Yankees gear!
We actually have a good number of Red Sox fan readers in our fan base. For a while, back when the Mets were in the doldrums, we might have had as many Boston fan readers as we did Met fan followers!
So I am genuinely curious as to what sort of reaction this Yankee fan would get in Boston. I’ll get up there one day — just not sure when!
Anyhow, the Yankees just clinched their first April with a losing record since 2008. Oy. Not the best way to head up to Boston for the series this weekend. But at least Alex Rodriguez had a great game last night. Maybe it was because he could sense I was recently talking about him. A college student writing a term paper about Rodriguez reached out to me, since I am a renowned Arodologist! Talking about A-Rod was one of the things really missing from this season so far. So I felt like I got in a groove of sorts Tuesday night answering questions about him!
I do think Alex has had one of the biggest comeback stories of all time, regardless of how he does this year. Just the fact that he is not only the Yankees’ most popular player, but the team spokesman and elder statesman, is nothing short of astonishing. Remember, he was supposed to be a pariah who would never recover from his PED suspension. The Whitey Bulger of baseball, as Bill Madden called him. (Speaking of Madden, he is currently working with Lou Piniella on a memoir. Wonder what Lou will say about A-Rod!)
Anyhow, I’ll bet even Alex and the rest of the Yankees don’t get quite the negative reaction walking around Boston that they used to. Three rings have helped quell some of Red Sox Nation’s hate, after all!
The only two players still on the two teams around from 2004, the height of the rivalry, are A-Rod and David Ortiz. Incidentally, I recently found this 2014 quote from Ortiz about retirement tours:
What Derek Jeter is doing is fine because he’s Derek Jeter,” Ortiz said. “What Mariano did is fine because it’s Mariano. But I don’t know if I’m going to go through all that. I’m not going to wake up and be like, ‘I’m going to play this year and then not anymore.’ To me, it’s going to be how things go through the season and how I feel and then I’m going to be like, ‘Mama, it’s over.’ I’m going to let her know.”
So much for that, eh?
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