A response to a review before I go on:

Cerulean Dawn writes: "The Yankees DO buy their team. What happened after the loss to the Diamonbacks? They bought new players. Then they lost again without reaching the World Series. And they bought new players again. How many of the Yankees that beat the Mets back in the subway series are still around? Not too many. Pretty boy Jeter managed to stick, and a couple others. The rest? Not good enough, let's go to Cuba and pick up a few imports!

"The Yankees have an absurd amount of money behind them, far more than any other team. So when they dodge Boston, as they usually do, they wind up facing a team that is by comparison impoverished. The Braves, Diamondbacks, etc don't have an 8-million person city and 15-million person state behind them. Oh sure, the Mets splinter it a little, but the Yankees have a tremendous metropolitan area, including New Jersey and Connecticut. (Those darn Philadelphians are to busy throwing stuff at Mike Piazza and rooting for their "team".)"

Now, yes, the Yankees do have the highest payroll in baseball. But they haven't won the World Series in two years. And Boston is ALWAYS getting new players every season—along with almost every team side from the Tigers. Is this really arguable? No—it's an excuse because, as I said before, we're the greatest team in history. People look to find flaws in greatness, and they'll go as far as possible to explain it. I mean hell, even Calvin was right: the slugging percentage of the 2003 Red Sox is better than Murder's Row; yet the Yankees are still in the playoffs, much to the world of baseball's chagrin.

So Dawn merely proved my point: the Yankees remain the greatest team in baseball and all those haters that wish they could root for such a destiny-ridden team are jealous. But its ok.

Now Namir Swiftpaw did bring up a good point: a lot of people "claim" to be Yankee fans because they win. That's what I call a "Marlin-version Fan." And we true Yankee fans know who is and isn't a real fan. In our world, the Yankees come before everything. If there is a Yankee game on, we watch it—anything that needed to be done (be it getting married, clean the house, evacuate for a hurricane, etc) is put on the backburner. A true Yankee fan will agree to that. We know two things for certain: Boston sucks and the Yankees are the greatest. A "posing" Yankee fan will ask "what's the score?" for a Yankees game, or say "Who's that?" for a player. They won't know much history of the team, won't understand the rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees. They are fakers—and easy to spot. We don't consider them fans. Just like my hometown team of the Florida Marlins know the sudden influx of "fans" that has appeared is merely the bandwagon stopping for a pickup.

Namir also brought up a point that Boston fans are full of loyalty because their team sucks. Is that was decides loyalty? A team sucks that bad so only their fans are loyal? I think not. Like I said, we know who the posers are—and Boston's got 'em too—one of my friends being one of them. Another friend of mine, Pete, became a Yankee fan two years ago—he knows he's still in his "probationary" period, and will not make any claims to being a "true" Yankees fan for at least a few more seasons. He knows his place in the Yankee fan world.

The Rivalry: The Classy Yankees v. the Class-less Red Sox

If you got to see Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS, you'll know what my title means. The antics of the Boston Red Sox only add a new notch to the rivalry.

It was heralded as the match-up of the gods: the blazing arm of Pedro Martinez against the several-time Cy Young winning ex-Red Sock Roger "Rocket" Clemens—Old School versus New School, if you want to look at it like that. The last time this heavenly match-up occurred was in the 1999 ALCS and the conclusion was a 13-1 Red Sox win.

Tonight, October 11, 2003, could be said as being the newest chapter in a rivalry that continues to only breed more hatred for the two rivals. By the 4th inning the Yankees had taken the lead 4-2, obviously pissing off the headhunting Pedro Martinez. So what does he do? With Karim Garcia at the plate, Pedro threw a hard fastball behind him that grazes his back. If you know Pedro, you know he didn't do it "by accident." Then, the ever-classy Boston pitcher looks to the Yankee dugout, which rightfully gave him some lip about the pitch (Pedro beaned Jeter and Soriano—the Yankees star shortstop and second baseman—earlier this season in retaliation to Rocket throwing at Kevin Millar) and begins to challenge them as well, namely Yankee catcher Jorge Posada. On the replay, you can see Pedro mouth the words "I'll throw at your head too when you get out here." Real classy.

Later in the inning, Garcia goes for a take-out slide to break-up a potential double play, knocking down Todd Walker. It's a completely legal move, but Walker took offense (which is understandable) and the two began to shove each other. You could feel, even at home, how tense the situation was. Like a tinderbox, all it needed was the right spark. It came at the bottom of the inning.

With a warning to Roger Clemens not to go headhunting (something he's quite known to do), Manny Ramirez came to bat. With a 1-2 count, Clemens threw a high pitch a little inside. It was nowhere near Manny's head. Yet Ramirez bails out, before the pitch even gets there. And then it began.

Ramirez started shouting at Clemens, waving his bat and walking fast towards the mound. The Red Sox come running out of the dugout, the Yankees following. A few skirmishes broke out, the umpires and coaches trying to restore calm—but it was long gone in this rivalry. Yankee assistant coach Don Zimmer, a 72 year old former Boston manager (who was coaching the Red Sox when they lost in a one game playoff to none other than the Yankees in 1978 on a homerun by Bucky Dent), goes towards Pedro and lunges at him. The guy's 72 years old with a plate in his head from a 1953 beanbal that hit his head—he's just a feisty little guy, not much of a threat. What does the much-younger Pedro do? Grabs Zimmer by the head and throws him to the ground hard, cutting Zimmer's nose at the bridge.

Real classy. Fenway Park stopped selling beer at that point, so as not to rile up the fans anymore.

To add to this, the 9th inning rolls around and a skirmish breaks out in the Yankees' bullpen. A Fenway Park groundskeeper—an employee—runs into the bullpen to take on Yankees relief pitcher Jeff Nelson. Karim Garcia, from right field, sees this and takes off for the bullpen. He hops the barrier fence and begins to defend his teammate by throwing a few punches and hurting his hand to keep the guy off Nelson.

Is this "the great fan base" of Boston? Or as Hnmn has called them, "America's team?" A team that resorts to assault on an old man? Sure he charged him, but the guy's more than half Pedro's age! Did he have to throw him to the ground to be tough? No. No he didn't.

This is no surprise from Boston fans though. In 1999 the game was delayed because Bostonians threw things on the field at the Yankees. And of course the Boston fans will flock to the side of their team: "Oh well the old man shouldn't have come at him" or "Pedro said 'Use your head'!", etc. In fact, Grady Little, Boston head coach, said "Pedro wouldn't intentionally go after someone's head like that."

The fact is, Pedro's been a headhunter, and he wasn't happy about the Yankees racking him in his homefield. Ask anyone who knows baseball, they'll tell you Pedro likes to throw at people. He's put a black mark on Beantown and Manny Ramirez only went and added to it. He looked for the fight, knew something would start. The ball was nowhere near him; he just wanted to go after Clemens—make a big show to see if he could get him thrown out.

Then of course you have the groundskeeper. Now, it would be safe to assume that the man will be jobless by Sunday morning, but will it matter? What will the Boston Globe have to say about it? "Yankees start melee"? Or maybe "Heroic Groundskeeper sacrifices job for the Nation"? Hopefully they'll be classy and admit their team acted like a bunch of hooligans; a class-less bunch of fools.

I'm not saying that the teams shouldn't fight—I was looking forward to a nice brawl. It's happened before in this rivalry when Yankee catcher Thurman Munson took on Carlton Fisk at home plate in the 70's. But to exaggerate something that was nowhere near being a threat? Just class-less. All it is.

What did the Yankees have to say about? Derek Jeter, after the game, was asked about the events of the game. What'd he say? "It was weird, but we have to win tomorrow or else this win will mean nothing." Now that's classy.

Joe Torre, Yankees head coach: "First and foremost comes baseball. All we know is that if we win two more games, we're in the World Series." Very classy.

Grady Little, Boston head coach: "What started out a battle has now become a war." That's mature.

So was it worth it? No, actually, it wasn't. The Red Sox still lost and now are two games from elimination. All they did was embarrass themselves and add a new chapter to a rivalry that now rivals the brutality of a soccer match in England. At this point, Boston would be better off losing the whole thing in Fenway. Sure, it would suck to lose again, and at home no less. But think about it: would you want to be in Yankee Stadium at this point? I sure wouldn't. The Bronx is frothing at the mouth and Boston fans better we ready. Grady Little's right: what once was a hard-fought battle has now escalated to war. All thanks to the class-less Boston Red Sox. America's team? Loyalty? I think not.