Yankees-Red Sox overrated

[masterchaoss]

Well I've been doing some thinking lately, and I've come to the conclusion that while It's a good rivalry its not the best.

I personality think that a rivalry shouldn't be as one sided as this one, which is why Dodgers-Giants is better. Now when it comes to regular seaon the two rivalries have been compeitve with the Dodgers giants rivalry being more competitive 1,2031,17417 Giants.

With the Dodgers-Giants rivalry you also had the best player ever in Willy Mays and going up against the best pitcher ever in Sandy Koufax.

Now the obvious part, the tile gap being 7-6 giants instead of 27-8.

If weren't for east coat bias the Dodgers-Giants would be considered better. Seriously if they were still in New York it get more attention.

[TheRicSlick]

Well I've been doing some thinking lately, and I've come to the conclusion that while It's a good rivalry its not the best.

I personality think that a rivalry shouldn't be as one sided as this one, which is why Dodgers-Giants is better. Now when it comes to regular seaon the two rivalries have been compeitve with the Dodgers giants rivalry being more competitive 1,2031,17417 Giants.

With the Dodgers-Giants rivalry you also had the best player ever in Willy Mays and going up against the best pitcher ever in Sandy Koufax.

Now the obvious part, the tile gap being 7-6 giants instead of 27-8.

If weren't for east coat bias the Dodgers-Giants would be considered better. Seriously if they were still in New York it get more attention.

Your LA bias is showing.

[FiddySicks]

The Giants-Dodgers rivalry is such a better rivalry than Yankees-Red Sox it's not even funny. It's one of the oldest rivalries in all of sports, and it's spanned two coasts.

[monkeypower]

Well I've been doing some thinking lately, and I've come to the conclusion that while It's a good rivalry its not the best.

I personality think that a rivalry shouldn't be as one sided as this one, which is why Dodgers-Giants is better. Now when it comes to regular seaon the two rivalries have been compeitve with the Dodgers giants rivalry being more competitive 1,2031,17417 Giants.

With the Dodgers-Giants rivalry you also had the best player ever in Willy Mays and going up against the best pitcher ever in Sandy Koufax.

Now the obvious part, the tile gap being 7-6 giants instead of 27-8.

If weren't for east coat bias the Dodgers-Giants would be considered better. Seriously if they were still in New York it get more attention.

I think your being way to biased.

[wonderbread]

The title differance and the trade that partially caused that differance is what makes the rivalry great, it reached it peak probably in 03-07 when both teams were at their best and had a legitimate hatred of each other, but it is still the best rivalry in baseball

[McCall]

I'll let you in on a little secret; few people outside of New York/Boston and LA/San Francisco really care about either rivalry. Just as it is about any other rivalry.

[dbadefense1990]

The whole notion of the Yankees and Red Sox as "the greatest sports rivalry in all 238 years of American history" is nothing more than the apex of 30-years of media personification done by the most powerful markets and their constituents.

To begin, prior to 1986, the whole concept of an actual curse placed on the Red Sox wasn't taken seriously thorough the general American public. But Boston melts down, loses that World Series to the Mets, and all of a sudden, the holy trinity of Boston sports writers (notoriously-including Bill Simmons, Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy) begin to connect Red Sox futility to the sale of Babe Ruth in 1919.

Invoking Red Sox misery at the achievements of one of the most successful franchises in all of sports suddenly made more sense to people looking for an explanation to 1986. But the "rivalry" didn't really take off until the early-2000s, as both the Yankees and Red Sox were in an arms race for superiority head-to-head on a consistent basis.

As some of those writers from the Northeast around the same time made their way to covering sports on a national basis, some becoming main editors and programming managers, they made it a priority to make sure that Red Sox vs. Yankees would always be covered 24/7. But I find it so disheartening the extent the media would go to keep that rivalry a priority, despite the Yankees regressing and the Red Sox potentially having their World Series title from last year be a one-year blip against actual results with the current roster.

Yes I like this rivalry, but what I don't want is a daily, 2-hour lotion session on SportsCenter, highlighting the "50 greatest Red Sox-Yankees moments from a 3-game homestand in July 2006." I get real tired when ESPN sauces semi-plausible storylines between the two teams and then proceed to use Super Bowl-like coverage to capitalize on them. They cherrypick those games for national-TV all the time and they run for 4-5 hours, including all their fantasy storylines. Hell, even those fans are wondering at this point why the games last so long. At the end of the day, Red Sox-Yankees is nothing more than the display of sheer might network executives have because of local affiliations with the teams.

And by the way, for all the "suffering both teams inflict on each other" as said by their writers, it's nothing more than a continuation of a war between the two most successful (and most powerful) sports cities in America. Teams from New York City and Boston, bar none, gobble-up the most championships available, while their respective media personnel blitz the American public in a display of rivalry propaganda, quickly crushing all other opinions as to other great sports rivalries.

Dodgers vs. Giants goes farther back, is more intense and its winning distribution is more even, yet that rivalry is intensely underrated because (1) both teams play in relatively-inferior markets and (2) the makeup of national-TV personnel from the west-coast is marginal compared to the glob of writers representing Boston and New York.

And there's my opinion on the most overrated rivalry in sports.

[sportstar1212]

I'm a Red Sox fan and even I'll agree that Giants-Dodgers is by far the best rivalry in baseball. I absolutely love watching those two teams play.

[Kramerica Industries]

not hard for a rivalry to become overrated in the eyes of the neutral sports fan when ESPN devotes so much coverage to it.

not hard for a rivalry to become overrated and nauseating to a Yankees or Red Sox fan when there are 19 effing matchups per season.

That being said, don't even try to insinuate that the rivalry as it is today is a media creation and a media creation only because that couldn't be more wrong. Go back to the final day of the 1904 season when Highlanders ace Jack Chesbro threw a wild pitch that enabled Boston to win the pennant. Summer of '49, one of the best sports books I've ever read. The 1978 AL East race which would take several paragraphs to remotely capture the background of. I mean, I know it's easy to play the "lol hammer vs. nail" thing and that on a comparative speaking basis the Dodgers and Giants have always been more equal to each other, but any time anyone ever tries to make this argument one way or another it just turns into a giant dick measuring contest that most people couldn't honestly give two s about. I love Giants-Dodgers for what it has meant with respect to the baseball culture of New York, and then how those two joined together to create west coast baseball and help expand the sport from coast to coast. I feel like that's all I need to say to be justified in my beliefs.

[FiddySicks]

The whole notion of the Yankees and Red Sox as "the greatest sports rivalry in all 238 years of American history" is nothing more than the apex of 30-years of media personification done by the most powerful markets and their constituents.

To begin, prior to 1986, the whole concept of an actual curse placed on the Red Sox wasn't taken seriously thorough the general American public. But Boston melts down, loses that World Series to the Mets, and all of a sudden, the holy trinity of Boston sports writers (notoriously-including Bill Simmons, Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy) begin to connect Red Sox futility to the sale of Babe Ruth in 1919.

Invoking Red Sox misery at the achievements of one of the most successful franchises in all of sports suddenly made more sense to people looking for an explanation to 1986. But the "rivalry" didn't really take off until the early-2000s, as both the Yankees and Red Sox were in an arms race for superiority head-to-head on a consistent basis.

As some of those writers from the Northeast around the same time made their way to covering sports on a national basis, some becoming main editors and programming managers, they made it a priority to make sure that Red Sox vs. Yankees would always be covered 24/7. But I find it so disheartening the extent the media would go to keep that rivalry a priority, despite the Yankees regressing and the Red Sox potentially having their World Series title from last year be a one-year blip against actual results with the current roster.

Yes I like this rivalry, but what I don't want is a daily, 2-hour lotion session on SportsCenter, highlighting the "50 greatest Red Sox-Yankees moments from a 3-game homestand in July 2006." I get real tired when ESPN sauces semi-plausible storylines between the two teams and then proceed to use Super Bowl-like coverage to capitalize on them. They cherrypick those games for national-TV all the time and they run for 4-5 hours, including all their fantasy storylines. Hell, even those fans are wondering at this point why the games last so long. At the end of the day, Red Sox-Yankees is nothing more than the display of sheer might network executives have because of local affiliations with the teams.

And by the way, for all the "suffering both teams inflict on each other" as said by their writers, it's nothing more than a continuation of a war between the two most successful (and most powerful) sports cities in America. Teams from New York City and Boston, bar none, gobble-up the most championships available, while their respective media personnel blitz the American public in a display of rivalry propaganda, quickly crushing all other opinions as to other great sports rivalries.

Dodgers vs. Giants goes farther back, is more intense and its winning distribution is more even, yet that rivalry is intensely underrated because (1) both teams play in relatively-inferior markets and (2) the makeup of national-TV personnel from the west-coast is marginal compared to the glob of writers representing Boston and New York.

And there's my opinion on the most overrated rivalry in sports.

I don't agree with a lot of the things you have to say on here, but you basically nailed it with this one. You may have downplayed the Red Sox Yankees rivalry just a bit when it comes to on the field matters, but there's SO much more to it than that. Everything from the city rivalries between Brooklyn and Manhattan then San Francisco and Los Angeles, to even the differences in team colors encompasses what a true rivalry should be (If you're wearing a bright blue cap at AT&T Park you stick out like a sore thumb and almost become a target, and vice versa. You can disguise yourself a bit better in New York and Boston because they share the same base color. It's a very minor point, but still).

From a fan's perspective, the rivalry between the Giants and Dodgers is just as intense, and maybe even a bit more violent (Not that I'm saying that's a good thing or even all that relevant, for that matter though), so to say that Yankees fans and Red Sox fans hate each other more than Giants and Dodgers fans do would probably be wrong. I could have missed it, but is there anything recently from the Red Sox Yankees rivalry that compares to the recent Bryan Stowe and Jonathan Denver incidents?

I also find the argument that a dumb and shortsighted sale by the Red Sox that allowed the Yankees to dominate them for the next eight and a half decades to be a pretty weak argument when it comes to strength of rivalries. If anything, that's more of an ass beating than a rivalry.

And most importantly is that cross country move. If not for having each other, the Giants would probably be in Minnesota right now, and the Dodgers would be in, I dunno, Texas or something. So as much as each team hates the other, they are absolutely dependent on the other for their very existence. I can't think of a single (sports) entity that I hate more than the Dodgers, yet my very rooted interests wouldn't have come to even exist if it weren't for the conjoined west coast move. That's some extremely powerful stuff right there, and I wish that more fans kept that perspective in mind when they're dumping $11 beers and soggy hot dogs on the fan in front of them who's wearing the other team's colors.

Look, I'm not knocking the Red Sox Yankees rivalry. It's a strong rivalry, and a pretty good one on the field. But we all know this because WE'VE BEEN TOLD THAT A MILLION TIMES ALREADY. The strength of the Giants Dodgers rivalry, in some ways, comes from it's relative obscurity. Add the cross-continental history to it and you've got, in the very least, the most underrated rivalry in baseball.

Oh, by the way, :censored: the Dodgers

[IceCap]

The whole notion of the Yankees and Red Sox as "the greatest sports rivalry in all 238 years of American history"

I don't think anyone ever actually said that.

[Kramerica Industries]

there have actually been quite a few cases I've heard over the years of Yankee fans killing Red Sox fans, or vice versa, whichever it was, but I really couldn't care to link to them because those kinds of things don't deserve any glorification. Trust me, it's happened.

[FiddySicks]

there have actually been quite a few cases I've heard over the years of Yankee fans killing Red Sox fans, or vice versa, whichever it was, but I really couldn't care to link to them because those kinds of things don't deserve any glorification. Trust me, it's happened.

Fair enough. And I agree with you. I just hadn't heard of any specific instances.

[vicfurth]

Rangers Angels.

You heard it here folks!

[The Six]

The Giants are poop this year and the Dodgers are insufferable. Clearly the best rivalry in baseball right now is Good Ol' Boys who protect the sanctity of The Game and play it the way it's supposed to be played vs. uppity ne'er-do-wells like the Gomezes, Hernandezes, and Fernandezes of the world. That goes beyond one team against another.

[FiddySicks]

The Giants are poop this year and the Dodgers are insufferable. Clearly the best rivalry in baseball right now is Good Ol' Boys who protect the sanctity of The Game and play it the way it's supposed to be played vs. uppity ne'er-do-wells like the Gomezes, Hernandezes, and Fernandezes of the world. That goes beyond one team against another.

Braves vs... Braves?

[oddball]

While I agree that the Red Sox-Yankees is over-played as far as rivalries go. The Giants-Dodgers, is not a rivalry except in name. There's no intensity between the teams. Honestly, the Dodgers biggest rival and I know this might surprise people, would be the Padres as they always seem to be a thorn in the side of the Dodgers when the Dodgers are good and vice versa. As I've watched baseball, the Dodgers-Giants rivalry has become just another series as are games versus Milwaukee. It's kind of like the Kings-Ducks rivalry, it's a fan rivalry and nothing more. Actually, the Kings-Ducks fan rivalry is a respectful rivalry, whereas the Dodgers-Giants has become what's ugly about sports.

[The Six]

Yeah this is really just a matter of the California people preferring their own rivalry because it involes their teams. No matter which is actually better, Bos/NY people will prefer theirs (and one sad Blackhawks fan will say Cubs/Cardinals is the best because baseball =hockey?) because baseball is more regional and nobody really cares about other teams besides their own.

Actually, the Kings-Ducks fan rivalry is a respectful rivalry,

Let's not get carried away here.

[Red Wolf]

I've always thought Cardinals fans' self-righteousness vs. The World was a pretty good rivalry.

[NJTank]

Like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with stone tablets the lords have come down from Mont Bristol and declared Yankees-Red Sox the greatest rivalry in the universe and it is so.