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BOSTON – Maybe the best way to solve this problem is to start with a guy who has seen both ends from the same point of view.
When Aaron Boone scored the 11th round of the 2003 American League Championship Series 11 and sent the Yankees to the Red Sox and World Series, Bronson Arroy warmed up in the Yankee Stadium.
When Alan Embree gave up Ruben Sierra at second base 369 days later, defeating the Red Sox against the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS 2004 and in the fall classic, Arroyo was … to warm up in the visitor's park at Yankee Stadium.
"The first time, it was a slow walk on the ground," Arroyo recalled Thursday during a phone interview. "Watching these guys celebrate, enter our clubhouse, I was one of the last guys here. You may have thought that someone came in with a gun and shot a few guys. The guys were crying.
On the other side of the coin, sprinting the pen in the mound [in ’04], I remember having celebrated and seen Alex [Rodriguez] and Derek Jeter with their heads on the balustrade in their pond. Finally, it took a long time for us to do that and make them look. "
When the 2018 AL Division series between the Yankees and the Red Sox begins Friday night at Fenway Park, it will be the first post-season meeting between the most famous rivals in the industry. since that memorable night of 2004, when the Red Sox became the first always the only one – the team in baseball history to come out of a 0-3 and win in a playoff series.
To say that these Yankees and the Red Sox have to go through a high bar to match the theatricality and intensity of their predecessors, well … it's just unfair. This bar will not be erased. Although this series may prove to be fun (hopefully), it can not address in a series what this saga has created in two of the most explosive series of modern times.
"Playing against these guys for those two years was so intense," said Arroyo. "A regular season game would be like most of the playoff games. The playoffs were at a level you will not find anywhere else in baseball. "
It can be argued that this dual feature serves as a "godfather" and "godfather: Part II" of North American professional sport over the last fifty years. Individually, both series were brilliant, captivating, exhausting. As a double entry, with the events of the first year informing the second, it's simply an epic.
Where and when did we see two prestigious rivals outdo each other in consecutive years, with split results? Not the Steelers and Cowboys, who have never faced each other in Super Bowl back-to-back. The Lakers and Celtics were terribly close, with the Celtics winning seven games in 1984 and the Lakers in six games in 1985, though the fact that the historic powers clashed again in 1987 with the Lakers' victory in six matches, blurs the memory of what happened when
John Thorn, official historian of the Major League Baseball, quickly released a pair of comparable: The Dodgers and Yankees shared a pair of world series in seven parts in 1955 and 1956, then the Braves and the Yankees immediately proceeded likewise in 1957 and 1958.. Good enough! The Dodgers have finally thrilled Brooklyn in 1955, the perfect match of Don Larsen in the fifth game of the series' 56, the only baseball title in the city of Milwaukee (to date) in 1957 and the Yankees eliminating a 3-1 deficit. & # 39; 58 by winning Games 6 & 7 at County Stadium.
The Yankees and Braves have no other story – they clashed in the 1996 and 1999 world series, after their move to Atlanta and the Yankees' win – and the Yankees and Dodgers, to the extreme extreme, have so much history that the years 55 and 56 do not stand out as much. The Yankees and Red Sox, who took part in so many memorable regular season battles, including the "Match 163" in 1978, only faced each other in another playoff game, the first time in the playoffs. ALCS of 1999, which now looks like an appetizer to come in 2003 and 2004.
Perhaps the recency bias raises the 2003 and 2004 ALCS levels to the top. However, the ranking is gaining strength with each participant you enter.
"Oh, man, that was definitely the biggest series I can remember," said Johnny Damon, who won the championships with the 2004 Red Sox and the 2009 Yankees.
"These series [against the Red Sox] during the regular season and especially the playoffs are what I remember from my three years with the Yankees, "said John Flaherty, now YES Network Analyst. «Go to the World Series against the Marlins [in 2003] is not even on the list. "
The best way to dive into what has happened, to educate those who have not watched and shook the memories of those who have watched it, is to list the main events and the main actors.
Legends
Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez and Yankees manager Joe Torre have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Mariano Rivera, who is closer to the Yankees, will be in action next summer and his team-mate Jeter will follow him in 2020. The Red Sox's designated forward, David Ortiz, seems to be a good move for 2022, and Terry Francona, the coach of the 2004 Red Sox, has great luck when he hangs up his programming card.
Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina and his Red Sox counterpart Curt Schilling (2004 only) came close to the 75% threshold required for the election. If there is justice, Roger Clemens (Yankees) (2003 only), Rodriguez (2004 only) and Gary Sheffield (2004 only) and Manny Ramirez of the Red Sox will survive the moralists and also spend their days in the sun. And with Jack Morris, Yankees Kevin Brown (2004 only), Kenny Lofton (2004 only), John Olerud (2004 only), Andy Pettitte (2003 only), Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams and Damon of the Red Sox, Nomar Garciaparra (& # 39; 03 only) all have reasonable cases.
The turnover figure
Have you noticed all the '03 only 'and '04 only' entries above? Both teams made significant changes after the Yankees were ousted from the Red Sox in 2003. The Yankees bid farewell to Clemens, Pettitte and David Wells and signed Lofton and Sheffield, then shocked the world by exchanging against A-Rod, who had already almost joined the Red Sox before having to move to third base to accommodate his frenzy. Discard at short stop. Boston, meanwhile, replaced manager Grady Little with Francona, traded against Schilling and signed a closer contract with Keith Foulke.
L & # 39; enmity
"Now the game is a little different. You fraternize a little more, "said Kevin Millar, first baseman of the Red Sox. "When we did our sprints before the match, there was no chatter. They did not like Pedro Martinez. They hated Pedro. [George] Steinbrenner did not love us at all, [especially team president] Larry Lucchino. So much has made the rivalry more spicy.
"There were people who did not really like each other," Flaherty agreed. "Kevin Millar and Curt Schilling were guys you just despised. I'm sure they had the same feeling for the guys in our path. "
This was multiplied by three for the feelings of the supporters towards the opposition. Jeter was amazed at the ferocity of the boos he received at Fenway.
Arroyo recalled:[The team bus] used to get a police escort at Yankee Stadium. You have seen a 75-year-old woman in Nordstrom give you your finger in passing. The stadium was a giant circus. "
L & # 39; s history
"We were a little disconnected. They were big and rich, "said Millar. "We were trying to do something that had not been done [since 1918, the Red Sox’s last title before ’04]. "
"In 2003, I thought," I can not be a Yankee and suddenly see the Red Sox win that win, "said Yankees reliever Jeff Nelson.
'03 Game 3
Clemens against Pedro, a rematch of the 1999 ALCS match 3. Pedro improved the situation by training Karim Garcia of the Yankees with a throw in the fourth inning. Garcia dumped the bench when he fell into Red Sox second baseman Todd Walker to try to split a double play. And when Ramirez responded to a Clemens fast (but not particularly tight) ball at the bottom In the fourth quarter, Pedro ended up throwing the Yankees coach on the Yankees' bench.
"The idea of throwing a 72-year-old man on the ground is unprecedented," said MLB historian Thorn.
This is what we naturally remember most about this game, but the fireworks did not stop there. In the Yankees' office, Nelson and Garcia engaged in a fight with Red Sox gardener Paul Williams – or, as Nelson called it Thursday, "the stupid crewman of the field" – and found themselves with legal trouble. After the match, Yankees team president Randy Levine tore up the Red Sox and Major League Baseball for security reasons.
'03 Game 7
In a rematch of Clemens and Pedro, the Red Sox took the advantage 4-0 and counted runners among the first and third without defeat when Torre raised Clemens for Mussina, who was making his first career appearance.
"[Jason] Varitek hit and I played that double game, "said Damon, accurately. "This extra race would certainly have helped us."
For sure. Pedro played memorable in the match for five batters in the eighth end, while the Yankees scored three points to tie at 5-5.
And at the bottom of the 11th, Boone – whom Torre chose to replace Enrique Wilson – crushed the first pitch he saw from Wakefield, the first he saw all night, in the squares on the left. Boone had entered the game in the eighth as a pinch runner for Sierra, who had been touched by Wilson.
"The monuments have come alive," said Nelson, evoking the famous Monument Park of the former stadium. "The ghosts saved us."
2004 Game 4
The Yankees bombed the Red Sox in the first three games of the 2004 ALCS, and the third match was a 19-8 loss to Fenway. There was every reason to believe that the Yankees were heading for a second consecutive victory in the fall and a seventh place in nine years under Torre.
Legendary sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy wrote in his Boston Globe column, "They still have a game to defend. Are the 2004 Red Sox a cheerful (and then suddenly unlucky) pack of frauds that failed to show up for the biggest series of his life? Or are they full of what makes a special and historic team? "
"Dan Shaughnessy, as angry as me, you almost have to thank the guy," said Millar. "If I do not read the word" fraud "that morning when I use the toilet, I probably will not enter as enthusiastically as I do. It worked."
Before the game, in a conversation filmed in front of the camera, Millar conversed with Shaughnessy and, referring to the Yankees, said, "Do not let us win tonight." At the bottom of the ninth, with the Red Sox at the end, Millar drives with a ride against Rivera. His dovecote, Dave Roberts, stole the second goal and scored the draw on Bill Mueller's single, and Ortiz marked Paul Quantrill's nonstop start in the 12th.
'04 Game 5
Rivera missed his second save opportunity in two days, the only time he failed to convert consecutive save opportunities into 96 series appearances. Ortiz once again hit the ball, a single by Esteban Loaiza who scored Damon from second base. The Yankees' hopes of victory collapsed when Tony Clark's double at the top of the ninth bounced off the low straight wall, preventing Sierra from scoring the first goal.
"Losing an extra part in this atmosphere can give the impression of losing a double," Flaherty said. "You start having negative thoughts. After the fourth match, it is the "tough defeat". When the fifth game goes the same way, you say, "Uh-oh." You think you are bringing home, but you still have the impression that you have problems. "
'04 Game 6
The slap game. Need an additional explanation? After seven victories in Schilling's "Bloody Sock", Arroyo (who started the game's debacle in Game 3) picked him up for eighth place and let slip a point when A-Rod hit Jeter on first and a goal. What seemed like a mistake for Arroyo, while he was lining up a dribbler and trying to score A-Rod, became "the slap game" once the referees – at the time before the instant resumption – reversed the call and ordered Jeter to stay at the beginning. The fans have gone crazy.
"There's nothing like staying at the Yankee Stadium with people throwing bottles of beer and stacks and a riot crew on the ground around the entire team, like in Beirut," said Arroyo. "It was intense."
& # 39; 04 Game 7
An eruption of the Red Sox, with Damon hammering an offer from Javier Vazquez for a grand slam in the second set and a 6-0 lead.
"I was thinking of the year before, when we had the opportunity [against Mussina]Said Damon.
The Red Sox were particularly thrilled for Wakefield, who was beaten in the third game to keep the other players' arms out, then threw in three shutout runs to win the game in the fifth game. His baseball legacy would not be tied to the Boone circuit of the previous year.
"I do not think it's redemption," Wakefield said. "I do not know what to call it. I can not think of a word to describe how I felt. Above all, it's nothing against New York, but being able to celebrate there, considering what had happened the year before, when I had to leave the field, touched me. That made me feel … I guess I was happy, the way it turned out.
Now, Boone, as manager of the Yankees, is trying to use those memories to help his team defeat this long-awaited return leg.
"I kind of shaped that momentum in my mind, I kind of threw the window in this case," Boone said. "Because it seemed to me that each time during those years, both teams were really good. And one team would kill the other team one day, and you'd think, "Let's go," and the next day the other team would answer.
"And in many ways, our series this year in the regular season has played a little bit that way. There were unbalanced games. Obviously, they beat us here this summer in this four-game series [in August]. But otherwise, it's a bit like that.
Back, of course. From top to bottom, though? Ferocious and legendary? This does not happen. All we can hope for is that it becomes chapter 1 in something bigger and better, the new 2003 to a next 2004.
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