“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When you're dead, you don't know you're dead.
It's only difficult for other people.
It works the same way for stupid."
The Yankees teams that I grew up paying attention to were just so dominating that if you followed baseball at all, you at least were aware of them. I didn't like them much but I sure and hell knew about and respected them. When Maris was trying to break Ruth's record, we couldn't get enough coverage. As far as a rivalry goes - nothing like the Celtics and the Lakers of the 60's. That was a rivalry!
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Tony C beanball. http://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/augus...atened-beaning
Well the Yankees of Mantle, Maris etc (let alone Ruth and Gehrig) were the Montreal Canadiens or Bryant's Alabama team. The championship race was effectively THEM and a few other teams. Of course you couldn't avoid it. But the 1970s and then the late 90s to now have been the only periods when the Sox and Yankees have been good at the same time.
Well I'm not a Townee I have been living here since 1989. I grew up in Newton where we had one of the best Division 1 football teams in the state. Went to two Superbowls in my 3 years when I was at NNHS.
I like where I live but in no way does this town measure up to a City like Newton.
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
At the risk of being banned from this forum, I have to say that I have never hated the Yankees - I just don't hate in general but my strong dislike of the franchise really seemed to take hold in 1960 (I was 9) and Bill Mazeroski's walk off in game 7 for the Pirates. I was elated! I felt the other end of that spectrum when my National favorite team the Giants fell to them. I think that it was McCovey's low liner that Richardson picked off his shoe tops that ended that series and broke my baseball heart. I could go back and check my facts, but I don't care that much about facts and advanced stats - although I did play the advanced version of Strato for quite some time. I just love the game and Richardson was a hell of a ballplayer and it didn't matter what uniform he was in.
Does it offset the Red Sox not winning? No, but it sure offers a lot of consolation. My motto is "Anyone but the Yankees." If the Yankees would have won the World Series that year, that's just adding insult to injury. I think the only thing that got me through that long offseason was the Yankees not winning. For that, Josh Beckett has a lifetime pass with me.