In Early Act, Red Sox Heroes, Yankees Villains

It is mid-April, still only the second full week of the new season, still a chill in the New England air, but amid the passion of Fenway Park on Friday night it was midsummer in the century-old rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.

Stoked, in particular, by the events of the last two years, this was far more than the first of a four-game series, the first of 19 regular-season meetings.

After all, in the last 18 months alone there had been so many new and complex chapters in the storied history that they seemed to represent a new rivalry in themselves.

Wasn’t Commissioner Bud Selig, for instance, forced to implement a gag rule in the verbal and name-calling feud between the respective owners?

Wasn’t there all that madcap spending and the tit-for-tat acquisitions of some of baseball’s biggest stars -- capped, of course, by the arrival of Alex Rodriguez at Times Square not long after he seemed headed for Kenmore Square?

And wasn’t there that dagger-in-the-heart home run by Aaron Boone in October, winning one more pennant for the Yankees, costing Boston Manager Grady Little his job and sending the Red Sox nation into one more cold winter of grief and paranoia.

Ultimately, it came down to this, a new and ballyhooed Showdown in Beantown, won by the Red Sox over the always Evil Empire, 6-2, and if you didn’t think it was huge, as Boston center fielder Johnny Damon put it in what may have been the least of the hyperbole, then answer this:

Why was Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter acknowledging that the “years of hatred between these two teams just don’t disappear,” and why was Fox Sports clearing its schedule to televise the game nationally and why was the New York Post proclaiming in tabloid overkill “Let the War Begin!” and why was the Boston Herald, in addition to producing a multipart history of the failed negotiations with the Texas Rangers for Rodriguez, also chronicling “85 Years of Heartbreak” at the hands of the Yankees -- as if every New England school kid didn’t know it by aching heart already?

Why too were scalpers along Yawkey Way discreetly demanding up to four figures for tickets that had even gone for $500 when the teams met in a Florida exhibition game, and why were the unforgiving zealots in a crowd of 35,163 braving the cold by wearing T-shirts that carried a vulgar message directed at Rodriguez?

Make no mistake: The Yankees and Red Sox are always draped in the long history of this rivalry, from the Bambino to Bucky to Boone, but more than anything the renewal was fueled by the Fenway christening of Rodriguez as the third baseman of the Yankees after he was so close to becoming the Red Sox shortstop.

How bizarre was that and how bizarre was it to have a couple hundred reporters massed for the fifth game of the young season at Fenway and fans holding up placards that read, “Who Needs A-Rod?” and Rodriguez himself contributing a little common sense when asked whether he was nervous about coming into this environment.

“I’m not at all apprehensive,” he said. “Let’s not lose our focus. It’s April 16.”

In other words, it was just a little early for this much emotion and anticipation, and, indeed, it was tough for the baseball to match the buildup, although don’t tell it to the Red Sox.

Does it ever matter how and when they defeat the dreaded mercenaries from the Bronx?

This time, they took advantage of home runs by Bill Mueller and Manny Ramirez, along with errors by Jeter and Jason Giambi, to score four runs in the first inning, added a home run by Doug Mirabelli in building a 5-1 lead against Javier Vazquez, and benefited from seven strong innings by the knuckle-balling Tim Wakefield.

Rodriguez went hitless in four at-bats and was booed heatedly each time he came to the plate, starting with batting practice, when a fan yelled “Hey, Alex, what’s it like to be Jeter’s backup?”

He is hitting .189 in 10 games as a Yankee, but he seldom loses his timing as a public relations machine.

In characteristic style, Rodriguez dismissed the negativity surrounding his arrival in Boston as a demonstration of positive interest in the game, although he later acknowledged that the booing was as loud as he had ever heard it -- but not as loud as Wakefield has.

“I heard it louder when [Jose] Canseco was in New York,” Wakefield said. “Every year there’s a player over there our fans hate. You get used to it.”

The last time Wakefield faced the Yankees was in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the American League’s championship series, the victim of Boone’s home run.

This time he gave up four hits and one earned run in seven innings, handcuffing a team whose $183-million payroll has produced a 5-5 start and .216 team batting average.

Yankee Manager Joe Torre said it wasn’t just Rodriguez who is pressing.

“I think they all are,” he said of his vaunted lineup, “although Wakefield is not a good test of how you’re hitting. He throws that rotten pitch.”

The last time the Yankees played at Fenway in the regular season was in August, a tumultuous series in which Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia, neither of whom is still with New York, fought with a Boston groundskeeper in the bullpen, and Don Zimmer, 72 and now also no longer with the team, came off the Yankee bench to make his tragicomic charge at Pedro Martinez.

This time, there were no such ancillary events as the teams went at it again, but all of that contributed to the intensity and emotion, as so much more had recently, and there are still three games left in the series, with Boston’s Curt Schilling facing the Yankees’ Mike Mussina today.

It was Schilling’s acquisition by the Red Sox that touched off the Yankee/Red Sox signing and trade war of the winter.

It was also Schilling who reacted to his acquisition by saying, “I guess I hate the Yankees now.”

Asked about Schilling’s comment in the context of his own acquisition by the Yankees, Rodriguez laughed and said, “The feeling is mutual.”

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Trash Talking in New England

The last 1 1/2 years have served only to throw gasoline on the fire that is the rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Sandwiched around a dramatic victory by the Yankees on Aaron Boone’s 11th-inning home run in Game 7 of the ALCS have been two off-seasons in which New York’s financial resources have continued to frustrate Boston. Some of the highlights of the give and take:

“The evil empire extends its tentacles even into Latin America.”

-- Larry Lucchino, Red Sox president, Dec. 24, 2002, after New York outbid Boston for Cuban pitcher Jose Contreras.

“That’s how a sick person thinks. I’ve learned this about Lucchino: he’s baseball’s foremost chameleon of all time. He changes colors depending on where’s he’s standing.... He talks out of both sides of his mouth. He has trouble talking out of the front of it.”

-- George Steinbrenner, Yankee owner, Dec. 28, 2002, in response to Lucchino’s comments.

“Is that the best he could do? I don’t think he even gets the reference.”

-- Lucchino, Dec. 29, 2002.

“Let’s just say that on the list of top people with respect and affection for me, you will probably not find George’s name there.”

Lucchino, Dec. 27, 2002.

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“It will suffice to say that we have a spending limit and the Yankees apparently don’t. Baseball doesn’t have an answer for the Yankees. There is really no other fair way to deal with a team that has gone so insanely far beyond the resources of all the other teams.”

-- John Henry, Red Sox owner, Feb. 18, in an e-mail to reporters calling for a salary cap in baseball, after New York dealt for Alex Rodriguez, a player for whom Boston was unable to work out a trade with Texas.

“We understand that John Henry must be embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed by his failure in this transaction. It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes.... Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra distance for his fans in Boston. It is understandable but wrong that he would try to deflect the accountability for his mistakes on to others and to a system for which he voted in favor.”

-- Steinbrenner, Feb. 18, in response.

“There’s never been any animosity between George and I. I don’t take anything he said personally. It’s something he does.”

-- Henry, Feb. 21.