RED SOX ALIENATION

BOSTON -- John Henry stood next to the batting cage Tuesday at Fenway Park, telling the story with a smile. He could afford to smile. He owns the Boston Red Sox, the most popular team in the land.

But not everywhere in the land.

Tom Werner, the Red Sox chairman, ran into the owner of another team not long ago. That owner -- Henry wouldn’t identify him -- told Werner the Red Sox had become “the most disliked team in baseball.”

The Red Sox might despise the New York Yankees, but in many ways they have become the Yankees: Love ‘em, or love to hate ‘em.

The Yankees, after all, have not won the World Series since 2000. The Red Sox open the World Series against the Colorado Rockies tonight, four victories from their second championship in four years.

In 2004, the Red Sox laid to rest their image as cursed losers. They pack their ballpark and yours too, leading the major leagues in road attendance. The “Red Sox Nation” annexes opposing stadiums, alienating home fans from California to Florida.

“I totally understand that,” General Manager Theo Epstein said. “If I were a fan of another team and 20,000 Red Sox fans came into my ballpark, it would [tick] me off too.”

At home, the Red Sox have sold out every game since 2003. On the road, they outdrew the Yankees -- and everyone else -- for the second time in three years. Fox and ESPN air the Red Sox and Yankees religiously -- and they deliver top ratings, no matter how sick a West Coast fan might get of seeing them.

The Red Sox expanded their business empire -- installing seats atop the Green Monster in left field, selling official tour packages to road games, injecting their logo into NASCAR -- and generated enough revenue to close the payroll gap separating them from the Yankees, from $84 million two years ago to $47 million this year. The Yankees ranked first in payroll and the Red Sox second for the fourth consecutive season.

“We go into parks, and anywhere from one-third to one-half the fans are rooting for the Red Sox,” Henry said. “That doesn’t necessarily endear you to everyone. Our payroll has grown as our revenues have grown. That doesn’t endear you to everyone either.”

And, before the Yankees traded for Alex Rodriguez and his record contract four years ago, the Red Sox had a trade for him in place. (The players’ union vetoed the proposed contract restructuring.)

Not that Red Sox President Larry Lucchino wants to entertain comparisons to the Yankees, a franchise he once called the Evil Empire.

“Don’t go there,” Lucchino said. “We are not the new Yankees. We are the improved Red Sox.”

Henry traced the Red Sox Nation’s rise from a regional fan base to an American phenomenon to October 2003, when Boston lost a spirited league championship series to the Yankees.

Pedro Martinez tossed Don Zimmer to the ground, Jeff Nelson shoved a Fenway Park groundskeeper, Grady Little left Martinez in Game 7 too long to keep his job and Aaron Boone hit a sudden-death home run in the 11th inning.

“It really began at that point,” Henry said. “It was immediately followed by the A-Rod circus. It was incredible. There was so much interest generated by that point. You had the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, which was intense before, hitting a new level after Aaron Boone.”

In an ALCS rematch in 2004, the Red Sox staged a comeback for the ages, losing the first three games and winning the next four. Boston then won the World Series for the first time in 86 years -- Hollywood captured the moment in “Fever Pitch” -- and Red Sox fever swept from coast to coast.

“The popularity of this team everywhere we go is beyond anything I’ve imagined,” Henry said.

Pitcher Brendan Donnelly, in his first year with the Red Sox after five years with the Angels, embraced the phenomenon.

“You see it everywhere you go,” he said. “The Red Sox have every bit as big a following as the Yankees do.

“Take the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s. Take any good team. Everybody wants to beat the best. Right now, there are two teams left.”

The Yankees are not one of them.

“The Yankees always had the highest payroll, the best players money could buy,” Donnelly said. “They had the team to compete every year. Now, so do we.”

Boston third baseman Mike Lowell and catcher Doug Mirabelli shied away from casting the Red Sox as the new Yankees.

“We’re a big-market team,” Lowell said, “but we’ve got to win a few more championships for people to say that.”

Said Mirabelli: “They do a lot of things different, like the front office.”

Mirabelli would not elaborate, but the Yankees just parted ways with Manager Joe Torre, who led the team to four World Series championships. Owner George Steinbrenner publicly threatened to fire Torre during the division series, and the Yankees reminded everyone they consider any season without a championship as a failure.

“It is not our stated goal to win the World Series every year,” Lucchino said. “It is a goal, but it’s not our expectation. That will happen, but we have a slightly more realistic goal -- to win every year and play baseball in October.”

So here they are again, with Manny and Big Papi and the rest of a cast made famous by Fox and ESPN. For fans sick of them, we give you the Rockies, whoever they are.

“I’m sure there’s some portion of fans that doesn’t like the teams they see all the time,” Rockies outfielder and MVP candidate Matt Holliday said.

How great the portion? Who knows? And is it a sporting dislike, or an actual hatred?

Donnelly, out for the season after elbow surgery, smiles widely at that last question.

“I don’t think people hate us,” he said. “When we go into a stadium and play somewhere on the road, there’s more excitement than if the Royals come into town.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com