"Walking out to the subway afterward, my roommate and I came across a woman in a Red Sox cap being interviewed by a television station. Without missing a beat, my roommate - an ordinarily sane person who legitimately worked in academic book publishing - slapped the woman upside the head, mid-interview, and yelled "Fuck the fucking Red Sox!" A few people around us cheered wanly, and then we all just made our way to the B train heading uptown."
"Hostilities had existed from the days of Babe Ruth to Bucky Dent to the '90s, but those were the halcyon days of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, when Pedro Martinez was tossing Don Zimmer to the ground, when A-Rod was slapping the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove, Jason Varitek punching A-Rod in the face, which led to an iconic image that I assume is still Ben Affleck's lockscreen to this day."
The narrator attended Game Six of the 2003 ALCS at Yankee Stadium, where the Yankees led 6-2 before the Red Sox rallied to force a Game Seven. A roommate had won tickets via an online lottery and, after the game, slapped a woman wearing a Red Sox cap who was being interviewed, shouting an obscenity. The Yankees won the series the next night on Aaron Boone's walkoff home run. The Red Sox returned the favor the following year by overcoming a 3-0 deficit and later ended the Curse of the Bambino in the World Series. The era featured volatile clashes involving Pedro Martinez, A-Rod, Jason Varitek, and others.
Read at Intelligencer
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]