Yankees, Red Sox meet once
The Yankees are just two hours up the road from the Red Sox but nowhere in sight.
Neither are commemorative pins selling for $5.67 or T-shirts reading, “Hey, Yankees. Who’s Your Daddy Now?” Those were visible the last two years during much-hyped exhibition games at the Red Sox spring training home field in Florida.
This spring training, the rivals don’t meet there at all and only face each other once, Wednesday in Tampa, Fla., after meeting twice in each of the past two exhibition seasons.
Once the regular season starts, though, the intensity should pick up, at least by May 1 when they meet for the first time, at Fenway Park. Last year, New York and Boston already had faced each other six times by April 14.
“I think it’d be nice to have kind of a calm, easy introduction to the season and let us get our feet wet for a month,” Boston pitcher Bronson Arroyo said, “and then once we hit that rivalry, I know it’s going to be right back to where it was.”
It is the biggest rivalry in baseball – the team that bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox versus the team that won its first World Series in 86 years after beating the Yankees in the American League championship series in 2004.
Before that season, the Yankees obtained Alex Rodriguez from Texas after the Red Sox tried to trade for him. The pins were sold at A-Rod’s first exhibition game in Fort Myers. Before this season, the Yankees struck again, signing former Red Sox center fielder and fan favorite Johnny Damon.
If fans are lucky, they should be able to see Damon in pinstripes. He’s had tendinitis in his shoulder, so it’s not known if he’ll play, but he is due to return in time for Wednesday’s game after playing for the United States in the World Baseball Classic.
“If I make the trip, it’ll just be the same,” Boston right fielder Trot Nixon said. “I’ll go up and give him a hug if he’s there and say ‘hello’ to him and see how he’s doing, but then just get what I need done on the field.”
Last year, the Yankees and Red Sox both were 95-67, but New York won the A.L. East in a tiebreaker. Boston got the wild-card berth, then was swept in a three-game A.L. division series by the Chicago White Sox.
The Yankees also lost in the division series to the Los Angeles Angels and the vastly improved White Sox went on to win the World Series.
“I look at it the same way we looked at it every year,” Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina said. “Everybody can have a good year. Anybody can challenge for the division in any given year. But the rivalry’s still the Yankees and the Red Sox.”
Bell out for Phillies
Philadelphia third baseman David Bell is out indefinitely with back spasms and might miss the start of the season.
The 33-year-old infielder hasn’t played in a Grapefruit League game this spring. He called off plans to play in a minor league exhibition game Saturday.
He played four innings in a minor league exhibition game Thursday and went 2 for 4.