Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be for the Red Sox and the Yankees: One game that feels like it’s for everything, even on the second night of October. Even the date has historical significance for the two teams, just because just about everything does. Oh, sure. This is the way it was all the way back on Oct. 2, 1949, a one-game playoff between the Red Sox and Yankees to determine the American League champion that year. For both teams, it was the real and memorable end to the “Summer of ’49,” immortalized by David Halberstam in his wonderful book about that summer, and those teams.
Nearly 30 years later, there was an even more famous Oct. 2. That was the season the Yankees came back from being 14 1/2 games behind the Sox in July, finally forcing a one-game tiebreaker that time to see which one of them would win the American League East. And that sure was the day at Fenway when Bucky Dent made one of the most famous swings in the history of The Rivalry — a shot over the Green Monster that did the most to finally finish off that Yankees comeback, and finish off the ’78 Red Sox.
A quarter-century later — on Oct 16 — in the bottom of the 11th of Game 7 in 2003 at the old Yankee Stadium, Aaron Boone hit a home run just as memorable to beat Boston and win the pennant for the Yankees. The next year, it was the Red Sox who turned everything around like they were turning a battleship around, winning four straight win-or-go-home games in the ALCS until they rolled right through the Yankees and the Stadium to win that series, on their way to winning their first World Series since Babe Ruth left Boston for New York.
There was even a Wild Card Game at Fenway four years ago, won by the Red Sox. So these two teams have done this kind of work before, have they ever. Now comes a game like this tonight at Yankee Stadium, Game 3, a couple of kid pitchers — Connelly Early for the Sox, Cam Schlittler for the Yankees — getting the starts for their team and making more history in a rivalry that really does feel as old as baseball.
Early is 23. This will be his fifth start in the Major Leagues. Schlittler is 24, and will feel a bit like some kind of grizzled veteran because he will be making his 15th start. Early will merely become the first pitcher to start a winner-or-go-home game like this in the postseason within 30 days of his first big league start.
“It’s going to be fun,” Early said. “I’m excited to get out there.”
Fun for him. Just more excruciating for fans of both teams who have witnessed the first two games of this series. It was 3-1 for the Red Sox in Game 1. It was 4-3 for the Yankees on Wednesday night with their season on the line. Six runs for the Sox so far, five for the Yankees. But even without crazy scoring, it seems as if the series has already been full of big moments.
Garrett Crochet pitched into the eighth for the Red Sox in Game 1 in one of the great postseason performances in Red Sox history, striking out 11 before giving the ball to Aroldis Chapman, the old Yankees closer now doing that job in Boston. In the bottom of the ninth, all Chapman did was get out of a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam to save the night.
All we got in Game 2 was Jazz Chisholm Jr. — benched for Game 1 — looking like a streak of light on the bases as he scored from first on a single from Austin Wells with what would turn out to be the winning run for his team. In this one, it was reliever Fernando Cruz saving the night for the Yankees by pitching out of his own bases-loaded jam in the top of the seventh.
So the Yankees held on to the game, and to their season, after having lost nine of their last 10 postseason games to the Red Sox going all the way back to 2004. It was the late Larry Lucchino, formerly CEO of the Red Sox, who once called the Yankees “the Evil Empire.” After the Red Sox have owned so much good history over the Yankees across the past two decades, starting with those four nights in October back in ’04, the Empire now has this chance on Thursday night to finally strike back.
Another Oct. 2 for the Red Sox and the Yankees. One famous game back in ’49 with a World Series as stakes, and Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams on the field. One game in ’78 with a division on the line, after one of the most memorable Red Sox-Yankees summers of all time. The Red Sox have won four World Series since ’04. The Yankees have only won one, in 2009. A lot has gone on between these two teams over the past two decades. An awful lot has changed.
Now they give us another moment like this one, no matter how it turns out. A first-round game that feels like so much more, just because of who’s in it. One more time, the Red Sox and Yankees play for the championship of each other.
