There isn't much Red Sox and Yankees fans can agree upon these days. The rivalry is at a fever pitch, as the Yankees have lost eight straight games to their AL East foes as of this writing. The two teams are competing for seeing in the AL Wild Card, with the final game of a four-game set looming under the bright lights of Sunday Night Baseball. However, if there is one thing most fanbases can relate to, it is their unwavering hatred of commissioner Rob Manfred.
Manfred, who works for the owners, has changed the game more than many of his predecessors in just the last few years. We're talking an expanded postseason format, new extra-innings rules, looming expansion and instituting ABS in the years to come. While many of Manfred's alterations have received rave reviews over time, every time he opens his mouth, he upsets someone. It is that lack of perception and PR that has made him one of the more polarizing ambassadors of the sport – but such is part of the job when you're commissioner.
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Rob Manfred angers Red Sox and Yankees fans
Consider it east coast bias, but there is no better rivalry in baseball than Yankees vs Red Sox. Like any rivalry, there are ebbs and flows, but these two teams and fanbases have been at each other's throats for generations. That kind of anger cannot be replicated in just a few year's time. Someone ought to tell Manfred that.
“I think the Dodger-Padre rivalry is getting into that same zone that the Yankees and the Red Sox are, and have been," Manfred said during the Little League Classic just last Sunday.
Now, this is to take nothing away from the Dodgers and Padres series, which has taken the form of big brother vs little brother in recent years. It helps that San Diego's sole mission is to build a team capable of stealing the NL West from said big brother, and winning a World Series to stick it to the Dodgers. Los Angeles has won 11 NL West titles in 12 seasons, and is well within striking distance to add another banner in 2025.
Even still, though, the Dodgers have bigger fish to fry. The San Francisco Giants are their biggest rival, first and foremost. While the Padres-Dodgers rivalry has similarities to Red Sox-Yankees in the moment, until it holds up for over a century, said fanbases cannot relate.
Why Red Sox-Yankees remains the best rivalry in baseball
For now, the Red Sox and Yankees have the most vicious rivalry in baseball. Everything these two baseball behemoths do is seen through a rivalry-specific lens. If the Yankees are struggling, and the Red Sox are winning, it adds to New York's humiliation. The same can be said for Boston – though the Red Sox have had the Yankees number for much of the last decade.
FanSided's Chris Landers wrote about the state of the rivalry just this past week. As the Red Sox welcome their young core to the game's grandest stage – a Yankees-Red Sox weekend series – new storylines will form. Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer went yard at Yankee Stadium, with Anthony's decisive blow giving Yankees fans Rafael Devers flashbacks.
The cycle never ends, even as the names and faces do. This rivalry is a self-sustaining force.