One Man Does Not Make A Rivalry

As you might have heard by now, Bobby Valentine is the new Red Sox manager. And in the time since it was announced that Valentine would be Boston’s new skipper (heck, even before it was announced) there has been a flood of posts along the lines of “the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry is back thanks to Bobby V!” Note some examples here, here, and here. But it’s not that simple. Sure, Valentine is known for being an opinionated loud-mouth, and it is inevitable that he will spout off a number of comments that ruffle Yankees fans’ feathers. But at the end of the day, a great rivalry comes from the games that are played out on the field, not from comments a manager makes to a reporter after the games.

After all, if a rivalry is all about the personalities of the players and managers themselves, wouldn’t Jonathan Papelbon‘s move to the Phillies have been a death blow to the Yankees/Sox rivalry? Go ahead, Yankees fans, think for a minute about who you loathe more: Bobby V or Papelbon. I know a choice between those two is a lose-lose situation, but I’m willing to bet that most fans have just a little bit more disgust when it comes to Papelbon. I mean, this is a guy who caused the Yankees community on Twitter to blow up every time he came into a game, and earned himself nicknames like Papelbum, Papeldouche, and “Lord Ass Face.” (And those are the nicer ones.) Bobby V is annoying, but he doesn’t drum up that sort of passion.

And while the personalities of players like Papelbon certainly contribute to the flavor of a rivalry, the real meat of the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry lives and dies with the way each team performs on the field. The rivalry has suffered in recent years not because of the roster makeup or the coaching staffs, but because the Wild Card has ensured that more often than not, both the Yankees and the Red Sox lock up a playoff spot. Winning the division is great, but the blow of losing a series in late September is softened by the reality that while your rival may win the division, they won’t keep your team out of the playoffs in the process. Further, when either team fails to make the playoffs it is usually because one team or the other fails to remain competitive and it becomes clear relatively early in the season that there will be no September drama between the clubs. This is why an epic collapse like the one the Red Sox underwent this past season can do more for the rivalry than any one person.

Players and managers can snipe at each other through the media as much as they want. But if the Yankees/Red Sox games in September don’t mean anything because playoff berths have already been decided (or because, at the very least, you don’t have a chance to ruin the other guy’s playoff hopes) the rivalry will undoubtedly suffer. Will the addition of a second Wild Card team help the Yankees/Sox rivalry? Possibly. There will certainly be more emphasis on winning the division, and a one-game playoff between these teams would be intense and entertaining. But all of this assumes that both the Yankees and Red Sox are consistently competitive and that one team does not get too far behind in the standings early in the season. So long as both teams are able to compete with each other for a playoff berth down the stretch, the rivalry will be just fine. And it won’t matter who is or is not in each team’s dugout.