Red Sox get one last weak dig in at Yankees after Wild Card win and we’re tired of it

“Major League Baseball loves the New York Yankees! They just do! Can’t you tell?!” No, in fact, I can’t tell! And I’d love to stop hearing this from opposing fans because … the party’s over.

The Yankees have ONE World Series victory since 2001. That’s 20 years. They haven’t beaten the Boston Red Sox in a playoff series since 2003. Alex Rodriguez, who was one of many players to take steroids, served the largest suspension in the history of the game after commissioner Bud Selig decided to finally lay down the law and use him as a scapegoat.

Fast forward to more recent times, and you have the sealed letter that apparently lays out how much the Yankees “cheated” from 2017-2019, which somehow managed to leak to the public despite … the Astros and Red Sox actually cheating and getting championships out of it. Their letters are still sealed, by the way.

And now, here we are, during a 2021 campaign in which they’ve embarrassed themselves start to finish by underachieving, failing to rise to the occasion, and getting punked by their most hated opponents, and they’re still the butt end of the joke because of another bit of information that leaked from MLB.

Over the weekend, in preparation for the possibility of an insane Wild Card scenario that could have featured a three- or four-way tie, the league had the teams in contention (Red Sox, Yankees, Mariners and Blue Jays) choose their “club designation” in advance so the possible scenarios would be settled. If you’re not familiar with this, the tie-breaker goes to the team with the best head-to-head record during the regular season, and they get to choose from these options.

The Yankees wouldn’t have had a favorable selection. It would’ve been either go to Boston or go to Toronto since the Sox and Jays would’ve been hosting the first round of the tie-breakers. That’s what they got for picking first, after all. The Yankees apparently chose — again, we don’t know HOW this leaked! — to face the Red Sox in Fenway if it came down to this … and of COURSE try-hard underdog mentality arose among Boston fans and players, who used this bit of information as motivation.

The Red Sox trolled the Yankees in a weak manner after their AL Wild Card win.

“You want us?! You got us! How do you like that?!” Ah, yes, would really love to know how this scenario would’ve ever favored the Yankees.

They choose to face Boston, and the city of spoiled babies views it as whatever this is — a fake chip on their shoulder after being “doubted” all year long (they weren’t, they were just objectively worse than their divisional opponents and there was no debating that). On the flip side, if the Yankees choose to face Toronto, they’d be “scared” of the Sox in the playoffs. If you’re unfamiliar with Boston fandom, this is how it goes. Each and every narrative bounces in their favor because it’s a city built on fragility.

Just look at what’s happened over the last couple years. The team fired Dave Dombrowski and brought in Chaim Bloom. Now the fans are against spending money and love the idea of “being the Rays.” They trade Mookie Betts and a sect of the fan base actually convinces themselves it was a good move because it would’ve killed the salary cap (there’s no salary cap in baseball, though, and the Red Sox are worth over $3 billion!). Then you have 2020, when all of Red Sox nation collectively punted the year, just as the team’s ownership group did, in a cowardly act of solidarity. “Oh we suck this year? Doesn’t matter, we won the World Series in 2018. Everyone else is a joke for actually playing baseball.”

And yet Sox fans have the audacity to be “nervous” whenever they face the Yankees in big games. Like we said … any narrative that fits their emotionally-coddled state.

The Yankees didn’t “choose” the Red Sox over the Diamondbacks. They chose them over traveling back to Toronto to face a Jays team that has given them the most trouble of any division opponent all year. Why wouldn’t they make that decision? New York just swept Boston at Fenway and the Sox’s pitching staff is leaps and bounds worse than the Blue Jays’.

At this point, we’re just tired. The trolls aren’t even good. They’re contrived. They lack creativity. And we won’t even be able to laugh at Boston when they inevitably get stomped by Tampa Bay because they’ll just hang the Wild Card Game over our heads and act as if winning a one-game playoff and being ousted in the actual first round of the postseason actually means something.

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