Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 24

In today’s edition, the rivalry explodes during a volatile three-game series at Fenway Park highlighted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Varitek exchanging blows and creating yet another bench clearing melee.

Each week when I send out Hardball Hyperbole, you see the collage of three pictures I designed for the top of the newsletter which, to me, perfectly encapsulates what happened between the Yankees and Red Sox in 2003 and 2004.

On the left there’s Aaron Boone celebrating his home run in the 2003 ALCS that sent the Yankees to the World Series, and on the right there’s the Red Sox celebrating their miracle comeback in the 2004 ALCS when they became the first team in baseball history to overcome a 3-0 series deficit.

And then in the middle, there is Alex Rodriguez getting a face full of Jason Varitek’s catchers’ mitt at the start of a wild brawl on the afternoon of July 24, 2004 at Fenway Park. That photo, maybe more than any other that has been snapped through the years, served as the preeminent reminder of just how much these teams hated each other, particularly in these two seasons.

“Our rivalry is like no other rivalry,” Joe Torre said that incredible day after watching the Red Sox rally for an 11-10 walk-off victory, one of the most compelling games in the long, shared history between the teams, one that even surpassed the drama that had taken place three weeks earlier on the night of Derek Jeter’s amazing catch and tumble into the stands at Yankee Stadium.

Thanks to the memorabilia industry, and of course Google Images, the picture of A-Rod and Varitek can be seen all over New England - in sports bars, barber shops, restaurants, and individual homes - because it so perfectly defines what Boston fans consider the greatest and most special Red Sox team of them all, the team that fought its most bitter rival to the end, and for once came out on top.

In June of 2021 when Rodriguez was on the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast team and the Yankees and Red Sox - as they almost always are when they play a weekend series - were the featured game. The topic of his confrontation with Varitek came up and A-Rod said, “How strong is our rivalry? I have so much respect for Jason Varitek, but that fight was the last conversation we had. So when you talk about how serious it is, it is dead serious.”

This was 17 years after the fact and still, at least according to A-Rod, they had not spoken. If still true, how very Yankees-Red Sox is that?

Some will point to this game as the one that changed the arc of the Red Sox season, the singular moment that gilded them for the glorious road they were about to travel. In reality it probably wasn’t because despite how remarkable the victory was, they were still 8.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East, and nearly a month later, they were actually 10 games back with almost no chance of winning the division.

But there was no doubt that this game - one that was delayed 54 minutes by rain, was nationally telecast on FOX, and took nearly four hours to play - was a huge achievement for the Red Sox. They were down 9-4 at one point but came all the way back to win when Bill Mueller capped a three-run ninth-inning rally by hitting a jaw-dropping two-run homer against Mariano Rivera.

“You’re never out of it if you continue to fight,” Sox manager Terry Francona said. “I hope we can look back at this day a while from now and say that this brought us together. I hope a long time from now we look back and say this did it.”

More likely, the Red Sox truly began to turn their season around a week later when general manager Theo Epstein made a seismic trade, one that at first had Red Sox fans seething. He sent popular shortstop Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs, part of a four-team, eight-player deal that brought shortstop Orlando Cabrera and first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz to Boston. From that moment on, the Red Sox won 42 of their final 60 games and carried a tidal wave of momentum into the postseason and continued to ride it all the way to their historic ALCS victory over the Yankees, and their eventual evisceration of 86 years of World Series misery.

Still, at the very least, this game signaled that the Red Sox were going to be a force to be reckoned with the rest of the way. They knew it, and the Yankees sure as hell knew it.

The series began on a Friday night with the Yankees rallying for an 8-7 victory. They did heavy damage against Curt Schilling as they turned a 4-2 deficit into a 7-4 lead by scoring seven runs off the Boston ace, five coming in the seventh inning. Boston regrouped and pulled even with single runs in the seventh and eighth, but New York won it when Gary Sheffield doubled in the ninth and scored on a single by A-Rod.

Now 9.5 games ahead, there was every reason to believe the Yankees might be able to pull off their second consecutive sweep of the Red Sox and bury them once and for all.

A couple hours before Saturday’s scheduled first pitch, it was looking like there would be no pitch at all. In fact, the Yankees were under the impression that the game had been postponed and many of them were packing up for a return to the team hotel. Then came word that no, despite lingering rain and the threat for more, the game was still on.

In the third inning, the Red Sox had to be wondering why they insisted on playing. The Yankees scored twice in the second off Bronson Arroyo, and then in the third Bernie Williams doubled, Jeter singled, and Williams scored on a double play grounder by Sheffield.

That brought Rodriguez to the plate with two outs and no one on. He swing and missed on Arroyo’s first pitch, then watched one inside that pushed him off the plate. When the next pitch plunked him on the left elbow, something snapped. This certainly didn’t seem like a good time for Arroyo to hit A-Rod with a pitch, but perhaps A-Rod was looking at this as a way to fully inject himself into the rivalry.

“I’ve got to get in,” Arroyo said, meaning he needed to pitch inside to succeed, especially against hitters like A-Rod. “I don’t have good enough stuff to stay on the outer half all day, especially with a team like this.”

Clearly, A-Rod wasn’t buying that. As he was removing his elbow guard he shouted at Arroyo and used a few colorful words. That’s when Varitek stepped in so A-Rod directed his anger toward the catcher and then it was on. They squared off, both benches and bullpens emptied, and the Fenway crowd went berserk.

The Yankees starting pitcher, Tanyon Sturtze, actually got the worst of it. He went after Gabe Kapler and when they went to the ground, Kapler connected with a punch that bloodied Sturtze’s ear, yet for some reason, Sturtze was allowed to continue in the game.

When tempers finally cooled, A-Rod and Varitek were ejected, joined by two players who weren’t even in the game, Kapler and New York’s Kenny Lofton.

“Obviously, anybody who gets hit isn’t too happy,” said Varitek. “I told him in choice words to go to first base. Then things got out of hand. You lose your emotions sometimes. He lost his emotions, I lost mine. It’s not a good thing for our sport. You work on yourself for those things not to happen, but sometimes it happens.”

“It’s not your generic fight - New York against Kansas City or New York against Minnesota,’’ Rodriguez said. “You could tell there was a residual passion from the past that I haven’t been a part of. But I’m obviously in the mix right now. I think it’s going to take this rivalry to a new level. The intensity is something I’ve never really seen before.”

Now, there was the matter of the final six-plus innings to play, and it turned out that the fight was nothing more an appetizer.

The Red Sox got within 3-2 in the bottom of the third, ending Sturtze’s day, and they took a 4-3 lead in the fourth on Garciaparra’s two-run single. They eventually loaded the bases with no outs against Juan Padilla, but he got a double play grounder and a lineout to prevent further damage.

Then the Yankees went to work, sending 12 men to the plate and scoring six times in the sixth to open a 9-4 lead. Three straight hits, the third a two-run double by Hideki Matsui, put them back in front. Arroyo gave up another run on two more hits before Francona pulled him, and Curt Leskanic put forth a disastrous four-batter appearance - three walks and a two-run single to Enrique Wilson - which resulted in the final three runs scoring.

Undaunted, the Red Sox responded by sending 10 men to the plate and scoring four runs in their half. By the time the fourth Yankee pitcher of the inning, Scott Proctor, retired Garciaparra, the sixth inning had taken 67 minutes to play. Boston’s surge included four hits, three walks and a sacrifice fly off Padilla, Paul Quantrill and Felix Heredia and left the score 9-8.

Ruben Sierra led off the seventh with a solo homer, and when the Red Sox made three consecutive errors to load the bases it looked like another big rally was on tap. Instead, Alan Embree retired the next three Yankees without allowing anyone to score, and that proved pivotal at the end.

Proctor and Boston’s Ramiro Mendoza kept the score at 10-8 entering the bottom of the ninth, and on came the great Rivera to do what he almost always did. This season alone he was 35 of 36 in save opportunities including a streak of 23 in a row, but the greatest closer in MLB history just didn’t have it.

Garciaparra led off with a double, took third on a fly out and scored on Kevin Millar’s single. Rivera then fell behind 3-1 on Mueller and served up a pitch that Mueller ripped over the fence in right to end the game.

“It was location and falling behind,” Rivera said. “We had a chance to win the game and it didn’t happen. I blew the game.”

After the Red Sox celebrated wildly on the field, it continued in the clubhouse where Ramirez said, “That was the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of.”

The thing is, this had become commonplace with these two teams. Just one melodrama after another, elevating the rivalry to a place it had never been before.

“It was a classic,” Epstein said. “It had more intensity than most postseason games. This win and the way it happened should prove to be very important to us. It’s hard to have a more meaningful regular-season victory. We’ve been kind of waiting to have this feeling all year.”

There was more good feelings in the finale Sunday, too. Before the game, Francona had said of Saturday’s momentous win, “Hopefully it will carry over, not just to tonight but for the rest of the season.”

It did. The Red Sox fell behind 2-0 in the first before tearing into Jose Contreras for eight runs inside six innings - yeah, they were surely glad the Cuban defector had thumbed his nose at them - and went on to a 9-6 victory to win the series.

“He wasn’t good,” Torre said of Contreras, who would pitch only one more game in his tremendously disappointing tenure with the Yankees. The same day of the Garciaparra trade on July 31, Contreras was sent to the White Sox in exchange for pitcher Esteban Loaiza.

When it was over, the Red Sox were still 7.5 games in arrears, but they had clearly revitalized their psyche for the homestretch.

“We got the feeling back (Saturday) night,” Millar said. “We had to get that swagger back that we had last year.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY: By winning 10 consecutive series, the Red Sox, seemingly dead in the AL East race a month earlier, were hot on the Yankees heels when they arrived in the Bronx for a huge three-game set in mid-September.