Here’s a little lesson in demographics: the United States is a country of almost 300 million people. New York is a city of about 19 million, and the Boston metro area has about 6 million. That encompasses roughly 8 percent of the country’s population and leaves about 92 percent who can enjoy the minor victory of neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox being anywhere near the World Series.
Nothing is more overblown in American sports than the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. It may seem like everyone has some feeling in it, but that’s only because it’s been shoved down their throats so much they’ve come to equate Major League Baseball with these two teams. The baseball scene has devolved to the point that some sportswriters suggest it would be bad for the sport if the Yankees missed the playoffs. It seems everyone has lost sight of the most important thing: the vast majority of baseball fans are rooting for somebody else.
The Yankees are, no doubt, the most recognizable franchise in the league and possibly in all of American professional sports. Still, the league is not beholden to their success. To suggest that they are denies the fact that the die-hard fans in other cities have just as much of a right to live and die with their team in October. Could you honestly tell the fans of Cleveland that it’s “better for baseball” that their Indians missed the playoffs in the last week of the season? Besides, now that they’ve become a mercenary army of overpaid and overripe players stolen from more fiscally strapped teams, they’ve lost much of their cultural significance.
The Red Sox, on the other hand, had long played the role of the star-crossed force of good fighting the evil men in pinstripes. It was compelling to a point, despite the fact that other teams have been suffering just as long, and nine (nine!) teams have never won it all. Anything compelling about Boston’s situation was lost, however, when the Patriots and Red Sox won three consecutive championships combined. Now, their monstrous spending figures make them nothing more than the second-most evil franchise in the game.
The fact is, other rivalries in the game are just as compelling: Giants vs. Dodgers, White Sox vs. Cubs, and the Phillies vs. their fans, for example. To try and pigeonhole all of baseball into the rivalry between two of its teams is an affront to the loyal fans of 27 other American cities (and a lone Canadian one). Baseball thrived through times when these teams were mediocre in the past, and it will continue to do so in the future.
