Yankees vs Red Sox: Karma Cousins

It is only the first week of June, but…..if the MLB season ended today, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees would both br in the postseason. They have been neck and neck all season, and although Boston currently has more wins, the Yankees have games in hand and a slightly better winning percentage. No surprise that these two arch rivals are in the thick of things and are as good as any squad in baseball. But what is rather surprising or disappointing, depending on your point of view, is that we will not likely see the two squads square off against each other in the ALCS.

If the play in the rest of the American League continues on it’s current vector, the AL East will supply the postseason with the top seed and one wild card. New York and Boston, in some yet to be determined manner, will fill those two slots. And, if the East Wild Card prevails in the play-in game, they will face the top seed, their season long East rival. So the most dramatic and anticipated match-up of the postseason, short of the World Series, is unlikely to play out this season.

This is not an unheard of scenario. But an unfortunate one for baseball fans. Especially Yankee baseball fans, who despite their storied history and virtually untouchable number of championships, still have a burr under their saddle. It was placed there by the Red Sox in 2004, the last time the New York and Boston met in the ALCS. Having lost to New York in the ALCS in 1998 and 2003, the tide turned dramatically.

Down three games to none, Boston rallied against Mariano Rivera to win game four, and trigger an unprecedented Boston comeback. History reveals that the Ref Sox rode their momentum of that 4-3 ALCS series win against the Yankees to win their first World Series in eighty-six years. Or, since the Sox had traded Babe Ruth to the Bronx Bombers.

Yankee fans tend to view any win over the Red Sox as not mere revenge, but as a reckoning. Unfortunately for the Yankees fans, they will probably have to satisfy their desire to re-establish cosmic balance by eliminating Boston in the ALDS this postseason. But as the Zen Master says, “We’ll see”.