All through the workup to the battle for the pennant held between the Sox and the Yanks this postseason, the sportscasters were playing it up as one of the greatest sports rivalries in the history of sports rivalries. And the competition is one that is, in many ways, taken far more seriously by some of the fans than the men out on the field playing the game. It achieves a certain level of viciousness - Yankees fans coming into Red Sox-based chat rooms and throwing insults around. (I don't know if the reverse is true; I don't read Yankees fan chat rooms.) Recriminations fly one way or another more often than intelligible debate on the merits of each team.
To a certain extent, there's going to be some level of brainless ranting when there are loyalties as strong as those inspired by the Red Sox and the Yankees. These are teams with a long-standing history, who have a history of rancor between them that predates the date of the supposed Curse - after all, the Yankees helped open Fenway Park, by losing in it, dramatically, in extra innings, in a game of the style familiar to Red Sox fans - a come-from-behind nailbiter clinched in extra innings.
That only got worse when a traitorous owner sold Babe Ruth and a lease on Fenway to the Yankees in order to finance his Broadway production - after the 1918 Red Sox won the World Series, no less. The Yankees started to steamroller over all comers then, a tradition they have maintained to this day, and the Red Sox have had an atrocious run of luck since then, known as The Curse. (For why I don't believe in the Curse, see another essay.)
Rooting for the Yankees is like kicking puppies. I mean, it's like cheering for the school bully. The Yankees are just like that. The odds are good, no matter what, that the Yankees will win. Everyone knows this. In part, that's why the Yankees have such rabidly loyal fans. (It's unfortunate that the fans seem to be as smugly superior as they tend to be - as one writer put it, it's not enough for them to win, they need to gloat over the fallen foe. It gives the team a reputation that it doesn't deserve.)
And yes, as a rabid fan of the Boston Red Sox, I can say that the Yankees don't deserve the miserable reputation that they have in this city. The New York Yankees play beautiful baseball together, and no afficionado of the sport can really deny that. This is why they win games. (Theories about supernatural pacts aside.) They are a powerful team, and have a tradition of being a powerful team which dates, yes, from the trade of the Bambino.
What we as fans of the Boston Red Sox need to remember is very simple. One can only be as good as one's dearest enemy. And looking at the Yankees, our dear, beloved and hated enemies, we remember - it's not anyone else that they set themselves against in story and song and the legends of baseball. The Yankees are paired with the Red Sox, and the Red Sox with the Yankees, at the pinnacle of what it is to be baseball and baseball legends. We cannot escape each other - but we do need to recognize that, in the other, there is a worthy opponent.
If they were not worthy opponents, it would not be the true epic that we're all waiting for when the Sox make it to the World Series and win it all, once again.