The last great American rivalry

It will happen because the Henry group, led by fiery Larry Lucchino, has shown an inspired understanding of what the George Steinbrenner-era Yankees are all about. Lucchino came right out and called the Yankees the Evil Empire, and people around the country know what he means. The Yankees are not just a rich organization with the delusion of the rich that the things they buy are all about character. The Yankees are an organization very comfortable using any and every advantage to rub out real competition. One of these advantages is influence over how events on and off the field are presented in the national media.

Flash back to that crazy Game Three at Fenway Park. Pedro Martinez had lost it out there on the mound and thrown at Karim Garcia's head in a situation that made it way too obvious just what he was doing and why. Don Zimmer had lost it and gone after Martinez, throwing a wide, wobbly left hook before Martinez stiff-armed him and sent him toppling like a pillow in a pillow fight, as Harvey Araton memorably put it in the Times. A group of Yankees probably including Jeff Nelson and Garcia had lost it, and beat up an overzealous member of the Boston grounds crew. A Yankee executive named Randy Levine had lost it, and made the mistake of venting his frustration to reporters without first checking his facts.

"There's an attitude of lawlessness that's permeating everything and it needs to be corrected," Levine said. "The events of the entire day were disgraceful and shameful and if it happened at our ballpark, we would apologize and that's what the Red Sox should do here."

This was pure gamesmanship. The Yankees had taken a lead in the series, and they wanted a lead in public opinion, too. They saw a way to deflect some of the attention and sympathy the Red Sox get as the lovable losers everyone wants to see knock off the big, bad Yankees. They knew it would be to their benefit to position themselves as victims. They fully expected the national press to bury the Red Sox, and in the avalanche of negative stories, Red Sox players would have even more trouble shaking off a difficult loss and making a series out of it. The Yankees have won so often before, they use inevitability as a weapon.

That was where Henry, Lucchino and Werner rolled the dice. Baseball's commissioner, Bud Selig, had issued a gag order directing teams not to comment on the mess that Game Three became. Henry, Lucchino and Werner ignored him. They took the podium for a press conference and fired right back at Levine's charges. Henry, a man with a dry sense of humor, good-naturedly mocked the Yankees. "I spoke with Randy yesterday," he said. "I didn't feel it was necessary for him to apologize for his remarks or for the attack. ... I essentially asked him to retract his statements -- statements that I thought were irresponsible and probably made in the heat of the moment -- and he declined to do so."

Most papers played the owners' press conference as a fiasco. The general sentiment was: How dare they? But the calculated bold move was one of the most important developments in the series. People are supposed to be afraid of George Steinbrenner, and many are. Many let themselves be influenced and intimidated by his whims in ways they barely notice. But John Henry showed he had no fear. He served notice that under his leadership, the Red Sox are proud and fierce and, most important of all, undaunted. Teams have ups and downs, and the skeptics might have been right when they said it would take the organization years to dig out from the psychic wreckage of the great disappointment of 2003.

But John Henry and Larry Lucchino didn't see it that way, and they just might have been in a position to know. They went out in the offseason and upgraded their team by adding bulldog starter Curt Schilling and closer Keith Foulke, and when they fell short in their bid to acquire Alex Rodriguez, George Steinbrenner took great glee in rubbing it in later, once Aaron Boone's pickup basketball injury prompted the Yankees to swoop in and add Rodriguez as their new third baseman. Henry had once been a part-owner of the Yankees and a friend of Steinbrenner's. Henry was known for being low key and mild-mannered. But he released a statement reading in part, "Baseball doesn't have an answer for the Yankees. ... Although I have never previously been an advocate of a salary cap in baseball out of respect for the players, there is really no other fair way to deal with a team that has gone insanely far beyond the resources of all other teams."

This from a billionaire owner of a team with baseball's second-highest payroll behind the Yankees. Steinbrenner fired back immediately and unforgettably.

"We understand that John Henry must be embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed by his failure in this transaction," Steinbrenner said. "Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra distance for his fans in Boston. It is understandable, but wrong that he would try to deflect the accountability for his mistakes on to others and to a system for which he voted in favor. It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes."

This was, in effect, a knee to the groin. Talk about a tabloid headline waiting to happen! But if anything, the exchange confirmed that the Red Sox were setting the tone. They were turning this into a street brawl against the best street brawler around. They were trying to out-Yankee the Yankees, even if it meant turning off a lot of people in baseball, who could stomach one Steinbrenner but not these new Steinbrenneresque upstarts in Boston thumbing their noses at everyone else. The strategy might have struck some as foolhardy, but it reaped instant benefits: Interest has never been higher in the rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees.

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