Davidoff: The Rivalry continues in familiar fashion

BOSTON

As Opening Night 2010 served all over the place last night, from Red Sox humiliation to Yankees humility and back, you hopped in your personal time machine to around 1996, when Joe Torre didn't yet know his way around Fenway Park.

"Leads here," Don Zimmer would warn his immediate boss, "can disappear very quickly."

And so we - and a national television audience - had ourselves yet another Rivalry barn-burner. An early sign that, as en vogue as it is now to complain about Yankees-Red Sox jumping the shark, there's far more milk coming from this cow.

As Boston manager Terry Francona said prior to the game, discussing his new players having to debut against the Yankees, "There's no easing into it."

Boston's Adrian Beltre, Mike Cameron and Marco Scutaro all helped the Sawx erase an early, four-run deficit against the Yankees, while on the Yankees' side, Curtis Granderson began life with his new team by crushing a homer to right-centerfield. Nick Johnson, returning to the Yankees after a six-year tour through Montreal, Washington and Florida, looked like the bastion of calm and patience the Yankees always envisioned.

Chan Ho Park? Not as auspicious a Yankees arrival, as he quickly gave back a two-run lead by serving up a two-run blast to Dustin Pedroia in the seventh.

In short, it was Yankees-Red Sox, like old times. The rivalry can devour you, or it can propel you to new heights.

The Rays, who open tomorrow at home against Baltimore, must have watched this game and thought, "We might be able to take these guys. But we'll be exhausted from the endeavor."

The Yankees' payroll is just about $200 million for this season, while the Red Sox's is in the $150 million range. No team spends more. And the real danger is, while both Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and his Boston counterpart Theo Epstein make their share of bad calls, the two men (and their respective cabinets) have displayed a consistently intelligent process behind their decisions.

That means that Tampa Bay, which operates with about $70 million, has to somehow find a way to be twice as crafty. Or, twice as lucky.

The Rivalry is great for baseball, and games here at Fenway feature the added elements of history and easy scoring. Major League Baseball loves it when the Yankees or Red sox make the World Series, for it means a huge spike in television ratings.

You may love the Yankees or Red Sox, or hate them. But you can't possibly be indifferent about both clubs.

The best solution, for the Rays and the rest of the American League, is to add a fifth playoff team to the mix. That way, everyone else won't have to pray that the Yankees and Red Sox suffer a massive injury epidemic. Or, like the Yankees in 2008 and Boston in 2006, that one of the club decides to put its feet up for the season and focus on big-picture development.

Some of these new guys for both teams won't work out. Yet enough will to ensure many more thrillers like last night's opener. And no matter how swimmingly one night - one season, for that matter - is going for one rival, it knows that the other club is almost never too far behind.