THE Rivalry, chapter infinity: 'There's a buzz here'

BOSTON

The Red Sox have won four World Series titles since Bucky Dent’s 1978 pop-fly home run over the Green Monster prolonged The Curse of the Bambino.

The Yankees, spurred by Dent in that win-or-go-home Fenway Park matinee, went on to take the Fall Classic that October, and five more, from the late 1990s dynasty through 2009.

All of those rings have had a way of taming the ferocity in this rivalry (to some degree), so comparing that Game 163 to a wild-card playoff game, such as Tuesday night’s on Jersey Street, is not quite fair.

It is remarkable, however, that more than four decades have passed since the Red Sox and Yankees have squared off in the sort of single-game, winner-take-all situation that used to be extremely rare before the introduction of the wild card for the 1995 season.

And the closest thing the Yankees have to a modern Dent still wears the uniform. Aaron Boone’s walk-off moonshot against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield to end Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS can be considered a relatively fresh chapter in a baseball border war that’s stretched for more than a century.

Boone’s rainbow deep into the Bronx night in the 11th inning earned him the same middle-name F-bomb as Dent previously carved in the psyche of New Englanders, but that once-bitter population has been spoiled by success unimaginable to earlier generations. Even so, just the sight of those Yankees road grays — unaltered since ’78 — is enough to enrage the Fenway mob.

"There’s a buzz here," Boone said before Monday’s on-field workout was washed away. "It matters here. It’s tough to compete in games here."

Yet the Yankees pulled off a three-game sweep at Fenway a little more than a week ago, throwing the wild-card race into a chaotic state that wasn’t resolved until Sunday’s final outs.

The 1978 Yankees fought back from a 14-game deficit on July 19 to pass the Red Sox down the stretch before the Sox overtook them on the final day. In some ways, there were echoes of 1978 throughout this season.

The difference now is that it was all for wild-card positioning, not the division’s lone playoff berth. But when these two ancient rivals throw down Tuesday night — for the right to play the Rays in the Division Series — the desperation should reside in the Yankees’ dugout.

The Yankees were the chalk pick to win the AL pennant before this season began, but it took every dime of their $203 million payroll to scrape together the 92 wins that punched this wild-card ticket to Fenway. They’re also in an 11-year title drought — it’s been a mere two seasons for the Red Sox — with Boone down to the final weeks (days) of his contract.

The problem for the Red Sox is that they created expectations over time that didn’t exist before Opening Day, then tumbled like a Jenga tower during the final week of the regular season with an AWOL lineup and shoddy play overall.

Boston doesn’t get off on curses anymore. Big Papi took care of that. The bar has been higher for a while now. And the Yankees extending their Fenway winning streak to send the Sox home for the winter would be an annoying flashback from a sadder existence.

"We are who we are, we know that, but we didn’t run into [92] wins just being lucky," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. "We have a good baseball team. We have to keep working and it doesn’t change . . . At the end, we are not going to change who we are in one night, but one thing we can do is win a game just like we did 91 times in 162 games — sorry, 92."

The Red Sox rallied from a 5-1 deficit Sunday to beat the Nationals in the ninth, avoid playing Toronto in a tiebreaker and host the wild-card game, so you’d think Cora would have a better recall of his club’s win total. But none of that matters anymore.

Plus, the pressure this time now is resting on the Yankees, who will be sending out $324 million ace Gerrit Cole to keep a glimmer of hope alive for a World Series they were supposed to get to in the first place. After they alternated between seasick and giddy during a turbulent six months, Tuesday’s game could package all of those emotions into nine innings (or more), with one swing potentially deciding it.

"You grind through the ups and downs of the season and you keep pushing yourself, telling yourself that the opportunity to play here is the carrot at the end of the road," Cole said. "So when you’re here, it’s a validation of all the stuff that you’ve put in."

And a chance to imprint your name in this rivalry’s history, too.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.