Your world is on hold. The Yankees and Red Sox are playing again for a spot in the World Series.
Starting tomorrow night at Yankee Stadium with Game 1 of the ALCS, the most intense rivalry in sports opens in front of a packed house.
The Yankees enter the series uncertain about Mariano Rivera, who flew to Panama yesterday after the accidental death of two relatives at his home. Team sources say he’ll return for the opener.
This is the second straight year the blood rivals meet in the ALCS, and much has transpired since the last one ended on Aaron Boone’s 11th-inning homer off Tim Wakefield in Game 7.
Grady Little, who won 188 games in two seasons, was replaced by Terry Francona. The Red Sox added pitchers Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke. Boone tore up a knee playing basketball. Alex Rodriguez would have been the Red Sox shortstop had they opted to pay another $12 million. So instead he became a Yankee to replace Boone.
The Yankees acquired Javier Vazquez and Kevin Brown and signed Gary Sheffield and Tom Gordon, and scalpers were out for the first spring-training clash in Ft. Myers, Fla.
The Red Sox won three of four in Fenway in April and swept three a week later in The Bronx.
Fueled by Derek Jeter’s running catch that carried him into the seats, the Yankees took three from the Sox at the Stadium across the last two days of June and the first day of July.
The dislike between the two clubs spilled over on July 24, when Rodriguez and Jason Varitek traded shoves to ignite a bench-clearing brawl that led to suspensions.
By the end of July, the Red Sox traded Nomar Garciaparra, the face of the team, to the Cubs and inserted Orlando Cabrera at short. A late-season surge by the Red Sox trimmed a 10 1/2-game Yankee bulge on Aug. 15 to a 2 1/2-game cushion on Sept. 3.
Pedro Martinez raised a white flag on Sept. 24 after the Yankees beat him, calling them “my daddies.”
The Red Sox swept the Angels in one ALDS, and the Yankees beat the Twins in four in the other.
So, we have Ultimate Baseball Armageddon.
“It’s going to be nuts,” predicted Joe Torre, whose AL East champions this season went 8-11 against the Red Sox, who are $165-145 money line favorites to reach the World Series for the first time since 1986.
“I anticipate it’s going to be the same kind of emotional roller coaster [as last October],” Torre added. “I guess it was supposed to come down to this.”
Thanks to Schilling and Foulke and a lineup that smothers opposing pitchers with many weapons, the Red Sox firmly believe this is the year they’ll win the World Series for the first time since 1918.
The Yankees? They always think they are going to win the World Series, something they haven’t done since 2000 despite attending in 2001 and 2003.
David Ortiz, the muscular Red Sox DH, says the winner of the ALCS should be declared the World Champion.
“This is the World Series,” Ortiz said.
“I knew we had to go through Boston to get to the World Series,” Sheffield said. “We will be ready.”
So will everybody else.
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Red Sox favored
The Red Sox are the choice to win the ALCS, according to the money line provided by the MGM Mirage sports book in Las Vegas.
Favorite — Money line — Underdog
Red Sox $165-145 Yankees
