The Red Sox got their 2004 World Championship rings with the Yankees watching, then beat the Yanks in their home opener, on a day when both fans and players showed a lot of class:
"You're probably a little jealous," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. "But they deserved it. You have respect for what they accomplished, and you know how difficult it is to do."
So on a crisp afternoon when they could have been in their clubhouse, the Yankees found no shame in witnessing the celebration of a rival. As the Red Sox gave out 45 World Series rings before their Fenway Park opener on Monday, the Yankees watched from the third-base dugout, even clapping now and then.
It was a tasteful gesture, the Red Sox thought, and the Yankees continued to oblige. They did nothing to spoil the party, which continued to the end of an 8-1 Red Sox victory. For 33,702 fans and a throng of Red Sox alumni, the first look at a championship home team turned out perfectly.
Mariano Rivera has become a fan favorite in Boston, and he played along with good humor.
Joe Torre also got a big ovation. The radio folks mentioned that when he returned from prostate cancer surgery, Tore's first game back was in Boston and he got a huge ovation then as well. This little vignette is a tiny part of the explanation for his popularity:
The exasperation at his team's collapse against the Boston Red Sox in a stunning blitz of four straight losses last October had sunk in for Joe Torre. He knew there were no more games for his Yankees, no more decisions for him and an eternity to dissect the most monumental choke in baseball history.
Torre was alone with his disappointment, staring at the black telephone on his desk. He could have called his wife for comfort or he could have called George Steinbrenner, the principal owner, for discomfort. He lifted the receiver and, surprise, called Boston pitcher Tim Wakefield instead.
"I just told him I wasn't happy," Torre said, "but I was happy for him."
In dialing the four-digit extension to the visiting clubhouse, Torre wanted to acknowledge the pitcher who had left Yankee Stadium as a loser in the previous American League Championship Series.
After Wakefield gave up Aaron Boone's homer in the unforgettable seventh game in 2003, he worried that he might become another Bill Buckner. But Wakefield helped the Red Sox stifle the Yankees in the A.L.C.S. and end an 86-year-old famine by winning the World Series last year.
"He walked off the mound after giving up Boone's homer, and it must have been a long year for him," Torre said. "He had done nothing but get us out in that series, and, all of a sudden, he's got to walk off to that."
...Wakefield was in the middle of a long overdue party in the Bronx shortly after last fall's comeback when a clubhouse attendant told him he had a call. It was Torre, Wakefield was told, and it quickly became apparent that it was not a prank.
"Words can't describe how I felt," Wakefield said. "To have one of the most respected managers in the game call me after they've lost, I can't tell you how that felt. It was phenomenal."
Enough, already. Play ball.
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