We are coming up on the 19th anniversary of one of the most ignominious defeats in Red Sox history. No, it wasn’t quite as embarrassing as the June 19, 2000, home loss to the pinstripers when the Sox were buried 22-1, but at least that game recap was buried in the middle pages of Tuesday-morning sports pages around the country. Not so when folks opened their papers on the first morning back at work after the three-day Independence Day weekend of 1983. There it was, bold as life, above the crease, lead story of every sports page nationwide, and on that day, page one of the New York Times: YANKS’ RIGHETTI NO-HITS RED SOX.

The memories of that fateful day were resurrected last September when the Sox, in the early stages of their late-season train wreck and fall from grace, were nearly the victims of a Mike Mussina perfect game before Carl Everett rescued the locals with a ninth-inning, two-out, two-strike single to center.

But in 1983, on July Fourth, it was different, because it was two teams whose fans and players definitely despised each other, and it was different because I was there.

I had grown up in upstate New York as a Mets fan (everyone up there follows either the Mets or Yanks), and also, needless to say, a Yankees-hater. During that time I had also developed an affinity for the Red Sox, and it was a perfectly harmless dichotomy of allegiances because the Sox and Mets never played each other. That is, they would never play each other until 1986, but that, my friends, is another story for another day.

I road-tripped down to the Bronx that day with a few other friends who were actual Yankee fans. It was my first chance to see the Sox in person. I even wore my Red Sox hat into the right-field bleachers, which would be an unthinkable act in Yankee Stadium today. It was a holiday day game, and there were all kinds of promotions designed to lure the faithful. The jazz fluegelhornist Chuck Mangione, then at the peak of his popularity, played the national anthem, paratroopers parachuted onto the field, and folks in the stands could randomly win cash, cars, and even golf carts if they happened to be sitting in the right seat. It was also Hat Day, although then, as now, it would have been blasphemous for a Sox supporter even to think of donning the enemy’s headgear.

It was the finale of a four-game series in which the Yanks had won the opener 12-8, but the Sox had pounded the home team the next two afternoons 10-4 and 7-3. Monday, July Fourth dawned as the quintessential summer day, and we hopped into the car early that morning with high hopes and liquid refreshments for the four-hour trip into the heart of darkness.

The Sox, despite the fact that they would finish 78-84 that season — 20 games behind the eventual World Series champion Baltimore Orioles — still had a very potent line-up that included sluggers Jim Rice, Tony Armas, and Dwight Evans, along with Wade Boggs, who was hitting over .360 en route to his first batting title. In addition, Jerry Remy, now the team’s color man in the broadcasting booth, was in his next-to-last season as the Sox’ second baseman, and solid defensive specialists Dave Stapleton and Glenn Hoffman joined him in the infield.

These were the days when the Yankees were sliding into the doldrums again after their glory days of the late ’70s and early ’80s, and they were guided by on-again, off-again manager Billy Martin, who was in his third go-round as the Yanks’ skipper. The pinstripers were also reasonably solid, boasting Don Mattingly, Dave Winfield, Don Baylor, and an aging Lou Piniella in their line-up, along with retreads like Butch Wynegar, Roy Smalley, and even 41-year-old Bert Campaneris, who was in the midst of his 19th and final season in the majors (and who had already played in a record 10 previous no-hitters).

The 24-year-old Righetti was in just his third full season in the majors, sharing the rotation with Louisiana Lightning Ron Guidry and the forgettable Shane Rawley, Bob Shirley, and Ray Fontenot. The superlative Rich "Goose" Gossage was at the ready in the bullpen during his final full stint with the Yanks, but he would not be needed on this day.

A crowd of 41,077 was on hand that Monday, and though that is low by today’s Yankee Stadium–attendance standards, it was a good crowd for those days, and it was a raucous and sun-drenched one. It was only my fifth major-league-baseball game, but I had already seen a no-hitter — at my first-ever professional game, back in September of 1969. On that day, a journeyman hurler for Pittsburgh named Bob Moose had no-hit my beloved Mets at Shea Stadium, just one month before the Amazins’ would shock the world and win the World Series in five over Baltimore. But here I was, back in the Apple for another taste of pro baseball, and by the fifth inning, the buzz was starting to circulate among the crowd that something special was going on.

Righetti actually had a perfect game for the first three innings, as I recall, before Rice became the first Boston base runner after working out a walk in the fourth. After three days of Sox batters inflicting serious damage on the Yanks — to the tune of 25 runs — it seemed inconceivable that this line-up would be silenced on this day. But it was happening. And when the Bombers pushed across single runs in the bottom of the fifth and sixth off Sox’ lefty John Tudor, it became apparent that this game would not resemble the previous three. By the sixth inning, fans would start the rhythmic cheering whenever Righetti reached a two-strike count, and by the eighth, the assembled masses would start the beat when Rags got even a single strike on a Sox batter.

Die-hard Sox fans will testify that it is absolutely sacrilege ever to root for the Yankees unless it can benefit the Sox in the standings in some roundabout way. I believe this to be true even today, and you wouldn’t have found me early on standing and clapping for Righetti’s unfolding gem, particularly since a 2-0 New York lead could hardly be considered safe when the Sox’ line-up seemed ready to break out at any instant. But it just didn’t work that way that day. Batter after batter for Boston flailed away at the left-hander’s offerings, and by the ninth inning, the idea of seeing my second no-hitter was too appealing to dismiss. After all, how many people can say they’ve seen even one, and before Derek Lowe’s no-hitter in May, there had not been one thrown by a Sox pitcher at Fenway since 1965.

On Independence Day 1983, I definitely was torn. Yes, he was one of Steinbrenner’s boys, but Righetti was different. He did not strut with the arrogance of most of the Yankees of that era, and he had even signed my program many years before during my only other visit to Yankee Stadium. He had come out before the game and joked with fans along the first-base line, all the while signing whatever was thrust his way for a good 20 minutes. He had seemed just a regular guy — a veritable good guy, despite being a Yankee — and as I watched him take the mound for the ninth inning that afternoon, it was difficult not to root for him. (Who knows, I may not have survived that afternoon in the bleachers if I didn’t.) After all, the game was now 4-0 in favor of the home team, the fans were screaming at every pitch, and history was on the verge of being made. I stood, I cheered, and yes, I rooted for Dave Righetti to no-hit the team I adored and had driven 240 miles to see that day.

If someone got a hit, all bets were certainly off. I would go back to yelling for the Sox to win the game, and Righetti and the Yanks to lose it.

But as fate would have it, he got the first two batters of the inning easily, and up came Boggs with the chance to break up the no-hitter. Those who remember the Chicken Man during his tenure here recall that he very rarely struck out, and could foul off everything in sight to keep an at-bat alive until he got a pitch he liked. I actually felt a little sad for Righetti at that point in the game, because I was certain that Boggs would ruin his day on the brink of pitching immortality.

But I will never forget the moment when Boggs swung and missed at a slider low and inside for the third and final out of the first no-hitter thrown by a Yankee since Don Larsen’s World Series perfecto in 1956.

And there I was, standing and cheering and clapping, amazed by the knowledge that just two no-hitters had been thrown in metropolitan New York in the past 27 years — over a total of approximately 3800 games — and I had seen them both. Driving from four hours away both times, seeing the team I supported that day go down to quiet defeat. What were the odds?

No, I will never forget that one day that I rooted for the Yankees, but to be part of history like that, especially when baseball is your favorite sport, well, I hope to be forgiven for my blatant transgression that day.

For me, no July Fourth has come close to matching that one. Although I almost saw a third such game back in the late ’80s when Roger Clemens took a no-no into the eighth, my last 200 games at Fenway cannot possibly match up to those first five that took place in Queens and the Bronx so many years ago.

Nobody in Boston likes to see the hometown team lose to the Yankees even in a Grapefruit League tilt, but for a kid born in Cooperstown to see two no-hitters in his first five games — I think I’ll take that in any way, shape, or form. Even if it did mean rooting for the New York Yankees for one inning 19 years ago.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com.