E-Mail This Article to a Friend I’ve already seen enough of those Yankees BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Nearly six months went by between the time the Red Sox dispatched the Yankees in last year’s ALCS and the Bronx Bombers’ Opening Day. Six months is a long time, but once the two teams laced ’em up a week ago Sunday to open the MLB season, it seemed entirely familiar. Didn’t we just see these guys? It hasn’t been six months; maybe six weeks, or even six days, but certainly not six months. After all, these two long-time rivals have become so recognizable to each other — especially after having played 52 times over the course of the previous two seasons — and their regulars have changed so little since 2003, that it pretty much seemed as if they were picking up just where they left off.

I’m certainly not the only one to feel that way; one of the wise-guy New York tabloids blared YANKEES TIE ALCS AT FOUR on its sports pages once the Randy Johnson–led Pinstripers wiped out the defending champs at Yankee Stadium opening night. A bit of a stretch, but it did indeed seem as if the two franchises had resumed hostilities from the exact point when Alan Embree closed out the Yankees in game seven last October.

That’s why it seemed almost refreshing for Red Sox fans to watch their heroes take on the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre over the weekend. The stage wasn’t the well-known surroundings of Yankee Stadium, the opposing players had names on the backs of their non-pinstriped uniforms, and heck, maybe you hadn’t even heard of a few of them. Sure, the Sox lost two of three north of the border, but at least they didn’t lose to those damned you-know-whos again, and that was almost enough to make the defeats bearable — if not acceptable.

But here are the New Yorkers again, popping up on Boston’s schedule for another go-round. If six months weren’t enough to make us forget the likes of the household names of the New York roster, what will it be like just five days later?

Frankly, I’m sick of ’em already (as Yankees fans are of the Bostonians, most likely), and while I certainly don’t believe that the Yankees are my or anyone’s daddy right now, I agree in principle with Pedro Martinez’s comment from last September: "I hope they disappear and never come back.... I would rather like to face any other team right now."

Why is it quite this way? I mean, the Sox also play the Orioles, Jays, and Devil Rays 19 times each season, and nobody’s getting tired of their recurring presence. The answer, of course, lies in the undue importance placed on each Red Sox–Yankees encounter. When you factor in the dramatics and the history pervading most of the recent match-ups, it is easy to see why we feel like we know them all too well.

We’re well familiar with Derek Jeter, who is as heroic and gutsy as they come, yet tends to annoy with his Rickey Henderson–like style of ducking down at each pitch to make it appear as if the ball is coming in high. As much as most Red Sox fans despise Jeter, it is safe to say from an unbiased perspective that there are few other big-game players in baseball, and his smarts and hustle are unmatched. He remains free from controversy and is a demigod on the team; if the Yanks captain had come up through Boston’s system, he would be a player worthy of daily veneration. Still, he’s so damn solid and such a regular Sox-killer that he is generally viewed as an infuriating pain in the ass — unfair as that may be in the big picture.

Of course, Jeter is light-years ahead of his left-side-of-the-infield partner, Alex Rodriguez, in the hearts of Red Sox fans. A-Rod was never really hated here until he was traded to the Yankees on Valentine’s Day 2004. In fact, he wasn’t really deserving of loathing up to that point, other than he was a bit of a "pretty boy" who negotiated the most ridiculous contract (10 years, $250 million) in the history of baseball when he signed with Texas. I never understood why Sox fans turned on A-Rod simply because his proposed trade to Boston didn’t work out; after all, it wasn’t his fault that the Players’ Union chief wouldn’t endorse it. That all changed, of course, last July, when Rodriguez’s indignation at getting hit by a pitch launched the (most recent) on-field brawl between the two teams. The brouhaha clinched Jason Varitek’s esteemed place in Red Sox lore, and in some opinions spurred the heretofore-slumbering Sox on to post-season glory. That glory for Boston, and infamy for A-Rod, weren’t clinched until ALCS game six, when Rodriguez slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove on the way to first base in a critical moment of the contest. That childish prank moved A-Rod irreversibly to the head of the class as most-despised Yankee, and he supplanted Jason Giambi in that coveted spot.

Giambi, by all accounts, is a tremendous guy, worthy of respect and accolades. Trouble is, he has been branded a cheater, and allegedly admitted as much to a grand-jury panel investigating the proliferation of steroids in baseball. Boston fans already harbored a bit of animosity toward the Yankees first baseman when he, like many others in the sports history, left a fledgling team in Oakland to pursue the mega-bucks in the Bronx. But he was never really became "one of them" until his two homers — now apparently exposed as steroid-fueled — in the deciding game of the 2003 ALCS kept the Pinstripers in the game (until the Pedro meltdown and the Boone blast gave the Yanks the pennant).

Then there’s Jorge Posada. Nothing really to dislike about him, except that he’s been a Yankee for life and hit the Texas Leaguer off Pedro that tied that memorable ALCS clincher at 5-5. Still, Boston fans have grown very accustomed to his face (and ears) over the years, and are getting a little sick of him contributing big hits at inopportune times for the local nine.

Bernie Williams? He’s another classy individual on and off the field, but he’s also another one of those guys who was a member of the four championship teams that dominated MLB in the late ’90s. Therefore, he’s portrayed as a bit of a villain — especially after nearly signing with Boston in 1999 before the Yanks considerably upped the ante. There’s really not much to dislike about the fledgling musician, but Sox fans do get a bit irritated when they keep seeing Williams step out of the batter’s box on a regular basis — which always irritated Pedro during their past match-ups.

Mariano Rivera is certainly not a contemptible figure, but we have seen quite enough of him over the years to know that his entrance late in the game —until fairly recently, that is — usually meant that Yankees radio voice John Sterling was limbering up for his signature call: "Yankees win! Th-aaaaaaaaaaaa Yank-ees win!"

The Yankees have also added a number of other players who have been oh-so-easy to dislike immediately. Mike Mussina, the mercenary from Baltimore (does that guy ever smile?), who almost threw two perfect games against Boston; Randy Johnson, who reportedly spurned a trade to Boston last year and has become estranged from Sox hero (and former World Series co-MVP) Curt Schilling; Gary Sheffield, who is the scariest Yankee at the plate since the ever-imposing Dave Winfield struck fear into the hearts of Sox hurlers (but also known as a much-traveled malcontent and an alleged steroid user); and Tanyon Sturtze, the Worcester product who grew up a Sox fan but did much to escalate the Fenway Park brawl last summer.

And don’t even get me started on the hardly-aging-gracefully George Steinbrenner and his antics from the owner’s box.

The history is there, and not all of it harks back to the halcyon days of the Sox’ comeback in last fall’s ALCS. Some of it is downright ugly and a reminder of more painful times, and that is why the specter of the Yankees in the opposite dugout brings indisputable fear and loathing to Red Sox Nation.

After this week’s memorable three-gamer, the teams won’t meet again until Memorial Day weekend. Six weeks will have passed since the teams’ prior head-to-head, but it’ll just be another opportunity to get reacquainted again — for better or worse.

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