Where's The Hate?

Shank pines for those long lost bad vibes between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

NEW YORK — This one had its moments.

We saw three Red Sox homers. We saw Joe Kelly throw a 102.2-mile-per-hour pitch ^(*) to Bunyonesque Yankee rookie Aaron Judge. (The kid fouled it off!) We saw Craig Kimbrel strike out five Yankees over 1⅓ innings (yes, five Ks in 1⅓ innings) fanning mighty Judge for the final out to preserve a 5-4 win. This means the Sox have won 11 of 15 and can pull into a first-place tie with the Yankees on Wednesday night in the Bronx.

Perhaps you are having trouble getting into a lather about Judge, Aaron Hicks, or Didi Gregorius. Don’t be ashamed. It’s great to see the Yankees and Red Sox once again dueling in the Bronx while sitting 1-2 atop the American League East, but we’re never likely to match the hostility and abject hatred from the emotionally charged days of the 1970s or in the early part of this century.

It's a pretty decent column, considering he's written major parts of it about two or three dozen times already.

^(*) NOTE - On the NESN broadcast, the two radar guns at the stadium had that pitch at 103 and 104 MPH.