The Old Rivlary

Shank covers a spring training game between the Red Sox and Yankees:

The names have changed, but Red Sox and Yankees always carries weight

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Yankees-Red Sox.

Ruth. Gehrig. DiMaggio. Mantle. Jeter. Judge. Williams. Yastrzemski. Rice. Pedro. Manny. Mookie.

What tradition. What folklore. What a galaxy of stars and stories. Fisk vs. Munson. Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. The greatest rivalry in sports.

And we had none of that at JetBlue Park on a postcard-perfect Sunday afternoon.

We had Allen. Koss. Bauers. Chaparro. Gomez. Costanza. (OK, I made that last one up.)

Quick quiz: Tell me which of those names above are Yankees and which play for the Red Sox?

Nobody knows. But that’s OK. This is spring training. The Sox have 10 players at the World Baseball Classic and sent a whole team to Sarasota for a split squad game Sunday against the Orioles. When you combine that with the cost-cutting exodus of homegrown talent — where have you gone, Xander Bogaerts? Sox Nation turns its lonely eyes to you — you’re not going to have a lot of star power for a mid-March exhibition against a Yankees team that didn’t want to put Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo, and Gerrit Cole on a 130-minute bus ride from Tampa.

So much for all that weight, with half of both squads missing from the game...