ARE THE Boston Red Sox the new New York Yankees? No. Once the Red Sox had finally defeated the Evil Empire of the Bronx, that was the question Sox fans pretended to worry about: With two world championships in the past five years, was their once-suffering team suddenly a little too wealthy, too talented, and too successful? Were they turning into an arrogant mirror image of their old pinstriped archenemies?
That’s exactly the thing you people would worry about - your precious team’s precious soul. Don’t worry. The Red Sox aren’t the Yankees. The role of the Yankees is still being played by the Yankees, 6 ½ games ahead of the Red Sox, as I write this, and breezing.
But those of us outside the Red Sox-Yankees axis have come to despise your team, too. The Yankees are still the worst, and always will be. But as a Baltimore Orioles fan who once regarded the Red Sox as a likeable (unless Roger Clemens was pitching) divisional neighbor and the enemy of the enemy, I have come to see the Sox as only slightly less oppressive. Where there was Uncle Joe Torre, now there’s Marshal Tito Francona.
What the Red Sox most resemble, here in 2009, is some unholy amalgamation of the postwar Brooklyn Dodgers and the Grateful Dead. The Dodgers have been mythologized by fans like Doris Kearns Goodwin - not by chance, a vocal member of Red Sox Nation - as lovable underdogs, but in their day they were neither underdogs nor lovable. They were simply the second-biggest bullies in baseball, a rich and successful franchise that could be counted on to beat up the rest of the National League and to get beaten up on by the Yankees.
Red Sox fans don’t even wait for the passage of time to worship the mysteries of their own team. The blue-shirted, pink-hatted crowds descend on other cities’ ballparks for a mass smug-in whenever the Sox are on the road.
When Yankees fans invade, it’s because they want to gloat, to taunt the home fans by pointing to their own Jeter jerseys after a big play. Red Sox fans seem not to notice that the other team’s fans are even there. Like Deadheads, they’re indifferent to what city they’ve trailed into, so long as they’re bathing in the presence of like-minded worshippers: Yoooook! Duuuuude!
This is where you say I’m bitter because the Orioles are 2-11 against the Red Sox so far this year. True. But I was at Camden Yards for one of the wins, when the Red Sox blew a nine-run lead, providing the high point of the O’s season. So it’s not all hard feelings.
If anything, I’m more concerned for the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays outscored their opponents last year, and they’ve outscored their opponents this year too, and they’ve been buried in fourth place. At the trading deadline, the Sox tried to pick up Toronto’s best player, pitcher Roy Halladay. When Toronto set the trade price too high - high enough to maybe get the franchise back into contention someday - the Sox settled for taking the Cleveland Indians’ all-star catcher, Victor Martinez, instead.
Plucking the best players from the rest of the league has long been the Yankees’ approach. After slipping to third place last year, they outbid the world for C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira - a number-one ace and a number-three hitter - and are on pace to win more than 100 games for the fourth time in this decade.
The Red Sox, with their state-of-the-art brain trust and perpetual-sellout revenues, are hoarding talent, too. But they haven’t won 100 games since 1946. And they’ve finished first only once since Clemens left. But they’ve finished second in nine of the last 11 seasons, and are on their way to making it 10 of 12.
Since baseball added the wild card, the Sox have been playing in their own world, where the only goal is to make the playoffs. Pennant races are for the little people, in their second-class divisions. The 18- or 19-game war of hype and attrition against the Yankees is just for show. The Sox will gladly be the footstool to the Yankees’ regular-season throne, as long as they both get to October. They’re in this together.
Tom Scocca is working on a new book, “Beijing Welcomes You.’’ 
