But it was not only Rivera's rude treatment in Yankee Stadium that signaled there's a difference now. So, too, did the "accidental'' beaning of Jeter twice in as many days. All sides agreed it wasn't intentional when first Matt Clement and then Mike Timlin drilled Jeter but how many more Yankee batters are going to get drilled by Sox pitchers before Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz or Jason Varitek eats a high hard one from Randy Johnson?

How long? Not long.

That's the kind of pressure that now exists in every single meeting between these two. The Sox's two straight losses to open the season in New York probably didn't have anything to do with Francona's chest pains, which sent him from Yankee Stadium to the hospital Wednesday morning, but more than a few folks will believe they did because that's what this rivalry has developed into.

It's a pain ... but a glorious one.

Every game is invested with meaning well beyond what's rational. When the Yankees journey to Fenway Park on Monday for the season's first game in Boston they will have to either wait in their clubhouse or stew in the dugout as the Sox players receive their World Series rings before the first pitch.

A ring ceremony before a game?

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That's not normal but then again that's not an accident, either.

Not much of anything is an accident any more between the Sox and the Yankees and even if it is the fans don't believe it was and so the intensity grows to the point that earlier this week ESPN baseball commentator Peter Gammons, who used to work in Boston, was asked by a local radio station a question that could only be asked in one of these two cities.

It wouldn't have been asked in San Francisco about the Dodgers or in L.A. about the Giants. It wouldn't be asked in St. Louis about the Cubs or in Chicago about the Cardinals. It wouldn't be asked anywhere but in Boston and New York.

"So, Peter,'' the Boston talk show host asked. "When do you think the fight will be?''

The fight?

"I'd say, well, July 26,'' Gammons deadpanned. But then he gave credence even to that end of the rivalry, which has spawned some of baseball's greatest spats, like the one last season when Varitek popped Rodriguez in the face with his catcher's mitt after A-rod lipped off to him after being hit by a pitch.

"When will the fight be?''

That's what it's become between the Yankees and the Red Sox.

A fight.

And baseball is better off for it.

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