In their long and storied histories as iconic franchises in Major League Baseball, the Yankees and Red Sox have squared off against each other 2,215 times.
Only 21 of those games happened in the postseason. Hardly seems possible, right?
It’s true. The Yankees won the 1999 ALCS (4-1) and the 2003 ALCS (4-3) and the Red Sox pulled off their epic comeback from down 3-0 to win the 2004 ALCS in seven games. Oh, and the Bucky Effing Dent game doesn’t technically count — that unforgettable tiebreaker contest went down in the history books as Game 163 of the 1978 season — but those other 21 games have produced an impressive number of postseason heroes.
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Makes a baseball fan excited about what will happen in the final few games of this ALDS. The Red Sox won the opener and the Yankees took Game 2, sending the best-of-five series to Yankee Stadium knotted up 1-1. Before we watch what will happen over the next few days, let’s look back at the players — the stars and the surprises — who have worn the hero capes in this short, but intense, playoff rivalry.
Aaron Boone, surprise hero (2003)
Why he’s here: Maybe it’s fitting that a guy who played just 54 regular-season games in a Yankees uniform owns one of the biggest homers in the history of the franchise. October has a way of cementing legacies. The Yankees traded for Boone at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, sending Branden Claussen and Charlie Manning and a bit of cash to Cincinnati, and Boone was good not great in the season’s final two months.
His postseason leading up to Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS was not great. He was just 5-for-31 (.161 average) with one extra-base hit (a double) and nine strikeouts against the Twins (in the ALDS) and the Red Sox. After an 0-for-4 performance with two Ks in Game 6, Boone spent most of Game 7 watching from the bench. He entered the game as a pinch-runner for Ruben Sierra in the eighth inning, but was stranded when Alfonso Soriano hit into a force out with the bases loaded and two outs in a tie game.
The contest was still tied, 5-5, when Boone stepped to the plate to lead off the 11th inning. He jumped on the first pitch, a knuckleball from Tim Wakefield that didn’t move enough, and smashed it into the left-field stands for a walk-off home run that sent the Yankees to the World Series. Boone’s career with the Yankees ended that winter, when he tore his ACL in a pickup basketball game, violating the terms of his contract, leading to his release in late February.
David Ortiz, superstar hero (2004)
Why he’s here: Ortiz was only in his second season with the Red Sox in 2004, but he had already started to establish the foundation of what would be a strong Hall of Fame case. He popped 31 homers for Boston in 2003 and followed that up with a 41-homer, 139-RBI, 145-OPS+ season in 2004 (he finished fourth in the AL MVP voting, which was announced after the postseason). But the 2004 postseason is where he established his reputation as a clutch hitter. Ortiz hit .545 in the ALDS sweep of the Angels, including a walk-off homer in Game 3.
Ortiz went 6-for-12 in the first three games of the ALCS, but his Red Sox lost all three games. He ended Game 4 with a two-run home run in the 12th inning. In Game 5, he came through with an RBI single in the first inning and a solo homer to lead off the eighth. He wasn’t done, though. The game went to extra innings, again, and again Ortiz delivered. He came up with two outs and runners on first and second; on the 10th pitch of his at-bat against Esteban Loaiza, Ortiz smacked a single into center, scoring Damon with the winning run. In Game 7, Ortiz crushed a two-run homer in the first inning off Kevin Brown, giving the Red Sox a 2-0 lead in a game they would never trail and eventually won 10-3.
Ortiz finished the seven-game series with 11 RBIs, 12 hits, three triples, a .387 average and 1.199 OPS and was an easy choice for series MVP.
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David Roberts, surprise hero (2004)
Why he’s here: Ortiz never gets the chance to play superstar without the guy who had exactly zero at-bats for the Red Sox in the series. Roberts made his first appearance in the ALCS in the ninth inning of Game 4, as a pinch-runner for Kevin Millar, who drew a lead-off walk off Yankees closer Mariano Rivera. Boston trailed by a run, 4-3, and was on the verge of being swept. Roberts, who stole five bases in 45 games with Boston after he arrived in a July 31 trade from the Dodgers, stole second base on Rivera’s first pitch, beating the throw from Jorge Posada, to move into scoring position. Bill Mueller smacked a 1-1 pitch back up the middle, chasing home Roberts with the tying run. Three innings later, Ortiz ended the game with his walk-off home run.
Roberts scored the tying run in Game 5, too, this time in the eighth inning. He entered the game as a pinch-runner for Millar (again) after Millar walked (again) with no outs in a one-run game. Roberts went first-to-third on a single by Trot Nixon and scored on a sacrifice fly by Jason Varitek. Six innings later, Ortiz ended the game with his RBI single.
Orlando Hernandez, superstar hero (1999)
Why he’s here: The man known as El Duque was already a postseason star for the Yankees by the time the 1999 ALCS rolled around. In his three previous playoff starts — 1998 ALCS, 1998 World Series, 1999 ALDS — the right-hander had allowed just one run and 11 hits in 22 innings, for a tidy 0.41 ERA. Yankees manager Joe Torre gave him the baseball for Game 1 of the first postseason contest ever against the rival Red Sox, and after a shaky start — Boston scored two in the first (a fielding error with no outs fueled the rally) and one more in the second — Hernandez shut out the Red Sox in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth innings on just three more hits. New York won in the 10th, on a solo home run by Bernie Williams off Boston closer Rod Beck.
Hernandez finished the job in Game 5. With his Yankees up 3-1 in the series, El Duque shut out the Red Sox — who led the majors with 949 runs, more than 50 ahead of second place, during the regular season — through seven innings as New York built a 4-0 lead. Jason Varitek led off the eighth with a home run off Hernandez and Nomar Garciaparra followed with a double to force Torre to go to his bullpen, but four relievers combined to shut down Boston and give the Yankees the victory and the trip to the World Series.
