NEW YORK — More than a century after Babe Ruth changed sides, the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry has found another way to return to baseball’s biggest stage.
On Sept. 29, 2026, New York and Boston open an American League Wild Card Series at Yankee Stadium for the second consecutive postseason. The rematch makes this the seventh formal postseason series between the franchises, with the 1978 AL East tiebreaker standing outside the official postseason record but occupying an equally permanent place in the rivalry.
The names have changed from Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, Bucky Dent and Carl Yastrzemski, Derek Jeter and David Ortiz. Now Cam Schlittler, Aaron Judge, Max Fried, Payton Tolle and the newest generation carry it forward. The stakes, however, remain familiar.
Boston’s sale of Ruth helped shift baseball’s balance of power toward New York. Dent broke Red Sox hearts in 1978. Aaron Boone did it again in 2003. Boston answered with the unprecedented comeback of 2004. The Red Sox eliminated New York in 2018 and 2021. The Yankees returned the favor in the 2025 Wild Card Series behind Schlittler’s eight scoreless innings in Game 3.
One year later, the rivals are back in the Bronx with another season on the line. The Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry is not merely history. It is happening again.
The Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry began with a brawl
The Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry didn’t really exhibit the intensity it is known for until 1938. During the first two decades of the 20th century, when the Red Sox won five world championships, the Yankees were not very good. During the next 20 years, Boston was a second-division team, while New York won eight world championships.
But in 1938, when Boston started to play well and New York was the defending champion, things changed. On May 30, more than 83,500 people flock to Old Yankee Stadium to watch the Memorial Day doubleheader and witnessed the most intense episode of the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry. In the fourth inning of the first game, the Yankees were 7-0 ahead. Then, Red Sox reliever Archie McKain hit Yankees outfielder Jake Powell in the head with a fastball. Even though he missed the first target, McKain picked a second one and hit Powell in the thigh.
Powell ran up to the mound and grabbed McKain before Joe Cronin could get there. Even someone with a lot of patience like Powell seems to run out of it at some point. The Boston manager pushed his pitcher to safety and aimed a punch at Powell with two moves that worked well together.
Powell and Red Sox player-manager Joe Cronin were ejected, then became involved in another altercation on the route toward the clubhouses. The scene helped establish a pattern that would return repeatedly over the next several decades: Yankees-Red Sox games could move from baseball to personal hostility without much warning.
The Yankees beat the Red Sox 1-0 and went on to win the pennant and the World Series that year. But it laid the foundation of an intense, passionate, and often rough Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry.
But seeds of Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry were sown in 1920
On January 6, 1920, the Red Sox sold a young pitcher, who could also hit massive homers, for $125,000 to the Yankees. He went on to become Babe Ruth, the Great Bambino and the Sultan of Swat. Before Ruth, the Red Sox won three World Series, but they didn’t win again until 2004 after trading him. In that time, the Yankees won 26 championships. The Curse of the Bambino became the most important thing in the history of the Red Sox.
The sale did not create every part of the rivalry, but it gave generations of fans a simple origin story: Boston lost a transformational star, New York gained him, and the sport’s balance of power changed.
The 1940s and a new phase in the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry
In 1941, the star power of both teams took the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry to another level. Ted Williams, a 23-year-old outfielder for the Red Sox, had a season for the ages. However, Joe DiMaggio, the Yankees’ center fielder, won the American League Most Valuable Player Award because he hit in a record 56 straight games. In 1941, Ted Williams lost the AL MVP race to Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees. This made the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry worse.
The clubs then collided in pennant races. In 1948, Boston beat New York on the final weekend to force a tiebreaker with Cleveland for the American League pennant. One year later, the situation reversed. The Red Sox entered the final two games at Yankee Stadium needing one victory to secure the pennant. The Yankees won both, including a 5-3 victory in the finale, and went to the World Series.
The 1950s added more odd and memorable episodes. Bob Sheppard began his long tenure as Yankee Stadium’s public-address announcer during a Yankees-Red Sox game in 1951. That September, Allie Reynolds threw a no-hitter against Boston. A year later, Yankees second baseman Billy Martin and Red Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall fought beneath the Fenway Park stands before a game.
Roger Maris’ record came against the Red Sox
One of the rivalry’s most important moments had nothing to do with the standings. On Oct. 1, 1961, Roger Maris hit his 61st home run of the season off Boston rookie Tracy Stallard at Yankee Stadium, breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season record of 60. The solo homer accounted for the only run in a 1-0 Yankees victory.
The 1960s also supplied a series of unusual and violent games. In 1967, Boston rookie Billy Rohr came within one strike of a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium before Elston Howard singled with two outs in the ninth. That same season featured a bench-clearing confrontation involving pitchers Jim Lonborg and Thad Tillotson, followed later by a 20-inning game won by New York.
The rivalry continued changing with baseball itself. On April 6, 1973, Ron Blomberg became the first designated hitter in Major League history, drawing a walk against Boston’s Luis Tiant at Fenway Park. Later that year, Thurman Munson and Carlton Fisk became central figures in another fight between the clubs.
Three years later, Lou Piniella and Fisk collided at home plate at Yankee Stadium. The benches cleared, another confrontation followed, and Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee injured his left shoulder in the chaos. The edge between the teams was already sharp before the 1978 pennant race made it permanent.
The Boston Massacre
Few seasons shaped the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry more than 1978. Boston built a huge lead in the American League East and stood 14 games ahead of New York as late as July 19. Then the race changed.
By early September, the Yankees had cut the gap to four games before arriving at Fenway Park for a four-game series. New York swept all four and outscored Boston 42-9. The weekend became known as the “Boston Massacre.”
The race still was not finished. Boston recovered, the clubs ended the regular schedule tied, and a one-game tiebreaker was played at Fenway Park on Oct. 2.
The Red Sox led 2-0 entering the seventh inning when Bucky Dent, a shortstop known far more for his glove than his power, lifted a three-run homer over the Green Monster. Reggie Jackson later homered, Boston rallied, and Goose Gossage finally secured a 5-4 Yankees victory.
The game was technically an extension of the regular season, not a postseason game. No technical distinction has ever reduced its place in the rivalry. The Yankees went on to win the World Series, while Dent’s name became a permanent part of Boston baseball vocabulary.
The ‘1918’ taunting by Yankees fans
The 1980s did not produce an October Yankees-Red Sox showdown, but the rivalry still generated milestones. On July 4, 1983, Dave Righetti threw a no-hitter against Boston at Yankee Stadium, striking out Wade Boggs for the final out.
Three years later, Don Mattingly and Boggs finished the season battling for the American League batting title while Boston ace Roger Clemens emerged as the league’s MVP. The rivalry was becoming as much about individual star power as fights and pennant races.
A different form of antagonism took hold in the 1990s. Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy’s book “The Curse of the Bambino” helped turn the Ruth sale into a national shorthand for Boston’s championship drought. At Yankee Stadium, chants of “1918!” became a standard taunt whenever the Red Sox came to town.
There also was player movement across the divide. Wade Boggs left Boston and joined the Yankees before the 1993 season, later winning the 1996 World Series in pinstripes. Roger Clemens eventually made the same move after a stop in Toronto.
The first postseason meeting arrives in 1999
For all the regular-season drama, the Yankees and Red Sox did not meet in a formal postseason series until the 1999 American League Championship Series.
New York won the first two games at Yankee Stadium, then Pedro Martinez overwhelmed the Yankees in Game 3 at Fenway Park. Boston won 13-1 as Roger Clemens lasted only two innings. It was the Yankees’ only loss of the entire 1999 postseason.
New York recovered to win Games 4 and 5, took the ALCS in five games and then swept Atlanta in the World Series. The postseason rivalry had finally started. Its most famous stretch was only four years away.
The new era of the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry
The 2003 and 2004 seasons produced the rivalry’s defining modern sequence. The Yankees and Red Sox met in back-to-back American League Championship Series, each lasting seven games.
In 2003, the series included a bench-clearing confrontation at Fenway Park in which Pedro Martinez and Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer became the lasting images. The baseball was even more dramatic. Boston carried a lead into the eighth inning of Game 7 at Yankee Stadium before New York rallied against Martinez. In the 11th, Aaron Boone hit Tim Wakefield’s first pitch of the inning into the left-field seats to send the Yankees to the World Series.
Boston returned one year later and appeared finished when the Yankees took a 3-0 ALCS lead. No Major League team had ever recovered from that deficit in a best-of-seven postseason series.
Then the Red Sox changed baseball history. Dave Roberts’ ninth-inning steal in Game 4 helped Boston tie the game against Mariano Rivera. David Ortiz won it in extra innings. Boston survived another marathon in Game 5, then won Games 6 and 7 at Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox completed the first 3-0 comeback in MLB postseason history and swept St. Louis in the World Series for their first championship since 1918.
The rivalry’s emotional balance changed. Boston no longer carried an 86-year championship drought, while New York no longer possessed the most painful October memory between the clubs.
Brawls, blowouts and another “Massacre” keep the feud alive
The regular-season hostility did not disappear after 2004. That July had already produced one of the rivalry’s most recognizable fights when Alex Rodriguez and Jason Varitek confronted each other at Fenway Park and the benches emptied.
In 2006, the Yankees swept a five-game series at Fenway Park and dramatically expanded their division lead. The stretch was labeled the “Son of Massacre” in Boston. One game lasted 4 hours, 45 minutes, then the longest nine-inning game in MLB history.
In 2007, the Red Sox hit four consecutive home runs in one inning against Yankees rookie Chase Wright. Two years later, the clubs combined for 31 runs in a 20-11 Yankees victory. Even when neither team was eliminating the other in October, the matchup kept producing unusual extremes.
Boston fights back in the 2010s
The balance shifted repeatedly over the next decade. Boston went 12-6 against New York in 2011 and beat CC Sabathia four times. In 2012, the teams celebrated Fenway Park’s 100th anniversary, then the Yankees produced a historic comeback the next day, erasing a 9-0 deficit to win 15-9.
In 2015, the first Yankees-Red Sox meeting of the season lasted 19 innings and 6 hours, 49 minutes before Boston won 6-5. In September 2016, the Red Sox swept four games at Fenway Park, repeatedly erasing late Yankees leads in a series that revived the “Boston Massacre” language from the other side.
The rivalry returned to the postseason in 2018. Boston won the American League Division Series in four games, including a 16-1 victory at Yankee Stadium in Game 3. The Red Sox went on to win the World Series.
Three years later, Boston ended New York’s season again. The Red Sox beat the Yankees 6-2 in the 2021 AL Wild Card Game at Fenway Park.
The Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry crosses the Atlantic
The rivalry also became a vehicle for Major League Baseball’s international ambitions. In June 2019, the Yankees and Red Sox played two games at London Stadium, the first MLB regular-season games played in Europe.
New York won both. The games produced 50 runs, 65 hits and 10 home runs, turning the London Series into a two-day offensive spectacle. The setting was new, but the attraction was familiar: MLB chose Yankees-Red Sox to introduce regular-season baseball to a new market because the rivalry already carried global recognition.
The rivalry enters a quieter period after 2021
The clubs moved away from direct October confrontation after Boston’s 2021 Wild Card win. New York captured the AL East in 2022, while Boston finished last in the division. The next year was disappointing for both.
Boston dominated the 2023 season series 9-4, but neither team reached the postseason. The Yankees finished 82-80 and the Red Sox 78-84.
The balance flipped in 2024. New York won seven of 13 meetings and eventually captured the American League pennant. Boston again missed the postseason. The rivalry remained commercially powerful and emotionally charged, but for several seasons it lacked the direct October consequences that had made 1978, 2003, 2004, 2018 and 2021 so memorable.
That changed in 2025.
The 2025 Wild Card Series restores October to Yankees-Red Sox
Boston controlled the 2025 regular-season matchup, winning nine of 13 games. When the teams met in the American League Wild Card Series, the Red Sox had ample reason to believe that advantage could carry into October.
Garrett Crochet dominated Game 1 at Yankee Stadium, striking out 11 over 7 2/3 innings as Boston won 3-1. One more Red Sox victory would have ended New York’s season.
The Yankees answered with a 4-3 win in Game 2, forcing another winner-take-all game in the rivalry.
Then Cam Schlittler delivered the performance that changed the modern story. The Massachusetts native allowed five hits, walked none and struck out 12 over eight scoreless innings in Game 3. New York won 4-0 and eliminated Boston.
The Yankees became one of the few teams under the best-of-three Wild Card format to lose Game 1 and then win two straight elimination games. For Schlittler, who grew up in Massachusetts and had been the target of online abuse from Red Sox fans, the outing immediately became personal rivalry lore.
The 2026 regular season swings back and forth
The 2026 season series produced another set of sharp momentum changes. The Yankees swept Boston at Fenway Park from April 21-23, taking early control of the head-to-head matchup.
Boston answered emphatically in June. The Red Sox swept a four-game series from New York at Fenway Park from June 25-28, a stretch that helped ignite Boston’s midseason surge. The finale was especially damaging for New York: the Yankees rallied late and scored twice in the 10th, only for Boston to answer with three runs in the bottom half for a 5-4 walk-off win.
The Red Sox went on a remarkable summer run, while New York eventually steadied itself. When the teams met for the final time in August at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees won three of four.
That gave New York the 2026 season series, 7-6. The result also carried practical value once the postseason bracket was set: the Yankees finished 93-68 as the American League’s No. 4 seed, while Boston finished 87-74 as the No. 5 seed. The Wild Card rematch would again be played entirely in the Bronx.
Recent Yankees vs. Red Sox season series
| Season | Yankees record vs. Boston | What followed |
| 2023 | 4-9 | Both clubs missed the postseason. |
| 2024 | 7-6 | Yankees won the AL pennant. |
| 2025 | 4-9 | Yankees beat Boston 2-1 in the AL Wild Card Series. |
| 2026 | 7-6 | Second straight AL Wild Card Series begins Sept. 29. |
The 2026 Wild Card Series creates another rare rematch
On Sept. 29, 2026, the rivalry enters its newest chapter at Yankee Stadium. It is the seventh formal postseason series between the clubs and the second in consecutive years.
That back-to-back structure has happened only once before in Yankees-Red Sox postseason history: the 2003 and 2004 AL Championship Series. The format is different now, but the stakes are immediate. A best-of-three Wild Card Series leaves almost no room for recovery.
Schlittler starts Game 1 for New York after going 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA during the regular season. Boston counters with rookie left-hander Payton Tolle, who finished 9-6 with a 3.03 ERA and 171 strikeouts.
Max Fried is scheduled to follow for the Yankees in Game 2, while former Yankees right-hander Sonny Gray is set to start for Boston. If the series reaches a winner-take-all Game 3, Gerrit Cole is lined up for New York and left-hander Ranger Suárez is Boston’s expected option.
The winner advances to face the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Division Series. For Boston, the series offers an immediate opportunity to reverse the ending of 2025. For New York, it offers a chance to eliminate its oldest rival in consecutive seasons.
Yankees vs. Red Sox postseason meetings
| Year | Round | Result |
| 1999 | ALCS | Yankees won, 4-1 |
| 2003 | ALCS | Yankees won, 4-3 |
| 2004 | ALCS | Red Sox won, 4-3 |
| 2018 | ALDS | Red Sox won, 3-1 |
| 2021 | AL Wild Card Game | Red Sox won, 6-2 |
| 2025 | AL Wild Card Series | Yankees won, 2-1 |
| 2026 | AL Wild Card Series | Begins Sept. 29 |
The 1978 AL East tiebreaker is not counted as an official postseason series because it was considered an extension of the regular season. Historically, however, the Bucky Dent game remains one of the rivalry’s defining winner-take-all moments.
Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry keeps finding another chapter
Baseball has changed enormously since Ruth went from Boston to New York. Free agency changed player movement. The postseason expanded. Interleague play arrived. The Wild Card changed how October works. Division schedules now contain fewer head-to-head games than they once did.
Yet the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has survived those structural changes because the rivalry is built on accumulated memory.
Ruth’s sale matters because of what followed. The 1978 collapse matters in Boston because Dent finished it. Boone’s 2003 home run became even more significant because Boston answered one year later with the only comeback from a 3-0 deficit in an MLB postseason series. The 2018 ALDS and 2021 Wild Card Game gave another generation of Red Sox fans its moments. Schlittler’s eight scoreless innings in 2025 supplied a new Yankees answer.
Now the same teams are back at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 29, 2026, with their seasons again tied directly to one another.
More than 100 years after Babe Ruth became a Yankee, New York and Boston are still finding new ways to make their shared history matter. Another chapter begins tonight.
What do you think about the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry?
