Overall, the baseball war is over

By Felix Carroll

Jerry. He says his name is Jerry. By the evidence of the detritus in the cab of his pickup truck, he likes Newports, power tools and a particular prophesy disinterred from a fortune cookie and taped to his dashboard.

The fortune is this: "You will soon come into money."

I wish him luck on that account, but if he thinks he's going to get money from me, then he's picked up the wrong hitchhiker.

On a recent Saturday morning, with nothing on the docket but childish experiments in social science, I wear a borrowed New York Yankees T-shirt and go hitchhiking in Red Sox Nation just to see what will happen.

I live on the Bay State side of the Massachusetts-New York border. Over the years, some perfidious residents of Massachusetts and New York have snuggled up in the dark hours and created mongrel children whose ambivalence to professional baseball has probably made them more productive citizens, but for the most part, it's Yankee fans on one side and Red Sox fans on the other.

As for me, I spent years following the Sox, but nowadays cheering on and subsidizing itinerant millionaires no longer seems sensible.

But it's more complicated than that. After the Sox-Yank rivalry's glory days of 2003 and 2004 — bench-clearing brawls, Aaron Boone's bomb into the night sky beyond left field, Cowboy Up, all eventually leading to 2004's Yankee-spanking and the Sox's first World Series win since 1918 — it's no longer necessary to care so much about the Sox anymore. But few people are willing to admit it. Moreover, the Sox — duds for decades — went on to win the Series in 2007, too. So what's left? Dynasty? Yawn.

It's rare you even hear that old reflexive utterance "Yankees Suck!" on this side of the border anymore. And even if you do, it's as if it's disembodied, a phantom limb flashing a middle finger that's no longer there. It's nothing more vindictive than, "I am not fond of those there Yankee fellas. Anyway, what's new with you?"

The passion is gone. And one way to give weight to this hypothesis is to borrow a Yankees T-shirt, spend the morning hitchhiking Berkshire County byways, and see the degree to which motorists are inclined to shout mean things at me.

But first, a public service announcement: Kids, you shouldn't hitchhike. The world is full of creeps.

OK, we're back.

In the ceremony of my mind, Jerry wins the Good Sportsmanship Award. And here's why:

"The Yankees suck, but you can get in anyway," he says, having kindly pulled over for me on Stockbridge Road in Great Barrington and unlatched the passenger side door. He's just one guy helping another guy, not a Red Sox fan looking to off a "Yankee fan."

In our 10 minutes together heading north on Route 7, we talk baseball for a bit, but it's clear he's a fan defanged. He's not concerned about Rubby De La Rosa's consistency on the mound. ("I don't even know who any of the players are anymore," he says.) Rather, he's concerned about his own tomato plants.

"We need some rain, man," he says.

When my Yankee shirt and I part ways with Jerry in Stockbridge, he doesn't even suggest to me that A-Rod is a ****. Rather, he says, "All right, be careful."

"Thanks," I say. "I hope you come into fortune soon."

"Thanks."

On the roadside with my thumb out and my pectoral muscles flexed to give major — major — definition to my shirt's Yankee insignia, I receive no harsh words whatsoever, just three rides over the span of 90 minutes. I learn from an elderly gentleman that today's ballplayers "are pampered babies" and from an early 20s man who doesn't even seem to notice my T-shirt that "we're going to invade Syria. Mark my word."

As for Red Sox Nation, it has turned its medieval weaponry into plowshares or something. By the way, as of this writing, a look at the standings in the American League East reveals that the Yankees this year kinda do suck.