Seventeen years ago yesterday. Seventeen years ago yesterday, Jason Varitek punched A-Rod in the face, and the Red Sox stopped taking it. Three months later, they pulled off the unthinkable comeback. Seventeen years later, they’ve won three post-punch World Series to the Yankees’ one, and the Yankees are on their way to missing the playoffs while their biggest free agent signing from the last half-decade has been rendered significantly less valuable due to Major League Baseball deciding to enforce its own rules.
It was a big deal, that punch, a big enough deal that you wonder if the Red Sox would’ve rallied and gotten a playoff berth without it (Boston was in a tight wildcard race the morning of the punch but went on to finish the race seven games clear of the A’s), and if they would’ve rallied and beaten the Yankees in that ALCS without it, and if everything that followed would have followed without it. It changed the dynamic, and while it’s not something the effect of which can be measured, it sure seems, looking back, like it was a spark in a game that does, to some currently unknowable extent, depend on sparks.
Boston fans have since become insufferable, adding a Yankee fan-esque ego to their longstanding obnoxious ethos. This might have happened regardless of the punch. The Patriots, after all, were already well into doing their thing. Regardless, Boston as a whole was a lot more likable at the time of the punch than they are now. Maybe the novelty’s just worn off, or we’ve become more aware of things we weren’t as aware of in a less nationalized (and Boston-influenced) sports media world at the same time we’ve become less tolerant of things we should not tolerate. Thankfully, we don’t have to think about this when thinking about the punch. The punch transcends. The punch soars, even with all that context, even seventeen years later.
It was a good punch.
