Rivalries of Baseball: How Our Hate Makes Our Love Stronger

What is it about a rival that makes your blood boil? Is it a long history of competition reigniting old memories? Is it a cross-town team that provides a sense of neighborhood pride? How is it that the victories taste sweeter and the defeats ache in your gut so much longer? When rivals are set to meet, the lights are brighter, a bubble of anticipation hovers over the crowd ready to burst at any time, and the stakes are raised before the players even cross the chalk lines. No matter the origin of the rivalry, they all possess the ability to balance white-hot rage and pure ecstasy inside every baseball fan.

To further understand our collective love for America’s pastime, we must first start by understanding what fuels our hate. A major contributor to baseball rivalries is tradition. Yankees fans hate the Red Sox just like Red Sox fans hate the Yankees. Cubs fans hate the Cardinals just like Cardinals fans hate the Cubs. Dodgers fans hate the Giants like Giants fans hate the Dodgers…and Padres fans hate the Dodgers, and Rockies fans, and Diamondbacks fans, and Angels fans, and pretty much every baseball fan in the western United States hates the Dodgers. While rivalries come in many forms, there are a few that stand out above the rest.

Yankees-Red Sox

The Montagues and the Capulets, the Hatfields and the McCoys, these famous rivalries look like a playground scrap compared to the unmatched loathing of Yankees-Red Sox. This rivalry runs deep, it is all-consuming, and it is THE definitive baseball rivalry. Anyone who dares to whisper, “Go Sox,” in the heart of the Bronx will be met with a vicious slew of obscenities unrepeatable in any society outside of baseball, the sentiments are shared in Fenway. While Boston and New York are not far from one another, their rivalry is not founded in proximity; instead, it was sparked by the most famous man in baseball, George Herman Ruth.

The Curse of the Bambino is considered by many to be the beginning of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. The infamous trade that sent Babe Ruth from the Sox to the Yanks in 1919 set both teams down a path of detestation. Ruth went on to have arguably the greatest career in baseball for the Yankees and gave the Bronx Bombers four World Series titles. Ruth led the “Murderer’s Row” era of the Yankees and is a legend of the game to this day. The Red Sox were a nearly unstoppable force in the early 1900s, winning five World Series titles before the Yankees won their first. This all came to a grinding halt after trading Ruth; the Red Sox didn’t win another World Series title until 2004. As far as everyone could tell, the team was cursed, thus stirring up emotions of hate towards the New York Yankees.

The only thing worse for Red Sox fans than seeing a lack of pennants hung at Fenway was the surplus hanging in Yankee Stadium. The resentment towards the rivals only grew until they finally got their revenge. In 2004, the Red Sox were losing 3-0 in the American League Championship Series, risking falling just short of the World Series to the Yankees yet again. For the first time in baseball history, the team was able to rally and win the series 4-3, leading to a World Series appearance and the first WS pennant in Fenway in 86 years. Since breaking the curse by winning their sixth World Series, they have won more titles than the Yankees, keeping this glorious rivalry going.

Cubs-Cardinals

     The Midwest showdown between these baseball powerhouses shows that the rivalry doesn’t have to start on the field; it can start in the cities themselves. These two teams, separated by about 300 miles, share a beautiful history and deep connections to their respective cities. Cubs-Cardinals is a historic rivalry that has gained many followers over the years. The relationship between these two cities, and their teams, seems to be a series of points and counterpoints. The Cardinals have the “Best fans in baseball”, the Cubs are lovable even when they are losing. St. Louis has barbecue that will melt your heart, Chicago has deep-dish pizza and Italian beef sandwiches that will stop your heart. Both cities came into their own in the late 19^th century, both cities are gateways to the expansion west, both cities have rich connections to jazz and blues, and both cities love their baseball teams. Similar to Red Sox-Yankees, Cubs-Cardinals includes a cursed team and a drastic mismatch in the number of World Series titles, but their story is very different.

The Cubs-Cardinals rivalry has included some of the best players in the game and has always remained competitive. From 1892, when the teams first played against one another, to the time of writing this blog in 2025, the series record stands at 1277 wins for the Cubs and 1224 wins for the Cardinals. The longstanding and competitive rivalry can truly be summed up by the “Home Run Race of 1998”. Throughout the 1998 Major League Baseball season, there were two players on everyone’s minds: Mark McGwire of the Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Cubs. The two men were in a season-long battle back and forth over who was going to not only win the home run title, but who was going to break Roger Maris’ previous home run record of 61 in a single season. The race was tight the entire way until McGwire pulled ahead in the end with 70 home runs compared to Sosa’s 66. The sweetest part about the home run race for the Redbirds was the record-breaking 62^nd being hit against the Cubbies. Not all was lost for Chicago as their counterpoints were Sosa taking home the league MVP that year and the team snagging the final postseason spot.

Dodgers-Giants

     From the mean streets of New York to the golden beaches of California, this long-standing rivalry has crossed not only the threshold of two centuries but the entire contiguous United States. The series includes regular season tiebreakers, shots heard ‘round the world, and more bench-clearing brawls than anyone could count. Unlike the previous two rivalries, these teams have been evenly matched throughout their history. The Giants stand just three games ahead of the Dodgers across all regular season meetings, the Dodgers have just one additional series win in the postseason, and both teams have won eight World Series titles. The Giants have built teams around power and speed with names like Willie Mays and Barry Bonds; the Dodgers have commanded the mound with legends Sandy Koufax and Clayton Kershaw. The teams are competitive, they play angrily, and couldn’t exist without each other.

     Separated by the East River, these two ball clubs started a fierce rivalry. The New York Giants were big and bad, taking down everyone in their path; the Brooklyn Bridegrooms were a young team that had just lost the pre-World Series baseball championship and were looking for a change. This wasn’t a Subway Series, because it is older than the New York subway system. These two great boroughs of New York City held two powerhouses of baseball for nearly 70 years, until they both set their sights west to the Golden State.

     In the 1950s, the Dodgers were needing out of Brooklyn as Ebbets Field, their famous ballpark, was no longer cutting it. The golden coast of California was calling Walter O’Malley’s name, but he had one problem. Major League Baseball wouldn’t allow just one team to head out west. With expensive travel costs heading back and forth across the US, not to mention the risky business venture ahead, O’Malley was informed that his plan would only work if another team would make the move with him. After asking around, the Dodgers found that the plan would only work with the help of the Giants. It was agreed that the Dodgers would build a stadium in Los Angeles and the Giants would head north to the San Francisco Bay. Major League Baseball was expanding west, and two rivals worked together to make it happen.

Why Do We Hate?

     You may ask yourself the question, Why are rivalries filled with so much hate? Is it jealousy of World Series pennants littering the other team’s ballpark? Is it looking back on wins that we wish we could repeat and losses we wish to forget? More importantly, why do we as fans feel so much hate towards our team’s rivals? As I sit here and think about great rivalries in baseball, I must remind myself that Giants fans are just as passionate about their team as Dodgers fans are about theirs. Los Angeles and San Francisco are both beautiful cities with their unique lifestyles. Oracle Park is the best ballpark I have been to, and even typing that feels difficult.

     To sum up our feelings towards our rivals, I want to share a brief story about my chance encounter in a bookstore. It was late at night, and I was wandering the aisles looking for my next read when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see a man sporting a Barry Bonds Giants jersey who commented on how the Giants had just beaten the Dodgers that day. I smiled and said, “Yeah, we’ll get you tomorrow though.” Instead of continuing our shopping, we stopped and chatted for a minute about our love for baseball. Here we were, fans of rival teams chatting about how much we love our teams, love this game, and even throwing in not-so-subtle digs about our hatred of the other. What he said to me really stuck, and I’d love to share it with you. “Rivalry is a privilege. It is a privilege that we can be so passionate about this game that we let other emotions get in the way.” Until next time, keep loving your team, keep loving this game, and keep the fire of rivalry alive.

Sources:

130 years in, Cards-Cubs rivalry still fierce. (n.d.). MLB.Com. Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://www.mlb.com/news/cardinals-cubs-rivalry-history

1998 National League Awards, All-Stars, & More Leaders | Baseball-Reference.com. (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1998-other-leaders.shtml

2004 ALCS - Boston Red Sox over New York Yankees (4-3). (n.d.). Baseball-Reference.Com. Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2004_ALCS.shtml

Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals: Head-to-Head Reg Season and Playoffs Stats Comparison. (n.d.). Stathead.Com. Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://stathead.com//baseball/vs/chicago-cubs-vs-st-louis-cardinals&bust_cache=1&tiny=DWcas

Franchise Timeline—1950s | Los Angeles Dodgers. (n.d.). MLB.Com. Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://www.mlb.com/dodgers/history/timeline-1950s

Hoffman, B. (2021, October 8). The Greatest Rivalry Since (Long Before) Sliced Bread. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/sports/baseball/dodgers-giants-rivalry.html

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Francisco Giants: Head-to-Head Reg Season and Playoffs Stats Comparison. (n.d.). Stathead.Com. Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://stathead.com//baseball/vs/los-angeles-dodgers-vs-san-francisco-giants

Remembering home run chase between McGwire and Sosa 25 years later. (n.d.). USA TODAY. Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://www.usatoday.com/videos/sports/mlb/sportspulse/2023/09/08/remembering-home-run-chase-between-mcgwire-and-sosa-25-years-later/8396576001/

The Legendary Yankees–Red Sox Rivalry A Century of Intense Competition | Booth Review. (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2025, from https://boothreview.blogs.pace.edu/2024/05/08/the-legendary-yankees-red-sox-rivalry-a-century-of-intense-competition/