Let’s start things with last week’s Pop Quiz question, from Bob Buscavage of Moriches:
He played in one game for the Brooklyn Dodgers, he played in the NBA and he starred in the 1963 film “Flipper.” Name this man.
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So here’s my thought for today’s Friday Five: The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry features an old-school emotional base. If you grow up as a member of one of these two teams, either by getting drafted or by joining as an international free agent, you’re far more likely to be respected by the other side’s fans.
I’m thinking of guys like Joe DiMaggio, Ron Guidry, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera on the Yankees side and Carlton Fisk, Dustin Pedroia, Carl Yastrzemski on the Red Sox side. They are booed in enemy territory, but those boos are laced with respect. Or at least that’s my perception.
Guys who start elsewhere and parachute into The Rivalry, however? Those guys seem to generate pure hatred. There’s more suspicion, less softness. Or at least that’s my perception.
Here are my top five Rivalry imports, those who have made the greatest impact and drawn the most scorn from the other club’s fan base:
1. David Ortiz
You want to work Yankees fans into a lather? Tell them there’s no concrete reason to keep Big Papi out of the Hall of Fame on the morality front. His one alleged failed test occurred in a season, 2003, when there was no discipline attached.
Ortiz has the triple-whammy going for him. He is the only post-1918 player to win three World Series rings with the Red Sox, and he of course has been a major contributor to the team’s success, highlighted by his Most Valuable Player performance against the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series. He also carries himself with the largest of swaggers, a turnoff in The Bronx.
Finally, and not least, there’s the reality that he transformed from a middling designated hitter with the Minnesota Twins, who non-tendered him following the 2002 season, to a New England legend. Did he use illegal means to do so? You may think you know, but none of us has been able to prove a darn thing since ’03, and that one doesn’t matter.
2. Alex Rodriguez
It is a hilarious component of A-Rod’s narrative that even though Jeter has been booed enthusiastically and regularly at Fenway Park since 1996, Red Sox Nation will use the “You’re no Jeter!” line on the Yankees’ banned slugger.
What makes A-Rod’s Red Sox tale especially dramatic — and hateable, in New England — is how badly he wanted to join them, only to see the Players Association put the kibosh on a Red Sox-Rangers trade in December 2003. And he became a Yankee just two months later.
It’s amazing to think, had Mariano Rivera simply converted the save in 2004 ALCS Game 4 as he had so many other postseason games, A-Rod would have advanced to the World Series in his first year as a Yankee — and he would’ve done so carrying monster ALCS statistics. Instead, by the time that series finished, A-Rod’s signature Rivalry moment became the slap play.
He delivered plenty of big hits for the Yankees against the Sawx, and even last year, in his limited time on the field, he contributed more dramatics Aug. 18 when he took an intentional pitch to the body from Ryan Dempster and later homered off Dempster to help the Yankees win. Which reminds us: A-Rod’s confirmed involvement with illegal performance-enhancing drugs didn’t exactly help his standing in Boston.
3. Pedro Martinez
Let’s start with the quotes: “Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I’ll drill him in the ass.”
And: “What can I say? Just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy.”
And then add that his pitching was often just as transcendent, once the Red Sox acquired him from the Expos for the 1998 campaign. There were Pedro’s 1999 and 2000 regular-season masterpieces against the Yankees, plus his 1999 ALCS Game 3 triumph over Roger Clemens.
His bravado, and his accompanying tendency to hit Yankees batters, made him loathed in the Bronx; for his career, he hit 17 Yankees in 216 2/3 innings, the most HBPs he recorded against any club (and the most innings, too). But the Yankees got to him a fair amount; hence his “daddy” comment and the resulting “Who’s your daddy?” cheers. In all, Pedro suffered 11 regular-season losses and two postseason losses to the Yankees while he wore a Red Sox uniform.
4. Curt Schilling
Only for one year did Schilling and Pedro occupy the Red Sox clubhouse together, and it’s fitting they won it all in that ’04 season. Schilling, acquired from Arizona in a November 2003 trade, proved nearly as divisive and successful in The Rivalry as was Pedro.
Remember, too, that Schilling entered the Northeast Corridor already being quite well known by Yankees fans, thanks to his success for the Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series. Schilling’s loud commentary and ability to back up his boasts — throw in the “bloody sock” drama, for good measure — only heightened (or lowered, depending on your viewpoint) his stature in Yankee Universe.
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5. Bucky Dent
Honorable mention at this point must go to Aaron Boone, who carried the Yankees over the Red Sox into the 2003 Fall Classic when he homered off Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning of ALCS Game 7. Yet at least Boone hit 24 homers (18 for Cincinnati, six for the Yankees) in the ’03 regular season. Dent, whom the Yankees acquired in a 1977 trade with the White Sox, went deep just four times in the Yankees’ first 162 games of the 1978 campaign.
In Game 163, of course, Dent took Mike Torrez over the Green Monster in the seventh inning, a three-run blast that vaulted his Yankees over the Sawx, giving them a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
The first four guys on this list turned off the other team’s fans with their loud personalities. For Dent, whose middle name in Boston will forever be “F#%&ing,” it was his quiet personality that infuriated Sox fans. Who in the heck was this guy to deliver such a critical home run?
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The Pop Quiz answer is Chuck Connors. If you have a tidbit that correlates baseball with popular culture, please send it to me at kdavidoff@nypost.com.