BOSTON — The last time a title-winning center fielder jumped from the Red Sox right to the Yankees, he returned to Fenway Park and immediately evoked sheer hatred … which dissolved into apathy by night’s end.
How fitting Jacoby Ellsbury — the quiet, first-year Yankee whose personality couldn’t be more different from that of the chatty Johnny Damon — took a wholly divergent path Tuesday night. Red Sox Nation booed him seemingly out of obligation in the first inning. By the fifth inning, that obligation had metamorphosed into much louder aggravation.
Ellsbury recorded a homecoming for the ages, delivering two extra-base hits and driving home two runs to overshadow even the Rivalry debut of Masahiro Tanaka as the Yankees thumped Jon Lester and the Red Sox, 9-3.
“I know when I was with the Red Sox, you always knew how well you were playing by the boos,” Ellsbury said. “The louder the boos, the better you were playing.”
Power, speed, defense. Grace, humility, toughness. The Yankees’ $153 million man showed off his impressive range and, at least for this night, made the Red Sox look silly for letting him switch sides without putting up much of a fight.
“I thought he played extremely well,” Joe Girardi said of his leadoff hitter.
In a pregame news conference, Ellsbury showered praise on the Yankees, saying they “gave me the opportunity to play the game I love, and I’m excited for that.”
That proved as close as Ellsbury got to tweaking the Red Sox, whose discussions with their homegrown product never went past the five-year, $80 million range — slightly over half of what the Yankees gave to the 30-year-old. Whereas recent Rivalry figures such as Damon, David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Alex Rodriguez and even Derek Jeter have enjoyed the trash talk, Ellsbury looks like he’d rather scoop up trash with his hands at a shopping mall than dish out smack about his former employers.
But if he won’t sing it, goodness, did he bring it on his only chance to make a first impression in New England as a Yankee.
[mlbvideo id=”32286525″ width=”680″ height=”400″ /]
For Ellsbury’s (and the game’s) first at-bat, I stood behind Section 18, just to the right of home plate, at Fenway Park. It’s the same place I presided on May 1, 2006, and watched the fans savage Damon upon his return in Yankees grays. Damon’s goodwill gesture, doffing his helmet to those who had supported him the four prior seasons, just made them angrier. He proceeded to go 0-for-4 in a 7-3 Yankees loss.
On a scale of 1-to-Damon, Ellsbury’s opening reception rated a 4. He drew more boos than cheers, for sure. Yet within the range of five sections I could see, just one fan felt strongly enough to stand up to underline his unhappiness. About 15 other folks stood up, all of them to cheer.
Only one person in the immediate area, a man in a wheelchair, offered anything more pejorative. “Don’t get hit, you piece of s—!” the man shouted to the injury-prone Ellsbury. And then, when it appeared for a moment that Ellsbury had hit an inside-the-park homer — the umpires, noting that a fan interfered with the ball at the center-field wall, ruled it a triple — the man turned to me and exclaimed, “That piece of s— hit a home run!” Ellsbury quickly scored the game’s first run on a Jeter single.
The Red Sox’s first batter, reclamation project Grady Sizemore — whom Boston acquired to help replace Ellsbury — struck a line drive to left-center, where Ellsbury made a beautiful, diving catch.
Upon the completion of the first inning, the Red Sox ran a delightful tribute video to Ellsbury on their jumbo scoreboard, with Ellsbury highlights playing to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” The folks in the seats finally gave Ellsbury his due for his seven years of service that included two championships, and Ellsbury, standing on the top step of the Yankees’ dugout, waved to the fans. It was a very nice moment.
“The tribute was very classy by the Red Sox,” said Ellsbury, who said the Red Sox alerted him to their plans before the game.
And then, when Ellsbury lined a two-run double to left-center field in the fifth inning, expanding the Yankees’ lead to 7-2, the boos came at their hottest and heaviest.
Both during his time in Boston and upon his departure to the Bronx rivals, Ellsbury didn’t seem to get the locals’ juices flowing. Probably because he’s quiet, and because he did suffer a couple of serious injuries.
Only once Ellsbury caused tangible damage to the Red Sox did he rise on the villain scale. That’s precisely how he and the Yankees like it.