Late last week, Buster Olney wrote what we’re likely to see at the Yankee-Sox cirucs this year:

There are so many new players — new relievers, in particular — on the two teams, and they will tend to be overaggressive in reacting to somebody’s getting hit by a pitch in this rivalry. It will be as if Kyle Farnsworth and Julian Tavarez and the others joined a fraternity fight, they know all their new house brothers are watching and they feel a need to demonstrate their toughness. There’s almost no doubt that they will have incidents this year, and you almost can assume that Farnsworth or Tavarez or [Taynon] Sturtze will be in the middle of something.

Farnsworth and Sturtze come across like bouncers jacked-up on Red Bull, and Tavarez has the looks of an old-timey bad guy. All that is missing is a mustache for him to twirl as he ties the girl to the train tracks. Even our old pal Beth, a Red Sox fan so devoted that she is generally willing to make apologies for the most boorish BoSox behavior, is having a hard time finding a place in her heart for Mr. Tavarez, who was involved in an incident yesterday with Joey Gathwright of the Tampa Bay Rays.

For all of the hysteria and hype that accompanies the New York-Boston rivalry, both teams have entertained us with a riveting and dramatic brand of baseball for the past four years. Sure, there have been ugly moments, but let’s hope things don’t get uglier just because they can. Sox and Yankee fans tend to bring out the worst in each other, but lets hope that the two teams continue to bring out the best in each other and remind us how thrilling the rivalry and the game can be.