Today's Rivalry Rundown

The fact that I'm a Yankees fan is beginning to matter to my Boston neighbors again, now that Opening Day is less than a month away.

To be fair, I almost assuredly provoked reactions this week, walking around Boylston St. in a weathered Yanks cap and a shirt that reads "Do the Math". (It features the title counts of both teams up to 2005. It's a petty Yankees reaction to the Sox breaking the Curse, as the shirt estimates how long it'd take Boston to catch up. Needless to say, I might as well have been walking around Boston kicking people in the teeth.)

Walking past McGreevy's bar (the self-titled "Red Sox Rooters Headquarters" and home of the 25-oz Beckett Burger), a man in his late twenties shouted, "Go Yanks!" I looked up to see him pulling open his jacket to reveal the white NY. So far, so good.

Not 30 minutes later, a man with a Sox hat and what was probably intended to be a beard -- but more closely resembled a dead squirrel -- took a hard look at the "Do the Math" slogan and squinted at me: "Do the math? Yankees suck, how 'bout that math?!"

Riveting stuff. And it made total sense in my mind, I don't know about you.

And now, for today's Rivalry Rundown!

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• Nomar Garciaparra calls it quits as a Red Sox player (sort of). He'll be starting a career at ESPN in broadcasting, where he'll offer color commentary. I can't wait for him to adjust his notes 40 times before each sentence.
• The Yankees and Red Sox can likely agree on one thing: Ozzie Guillen and John Danks are sorely mistaken if they think the White Sox are in the same league.
• And now one for the ladies: my former employer, the Hartford Courant, offers this look at Derek Jeter throughout the years. (I may have given it a quick look. Seven times.)
• Finally, former Red Sox ringleader (and impetus behind the decade's worst baseball catch phrase) Kevin Millar believes he can add value to another franchise in desperate need of a title. Of the Sox and Yanks rivalry, Millar says: “People said it was the best rivalry in baseball. No, it’s not — not if you don’t let us win once, right? They beat us every year. That was the group that said: ‘Let’s do it, so what? They’re hotter, they’re bigger, they’re stronger, they’re better-looking, they’re richer.’ But we had that mentality of, you know what? Let’s roll. We shaved our heads, we did what we had to do to win and be a team.”